Chapter 9. Ladies' Circle
Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 front cover
Carol, Lucia, Lee, and the rest of their women's group were on the way to the house on 39th Street for the ladies' circle, Daniel's final channeling this visit to Tucson; Stephen and Arthur were again in Arthur and Lee's living room talking about the healing.
"To March 2?" said Stephen, opening a beer.
"The prediction seems so hokey," Arthur said, lifting a beer of his own and drinking. "I've never known a reputable doctor or healer who didn't avoid promising to deliver specific results on time. It kinda puzzles me Lang or Daniel, whichever, would say something so blatantly unprofessional. I don't see what Daniel has to gain by it."
"Maybe he's stupid."
"Or assumes we are. Or both. Both would explain it all."
"Do you think it was Lang or Daniel?"
"I think it was a being speaking through Daniel, not just Daniel consciously faking. Do I? I can't. But what has Daniel gained? Some excited chitchat and maybe two or three extra customers at ten bucks a head? I may wake up some morning healed, or stagger from the bar some night so drunk and merged I've synched into the big cure (though if that happened I’d probably get hit by a car as I was stumbling home), and admittedly if I'm running and jumping by March 2 I'll be a super testifier and Daniel may be able to raise his rates dramatically, but why, if he's a charlatan--as God knows he seems--, didn't he simply promise Castro will become a born-again Christian, which seems likelier to happen and would be more easily forgiven if he's wrong? I'm not rich. I can't shower him with largesse. Banking on my miracle cure just seems perverse; Daniel wouldn't have said it if he could've avoided it!"
"You're the perverse one."
"Anyway, once a week or so I intend to try to stand up, just in case. Be a shame to heal and not notice for not trying. Isn't it endearing that for all my skepticism and Daniel's antics that I know he may be a gifted spirit doctor's medium?
"Course, the Dr. Lang part confuses me too. See, after he died in I think 1852, Dr. Lang first came through a medium named Chapman, in England. Chapman would go into trance and all his mannerisms would shift from his own to those of an 80-year-old Dr. Lang--Lang was in his eighties when he died, Chapman about 40 when he started channeling him. He channeled Lang for years and they (whatever they means) effected some exotic healings. But the dude writing the book I read debunked Lang coming through anyone but Chapman; he even specifically asked Lang at one séance if he ever did or would use another medium, and Lang said any one except Chapman who said he was channeling Dr. Lang was and would be lying."
"You've done a little research."
"Very little--part of one book. I'm not really motivated. I'd welcome being re-enabled physically but it doesn't obsess me. I'd rather write well, maybe, or see, really see accurately—I don’t mean twenty-twenty, I mean wisely. Or, well, rather’s a bit strong, but you get what I mean."
"What was it like at the séance? Could you see him?"
"Oh yeah, I could see him, whatever I was seeing. There's so much available technology of which I'm ignorant I have no idea how hard it'd be to fake. With dough I figure you could easily fool me. But I don't know how he makes you feel the spirit as it touches you."
"Did you feel anyone touch you?" Stephen lit a cigarette. He had finished his beer and gone to the refrigerator to get another. Arthur still had most of his.
"No. Whenever I got touched I was getting touched below where I can feel. But Lee was touched, and I think Lucia was, so you could ask them.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“No. My role already is The Unbeliever, and I pretty much avoid saying anything Lee might construe as evidence of doubt because of the likelihood I’ll just sound argumentative." Neither spoke for a minute.
“But about feeling being touched . . . ," Arthur said. "Did Shell ever tell you about Running Deer?"
'Not much."
"Well, when Lucia first went to see Daniel--this was in Washington State--, Shell went with her. It was a moving experience for each of them and they cried a lot, during and after. Of course, they do cry a lot."
"Easy cries," said Stephen.
"Very. On that first visit Shell met Running Deer, his spirit guide, and since then he's called on him hitchhiking a few times, as a proper last resort, and Running Deer's done good.
