"Or the wife who catches the husband in bed with another woman," Beth said.
"Yes, of course. The point is, we manage to make things happen all the time without thinking about them too much. I don't think of every word when I talk to you. I just intend to say something and it comes out okay."
"Yes ..."
"So we can make complicated creations like sentences without effort. But we can't make other complicated creations like sculptures without effort. We believe we have to do something besides simply have an idea."
"And we do," Beth said.
"Well, Harry doesn't. Harry's gone one step further. He doesn't have to carve the statue any more. He just gets the idea, and things happen by themselves. He manifests things."
"Harry imagines a frightening squid, and suddenly we have a frightening squid outside our window?"
"Exactly. And when he loses consciousness, the squid disappears."
"And he got this power from the sphere?"
"Yes."
Beth frowned. "Why is he doing this? Is he trying to kill us?"
Norman shook his head. "No. I think he's in over his head."
"How do you mean?"
"Well," Norman said, "we've considered lots of ideas of what the sphere from another civilization might be. Ted thought it was a trophy or a message - he saw it as a present. Harry thought it had something inside - he saw it as a container. But I wonder if it might be a mine."
"You mean, an explosive?"
"Not exactly - but a defense, or a test. An alien civilization could strew these things around the galaxy, and any intelligence that picks them up would get to experience the power of the sphere. Which is that whatever you think comes true. If you think positive thoughts, you get delicious shrimp for dinner. If you think negative thoughts, you get monsters trying to kill you. Same process, just a matter of content."
"So, the same way a land mine blows up if you step on it, this sphere destroys people if they have negative thoughts?"
"Or," he said, "if they simply aren't in control of their consciousness. Because, if you're in control of your consciousness, the sphere would have no particular effect. If you're not in control, it gets rid of you."
"How can you control a negative thought?" Beth said. She seemed suddenly very agitated. "How can you say to someone, 'Don't think of a giant squid'? The minute you say that, they automatically think of the squid in the course of trying not to think of it."
"It's possible to control your thoughts," Norman said. "Maybe for a yogi or something."
"For anybody," Norman said. "It's possible to deflect your attention from undesirable thoughts. How do people quit smoking? How do any of us ever change our minds about anything? By controlling our thoughts."
"I still don't see why Harry is doing this."
"Remember your idea that the sphere might strike us below the belt?" Norman said. "The way the AIDS virus strikes our immune system below the belt? AIDS hits us at a level we aren't prepared to deal with. So, in a sense, does the sphere. Because we believe that we can think whatever we want, without consequence. 'Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me.' We have sayings like that, which emphasize the point. But now suddenly a name is as real as a stick, and it can hurt us in the same way. Our thoughts get manifested - what a wonderful thing - except that all our thoughts get manifested, the good ones and the bad ones. And we simply aren't prepared to control our thoughts. We've never had to do it before."
"When I was a child," Beth said, "I was angry with my mother, and when she got cancer, I was terribly guilty. ..."
"Yes," Norman said. "Children think this way. Children all believe that their thoughts have power. But we patiently teach them that they're wrong to think that. Of course," he said, "there has always been another tradition of belief about thoughts. The Bible says not to covet your neighbor's wife, which we interpret to mean that the act of adultery is forbidden. But that's not really what the Bible is saying. The Bible is saying that the thought of adultery is as forbidden as the act itself."
"And Harry?"
"Do you know anything about Jungian psychology?"
Beth said, "That stuff has never struck me as relevant."
"Well, it's relevant now," Norman said. He explained. "Jung broke with Freud early in this century, and developed his own psychology. Jung suspected there was an underlying structure to the human psyche that was reflected in an underlying similarity to our myths and archetypes. One of his ideas was that everybody had a dark side to his personality, which be called the 'shadow.' The shadow contained all the unacknowledged personality aspects - the hateful parts, the sadistic parts, all that. Jung thought people had the obligation to become acquainted with their shadow side. But very few people do. We all prefer to think we're nice guys and we don't ever have the desire to kill and maim and rape and pillage."
"Yes ..."
"As Jung saw it, if you didn't acknowledge your shadow side, it would rule you."
"So we're seeing Harry's shadow side?"
"In a sense, yes. Harry needs to present himself as Mr. Arrogant Know-It-All Black Man," Norman said.
"He certainly does."
"So, if he's afraid to be down here in this habitat - and who isn't? - then he can't admit his fears. But he has the fears anyway, whether he admits them or not. And so his shadow side justifies the fears - creating things that prove his fears to be valid."