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"Yes?"
"Well, I didn't have enough of a sampling to be absolutely accurate, you understand, but I'd say it's pretty close, or at least as close as you can get with these things. Well, at any rate, the two different voices on the tapes, I would say, are probably separate personalities."
"Probably?"
"Well, I wouldn't want to swear to it in court. In fact, I'd have to say the variance is really pretty minimal."
"Minimal..." Karras repeated dully. Well, that's the ball game. "And what about the gibberish?" he asked without hope. "Is it any kind of language?"
Frank chuckled.
"What's fu
"Was this really some sneaky psychological testing, Father?"
"I don't know what you mean, Frank."
"Well, I guess you got your tapes mixed around or something. It's---"
"Frank, is it a language or not?" cut in Karras.
"Oh, I'd say it was a language, all right."
Karras stiffened. "Are you kidding?"
'No, I'm not."
"What's the language?" he asked, unbelieving.
"English."
For a moment, Karras was mute, and when he spoke there was an edge to his voice. "Frank, we seem to have a very poor co
"Got your tape recorder there?" asked Frank.
It was sitting on his desk. "Yes, I do."
"Has it got a reverse-play position?"
"Why?"
"Has it got one?"
"Just a second." Irritable, Karras set down the phone and took the top off the tape recorder to check it. "Yes, it's got one. Frank, what's this all about?"
"Put your tape on the machine and play it backward."
"What?"
"You've got gremlins." Frank laughed, "Look, play it and I'll talk to you tomorrow. Good night, Father."
"Night, Frank."
"Have fun."
Karras hung up. He looked baffled. He hunted up the gibberish tape and threaded it onto the recorder. First he ran it forward, listening. Shook his head. No mistake. It was gibberish.
He let it run through to the end and then played it in reverse. He heard his voice speaking backward. Then Regan---or someone---in English!
... Marin marin karras be us let us...
English. Senseless; but English! How on earth could she do that? he marveled.
He listened to it all, then rewound and played the tape through again. And again. And then realized that the order of speech was inverted.
He stopped the tape and rewound it. With a pencil and paper, he sat down at the desk and began to play the tape from the begi
Here, Karras asked, "Who are you?" with the answer: I am no me. I am no one.
Then Karras: "Is that your name?" and then: I have no name. I am no one. Many. Let us be. Let us warm in the body. Do not [indecipherable] from the body into void, into [indecipherable]. Leave us. Leave us. Let us be. Karras. [Marin?
Marin?]...
Again and again he read it over, haunted by its tone, by the feeling that more than one person was speaking, until finally repetition itself dulled the words into commo
He remembered. He went to his shelves for a book: Jung's Psychology and Pathology of So-called Occult Phenomena. Something similar here, he thought. What?
He found it: an account of an experiment with automatic writing in which the unconscious of the subject seemed able to answer his questions and anagrams.
Anagrams!
He propped the book open on the desk, leaned over and read an account of a portion of the experiment: 3rd DAY What is man? Tefi hasl esble lies.
Is that an anagram? Yes.
How many words does it contain? Five.
What is the first word? See.
What is the second word? Eeeee.
See? Shall I interpret it myself? Try to!
The subject found this solution: "The life is less able." He was astonished at this intellectual pronouncement, which seemed to him to prove the existence of an intelligence independent of his own. He therefore went on to ask: Who are you? Clelia.
Are you a woman? Yes.
Have you lived on earth? No.
Will you come to life? Yes.
When? In six years.
Why are you conversing with me? E if Cledia el.
The subject interpreted this answer as an anagram for "I Clelia feel."
4TH DAY
Am I the one who answers the questions? Yes.
Is Clelia there? No.