No sooner did I write the last sentence when I “knew” that another chapter of “Education” was waiting. But how did I know? How do I know? I try to take a moment to examine my feelings, but already in my mind’s eye I see myself tearing this page of notes out of the typewriter and inserting a new sheet of paper to begin the next installment.

I can, of course, decide to resist. I know that resistance is possible. So what is it that—

Chapter Eleven

Oversoul Seven Journeys to the Undersides of the Universe

Seven went wandering through the universe. He wanted to get away from everything he knew, and since he knew more all the time, he had to go further to get away. To do this, he just let himself go unmoored in any given reality, unrelated to any ideas of himself. As always, some odd inner motion began to take hold, support him, and carry him along. When this started to happen he always worried a bit, but nothing like he used to, and then the journey really began. He felt like a seed in the wind, blowing through universes but never landing.

Somewhere along the way he knew that his thoughts would start changing too, and he tried to catch this happening. First, it was like thinking backwards, and very confusing. Just when he seemed to get the knack of this, his thoughts turned around again, and it was like thinking sidewards. He was used to the fact that there was really no up or down to space. But now the up and down quality of his thoughts was gone too, and his sense of subjective direction. That is, thoughts just came—backwards, sidewards, from inside and outside—and none of them were particularly his or anyone else’s.

He tried to navigate in all this, because it seemed that there should be one thought of his own to use as a kind of measuring stick. But he’d already let himself go, or begun the process; and at this point he didn’t know how to reverse what he’d started. The thoughts came all at once, not one before the other, and then suddenly Seven got scared—or the part of him that still held on got scared—because the thoughts began to mix with each other.

One thought said, “This is the beginning,” for example. The thought nearest to that one said, “This is the end,” and the two sentences came simultaneously. Then the letters in one sentence mixed into those of the other one, and some part of Seven’s mind went in and out, trying to keep track. But at the same time, all the other thoughts he heard started doing the same thing. And parts of Seven kept leaving him to follow those too, as they went jumbling and turning into completely different patterns.