Chapter 7 Summary

Chapter 7 finds them heading toward Bowman on a hot day. They encounter an old stockman who used to have a cycle and converse with him. The Narrator is impressed with his demeanor. Riding on through the heat, the Narrator speaks of practicing mind control to counter the heat. He introduces a discussion of Phaedrus' knife. Using a handful of sand analogy, the Narrator attempts to describe the process involved in analytical thought, stressing the importance of the agent who is sorting the sand into piles. The Narrator observes that analysis kills, but simultaneously creates, resulting in a balance of death and birth continuously moving along. They pass through Marmarth and on into Montana. The Narrator shares that Phaedrus went insane and that in order to understand him correctly, it would be necessary to see what he saw. Phaedrus was pursuing the ghost of...