“No, I am me,” was his answer.
I never did find out anything else about the little fellow in the Ronald Colman pith helmet, until about a year later. I saw him getting into a cab late one night. He was wrapped in a red cape that covered all of his outer clothes, and he was wearing a white thing that looked like a baseball cap. To this moment I think he was the oddest person I ever saw or met. But, who can tell, possibly there was a perfectly rational explanation for him both of those times. It’s just that I have never been able to imagine what it could be.
Anyhow, getting back to “Mr. RRR,” or rather “Mr. R,” I asked him about the strange writing all over the message he had sent me, and I was told that all of it had been “spirit writing.” Actually, what the yogi really meant was “automatic writing,” since it came out of his “unconscious hand.” Or, to more or less put it into his words:
“A message it is for you from other places not known. It is sent by the force of a mentor of mine Chin Ling.”
“Then it is Chinese.”
“It is. However, don’t ask of me to read it. I don’t understand Chinese.”
“I see. You only speak English and your native tongue. Is that correct?” I inquired.
He nodded several times.
“Is one of the Indian languages your native tongue, Mr. R?”
“No,” he said, “Swedish.”
And that was just about the way it went for the next couple of hours. I could hardly match up any of his answers with any of my questions. The rest of the panel was even worse off than I was. If I measured this show against any of the other weird ones, it would have to come out on top in the no-one-could-even-remotely-understand-this-routine department. It was really completely gaffed. So much so that even I couldn’t read this kook or con. I wasn’t positive which he really was at that point.
I decided to see if I could get an experiment going, since the guest had spoken of his ability to duplicate anything described in yoga books. He seemed a little surprised when I asked him if he’d care to demonstrate one of these remarkable feats, but said he thought possibly we could try some. I asked him what he had in mind, since we unfortunately had no earth immediately available to bury him in. And even if we had had a grave for him to use, it could only have been until the show was over that morning. This would have meant a couple of hours, which wouldn’t have been very impressive since “The Amazing Randi” could do the same thing for the same length of time by purely explainable (but, to the public, secret) means.
Finally he suggested that he stop his heart. I wasn’t too sure what he meant and he said he meant what he said. He would stop the beating of his heart. It was agreed that each of the panel and yours truly would come over and check his results when he felt he had succeeded in his test.
He straightened in his chair and closed his eyes. His breathing became a little more regular, then slower and slower. Finally he was inhaling and exhaling very quietly. What I’d consider would be about like the breathing of a man sitting very quietly. Then his head nodded very slightly, which was our agreed-upon signal.
I pointed to one panelist after another, and each guy went over to the guest. Three put their hands lightly on his chest, one leaned over and listened with his ear. I reached over and felt his pulse. When everyone was reseated, I suggested that Mr. R might come back to his normal state (although I must admit that I seriously doubted that he had one).
One by one, I asked each of the regulars what his opinion of the experiment was. One by one, they announced that they weren’t terribly impressed, since they heard or felt the heart beating loud and clear. I admitted that I had no problem finding a strong pulse.
Without a word, Mr. R rose from his chair, walked to the door and opened it. Pausing, he announced:
“If you weren’t going along with the bit, I don’t know why you had me come up. Now you’ve blown the whole damn gaff. Thanks for nothing, dads.”
All this went over the air. I was flipped. Not that I didn’t realize that he might be an operator, but it never occurred to me that he’d crack to the con right to the hot mikes. Of course, actually I suppose he was trying to break it off on me. In reality he just killed his own routine. I sometimes wonder what ever happened to Mr. R. I never saw or heard of him again.
On other occasions, as I mentioned before, I had other yogis on the show. Several seemed fairly legitimate. But, outside of one who got in the lotus position on the table and stood on her head in the corner during the coffee-break, none were anywhere near as fascinating as the Infinite Master of Applied Yoga—Western Division.
Another Eastern philosophy I had represented on the program on one occasion was so-called Zen. I say so-called because I’ve been told that none of the stuff the guest spouted had anything to do with the true Zen philosophy. As a matter of fact, the program wasn’t actually about Zen itself—it was about the “beat” generation.
After going through about twenty-five applicants, I decided upon a younger man who wrote stuff he called poetry, pitched what he called Zen, and believed that everyone should smoke marijuana. The guest really came on strong, and I have to admit that I came on even stronger with him. By the coffee-break, I’d just about had it and off into the night he went. And that was that.
