Appendix B: Instructions for Saying a Sentence

This exercise is taken from the “kit” of a traveling admissions officer of the Vocational School and was used to assess the latent talents of prospective students. Assiduously following its instructions will allegedly give any reader the experience of channeling the dead. I hesitated to include it in this collection, as it makes but poor reading, but of course it was meant to be not simply read, but executed. Its true meaning thus lies not in the words here reproduced, but in those other words that, following instructions, you will utter, or the dead will utter through you.

Frankly, I have never been able to figure out what sentence it is I am supposed to say. A superstitious fear has always prevented me from finishing it. —Ed.

Tense your vocal cords and, beginning the controlled emission of breath, produce a tone from your throat. Sustain this tone, so long as your breath holds, throughout the following operations.

Now purse the lips, leaving only a minute aperture, as if you were going to whistle. Meanwhile, press your breath forward into your hollowed mouth (in which your tongue should be held low, tense, and delicately pointed), allowing only the slightest seepage of breath from between the lips. (If prolonged the effect would be of a moan or grunt, but the next step follows quickly.) Considerable pressure should build in the throat before the release as, from their forward and gathered position, you pull the lips quickly, wincingly apart and back, curling and raising the upper lip as you draw down and square the lower, allowing the hitherto muffled note to leap forth. Not unaltered, however, for in the meanwhile, the tip of the tongue advances, approaching (but not touching) the palate in back of the lower teeth, while the dome of the tongue presses upward toward the roof of the mouth, tightening on the breath that passes over it.

Already, however, the vowel sound is changing, for your lips and tongue are softening as you open your mouth and let an open vowel roll forth. Now, however, you should all at once chew down on it, humping the back of your tongue to touch the flanking molars, tensing the tip, and jutting out your jaw, while tightening and slightly flaring the lips—raising the upper one as if to growl, drawing in the lower at both corners.

Now raise the pitch of your sustained tone. The tongue slides forward slightly, now nearly touching the roof of the mouth. Quickly lower the tip of the tongue, as if peeling it off some clinging surface, while bringing the lips together, corners drawn back, into the shape one might form to play the flute. Now soften and part the lips, but bring your upper and lower teeth together. Advance the tip of the tongue to the lower teeth and press it softly against them as you raise the tongue until it just touches the roof of your mouth, leaving only a wet and narrow passage over your tongue. Buzz briefly, softly.

Lower the pitch of the tone again, as you allow your mouth to fall partway open, though not as far as earlier. Then pull your tongue quickly back, wedge the tip behind the lower teeth, while the back of the tongue rises and presses against the palate and, securely wedged against the upper back teeth on both sides, seals off the mouth passage entirely for an instant, engaging the nasal cavities. This seal is immediately broken with a minute click followed by an unvocalized release of air.

Protrude the lips, the upper tense and slightly curled, the tongue high, nearly touching the roof of the mouth. Now lower the tip of your tongue as you open your mouth. The effect is of allowing the hitherto restrained breath to spill down into the hollow at the front of the mouth. Now, raising the lower jaw again, forcefully retract the back of your tongue until it meets the molars, while lowering the tip.

Raise the pitch again. Close your lips, while parting your jaws, and hum. Then open your mouth, keeping it round and hollow. Lower the pitch as, contracting your lips, you tighten the hole of your mouth without closing it. Then press the upper surface of the tip of your tongue against the cutting edge of your two upper incisors, firmly, but not so firmly that a little breath cannot hiss through when, as now, you forcibly urge it through the ensuing aperture.

With vigor, with dash, pull your tongue away and back. Relax your jaw, still your vocal cords, subdue your breath. Be silent.