John,

Is the three-dimensional creature, man, truly bound by one four-dimensional space? I very much doubt it. If the three-dimensional being were to traverse five-dimensional "time," he would be unable to tell the difference between being in the new "time" and being in the original "time." What might move such a creature from one four-dimensional space to another? "Free will" decisions. The spirit of the human gets to watch the movie it prefers to watch. Have you ever seen one of those interactive books for kids where the child picks the path s/he wants through the book, leading to the ending that results from his/her choices? I suspect it's a bit like that.

If this hypothesis is correct, of course, it is no wonder that future forecasting, and consequently the philosophy of determinism, is so roundly condemned in the holy literature of the Western world. Knowing what lies in the "future" in this particular four-dimensional space may be utterly irrelevant to what you as a spirit will experience in your human life. Thus, allowing yourself to be bound by the four-dimensional space you happen to be in at the moment is really nothing but an elaborate cop-out, a decision not to decide.

This is one way to think of an additional "dimension." I believe that there are several other "types" of dimensional differences: in "frequency" or "wavelength" of certain phenomena and in "density" or lack thereof of the "matter" composing said dimension. I have seen "ghosts," so I assume they are real, albeit in a different dimension from us. A willingness to accept ghosts implies an acceptance of one form or another of the theory of a "soul." In fact, I believe that every (physical) human being co-habits his/her space with one or more "energy beings" which attach themselves to the physical body; the fact that the body generates an electromagnetic field, and thousands of individual wavelengths of energy, suggests that Hindu and Chinese physicians thousands of years ago knew more about certain aspects of the human anatomy than modern medicine does. The very fact that treatments like acupuncture can produce consistent and documentable results should tell am honest Western scientist that s/he doesn't yet completely understand the workings of all of the systems of the body.

You may be aware that the Hindus place a red dot in the middle of their foreheads, symbolic of the Third Eye. The Third Eye is the pineal gland, as I will be trying to show/explain. The reason for the red dot relates to the "occult history" of the use of the pineal as a sense organ. In the legends of Lemuria, it was said that the Lemurians had such highly developed pineal glands that they bulged from the forehead, creating a large nose-like bump characteristic of the Lemurian people, but also creating something that looked like an eye socket covered over with a thin and translucent skin. [I will come back to the Lemurian legends associated with the pineal gland in a bit.] In later periods, after the inundation of Lemuria and the rise of other lands and powers, pineal development was not as extensive as it had been among the Lemurians, and many people wishing for the powers that the Third Eye had given the Lemurians tried to literally split open their skulls so that the pineal would have direct access to the light. That is the origin of the (bloody) red dot, as a symbol of someone drilling a hole in his own head so that the pineal could function more effectively.

What does the pineal do? For many years, scientists were under the impression that the pineal gland did nothing at all, that it was as "expendable" as tonsils or one's appendix. This theory was unable to explain why no one ever survived (or even woke up from) a pinealectomy. More recent scientific studies suggest that the pineal gland, through its hormone, melatonin, controls sleep cycles and perhaps aging. Melatonin is also one of the three ingredients in the "de Bella cocktail," which Italian researchers have used to cure over 25,000 people of all varieties of cancers (the other two ingredients are somatostatin, a human hormone that has been synthesized, and vitamin A retinoids).

But it has other functions which are ignored by modern science. In most lower animals, the pineal gland is recognized as a sense organ. How does it work? The pineal gland is (weakly) sensitive not only to light but to the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Hence, the difference between the "eyes" and the Third Eye is that the eyes can sense ("see") 10% of the electromagnetic spectrum very strongly and accurately, while the pineal gland can sense about 95% of the electromagnetic spectrum much more weakly.

What is the value of "pineal sight"? Let's take the example of the shark, who uses its pineal gland as its primary organ of sense perception. Eyesight is of limited value in the ocean, limited in distance and accuracy by the movement of the water and by the relative absence of light as one gets deeper into the ocean. Hearing and smell are of similarly limited use. How does the shark navigate, then, and how does he find food? He senses the magnetic field of the earth, and can therefore orient himself in the water with respect to that field, and he senses the electromagnetic fields of his prey so that he knows exactly where they are, even if they are disguised! This electromagnetic sensory input is so central to the way a shark views his world that a shark will actually attack an electrode placed into the water near him in preference to attacking blood.

Scientists acknowledge that most lower animals appear to use their pineal glands as sensory organs, and most also recognize that even in humans the pineal is usually active until at least the age of 11 or 12 (after which, in most people, it ceases production of its hormones and in general appears to shut down). But what if humans could use their pineal glands as sensory organs? What would such sensory input feel like?