Martinus Cosmology provided me with another great show. This is a mystical philosophy whose center of activity is Denmark. It’s named after its founder, Martinus, who began the whole thing by having visions early in life. He went on to write some very esoteric books. The two gentlemen who came on the show to present this philosophy did a magnificent job of explaining the bit. They were articulate and extraordinarily gracious. The printed matter, the books and pamphlets, were beautifully designed and even more beautifully published. There was only one problem. After five hours of detailed teaching, of careful explanation of the many colored graphs and charts, of penetrating questions and exact answers—no one had the slightest idea what Martinus Cosmology was all about. Lovely, sincere, humanitarian, these we were all sure it was. But intelligible it wasn’t.
Voodoo has also had its fair share of airtime with me. On two or three occasions I had the privilege of talking to the noted experimental film maker Maya Deren, who’s also a noted authority on the dark magic of the Caribbean.
And that’s the way they come and go. The kooks and the seekers, the cons, the pitchmen and the serious researchers. The salesmen and the liars; the fools and the demented and the deceived. Night after night they come. Believers in anything—in all things. But why? Why do they believe?
Lord knows, I’m no psychologist or philosopher; and so I thought I’d throw that question—why?—at my old friend, and many-time guest, psychologist Dr. Emerson Coyle, and see what he had to say.
“John, it would take a substantial volume to give a superficial evaluation of these curious sub-culture worlds,” Dr. Coyle remarked, “but very briefly you will generally find that the person who truly devotes himself to any of the offbeat enterprises described in your book is a cultural deviant. I have found many of his kind to be completely sincere and convinced of his assertions, as leaders and followers of orthodox causes often are. Frequently the acceptability of any of these systems is contingent upon the acceptability of some of the offbeat individual’s personal experiences. One important difference between the on-beat and offbeat is that of integration, both intra-physically and intra-personally. In the normal individual the personality is better organized; it is somewhat like a chariot driven by the Ego, with the yea-saying Id and the nay-saying Super Ego functioning as the steeds. In the pitchman or practitioner of the occult, offbeat and eccentric, the Super Ego seems to assume the role of driver. I have often noted that the person of this type displays a virtually ascetic and monkish morality. He is not merely good, but too good; not moral, but too moral. In short, he usually suffers from an overdeveloped Super Ego. Often the only girl these young, middle-aged and older ‘kooks’ have ever related to is ‘Mother.’ In fact I recall several guests
who gave the distinct impression that they considered ‘girl’ a dirty four-lettered word.
“With few exceptions, the true offbeat leader or follower personifies personal and social inadequacy. Having failed to mature and/or find success, he is lonely, frustrated, unhappy, dishonored, and, usually, unloved. Three courses have been open to him: get in step, withdraw from the life game, or change the rules. The real ‘kook’ selects the latter road, and focuses his attention and effort on some esoteric art, science or faith. By associating with fellow-believers, he gains almost all of these things he has previously lacked. He has become somebody.
“However, let us never forget that the critical difference lies in the criterion used. In their own time there were few greater ‘kooks’ than the man who believed the world was round, that boats could sail under water, that man could fly, that men could reach the moon, that travel between the planets was possible, that…”
I have to give you a square count, neighbors, I had to hold on tight when Dr. Coyle got to that part about the Id, and the Ego, and all like that, but as the old kook-master I had to agree with pretty much everything he had to say about the off-beaters. After talking with the great psychologist, I figured that I ought to get a top professional science opinion from “The Magnificent,” as his friends call him, Lester del Rey. It seemed to me, that as author of dozens of fact and fiction science books he certainly would have a definite and valuable idea about all of these strange ones. I was right. He had an opinion, all right.
“The thing I find hard to take,” he began, “from our modern irrationals is their presumptuous demand for an ‘open mind.’ This is ridiculous!” del Rey exploded. “During our six thousand years of history irrationality was studied and accepted as a science until almost the modern era—and is even being studied now. Yet out of this study and acceptance not one single aid to man’s development, or to civilization’s progress, was adduced. The closed mind of science, which demands hard facts before theories, rejected irrationality less than five hundred years ago, and has since rebuilt the world at least a dozen times. The cults had their chance, and couldn’t make it. Now, because of their own narrow minds, they cannot understand why the world had left them behind and they cry; to science, which has replaced them, to prove what they could never prove. Let them open their own minds and accept the world or—and this I prefer—let them close their minds,” he concluded, “in death, and improve the world.”
