The Memorist Read Online Free PDF Page B

Beethoven found out the memory flute worked? What if the people who listened to its music and heard its vibrations remembered their past lives? That could have been what he meant by dangerous,” she suggested breathlessly.
    Fremont set his snifter down so hard on the marble end table a fragment of glass chipped off and the sound resonated ominously. “Until we know if Beethoven actually wrote that letter, this is all just speculation.”
    “The timing was right too.” Erika was too far into her hypothesis to stop.
    “Right for what?” Jeremy asked.
    “The genesis of Heinrich Wilhelm Dove’s discovery of binaural beats in 1839—”
    “Erika!” Fremont interrupted with a laugh. “This is useless speculation.”
    But Jeremy didn’t think so. The possibility of binaural beats—low frequency tones, stimulating brain wave activity—prompting past life regressions was something he’d first looked into when Meer had started hearing music inaudible to everyone else and Erika’s recent work suggested the possibility was a probability. More than half the people in her NDE studies had heard music during their journeys, and when asked to pick out music from a dozensamples that came closest to what they’d heard, one hundred percent of them chose the sample imbedded with binaural beat frequencies.
    “It’s not speculation. There’s a great deal of scientific data demonstrating the results of religious chanting, music, drumming and other sonic phenomena on the mind and the body.” Erika spoke more quickly now, racing ahead, intoxicated by the connections she was making. She believed frequencies similar to the ones people with NDEs heard could open the portal and induce the states of consciousness necessary for them to remember previous lives.
    “If we found the flute and it proved that past life memories could be stimulated through sonic manipulation, we would revolutionize reincarnation theory. Not just reincarnation theory,” she insisted, “but time-space theory too. It would be a huge scientific breakthrough.”
    “All thanks to our conquering Jewish hero here.” Fremont gestured to Jeremy.
    “Jewish? How does that connect?” Jeremy asked.
    “You’d be vilified as a twenty-first-century Pontius Pilate for proving that man alone bears responsibility for his eternal rest and it is within each person’s own control to get to heaven. The Kabbalah will be reviled. Jewish mystics everywhere will become ostracized again.” Fremont stared into his glass, swirled the liquid once, twice and then, lifting the snifter to his lips, drank the rest of the brandy down as if it were as smooth as caramel.
    “The Kabbalah is hardly the only religious doctrine that supports reincarnation,” Jeremy said. “Why assume Jews would take the blame just because—”
    “Fremont,” Erika interrupted, “are you actually suggesting we give up our inquiry because of a possible religious argument?” The scientist was aghast.
    “Of course not,” Fremont responded. “I’m just saying that so much is at stake we need to take one step at a time, quietly and carefully.”
    “Well, if the letter turns out to be authentic—” her voice regained its hopeful, yearning tone “—then the box itself might be a clue to where the flute is hidden. Shouldn’t we be prepared to buy both the gaming box and the letter at next week’s auction?”
    “But the letter was hidden,” Fremont said. “No one even knows about it. You’re not announcing its existence now, are you?”
    “Of course not. I had no intention of announcing it,” Jeremy answered. “Helen Hoffman has agreed to let me have it authenticated but hasn’t made any decision past that.”
    Erika wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying; she’d moved beyond the auction to what would come next. “If what the letter says is true and the flute wasn’t destroyed, there might be a memory tool hidden here in Vienna. We have to find it. A memory tool…” she