"He told Shell he has strong healing powers--rather, to be more accurate, he told him he was a good channel for the healing power; you channel it, you don't generate it. He said that Shell would know when he was channeling because he would feel the palms of his hands grow warm, and that the greater the heat, the greater the healing power flowing through him.
"Sometime after that Shell was at the dome and Flip was there--you know Flip, another of the Hunga Dunga guys who all got the knowledge from the young guru?" (The dome was on land the San Francisco commune owned in rural Washington State.) Stephen did know Flip, and nodded. "Flip was depressed and Shell wanted to help him, for both their sakes, so he thought of offering him a massage, and with the thought he all of a sudden sensed this unusual warmth in the palms of his hands. So he started looking for Flip, which took a little while, and the whole time he was looking the warmth had been getting warmer.
"Finally he found him. He came up behind him and touched him on the shoulder and said, 'Do you want a massage? I really think it would help.' And still he can feel the heat increasing.
"'No, thank you,' Flip said 'I just don't feel like it.' And the heat went away."
"Better," said Stephen. He stood, laughing, and took a few steps around the little living room to stretch.
"Indeed," Arthur agreed.
"Has the heat come back?" Stephen said, resuming his seat.
"I asked too," Arthur said. "Shell said 'No.'" Arthur still hadn't finished his beer but already felt the alcohol; he didn't need much.
“That same session," he said, "that Shell met Running Deer, he and Lucia got apportes like the women are supposed to get tonight. Apportes are material objects dropped into the material world from the immaterial, often as gifts; theirs were healing stones. They were told that the stones' healing properties would increase with use. Lucia's was clear and blue and she's had me hold it whenever she's massaged me. And, finally to answer your question about feeling the spirits, at that session Hilda (she’s kind of Dr. Lang’s sidekick, his Ed McMahon straight man) kissed Shell, and yes, he said he felt her lips on his."
During that visit Dr. Lang had worked on Shell's shoulders, in which he had had mysterious and sometimes severe pain for four or five years; the pain had eased immediately, was soon gone, and had never returned.
"Weird materializations supposedly aren't all that uncommon--frogs out of a clear sky, rocks raining from the ceiling so they have to be swept out each morning; Rusty left a book around that Lee was reading last week that had lotsa instances and details. Ever hear of Charles Fort? Anyway, our ladies, fake our, fake ladies, are probably going to come home skied. Lee will for sure, whether Carol does or not. And they won't talk about it much to us border-line scoffers. They'll show us their apportes, though.”
“The stones from thin air?”
“Yeah. Dark thin air. Daniel's let through pancakes, Lucia said, but tonight'll I think be stones from not exactly no where. I don’t know about Daniel but my guess is that some people really are born with this gift or that, powers, one of which is channeling; others learn this power or get that one after being hit on the head.
"I do know, though, that most teachers counsel against seeking powers of any kind."
"Not Don Juan." Don Juan was the real or fictional Yaqui about whom the anthropologist Carlos Castaneda had written a series of intelligent books.
"No. Not Don Juan."
As Arthur and Stephen continued to talk, the women were arriving at the Rev. Sperry's. Gentility was there first, soon to be joined by Carol, Lee, Lucia, Alice, and Bess.
Bess had been excited all day. She wondered whether she would really be able to see the spirits and, if so, what they would look like. If there were a God who listened, spirit guides who helped, she wanted to know it; she hated not knowing what was going on and felt that if she knew she would be happier and better understood. She hoped that tonight she wouldn't be expected to say anything. What would she say? She also hoped she wouldn't laugh--her laughter was loud and uncontrolled--or cry--she hated how helpless crying made her feel--or be scared; Arthur and Lee had assured her the séance wouldn't be scary, but dead people were.
