Long John Nebel
Page 21
And then Kolisch regressed him to three…to two…to one…and I don’t think it’s my business to be critical, but I was wondering whether or not Kolisch was not going a little beyond the agreement he had made with Tommy’s parents when he regressed him to the embryonic period in the womb. And upon the suggestion that he was now living in some place prior to birth, the boy seemed to automatically curl up and assume the fetal position.
I don’t think it’s necessary in this book to relate Tommy’s impressions of the place he was in during this purported embryonic period. At this point I said to Kolisch, “Bring him out of it, and let’s sit down for a moment and have a drink.” He proceeded to give the boy instructions that he was now three years of age…five years…seven…twelve…and at this point he proceeded to ask him questions such as the name of the student who sat next to him in school today, etc,…and then he brought him up to his present age of seventeen. And then, as hypnotists do, he asked him how he felt; and Tommy said “fine.” It was as if nothing had happened to him. He looked around the room at my recording equipment that was up against one wall, and saw my record collection. He spotted a Louis Armstrong record and asked if he could listen for a minute while I went to the kitchen to prepare drinks and get a Coke for Tommy. I put on the record, and while he was listening to the Louis Armstrong record Tommy was snapping his fingers to the rhythm of the music and doing a few steps that evidently were steps of tomorrow, because as an ex-hoofer I was unfamiliar with them, and during the time that I was preparing for my doctorate from Roseland I had never used them.
The point I’m trying to make is that Tommy was completely unaware of anything that had transpired during experiment number one that evening. However, experiment number two was the one that made me wonder whether my closed-mindedness was really a manifestation of ignorance.
At this point, after enjoying our liquid refreshments, we permitted Mr. Armstrong and his talented group to relax, and the switch controlling the activity of the turntable was put in the off position. And Tommy once more was put into a deep, deep, deep hypnotic state.
Kolisch sat down on a small cocktail table facing the subject, who was seated in a canvas-backed deck chair. Kolisch informed me that he hoped to be able to prove to me that good hypnotic subjects become great psychics. Many people become clairvoyant, a handful telepathic, and, through personal experience conducting thousands of experiments, he had found one or two who were definitely able to control things telekinetically.
At this point he told Tommy (who was still in the hypnotic state) that his astral body was going to go to the ground level of this building and then his astral body would walk out of the double set of doors and stand under the marquee.
There was silence for possibly some fifteen or twenty seconds.
And now Kolisch told the boy that he was leaving the apartment.
“Tommy, go through the door. Tommy, don’t stand at the door there waiting for it to be opened or waiting for somebody to open it for you. Go right through the door, Tommy. Tommy, you’re going through the door now. Tommy, you’re now in the hallway. Turn to your right. That’s it, now, turn to your right. Walk forward. Wait a moment…you’ve gone a little too far, Tommy. Turn around. That’s it, turn around. Go back till you see that other section of hallway…that’s it. Turn to your right. As you go a little further, you’ll see that there’s an extension of the hallway…that’s it. Turn to your right, Tommy…that’s it. You’re now at the elevator.
“Tommy, don’t press the button. Tommy, you don’t have to press the elevator button. Listen for the elevator. It’s coming down, Tommy. It’s on the ninth floor now. Somebody is getting out of the elevator on the ninth floor. Now it’s coming down again…it’s on the eighth floor…the seventh…Tommy, I don’t know if it will stop on this floor or not, but even if it doesn’t you’ll be able to go right in as it passes…you’ll just go right through the doors, through the gate, and you’ll be in the elevator, Tommy. It’s still on the seventh floor. Someone has gone in. The doors are closing now…it’s coming down again. Tommy, it’s stopping. The elevator is going to stop on this floor, Tommy. It’s stopping now—the doors are opening. Tommy, step aside a moment. Let the people out of the elevator. Now go in. It doesn’t matter if its crowded, Tommy. You won’t take up any space. That’s it, Tommy.
“Now you’re going down, Tommy. Fifth floor…fourth…third…second…you’re on the ground floor. The gate is opening, the doors are opening, and with your astral body you can walk out and through the double doors. Tommy, even though the doors are closed you don’t have to open them. Walk right through the double doorway. You’re in the street now. Feel that breath of fresh air, Tommy, as you’re standing under the marquee of the building? Tommy, do you hear me? Tommy, answer me…do you feel the breath of fresh air? Your astral body is under the marquee…you’re standing in front of this building on East 42nd Street.”
Please bear in mind that up to this point our subject, Tommy, has not said a word. He was first informed by Kolisch while he was in the hypnotic state what was going to happen. And then Kolisch proceeded to guide the astral body, which separated itself from the physical body, through the door, into the hallway, down the elevator, and out into the street.
In a rather weak voice, in a halting style, with a lack of accurate continuity, Tommy answered the first question in the affirmative.