One example is the woman who suddenly becomes terribly concerned about her son; she "knows" something is wrong and immediately starts trying to contact him. Her efforts lead her to the discovery that he has been in a traffic accident and is in intensive care at a local hospital. Usually, such perceptions are dismissed (or continue to go unexamined) as "psychic." But if the pineal gland is capable of picking up almost all of the electromagnetic spectrum, and if the average human being is transmitting thousands of different electromagnetic frequencies (messages?) at any given moment, then perhaps the "psychic" mother is "picking up" her son's frequency (automatically, without conscious intention) all the time, and when she recognizes "static" in that signal she takes it as a sign that there is something wrong with her son. She has been "perceiving" her son's electrical "signature" his whole life, and is used to it "feeling" a certain way, so the interference is noticeable (just as when you are half-listening to a radio, you are more likely to have your concentration interrupted by static than by any particular song or story). I would say that the mother described above is simply responding to sensory information provided by the pineal gland.

The ability of the pineal to perceive the full range of the electromagnetic spectrum, combined with the ability of waves to travel huge distances without distortion, allowed "distant hearing" to serve as a substitute for the telephone in Lemurian times. A person would close his eyes, plug his ears, and concentrate on "pictures" and "sounds" that would seem to come from the center of the head; in this way, two Lemurians would easily be able to communicate (as easily as we talk on a phone) at a distance of up to 1,000 miles.

Another "psychic ability" which might have its origin in the operations of the pineal is psycho kinesis, the ability to move objects with "thought." If the mind can project electromagnetic energy, and if electromagnetic energy can be used to perform physical work (as it is on a daily basis by industry), then it is a short step to recognize that the mind could mobilize enough electromagnetic energy to perform physical work, including ordinary tasks like moving objects.

It has always been believed in occult circles that women's "psychic powers" are (on the average) as much stronger than men's as men's physical powers are (on the average) stronger than women's. So, as I mention in the Platonic Months article, when women dominate a society, they do it based on the use of their psychic powers rather than any physical powers they might also possess. The reason that the idea of female power automatically and immediately brings to mind the witches' coven isn't just because Hollywood has made a lot of good witch movies, but because a coven of women using magic to manipulate and subdue men isn't any more alien to this world and its real history than is a group of men in business suits using their physical power to subjugate women.

Numerology is every bit as old as astrology; it is the basis of the following systems of "wisdom": the books of Genesis, Numbers, and the Song of Songs in the Bible (if not other books as well), the I Ching (the Chinese Book of Changes), the Tarot deck, the Pythagorean school (responsible, among other things, for connecting music and number with its teachings on the "harmonies" of numbers), and various other sacred texts. In fact, almost every civilization of note in human history has encoded its psychological knowledge about humans and human nature either in astrological stories or in number, although some have used both types of symbolism.

Since it is a "tougher nut" to crack, I will tell you that I believe that astrology works for the same reason that numerology works: because the universe is so much more tightly ordered than most scientists think it is, and because everything that happens affects and is affected by everything else, without limitations of space or time. I think "synchronicity" is an important facet of nature, and explains a lot about the way the world operates.

Gregory,

Maybe I should state once and for all my approach to "our world". Since I just recently abandoned a world view with no room for anything but what science and rational thought could postulate, I am still very much in favor of additions only that are "plausible". Sitchin's world view passes that test because of the existence of Middle East clay tablets that can be deciphered not only by Sitchin but by others. These others might call the contents "legends" as opposed to real history, but at least they can confirm word for word what Sitchin claims is there. So this evidence exists in various museums in different countries.

Morning Sky's version of reality is on much shakier grounds as far as I am concerned. I wouldn't even bother with him, were it not for his confirming the existence of the "actors" in Sitchin's scenario, and his claim of having written about them in his first version of "The Terra Papers", completed in the late 60's. I have actually asked him for direct evidence of him writing these papers before 1975 when Sitchin authored his first book, but have received nothing yet. The technology of the Annunaki seems to have been fairly rudimental when they first descended to Earth, witness tales of rockets leaving with thunder and fire and near accidents when approaching Earth. Morning Sky's version postulates technology of much more advanced and ancient origin so there is a conflict there, if I have to choose I'd choose Sitchin any time because of the ancient clay tablet evidence.

