that for an instant I had an impulse to jump into her arms and ask her to hold me—an appalling thought for somebody who was trying so hard to appear mature.
The lab was one big room, slightly larger than a good-sized bedroom. There were no high-powered scientists in white coats, nor were there any experiments going on. There were just two guys in jeans, roughly my age, organizing piles of loose black-and-white photographs on narrow Formica desks lining the far left wall. They smiled and said hello.
The lab centered around a huge rectangular metallic structure about ten feet square called a sensory-deprivation chamber. This is where they did the Kirlian photography, a technique by which energy fields around the body could be photographed and documented. The chamber, which had one tiny window that filtered out all audible sound and most of the light, was artificially lit from the inside and could comfortably fit about four people. It reminded me of a giant refrigerator and was sealed as tightly as a vault. I poked my head through the entrance and saw photographic equipment inside. Even though the air reeked of the potent smell of film developer, I liked this space. It felt mysterious, as if something secret were going on. The rest of the lab was basically functional with a few desks, lots of files, and two telephones. When I looked out the window to the left, I could see Westwood Village in the distance, and to the right were fringes of the UCLA athletic field in the northern part of campus.
Dr. Moss was extraordinarily warm. She insisted that I call her Thelma, and I couldn't help but feel at home. One of the men, Barry, poured me a cup of coffee and invited me to sit down. A psychophysiologist and psychic responsible for many of the research projects, Barry was short and slight, spoke in rapid bursts, and gave the sense that he was tuned in to realms others didn't perceive. He was offbeat, energetic, and smart. I took to him immediately. Indirectly, Dr. Moss assigned me to him that day. For the next few weeks I dutifully followed him around and watched everything he did.
The lab soon became a wonderland for me. It was a gathering place for scientists, scholars, healers, and specialists in parapsychology to share their research and theories. For the first time I had the opportunity to meet other people who were psychic. They were not aging crystal-ball readers wearing turbans with smudged red lipstick and rouge, but real men and women with real jobs who dressed and acted—most of the time!—just like everybody else. I felt like I'd awakened on a different planet, a saner one, where I wasn't a freak or a crazy person. It was as if I'd been initiated into a secret society only a few people knew about, camouflaged and protected by the conservative exterior of the NPI.
I was a kid at the most spectacular carnival I ever could have imagined; each ride was better than the next. Nobody there cared what I wore or who my parents were. And, most important, I was encouraged to become psychic, as outrageously psychic as I could be, without any restrictions or rules. Besides what I'd felt with Jim and Terry, I'd never experienced such unconditional acceptance before. Everyone I met, everything I saw, including healings, Kirlian photographs of energy fields, and psychic spoon-bending demonstrations, brought me one step closer to myself and everything that had been untapped in my own heart.
Though it had now been years since my parents and I discussed my premonitions, it seemed that this aspect of my life, under the auspices of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, wasn't as untenable to them. Their change of attitude was gradual, but universities were a familiar world they respected. Although I was studying phenomena conventional scientists didn't condone, if both Jim and UCLA approved of what I was doing maybe it had some merit. Since even my childhood premonitions were now being defined in an academic context, they became more
The lab was one big room, slightly larger than a good-sized bedroom. There were no high-powered scientists in white coats, nor were there any experiments going on. There were just two guys in jeans, roughly my age, organizing piles of loose black-and-white photographs on narrow Formica desks lining the far left wall. They smiled and said hello.
The lab centered around a huge rectangular metallic structure about ten feet square called a sensory-deprivation chamber. This is where they did the Kirlian photography, a technique by which energy fields around the body could be photographed and documented. The chamber, which had one tiny window that filtered out all audible sound and most of the light, was artificially lit from the inside and could comfortably fit about four people. It reminded me of a giant refrigerator and was sealed as tightly as a vault. I poked my head through the entrance and saw photographic equipment inside. Even though the air reeked of the potent smell of film developer, I liked this space. It felt mysterious, as if something secret were going on. The rest of the lab was basically functional with a few desks, lots of files, and two telephones. When I looked out the window to the left, I could see Westwood Village in the distance, and to the right were fringes of the UCLA athletic field in the northern part of campus.
Dr. Moss was extraordinarily warm. She insisted that I call her Thelma, and I couldn't help but feel at home. One of the men, Barry, poured me a cup of coffee and invited me to sit down. A psychophysiologist and psychic responsible for many of the research projects, Barry was short and slight, spoke in rapid bursts, and gave the sense that he was tuned in to realms others didn't perceive. He was offbeat, energetic, and smart. I took to him immediately. Indirectly, Dr. Moss assigned me to him that day. For the next few weeks I dutifully followed him around and watched everything he did.
The lab soon became a wonderland for me. It was a gathering place for scientists, scholars, healers, and specialists in parapsychology to share their research and theories. For the first time I had the opportunity to meet other people who were psychic. They were not aging crystal-ball readers wearing turbans with smudged red lipstick and rouge, but real men and women with real jobs who dressed and acted—most of the time!—just like everybody else. I felt like I'd awakened on a different planet, a saner one, where I wasn't a freak or a crazy person. It was as if I'd been initiated into a secret society only a few people knew about, camouflaged and protected by the conservative exterior of the NPI.
I was a kid at the most spectacular carnival I ever could have imagined; each ride was better than the next. Nobody there cared what I wore or who my parents were. And, most important, I was encouraged to become psychic, as outrageously psychic as I could be, without any restrictions or rules. Besides what I'd felt with Jim and Terry, I'd never experienced such unconditional acceptance before. Everyone I met, everything I saw, including healings, Kirlian photographs of energy fields, and psychic spoon-bending demonstrations, brought me one step closer to myself and everything that had been untapped in my own heart.
Though it had now been years since my parents and I discussed my premonitions, it seemed that this aspect of my life, under the auspices of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, wasn't as untenable to them. Their change of attitude was gradual, but universities were a familiar world they respected. Although I was studying phenomena conventional scientists didn't condone, if both Jim and UCLA approved of what I was doing maybe it had some merit. Since even my childhood premonitions were now being defined in an academic context, they became more
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