CL

141. Just as one may attune oneself to hear the music in another’s voice through the words, one may also align oneself to see the gesture in the stroke of the pen that actually describes the subject of the written word.

142. It is possible, therefore, to look at a person’s writing or the marks that one makes while doodling, and read the frame of mind in which something was written. And since the gesture is universal (though not absolute—it may vary in form from culture to culture, but not in its flow), it is possible to read the writing of any language and perceive the image represented.

143. So, looking at any series of characters, we should be able to “feel” the images thought at the time of writing by the author. These images will be played back to us through the framework of our own experience. (56)

144. The most natural means of expressing these perceived images will be through music. Music will then act as a relay medium, receiving, amplifying and transmitting images from person to person, culture to culture, even time to time.

145. The image perception is most easily accomplished when looking at symbols that are not immediately recognized as having defined meanings. It is much more difficult to get a “feeling” from a word written in one’s own language than in a foreign tongue not known to the reader.

146. Scarcely a modern English-speaking person has looked at an Egyptian hieroglyphic and not gained some feeling from the writing even though they have no idea of the meaning of the symbol.

147. While everyone has that latent ability to attune themselves to another’s emotions, most people are able to block or shield themselves from being “read.” There is, however, that rare person who is so un-camouflaged, so open and honest, so innocent, that everyone with whom he or she comes in contact can not only tell instantly what that person is feeling, but can feel every twinge of that person’s emotions.

148. Projective empathy, then, is not so much an art of projection as an inability to shield. Only insomuch as a person is able to control the emotions that he or she is experiencing, can that person be said to control the emotions of others.

149. The projective empathy is his or her own impregnable defense against other experiencing entities. To attack a projective empathy would be tantamount to attacking oneself since each emotion of the victim would be felt by the assailant.

150. Our conscious carries on a complex and continual juggling act between the physically experienceable and the consciously knowable. And the pattern of the juggled realities creates what we know as time and space. (38)

Editor’s Note 1: In this section, Wesley attempts a “scientific” explanation of his unique ability to read emotion in writing and to translate it into music so that those emotions are experienced by others. To our knowledge, it was never shown that this ability could be reproduced in others following his procedures. Wesley himself would argue that this was because the person making the attempt was not fully opening himself to receiving the emotions, and/or was not honest and innocent enough to transmit them. Nonetheless, these statements would seem to defy truly scientific proof.

Editor’s Note 2: Verse 148 begins the second “brown” segment of The Book of Wesley (the first seen in the second 100). It is curious that this also marks a subtle shift in Wesley’s subject. It is virtually certain that he is attempting to explain the unique ability of his granddaughter to play music that fully conveys her emotions and who is so open and innocent that she is completely “unshielded.” These three verses and the next four (151-154), may be the result of Wesley’s constant drive to maintain his own sanity in the face of physical and emotional experiences that lay outside the norms of humanity.