I know you have a lot of knowledge of different theories regarding aliens and the occult phenomena. My problem with all of this is that nothing as far as I know is based in evidence similar to the Sumerian clay tablets. I acknowledge that most of these theories might have kernels of truth imbedded in them, but I tend to think that around these kernels, a lot of "homespun" material have been added, that reflect nothing more than the feverish imaginations of the authors. One example close to you, is your theory of cycles of dominance by the two genders. It is of course possible, but the amount of evidence is scarce indeed. Regarding Eckart (spelled right?) I tend to dismiss him out of hand. I have obviously not read anything by or about him, suffice it to say that Sitchin's clay tablets are totally silent about planets within the corona of the sun and account for only 12 planets including the moon and the sun. I know you like "The Dark companion" and I think that there is a possibility of the 12th planet being the wayward "Dark Companion", the kernel of truth perceived by whoever came op with this theory.

A few other thoughts. The Bible describes females disobeying "God" and can be explained in terms of the attempt by Marduk or whoever was the "God" in question, who tried to achieve preeminence for himself. Obviously this "God" must have been a male "person", otherwise the Bible would have the males disobeying "God".

I agree that the "grays" who were the "allies" of Marduk in overthrowing the established order here on Earth, and who later got rid of Marduk himself, are only one among several different breeds of aliens. This is of course something I have gotten from Morning Sky, who I still don't trust totally. I am impressed though, that his version of events explains the absence of "Gods" right now, as well as the absence of historic memory of an earlier era. What I am trying to say with this e-mail is that my acceptance of different theories regarding the earlier history of our Earth and the existence of aliens, has a high threshold to climb before I will accept them. Eckart and the occult "people" have to tie their theories to something similar to the Sumerian clay tablets before I will take them seriously.

Another thought. If I remember correctly you have ordered "Alien Agenda". That book actually describes the heightened interest that aliens of different kinds right now have for our planet Earth. A story from that book "shows" the interest being so great that they actually have to park their vehicles in additional "overtones" in order not to be too crowded! Pretty amazing, if true.

John,

Given your parameters, I am glad I suggested Velikovsky as an additional read, since I expect that many of the things you like about Sitchin will also be things you can like about Velikovsky.

Yes, I am getting Alien Agenda, and am looking forward to hearing what the book has to say.

John,

You are right that I obsess on details. On the one hand, I could say that it is because the "devil is in the details," and a theory that sounds good on its face often fails when some of its apparently-trivial implications prove irreconcilable with observed phenomena. On the other, maybe I am just playing out the elements of my own personality (I am a Virgo, a sun-sign renowned for its pickiness and detail-orientation). In any event, I don't wish to annoy you with such attention to detail, and if you find that I am heading down a road you find intellectually unrewarding, please don't hesitate to advise me and I will move on to other subjects.

Gregory,

I am pretty sure your attraction to details is related to your Virgo sign just like I think my impatience with details is related to my Aries sign (although I am just on the cusp of Aries). I know for a fact that my way of thinking has its roots in my genetic heritage (just as my whole personality has its roots in this same genetic heritage). I’d even go as far as to say that whether a person ends up being a liberal or a conservative has more to do with his (her) genes than anything else.

I have lived in Chicago (various places) since I came here in ‘70s attracted by the image of U.S., that the Beach Boys presented to the world, an image that had quite an impact on me. To this day I prefer the Beach Boys to the Beatles or any other group ( except maybe Credence Clearwater Revival). . By the way, I wasn't born in a hospital but at home with the help of a midwife, decades later I met this person and was appraised of her role in my life, which left me momentarily speechless to say the least. Regarding Dixie and me, I think we would mix as badly as oil and water, I think I fit more into Hollywood's "Sodom and Gomorra" type lifestyle than I do a fundamentalist one.

Regarding Tesla and his experiments, my God, this man was ahead of his time, wasn't he. In fact, I play more and more with the idea that people like him and Einstein were probably the unwitting "receivers" of "implanted" scientific wisdom originating with "the aliens" or whatever we want to call "the powers that be" that we both seem to agree exist. Too bad that I have "lived too few lives" to be considered a "target" for this type of transfer. My "handlers" are conspicuous only be their absence. If you don't mind, I'd like to learn more about what you perceive to be your handlers and the effect this has had on your life, including the "conditions" you mentioned once before.

John,

Okay, a return to the summer of 1972. When my three-week psychic demonstration period came to an end, I first met my "handlers" in a dream (of sorts, as described in an earlier post). The first thing "they" brought up was whether or not I was satisfied with the "demonstration." I was.

