Don't Try This At Home

“The absence of anything proves something, but what it is, it is not until I decide.”
So began the treatise entitled "The Sovereignty of Subjective Consciousness" by the eminent Spillford University biologist Marvell Hummelline. This became the rallying cry of hundreds of thousands of his followers during the tyrannical Days of Haze during the early 21st century.
Where I was then, I am not sure. Sometimes I think I was attending the university at the time, other times I don’t know what to believe. I think I learned that in class. Sometimes I think I recall the turbulence of the crowds, the ebullient clouds of dust formed by the stomping masses of believers, the outstretched palms, skyward faces, innumerable men and women weaving to and fro as Dr. Hummelline railed against the immaterial, the immeasurable, and the nonexistent. I can still see him standing on the bed of a pickup truck parked in the square in front of the student union, one hand waving his treatise, the other stiffly outstretched, as if groping for one of these immaterial, nonexistent objects. I can still hear him shout:

They only exist in your head!
What do you see?
Repeat after me!

I do not think I did, but I was starting to feel a little out of place. The crowd chanted his words for a while and, when the police arrived with batons and teargas, they quickly disappeared. Most filtered into the bars and clubs that circled the square, where, I assume, after several hours they began to see the invisible, the immeasurable, and the nonexistent. Dr. Hummelline did not follow them.
I saw an interview of him on the television that night. I happened to be playing poker with my friends and, although I was in the middle of a winning streak that had extended over three decades, I was able to divert my attention from yet another hand full of consecutive spades to listen in on this exchange:

"Dr. Hummelline, it looks like you are in it for the money."
"How can you say that?"
"Well, maybe it’s not the money, maybe it is the random ethics."
"How can you say that? How can you know what I am thinking? Can you read my mind? Go ahead, find my mind! "
"Well, I can surmise – "
"Low blow! Direct observation of me is impossible."
"But you do give evidence –"
"Well, you interpret it badly."
"Maybe you don’t exist."
"Nothing can be disproved if given enough time! I am human!"
"Then disprove it."

The next day was a Sunday, and the faithful were seen in the houses of worship that towered over the city. I wandered by one of these, a squat sandstone block building that spilled onto the sidewalk, pretty as a sow at the county fair. I don’t know which denomination it may have been, but I can say that it was cold outside and several homeless persons were gathered around a display in front of the building entitled “Hellfire.” It featured a large concrete basin that, instead of water, sprayed fire into the sky. A woman threw some coins into the basin. It provided some comfort, I guess.
Inside some cleric was working the crowd. Hands were in the air, arms were reaching high, feet were stomping, voices wailing. The cleric was shouting some words. I strained to hear.

It exists in your head!
What do you see?
Repeat after me!

And they did.

Later that day, these same folks were seen in the bars around the square, casually mingling with the folks who had been listening to Dr. Hummelline on Saturday.
The following weekend the newspaper carried a story. It reported that Dr. Hummelline went home to his wife directly after his interview on the television. She had bought him a new fishing rod for their anniversary. When she presented it to him, he was said to respond, “Ah, another random event.” His body was found five days later, face down in a lagoon outside the biology building. When they pulled his body out of the water, onlookers said that his arm was outstretched.