At this point Kolisch asked me if I could help him by telling him if there were on the curb or a part of the building—which had an approximate hundred-foot frontage—any landmarks. It dawned on me that there was a fire hydrant adjacent to one of the supporting poles of the marquee. This meant that no law-abiding citizen would be parked in front of the marquee or west of it for at least twenty feet.
During our conversation—that is, Kolisch and I talking together—we did not speak in subdued tones. And it was certainly obvious to me that the hypnotized subject was unaware of our conversation.
I suggested to John, because of the hour in the evening, that the odds were that there would be a car twenty feet from that fire hydrant and that he should suggest to Tommy’s astral body to walk over to the car and describe it as to brand name, 2-or 4-door, color, and any other outstanding characteristics. The suggestion was accepted by Kolisch, and he proceeded to tell Tommy to walk over to this car and to describe it.
I had a legal pad of paper handy, and I made notes as to the description. I then suggested to Kolisch to ask the astral body to feel the hood of the car to see if it was warm or cold; Kolisch hastened to explain to me that an astral body cannot differentiate between hot and cold. I then requested Kolisch to get the license number, and after this had been ascertained I told Kolisch to get the astral body back into the apartment, and I’d go down and check.
Once again Tommy was brought out of the hypnotic state, given an additional bottle of Coke as a reward, and the opportunity of hearing the other side of the Louis Armstrong album to keep him occupied while I proceeded to take my physical body—not through the closed door, but stopping a moment to open it—and to go to the ground level of the building.
As soon as I saw the car I realized that his description was extremely accurate, with one minor discrepancy—he said the car was bluish; actually it was greenish. When I first saw it, I thought it was blue—and then I realized that the street light had a tendency to make it appear bluish.
I put my hand on the hood of the car, because, being a sceptic, it dawned on me that this car could have been a plant that had been quickly brought over—a car that Tommy knew the description of, and Tommy got a break in possibly being able to park it at this particular location. And of course, as a reader, you’re beginning to wonder how Tommy and the hypnotist could enlighten their outside confederate—if there was one—as to where to park the car. This is quite simple. The confederate could have been standing outside of my apartment door during the entire experiment, listening to the place that we had decided to look for a car to describe.
; When I went downstairs, I put my hand on the hood of the car, and it was cold. It was obvious to me that this car had been parked there for at least an hour or so—certainly prior to our experiment.
Tommy was inaccurate, however, in one digit in the license number. Or I should say he had the numbers reversed. Instead of being 897468, it should have been 894768.
Can I explain it? Honestly I can’t.
It was weird, wild, and I give you no answers. Don’t mistake me. Things like this are extremely confusing. They beat me completely. But my attitude is still the same: I just don’t buy it.
As I’m writing this, I’m just beginning to wonder if my editor John Gudmundsen will come to the conclusion that possibly this experiment in astral projection will not be interesting enough; so we’d better cut it. I’ve got a lot of confidence in John, and if he says it has to be cut that’s what we’re going to do. So I’d better protect myself by relating one more story, which even he wouldn’t delete. In fact, maybe I’ll get a break and they’ll leave both stories in.
This happened in Studio 6, which we usually refer to as the Martha Deane Studio. And please don’t construe this as a commercial, but if you live in New York you’re mighty lucky because if you can get near a radio at 10:15 any morning between a Monday and a Friday you’ll hear 45 minutes of the greatest interviewing in the field of communications. This very charming, articulate and knowledgeable lady, Martha Deane, has no peers. I’m honored, lucky, and, I might add, very proud to be able to use the Martha Deane Studio facilities some 36 hours each and every week until 5:00, and sometimes 5:30, in the morning.
In order to be able to form a mental picture of what took place it’s necessary for me to take a moment to describe the physical set-up of two studios on the 24th floor of 1440 Broadway.
Studio 6 and 7 are identical studios with the front of each studio facing the other. If you were coming in from the hallway, you would come in the door and then you would be standing in a small area, a maximum of 125 square feet. To your left would be Studio 7, and to your right would be Studio 6. If you’d open the door of Studio 6, you’d find that it was a very heavy soundproof door that you’d be activating. Inside, to the right would be the engineer’s booth, and to the left would be what’s known as the sponsor’s booth. You’d see another soundproof door directly ahead of you, and if you’d go through this door you’d go down two steps and you’d be in a very large room—approximately 30 feet long by 20 feet wide—having a rear door in the right-hand corner of the studio proper.
Going back for a moment to this original little areaway that separates 6 and 7, if you’d go instead to your left it would be Studio 7 that you would enter, and the physical description would be the reverse as that of Studio 6.
In each of the studios there is a very heavy oak table, padded on the top in the event that a guest became slightly nervous and tapped his pencil or started to fiddle with a paper clip—so that the noise of this activity would not prove to be irritating to the listeners at home. On these tables, microphones are placed in the number that are necessary for guests participating in a discussion. However, when a studio is not in action—the term used in the profession is “not hot”—these tables are clear of any encumbrances, such as ash trays, microphones, etc.