Then they offered to give me whatever I wanted, and they suggested I choose something. Since I was breaking up with my first girlfriend at the time, I thought that perhaps a new girlfriend would be nice. Suddenly, it seemed that I was in the middle of a 3-D movie, watching what it would be like if I got what I asked for. When the "movie" was over, I was less than thrilled with my choice. "They" advised me that if I wasn't happy with that choice, I could try choosing something else. I did. The second time, I asked for *lots* of girlfriends instead of just one. Another "movie" began, allowing me to preview the results of my second kick at the can. Having lots of girlfriends also sucked, but for different reasons. Sporting sorts that "they" were, "they" suggested I try *again*. On my third try, I decided to shoot for fame. The "movie" for fame was as unsatisfactory as the others; a fourth try (wealth) and a fifth (political power) fared just as badly. I realized that I had no idea what would actually make me happy or satisfied with my life, and admitted as much. I suggested "they" choose something for me that, in their judgment, would work out well for me. "They" were very pleased, and advised me that I had learned my first lesson from them: that I didn't even know *myself* well enough to know what would be the best and most satisfying use of my own life. This was an important point, as "they" told me that they planned to "check in" from time to time to let me know what "they" thought I should be doing if I wanted to be of maximum assistance and value to "them" and to myself.

My next year was very pleasant, indeed. My mother called about half an hour after I "woke up" from my "dream" to ask me if I wanted to vacation in Texas with her family, and things went uphill from there. My parents decided to subsidize the balance of my college education, so I didn't have to work to support myself any further; my romantic life was surprisingly robust, and as varied as I could have handled (I've never been much of a ladies' man); and school went so smoothly I could have handled it in my sleep. And I didn't hear from my "handlers" for almost three years.

In 1975, I put together a Business Plan for a Dating and Social Matching Service which was to use computers, astrology, and/or psychics to make "matches" and then hold "parties" at which to introduce those selected. Romantic matches would probably have been the initial mainstay of the business, but it was also designed to introduce families with well-matched children, introduce potential "friends" who would share key interests (playing chess or bridge, studying history or politics, eating at gourmet restaurants, or whatever), and make business and other types of introductions as well. I was running around making presentations for the business, trying to raise money, when I was unexpectedly "contacted" by my "handlers." Same voices in my head; it would have been easy to conclude I was having a schizophrenic episode and try to ignore them, except that these entities had been pretty powerful and useful the last time I "heard" from them, so I decided to pay attention. They told me that it would be wrong (for me) to make money from my "occult" or religious studies; that I should abandon the practice of charging for astrological or other readings, abandon my proposed astrological dating/introduction/party service, and (gulp!) leave New York City for good, preferably for the Mountain West. I had never lived anywhere but in metropolitan New York during my life, and the idea of leaving had never occurred to me. My first reaction was that leaving New York was a bad idea, and that I didn't want to do it, and that abandoning my business proposal after putting so much energy into promoting it and getting business partners involved in it would involve burning my bridges in New York. Within a week, I had met a new girlfriend, a woman who was destined to be the only woman I ever broke up with on my own initiative (she drove me *crazy*); within two weeks, all of my options for raising money, including some I had considered promising, had collapsed; and within two months, my life had become such a daily nightmare that the idea of leaving -- to go ANYWHERE else -- seemed like a pretty good idea. The man who inherited my Dating Service idea (I gave it to him) gave me a plane ticket to visit friends in California, and I went. When I got to California, I had a lot of fun with a lot of old friends, and I was tempted to stay. Several old girlfriends from New York had gone to college in the Bay Area, and at first life was pretty exciting. But I couldn't entirely let my focus on astrology and the occult go, so one of these girlfriends thought she was doing me a favor when she introduced me to a group of her friends who were also interested in astrology and the "occult," and who were "practicing" at a local bookstore. Several of these people found me extremely threatening, and one of them indicated (prior to my departure) that she would take magickal action against me for showing her up in front of one of her students. Within half an hour after leaving, my left testicle had doubled in size and was cleaved down the middle with what looked like a blood vessel. I used one of the exercised I had learned to oppose the "spell," and the swelling disappeared within another fifteen minutes. But I decided that I didn't want to stay in Northern California -- and that I had made a mistake, again, by not paying attention when I was told to go to the Mountain West and by not avoiding the commercial use of astrology and the occult. A close friend in California thought I needed emotional support to do what I was "instructed" to do. He accompanied me to Salt Lake City, and paid all of my expenses (as well as his own) until I was established in the area (then he went back to the West Coast).

