WHAT’S “IN THE AIR”, from June 1934’s The Whisper—Vancourier to the Voice
We all possess a “human radio” as part of the marvelous organic equipment with which we have been endowed by the Creator; we possess it whether we know it or not, and whether we believe it or not. All of us use it in some degree, knowingly or unknowingly. It is a tragedy that men who could most benefit the world by its use, throw a monkey-wrench into their own machinery and have throughout history made it as difficult as possible for the most highly developed human radios to function without being stoned to death or thrown into a madhouse.
Ordinary radios have their own territory of reception, and amplify, at the will of their owners, any program being broadcasted at the time within those limits. To know what’s “on the air,” one need but to consult the various radio reviews, or the radio section of the daily paper. These assist one in tuning in to programs which otherwise he would never know were on the air unless he spent his entire time at the radio manipulating it from one end of the dial to the other, hearing only fragments of each program. But inasmuch as these programs have been designed and are being executed knowingly by men, their intentions can be scheduled and announced.
With the human radio, however, man can only listen in to what he is able to catch. All of Nature broadcasts continuously and permanently, retaining all history in her memory, and man, though its crowning blossom on earth, and the hands by means of which she may serve herself, is after all but a part of the Whole. He is the divine child that sprang from the union of the Creative Spirit that we call God with the body of material things that we call Nature. In this cocoon of mortal flesh a human soul is born, and man, seeing only the flesh, thinks that the birth of the soul is the end of all when it casts off its chrysalis, the human body, whose only purpose is as the shroud of incubation that insulates and preserves the individualized spec of Life until its transformation from a worm to a butterfly is complete.
Until then its wings cannot be used, but they are developing though unseen. And what would be the result if the butterfly refused to develop its wings because it could find no use for them in its cocoon? And it is thus with unseen, neglected faculties of the human mind, without which we would be as helpless after death as a butterfly without wings—faculties which have puzzled science because of the little practical use for them in this life as we know it. There is little real use, it seems, in the toys of children, but it is the children who play as if the world depended upon it with toys, who later wield tools and weapons as masters of men.
So if one cannot put it to definite, practical use at once, still it would behoove him to “play” with the human radio, developing his Intuition, Imagination and Memory into the powerful wings of freedom for the human soul which they are destined to be. But instead of “playing” with it, the “Game of Life,” man suffers with it, accepting conditions and “programs” without any effort to change them or get something better.
The air is full of programs for the human radio who will only tune in to them. For years I tuned my “dial’ from end to end to run the gamut of its possibilities, accepting griefs and joys alike, but now I tune in to well-tested programs upon which long experience has taught me I can depend for normal thinking and stability at the Fulcrum of life.
There is something lacking in the newspapers of today, something which in small measure I have been quietly trying to supply: a “Human Radio Review,” as it were, broadcasting a few fragments of what I have found, and continue to find “in the air,” a willing entertainer, comforter, helper or tantalizer of man, according to the adjustment of this own mechanism. He can become a wise man or a fool, a madman or a genius; the intricacies of all knowledge are at his disposal, or the simplicity of Wisdom, just as he desires or thinks.
To help others develop, perfect, adjust and atune their human radios is one of the main objects of my life. And in this connection, as time passes, I shall develop a “service” which might fittingly be called “The Human Radio(P)review”—calling attention to what’s “in the air” for the human radio that cares to listen, and making suggestions to help the readers tune out of uncomfortable programs into more beneficial ones aligned with human progress.
You may rest assured that the air is not completely filled with “sermons.” There is plenty of humor and entertainment, plenty of music to lift the soul above material clouds, or plunge it into the primitive earth. There is the breathtaking panorama of History, not as it is written, but as it was, and still is, in Nature’s all-seeing Memory. And there are the whispers and shadows of a limitless future offering us our choice of what it and we shall be.