On the street Alice seemed dumpy, but this was because of the way she dressed, in long shapeless dresses and sweatshirts, and because she was sad. She thought her life in Tucson was stagnating and that she should be elsewhere, visiting friends or perhaps her family in Pennsylvania. She missed the changing seasons, missed the snow. She liked to sing as she poked about her funky house or junk-heaped yard, and her voice was strong and clear. She earned a little money by batiking t-shirts and selling them, and liked to paint with watercolors and make Christmas tree ornaments out of paper. She had a sharp tongue and a tender heart. Chicken was at home with her head under her wing.
Jan and Sandra and their friends Peg and Lloyd, who had recently moved in with Sandra, arrived together in Lloyd's truck.
Three days ago Jan had seen a psychic masseur. After the massage she had sweat heavily and had chills, then experienced a pervasive peacefulness that she still felt tonight. A year and two months ago she and her boyfriend had been swimming in the ocean and found themselves in trouble. He had drowned; she had thought she was going to drown, but had pushed herself beyond what she thought possible and had survived. The masseur, who had not previously met her, had drawn the story from her; he had then told her that in a similar situation at the end of her most recent past-life she had chosen to drown with her lover. He said that she had been confronted by the same choice this life because it had been necessary for her to choose to live.
Peg, another former Godwinite, was glad her boyfriend Lloyd was with her. She thought exceptions should be made to allow an occasional man at the women's weekly workshops, though not so many or so frequently that the group lost its feminine character; since Lloyd was curious and anxious to be a part of tonight’s circle, she had seen no reason he shouldn’t be, and when he had called the Rev. Sperry this morning she had told him that a male presence would help the spirits come through. His name had been added to the attendee list. Peg was some eight or ten generations removed from the house of William of Orange and, blonde, big-boned, and beautiful, looked a princess; Lloyd looked to be descended from elves. He was skillful with his hands and soft-spoken, she sincere but mistress of a teasing wit. When she ran, she galloped.
Sandra was feeling less dissatisfaction than usual with Tucson this week but was chronically afflicted with ennui. She tried to devote herself to healing or to helping the Hopi or to poetry or love, but something she could not define eluded her. She liked to pretend to continental knowingness and to talk with Fawn and Willie of Anais Nin and Henry Miller by their first names. She read their books.
Lulu and Willa were the last to arrive. Lulu, like Lucia, had studied herbs with Mona in Alert Bay. She hoped to do great things some day, and knew belief her proper path. Willa was Dalton's secretary and had met Lucia the year before, when each had been attending a Tucson school of naprapathy and working off her tuition by helping out at the office of one of the school's two teachers. She had lately been thinking of going home to Toledo, Ohio, getting a job, and meeting a man.
As soon as Willa had paid her ten dollars the Rev. Sperry, preceded by Daniel, led the way through the kitchen and the garage into the little room. Gentility was a medium, Lucia and Lulu had seen spirits and received apportes, Carol had heard spirits at Arthur's private session, and Lee had heard and seen and felt them the night before. The others in the circle had no experience with Daniel or any other trance medium. Lee latched the door before they began.
Again Dr. Easton said hello to each member of the circle. "It seems as though we've met before," he joked when Lee said her name. Hilda appeared, and expressed delight when Lloyd told her he was unmarried.
"Is there a Palma here?" she asked.
No one responded until Lee said, "I have an Aunt Palma." Her Aunt Palma was an adept with the Tarot deck and claimed to have traveled astrally. She was in her seventies and Lee hadn’t seen her in five years.
"I'm pretty tricky, aren't I?" Hilda said with an arch chuckle, committing herself to nothing.
She then said that in preparation for tonight’s circle a spirit named Podres had been collecting gifts all day, and Podres introduced himself. He was Sandra's spirit guide, and gave her an opal he had brought, opal her birthstone. Next Lulu was called to stand before the curtain and a spirit form took shape before her.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"I am Cochise."
"The Great Cochise, the chief?" she asked, awed.
"Yes, my child. I am your teacher and your guide."
Each person in the circle spoke to a spirit who had come through specifically for her, Lloyd too, and Cochise distributed the apportes. When Lucia's turn came she met, besides her guide, a little girl spirit named Ramona who told her she had been with her since Lucia was two years old.