Once in Salt Lake City, within a matter of less than a month, I was making more money (working at a law office) than I had ever made in my life, and I had found a great (and inexpensive) apartment. I discovered to my delight that my next door neighbor, who lived in the only other occupied apartment in a building with seven apartments in all, was the area's premiere supplier -- but she advised me that her place had experienced half a dozen robberies within the previous two months, that a heroin addict had overdosed in Apartment #7, that black magicians had lived in (and drawn black magic symbols on the walls of) another apartment, and that most of the building was apparently unrentable due to the "bad vibes." My "handlers" "instructed" me as to how to remove the negative influences; I did as they suggested. Within a week, all of the apartments in the building had been rented (after sitting empty for many months), and there was never another robbery in the building during the year I lived there. My "handlers" also wanted me to start off in Salt Lake City on the right foot, so the first month I was in my new apartment (after the weird vibes had departed), I met an unusual man and heard an unusual story that changed my life significantly. A friend of my commercially-active neighbor named Rick, a gay man who had recently left his (female) wife because he couldn't "pretend" to be straight any longer, had a variety of sores on his body, reflecting the fact that he suffered from the advanced stages of a venereal disease. He was trolling for "boys" in a local park, when he met a man who couldn't (didn't) speak but seemed interested in him. The man motioned to Rick to follow him to a private area in the park; Rick followed. When they were alone, the man took Rick's hand, raised his other hand toward the Sun, and Rick's sores disappeared. (I had seen how he looked; when I saw him next, he had no marks at all, and it was easy to believe him when he said his doctor claimed that he had no traces of the disease.) The mute man then bade Rick follow him again -- and Rick followed him, to his surprise, to my next door neighbor's apartment. She had been having an asthma attack at the time Rick and this man arrived; her husband had called for an ambulance, and I had given them some herbs that I thought might help while they waited. Rick and the stranger knocked at my neighbor's door; the door opened, and the stranger forced his way in, past the husband who tried to block his way. He stood in the room for about a minute (according to the stories I heard) and then left abruptly, with Rick running after him. The asthma attack was gone, and she couldn't believe it. She was freaked. She knocked on my door and told me what had happened, and I found it as hard to believe as she did. When I next met Rick, he advised me that I should start attending a "spiritual group" in Riverbed. I started to attend every few weeks, but he never attended, and I lost touch with Rick shortly thereafter and never saw him again. At the group in Riverbed, I met people who were obviously psychic and obviously had mastered certain spiritual disciplines.

One time I had the flu when I went to their meeting; within minutes after entering the garage they used for their meetings, the flu was gone, not to return (that season). Riverbed was 60 miles from Salt Lake City, and I didn't own a car in those days, so I had to hitchhike to Riverbed to the meetings. Although I always worried about hitchhiking back (at 10:00 or 11:00 at night along an empty interstate highway), I never waited more than thirty seconds for a ride: in the fifteen or twenty times I had to hitchhike back from Riverbed to Salt Lake City, the first or second car/truck

• always* stopped to pick me up, never dropping me more than a mile from my apartment in Salt lake City.

Again, after this series of experiences, I didn't hear from my "handlers" for another three years or so. I settled in to life in Salt lake City, a city I came to love and consider my first real home. Every job I got offered, every job I took during that three-year period was in a law office. I wasn't a fan of law or lawyers (I thought they were rich, self-serving pigs, actually), but no one was interested in any of my other talents. [This was consistent since high school. Although I had never received less than a "99" in mathematics, and had been a student of computers as early as 1966, I have consistently been turned away from science and math, starting in tenth grade when my math teacher hated me and prevented me from getting into advanced placement calculus, continuing when no college would take me when I wanted to major in math or physics (I ended up majoring in economics and history), and winding up when (a) an insurance company that was hiring 50 people for computer training refused to hire me even though I got the highest grade ever scored on their aptitude test and (b) a company using Boolean algebra to program early chips refused to hire me despite a "perfect" background [first, they narrowed down the choice to me and another guy, then they hired the other guy, then when the other guy bombed out within two weeks of being hired, they wouldn't even reinterview me.]

