Chapter 3

From a monastery in the mountains of the western half of North America, 2212.

The Teacher said: “Let your questions be known to me and I will furnish you an answer, but be thoughtful. A question lacking prior contemplation is but a symptom of the frail mind.

Charles asked the Teacher: “What is the foundation of a man?”

The Teacher said: “A sharp reprimand is in order for the man with ears who does not listen. Gather round and see firsthand the fruits of thoughtlessness.”

Charles asked the Teacher: “How am I mistaken?”

The Teacher said: “Your question demonstrates a disregard for any previous thought. If you had ever looked inside yourself you would have easily found the answer to your question, thus avoiding this circumstance. You need to be taught.

Charles said to the Teacher: “But I do not understand where my error lies.”

The Teacher said: “I have not yet finished my thought and your careless interruption only further confirms the timeliness of your punishment. It is mandatory for the Teacher to answer the student’s question, no matter how frivolous, so that the student might think upon and not commit their misstep again.”

The Teacher said: “The foundation of a man is superfluous due to the priority of his individual perceptions. It was said long ago by Master Lennef that our one and true compass point is our perspective. A man’s foundations are always subordinate to his current perceptions and thus the answer is ultimately variable. This is Perceptionism. Return again when you are adequately prepared.”

* ~~ *

As the Teacher walked the path to gather water he said to Franklin: “Come and speak to me. You look troubled.”

Franklin said to the Teacher: “There is no record of our history in this place. Where is this knowledge hidden?”

The Teacher said: “It is not necessary to hide what does not exist. Perceptionism deals in today and tomorrow. Yesterday and one-hundred years ago are gone and they cannot be revisited. There is no written history in this place.”

Franklin said to the Teacher: “My perceptions are colored by my past and they exist as one. To deny my past is to deny my present thus rejecting my existence.”

The Teacher said to Franklin: “You have learned much in your time here. It is indeed impossible to separate your present from your past. However, it is your past and yours alone that shape the purest perceptions. ‘History’ is not written by another, but lived and experienced by you. Therefore, this ‘history’ does not exist in written form for it would only distort your true perceptions. Only those found creditable and trained in the art of discourse have been taught of the old times and then only to educate rather than mutate. You, simply by your understanding, have proven yourself worthy of this knowledge. Now, if you wish, you and I may discuss the history of the world.”

* ~~ *

The next day Franklin asked the Teacher: “Where do we begin? What is our story?”

The Teacher lit a cigarette and said: “There are many accounts of our beginning, but people did not begin until they produced. This is not the production of wheels, or grain, or children, but the production of ideas. For many years society lay under the sun without thought or principle. They invented and built, reaped and sowed, conquered and perished, and delighted in flashes of light. Only at the collapse of the old society were people truly set in motion. In the final flash of light the first idea was born and the age of truth and reality began.”

Franklin looked out over the garden and said to the Teacher: “I am confused with this sideways conversation. Where did the old society go? Where is this world of long ago? What happened?”

The Teacher plucked a seed from a nearby tree and said to Franklin: “Your questions are like the leaves of this tree. They are many and vast, but they stem from a single source. At the seed of this tree your answer lies hidden from view, deep in the center of your questions. This seed begins with the birth of the first idea and the collapse of the old society.”

Franklin asked the Teacher: “Does nothing prior to this merit any attention?”

The Teacher said: “Without Perceptionism people were scattered and accomplished little. The detail of everything prior to the intellectual birth is exhausting and monotonous. There were several wars, people lived and died, governments were established and fell, and language and speech were standardized. You are now up to date on thousands of years of ‘history’.”

Franklin said to the Teacher: “I have learned that the fall of society was a matter of chance and circumstance. Teacher Josef speaks of the final days of society very briefly in his lectures. In these moments he refers to the people of the world as ‘dead light’ and briefly mentions the importance of the ‘ToT’.”

The Teacher said: “You are a surprising student with fine filtering ears. Your eagerness is refreshing and your queries have already led you to a conclusion. This ‘ToT’, as you heard it, was the first great idea that shook the foundations of the old society and left the world in physical and intellectual ruin. ‘ToT’ was Master Lennef’s spoken abbreviation for the Theory of Three.”

The Teacher said: “Today our conversation must come to an end, but think on what we have spoken about.

* ~~ *

As the Teacher rose from sleep Franklin came to him alone and asked: “What is the Theory of Three?”

The Teacher peeled an orange and said: “The Theory of Three was the first great idea that truly revealed Perceptionism to the world. Before this Perceptionism was only a way of life to some, but the Theory of Three pushed Perceptionism onto the world like an avalanche covering a mountainside, wiping it clean of imperfection.”

The Teacher said: “The Theory of Three was first imagined by Master Lennef as he sat staring deep into a box of flashing light and moving pictures. He explained it in this way. Imagine there is an endless lake stretching into infinity. Upon this lake lies a line of lily pads. Each of these lily pads stands for a single number. The first lily pad is one, the second two, and so on. A frog is jumping from lily pad to lily pad endlessly. This frog is indicative of the control we exercise over the traditional system of numbers in base 10. The frog can jump anywhere as long as it lands on a lily pad. This is the system of numbers that was accepted in the old world. Master Lennef understood this system and all its intricacies, but was plagued by the lack of variation. This was the catalyst for the first great Perceptionist shift in history.

The Teacher said: “Master Lennef found that through exercising Perceptionism on the guidelines for the traditional system of numbers they could be altered in ways that would bring beautiful complexity to an otherwise dull system. While Master Lennef found that there were an infinite number of ways that he could manipulate the numbering system there was only one way that he felt would impact the world. Imagine now the same analogy as before. The hopping frog and the lily pads, but now we center in on the number three. If the frog ever lands on the lily pad representing the number three that lily pad falls out from under the frog and the frog falls into an infinite abyss. The frog may hop over the number three and continue as before, but if the frog is ever led to the number three the process must halt forever. This is the Theory of Three.”

Franklin stared far out the window and said to the Teacher: “It is interesting that one idea can be so beautiful and so terrible at the same time.”

The Teacher said: “Master Lennef was once a man of great importance in the old world and he silently slipped his theory into the inner-workings of the old world. It crept quietly into the foundations and grew until it became an unstoppable force of destruction. The beauty was the end; not the means. The Theory of Three ripped opened a pathway to the new world and the old cities and societies crumbled in its wake. In its own way Perceptionism is the crowning achievement of the human race.”

* ~~ *

The Teacher said: “Perception leads to Belief. Belief leads to Truth. Truth leads to Reality. This is Perceptionism.”