As usual, Lester del Rey gave me what I asked for—a strong opinion. But when it comes to the science department, I just don’t argue with “The Magnificent.”
The next facet I decided to add to the conclusion of this kookological report was the political. Naturally, for this point of view, I called upon Robert Eric Norden, political writer and analyst who has appeared on the show so often. His reply was direct and to the core of the question.
“John, there is absolutely no question that threads of many political colors are woven into the whole cloth of offbeatism. In the flying saucer field alone, a number of people formerly associated with neo-fascist organizations have leaped to prominence; while others have more discreetly remained in the background, pulling some of those political threads and making the front-men puppets dance. As you know even better than I, John,” Norden continued, “an uncommon number of the ‘contactees’ describe all of their friends from other planets as fair-skinned, fair-haired, blue-eyed Aryan types, and go on to leave little distinction between their ultra-persons from super-planets and the Nazi concept of the perfect race type. Also, of course, there is the frequent allusion to the fact that all of these visitors from other planets wear uniforms and are militarily oriented, some carrying it a little further and claiming royal titles.
“On the other hand, there are groups moving in the other direction, where the accent has been placed on the ‘one world’ dream, where the national and patriotic impulses are denigrated. The orientation in these cliques seems to be at least strongly socialistic, and frequently even further left than that.
“However, it would be my opinion that, except as a possible hiding place for foreign agents, the so-called ‘kooky’ organizations would be of hardly any value to the serious political subversive. They are too many in number and too scattered in allegiances to offer a very effective political machine, let alone white horse.”
Turning from Mr. Norden’s political evaluation to a legal perspective, I contacted the prominent New York attorney and frequent guest, Martin Berger, for the lawyer’s opinion. He immediately made his position clear by noting that “lawyers are, in popular belief, a sceptical lot; and I must plead guilty to the charge, at least with respect to most of the claims of those frequenting the strange world of Long John Nebel. The failure,” attorney Berger continued, “of those advancing their stories of cures by methods unknown to medical science; the unworldly, otherworldly experiences not granted to us ordinary mortals; the new scientific discoveries unverifiable by scientific methods, and the like; to offer corroboration in evidence verifiable by all, impels disbelief. The credulous may not need evidence, but to establish the truth of a claim of any nature the essential precondition is that the experience or the experiment may be repeated by objective witnesses. One must conclude that those who advance their claims without such evidence and request that we accept their stories on faith are either charlatans or possessed of diseased minds,” finished Martin Berger.
The psychological, the scientific, the political, the legal attitudes are all part of the sociological one, and so I decided to tie this group of observations together by asking my old friend, famous sociologist, and author of The American Funeral, Dr. Leroy Bowman, for his thoughts on the whole bit. Or, more accurately, I asked what he thought about the thousands of hours I had spent interviewing these odd-balls.
“The unorthodox approach of your show, John, to unorthodox subjects, has a very distinct value in a society as regularized and conformist as ours. It serves to broaden the possibilities of knowledge of the individual and to stimulate adventurous thinking so sadly lacking in everyday routine. Further,” Dr. Bowman elaborated, “the sheer implausibility of certain of the tales heard is an escape from rational thinking that to many of us becomes arduous at times.
“The mere fact,” he went on, “that a group of persons sit around and talk for five hours a night is a comforting thought to persons who must organize their lives according to the hectic demands of city living. Impersonality, so often charged to urban contacts, is less onerous when five discussants agree, disagree, become excited or banter as if nothing else mattered. It is different in the dreary succession of sameness. It is spontaneous, natural and uninhibited in the compulsive requirements to play a role.”
And so there you have the thoughts of five of the top men I know in the brain department on the general subject of kookery. And, as far as I can see, they all agree a little, but maybe disagree more. It seems fairly likely even astute men may open new doors eventually, but it would be my guess that they’d be operating in the sciences or arts, not where the kooks congregate. But I could be wrong. Who knows, maybe telepathy is the answer. Possibly the first contact with Mars will be from their end. I certainly am not the one to guess. However, I must punctuate this book by saying one more time, “I don’t buy it.” But it has been a great experience writing it, almost as great as living it was. Maybe in another five years I’ll have a whole new bunch of offbeat characters to tell you about. Maybe, by then, I’ll have become a believer. I’ll leave that to the prophets I have the pleasure of talking to from time to time. But until that day, if and when it comes—
If you’re getting up, have a wonderful day; and if you’re going to bed, sleep real good. Bless you.
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