Then came the next surprise. My "handlers" turned up and told me they wanted me to attend law school. I laughed. I felt pretty confident that I couldn't get admitted to a law school. I had gotten GPAs of less than 2.00 during three different semesters at college (I had been an anti-Vietnam activist, and college didn't mean much to me during those years), and that seemed likely to make attending a law school impossible. So I agreed to take the LSAT (the Law School Aptitude Test), and apply to ONE law school, the University of Salt Lake City. I got a 757 out of 800, high enough to get into Harvard if I had decent grade s in college. (Whew. Thank goodness I had been otherwise occupied.) I then applied to U. of Salt Lake., which accepted me early. I freaked. I had zero interest in attending law school, and had never thought there was any danger of being accepted. I decided not to attend. The next year was a disaster; everything that could go wrong at work, at home, in my friendships, WAS. When things got bad enough, I tried to get my "handlers" to negotiate another shot at law school. This time I was only willing to attend the University of Utah (which was very cheap for a Utah resident -- $400 tuition per semester). They also admitted me early, which amazed me, but this time I arranged to attend. [During my first year in law school, one of my professors turned out to be the head of the Admissions Committee; he admitted to me that he had been the key voice for my early admission, and noted that he had spent the same years I was earning Ds and Fs at college fighting against the Vietnam War as well.]

I didn't hear anything until law school was almost over. At that time, "voices" advised me that I was expected to move to Montana after I graduated law school, and that I would never practice law in my now-beloved Utah. I was in shock. They were kidding! They had to be! My wife was NEVER going to agree to move to Montana. How would I find work? Nothing is happening up there. I rejected the idea with vigor. My relationship with my wife started to go into the toilet. Within a month after my conference with my "handlers," she was having an affair with some writer from Reno. In the meantime, Utah was having an economic slowdown of historic proportions, and the only work I was able to get was part-time paralegal work. Within a few months, my wife was leaving me for her writer, and I was trying to survive on crumbs. By then, I was BEGGING for the "opportunity" to go to Montana. My wife took everything from our joint bank account, and insisted I sell our car; the money I ended up with when we split up got me a $200 beater car and enough gas and food to drive to Helena, Montana, where I was under the impression a friend of mine was living. The car died when I reached Helena, and I had enough money for perhaps two days of a hotel before I was flat broke. I found out my friend had left town and was living in a little community a hundred miles from Helena. I decided I would try to call him and see what was happening where he was. I had to get an operator to call long distance (Montana was and still is amazingly low-tech). The operator recognized my voice! He used to be my friend's roommate in Helena. He was a carpenter, but there had been no work in carpentry so he had taken a temporary job as a telephone operator. It was his last night and last shift on the job; he had stayed late because someone hadn't showed up to replace him. He offered me a free place to stay for three weeks and an introduction to all of his friends in the area. When I got through to my friend (who had never been able to more than barely support himself), he had been working double shifts for months and gave me $500 to get settled in. Then he introduced me to a friend of his in Helena who offered me a free place to stay after his old roommate's place was sold. Everything seemed to fall into place.

I could go on like this at length; every few years, I am redirected, for reasons that are less than clear to me.

Then I was led into a bunch of "alien encounters" in Nevada and Arizona. Then I was led into my current line of work. Most of the time, I hear nothing, and life is perfectly normal. But from time to time, I am expected to do something; and often that something involves major-league disruption in my life. I have gotten used to it; when I am advised to do something these days, I try to pay attention, even if my first reaction is very negative. And I have been rewarded for doing what I have been told to do with some regularity, just as I have been "punished" for not doing what I have been told to do with equal regularity. Why have I been shown this path? I still don't know. What is the nature of my "handlers"? I still don't know. What purposes are they pursuing in suggesting paths for me to take in my life? I still don't really know.

On the other hand, when I am on good terms with these folks, whatever "they" are, I find that I have abilities I wouldn't have ordinarily. [Example, when my father had his seventh heart attack, and they expected him to die in intensive care, I flew back to New York from Denver because I was "told" that if I "prayed" over him he would be healed. My wife restrained my mother, who objected virulently to my proposed behavior, and I conducted my "ritual" in a semi-private room, while three other patients watched me with wide eyes as my father slept. When I was finished, my father woke up and looked at me weakly; my mother, my wife and I left to have lunch. By the time we returned 45 minutes later, the hospital had advised him that all danger had passed. He was sitting up in a chair (for the first time in weeks) having food when we walked into the room. When my father told my mother what he had been told by hospital staff, she had a nervous breakdown (she required sedatives; she was released by the hospital later that evening). Nobody told him what had happened. One of the patients looked up at me and said "You're not from around here, are you?" I replied that I wasn't, that I was from Salt lake City, to which he replied "Salt lake City must be a wonderful place."]

I imagine that there are only so many of these sorts of stories that you will want to hear, so I have probably ventured far enough for now.

Gregory,

Wow, quite a story there! By chance I bought a book about Edgar Cayce the day before I got your e-mail and had read about how he came to acquire his "powers" (as a young boy he saw an angel who told him that he could choose anything he wanted whereupon he chose wanting to be of help to sick and debilitated people, the angel must have accepted the choice , because she didn't offer any other alternatives). Reading through your choices I chuckled to myself, recognizing that you were more like me than Edgar Cayce. Actually, right now my choice would be to acquire the powers to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces.