Bess squirmed in her chair. It irked her that a spirit who had been a child twenty years ago was still a child, as though she were a comic-book character and forever the same age, but this seemed to be the case with Ramona. She also thought it rather a comedown for the Great Cochise to be handing out apportes at a 10-dollar-a-head paleface séance. She didn't feel high, and she couldn’t afford the ten dollars she had spent on admission.
Ramona asked Lucia to sit on the floor so that she could try to braid her hair. "I've been practicing all day," she said. Lucia sat yogi fashion with her eyes closed in the dark room and felt little hands playing with her hair. The braid she was given was off center and loose, but it was a braid.
Lee's apporte was a shiny black healing stone. She also met a spirit child, Twilight, who said that she was helping heal Arthur and that she was going straight from this meeting with Lee to play with Cricket, who was with Arthur now. Cricket and Twilight were best friends, Twilight said.
Dr. Lang came through late but before all the apportes had been delivered. Most of the circle received healing. Lee had a bothersome mole that Dr. Lang told her would disappear in three days. Peg had a cyst the size of a lemon at the base of her spine. Dr. Lang told her to soak it three times a day and what to soak it in, and assured her it would disappear in three days.
"I was with Arthur last week when he was here," Carol said.
"I remember, child," he said. "Do you have anything to ask me?"
"Do you really think that he will be healed soon?"
"Yes. I do. There is no need to doubt it. Have you another question?"
She paused to think and decided to ask about her marriage plans (Arthur was to marry her and Stephen in February, his first and last official act as a minister), but had trouble finding words with which to frame her question.
"I'm getting married," she began--
"Don't!" Dr. Lang interjected. He was joking, but Carol felt a rush of indecisiveness at his response, a foreboding. It had been a bad joke, and Dr. Lang rebuked himself. Spirits are not perfect. "Your poorest times will be your happiest," he said, "and you will be happy with your husband."
Hilda reappeared. "Now, did we miss anybody?" she asked.
"Why do things like this happen to me?" Bess wondered. "Me," she said.
"Who is that?" Hilda asked.
"Bess," said Bess.
Bess' guardian spirit's name was Gray Cloud and the stone he gave her was a small arrowhead. Her numbness was forgotten. Her questioning of life was forgotten. She was blessedly and temporarily unaware of her loneliness. She usually thought that if there were no life after death she should kill herself and get it over with; there had to be or this was for nothing, and this sucked. For the moment she was happy; she accepted the arrowhead gratefully.
Hilda reappeared and asked Lee to step forward again. "This is for Arthur," she said. "It is turquoise. Around Christmas it must be set in a ring that he should wear when his fingers begin to move; you do not have long to wait."
Lee thanked her and turned to resume her place.
"Oh, wait dear," said Hilda. Lee turned again to face the spirit. "This love stone has just materialized. It too is for Arthur; it has been formed by you in this circle, all of you, and is made of your love for Arthur. He will be healed."
Lee received a smooth stone into her hand. It was longer and thinner than the turquoise, clear in places, with yellow, orange, and lavender parts. She was zapped. In the darkness, relieved only by the white glowing that was purportedly Hilda, all things seemed possible. Disbelief was reasonless, reason believed, now.
Hilda disappeared behind the curtain.
What happened next, though, --
"Who are you?" Lucia asked.
"I am Elvis," said the spirit.
Elvis Presley had made the change less than four months earlier. His light was dim and when asked to sing he said he was too weak. It was his first time through, he said. But the positive vibration of the ladies’ circle gave him strength and he literally brightened, and before the women left the little room off the garage he sang, with them, “How Great Thou Art.”
Three days later neither Lee's mole nor Peg's cyst seemed better. Arthur Randall would come to write it down. He didn't need any given thing to happen, only to describe what did, and he thought that if he did so accurately, wrote truly, that what he wrote might heal.
Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 front cover