I have to tell you that you last e-mail was very informative, for which I thank you, but also hilarious in parts. I already told you I chuckled at your choices in the beginning while I laughed out loud at the scene in the hospital where your father was in bad shape but survived. I agree with the guy, you probably weren't from around there! A side thought, how did your dad understand his wife having a nervous break down when confronted with his survival?

Since it isn't every day I get to ask questions of someone with unusual abilities, maybe you don't mind me asking about this "spell" that was put on you, that you obviously knew how to break. Did you experiment with "stuff" like this before on your own and in that case what were the results? Did you put "spells" on others? I assume that one has to have "psychic powers" in order to perform like that or can one read books and do it? If a person has psychic powers, obviously he(she) doesn't lose them when doing "evil"? Reading about Cayce, he seemed to be very concerned that he would lose his "powers" if he didn't use them for "good" purposes. What are your opinions on "Voodoo" (the phenomena of "dolls" that represent somebody hated and gets pins stuck into them, whereupon the "target" person becomes sick and dies.). What was the ritual you performed at your father's sickbed, just prayer or something occult? I hope you don't mind these questions, my whole orientation is to try to understand things that I have always wondered about.

John,

I keep wondering when (or if) I'll say something that will finally get you to go "That man is completely lost." Although I certainly didn't tell a complete story, I haven't told even that much of the story, in that way, for years.

No, I am not "psychic." My "powers" could all be developed with a desire to acquire them and a minimum of effort. When I was at the height of my abilities with respect to astrology and numerology, I used to perform a "parlor trick" at parties: a person would tell me his/her birthdate and birth name, and I would start in on a "reading." Most people assumed I was a psychic when I did this, because I was often able to home in on matters of great significance to the person for whom I was doing the reading. The main reason they assumed I was psychic is because they believed in being psychic, but they didn't believe in astrology or numerology imparting potentially useful information. [Recent developments in the field have strengthened the erroneous impression that people who do astrological or numerological readings are "psychic"; all of the people who work for outfits like "Psychic-Friends-Network" ask for a birthday and name when they begin to talk to a client, then pretend to be psychic when they use star/number info in their analysis.]

I was still an atheist for the first few years I studied the occult, and my studies did include ritual magic (which I will refer to hereinafter as "magick," as those who practice it do), among many other things. The first time I paid any attention to magick, I was at Samuel Weiser's bookstore in Manhattan looking for astrological materials, and I ran across a book on protecting oneself from magick by Manly Hall, a famous nineteenth century cabbalist and general occultist. The book was so short that I was able to read it on the spot in about twenty minutes. Mr. Hall realized that before anyone was likely to take his suggestions as to how to protect oneself against magick, one would first have to be shown that "magick" worked at all -- and then that it worked well enough so that self-protection against it was useful, or even prudent. So he gave an "exercise" to demonstrate the "power" of "magick": Fast from food (not necessarily water) for three days. At sundown on each day, meditate (i.e., sit still in a position like the full-lotus position -- any of the ordinary Western adaptations will do -- close your eyes, and concentrate on anything or nothing for at least ten minutes). On the third day, instead of concentrating as a mere exercise during the meditation, imagine a scenario that you would like to play out; the closer you can see the scenario to being like a movie in your head, the more likely it is to be effective. In any event, when I first read Mr. Hall's "magickal" exercise, my first reaction was amusement, because it was not a "magickal" exercise in the traditional sense at all, but a rip-off of a technique alluded to in the Bible (in the story of Esther and Mordechai, Esther fasts for three days prior to speaking to her husband the king about stopping his chief minister's plans to mass-murder Jews). I knew Hall was a cabbalist, but I could barely believe he would misrepresent a Jewish mystical exercise as a magickal ritual. Still, over the next few weeks, my curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to try the "exercise" over a weekend. (In those days, I would have gotten just as much pleasure from "proving" that a teaching from the Bible was erroneous as from proving that "magick" was ridiculous and that the world was truly the place that scientists paint for us.] At the end of the weekend, when I was in my "decisive" meditation, I saw a movie all right, but not quite the movie I had determined to see: I was on horrible terms with my mother and father in those days, but I had agreed to have dinner with the family that Sunday night, and as I eased into the meditation, I realized I was *already* hours late. There was going to be hell to pay. A picture formed in my food-deprived mind of me opening the front door of my parents' apartment in the Bronx, everyone being in a good mood, my father sitting in the front room and almost immediately engaging me in a political discussion (we almost never disagreed about politics in the those days except as to who was further to the left), my mother walking out of the kitchen with the turkey for "lunch" and making a remark about it being good I was so late because dinner was just now ready, my brother coming out of the bedroom, seeing it was me, and disappearing back into his room, and then a few minutes later the family assembling for a pleasant family meal. When I came out of the meditation, I ran for the subway. When I got to my parents' apartment, everything happened *exactly* as I saw it in my mind across town. It scared me. Everything was fine with the dinner *until* the "movie" ended. Then it looked like everybody was waking up. My mother acted like she had just realized that I was almost four hours late to dinner. My father suddenly wanted to talk about the issues that usually led to confrontations. Within ten minutes after the end of the "movie," I had stormed out of the house, because the situation had deteriorated into a shouting, insane frenzy. I wondered the entire way home how the "exercise" could have possibly worked, and lamenting how useless it was (since as soon as it "wore off," everything was even worse than it had started off being). But I also spent a lot of time wondering how I could have been such an idiot, wasting a "magic spell" on appeasing my parents. Was I nuts? After another few weeks, I was ready to try it again. This time, I was going to get something useful to show for the effort. When I started the second exercise, I didn't know what that might be, just that it would be "better." When the magic moment arrived, my second "movie" turned into a porno flick about a young lady I had recently met and begun dating. When I came out of the meditation, I was embarrassed; I had a scheduled date with the woman the next night, and I had lots of time to convince myself that I had been wasting my time fasting for another weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday). The last 45 minutes of the date bore an unmistakable resemblance to my second "movie," and I wondered what would happen when the second movie "ended." When it did, she started to cry, and spent about half an hour telling me how bad she felt about "betraying" her fiancé (first I had heard about him). [Okay, she ended up breaking up with him a few weeks later, and dating lots of fellows besides me, but she had me going for a while.] Mr. Hall had made his point, but he had made an unintended one as well: when it comes to magick or spiritual rituals, you don't always get what you want. I don't perform magick rituals any more, although my studies in such areas have persisted.

Voodoo also works, but not as it appears to work to the Western observer. Voodoo is just a typical magickal system. When one is attempting to affect someone at a distance (for good or ill, although most people assume erroneously that voodoo is exclusively a system of "black magic"), one tries to duplicate that person's "vibration" in a material object, and then to manipulate that object. A "voodoo doll" can be used, but the resemblance between the doll and the subject is irrelevant (by comparison, which herbs and other ingredients are placed inside such an herbal sachet is central to the effort). No matter what object is used, it is helpful to have hair or fingernail clippings or small personal possessions of the subject, strictly for the purpose of "zeroing in" on the "frequency" of the subject. [As I noted when I discussed the sensory and other functions of the pineal gland with you, the source of all apparently psychic abilities, like the ability to affect objects at a distance (telekinesis) or the ability to affect people at a distance (voodoo), is the ability of the pineal body to sense and also to generate hundreds of kinds of electromagnetic waves. I have done a variety of things over the years attempting to strengthen my own pineal gland, with some successes, but that is a different story.]

Even healing people by laying on of hands (also called "magnetic healing" and "healing by touch") is something I learned, and that others could learn if that was their wish. A "healer" named Hanna in Boulder, Colorado, used to hold classes for free (eventually, she became a good capitalist and began to charge) demonstrating various techniques. One of them worked on my father. [First, one imagines that an electrical current is flowing between the hands. Without explaining at length the things you can do to make the "fantasy" more real and the "current" feel stronger, when you feel the current at a maximum strength, you place the fingers of one hand in the soft spot under the bone at the back of the patient's skull and the fingers of the other hand over the soft spot in the center of the forehead, above the brows, and feel the current flowing between the hands, through the patient's head.] As for my mother's apparently negative reaction to my father's "recovery," my father upbraided her "What's wrong with *you*, Esther? I'm the one who's sick here, remember?" I didn't say a thing to either of them about it, ever. The closest my mother has ever come to raising the matter with me since then was a few years ago, when she was visiting my family in northwestern Washington State. My eldest had poured most of a glass of orange juice on the back of one of our televisions, and it had steamed and fizzed quite dramatically before we pulled the plug and stuck the unit in the closet. My mother asked me why I didn't just lay my hands on the television and fix it. I told her that trick only worked on living matter. (But we decided to take the TV back out after she left to see if it would work after it dried out; it did.)