On the morning when this experiment in teleportation took place, I had four guests, plus two or three other people sitting in the studio watching the proceedings. It was about 2:15 in the morning. I had just returned to my chair after ordering food from Carnegie Delicatessen and Restaurant for our coffee-break. Evidently, during the eight or ten minutes that were required to place the order for the food to be consumed during the coffee-break, a hassle had started between the guests.
Dr. William Neff was relating an experiment that he had conducted in teleportation. Three of the other guests pooh-poohed the whole idea. At this point I participated in the discussion by challenging Neff to conduct an experiment in teleportation. And now the details.
We removed everything from our talk table with the exception of the five microphones—four for the guests and one used by me.
We always supply our guests with small sheets of note paper, approximately 5×7 in size, so that during the time that they’re participating in one of our talk sessions they can doodle, make notes, etc.
Bill suggested for all of us to take out of our pockets two, three, or four single dollar bills. Among the four of us, we tossed to the center of the table a total of fourteen dollars. Some putting in four singles, one person I remember had only one single with him, and the others possibly two or three. The total amount I remember—as clearly as if it happened yesterday morning—was fourteen dollars.
Neff requested a lady seated in the studio—a non-participant—to come over to the table and select at random one of the bills from the group. The lady, incidentally, had not even been introduced to Dr. Neff—had not even heard of him before—but no doubt she has never forgotten him since she witnessed that experiment. She was the wife of one of our engineers.
The bill having now been selected, it gave everyone the opportunity of retrieving his original contribution to the experiment—with the exception, of course, of one individual whose bill was being used.
At this point the only thing on the table with the exception of the microphones is a single dollar bill that has now been inspected—for what I’ll never know—by all of the participants.
Dr. Neff now requested four sheets of the note paper described a few paragraphs ago. Everyone, with the exception of me, went as a group from Studio 6, through the little areaway that separates 6 and 7, and then proceeded to go into Studio 7.
Dr. Neff carried with him two of the sheets of paper.
The lights in 7 were turned on, and there, again, an almost exact duplication of the furnishings and fixtures one would see in 6 included the old reliable oak table—completely void of anything. Just a blank—or should I say empty—table.
Bill Neff carefully took the two sheets of paper, I’m told—because at this time I was doing a commercial in Studio 6 for my sponsor, Hudson Vitamin Products, followed by one for General Tire and Rubber Company—and he lined up these two sheets together. As he told those in Studio 7, he felt that one sheet would not be sufficiently opaque because of the thinness of the paper, so he thought it would be better to have two sheets. He placed these two sheets in dead center of the table, after lining them up together, with such accuracy that if you were to come into the studio and touch the two sheets you would not think there were two sheets—it would appear to be just a single sheet of paper.
The lights were left on, and all the participants came back to Studio 6.
Please also bear in mind that the rear door of Studio 6 or 7 cannot be entered by anyone from the outside hall unless someone on the inside opens it.
Everyone was now seated around the table once again, and Neff brought me up to date as to what had transpired in Studio 7. He now asked each individual to either make a mental note or to write down the serial number on the dollar bill that had been selected by the engineer’s wife. He then placed the dollar bill on the table, face down. On top of this bill he placed the two additional sheets of paper left over from the four sheets he had originally requested. Possibly I could describe it in this manner: The sheets of paper acted as a blanket for the bill, making it impossible for anyone to suspect that anything was underneath this ostensibly single sheet of paper—which, actually, was two sheets combined to create additional opaqueness.
A last-minute request on the part of Bill Neff was for someone to bring a cardioid microphone that was not being used at the present time, but was standing on a shelf in the rear of the studio, to him. I’d say this microphone weighs approximately twelve to fifteen pounds. He set the microphone on top of the paper.
Think about this for a moment. It would be virtually impossible for anyone to remove this bill from under the paper without lifting the microphone off the paper.
Now everything is set.
Bear in mind that during this entire experiment people at home are listening to this entire conversation.
Bill told the lady to lift up the microphone, lift up the pieces of paper,…and there was the dollar bill, face down. He then asked her to pick up the dollar bill and to read the serial number—which she did. And we all checked and found it was the same bill that he had placed there a few minutes ago.
I know. You thought there’d be a different bill…and to be honest with you, so did I. How it could be accomplished I had no idea. But I’ll tell you I was disappointed. I thought that Neff blew the gaff. No doubt he noticed the look of dejection and disappointment on the faces of all concerned, and he said he merely had this very charming lady come over to the stable to prove to us that no slight of hand was employed to remove the bill or to change it.
He then asked the lady to replace the bill face down on the table, put the double sheet of paper on top of it, and put the microphone on top of that.
At that time my engineer attracted my attention and I picked up my phone, and he told me that the food had arrived from Carnegie Delicatessen. I then proceeded to tell my listeners that we were going to take a twenty-minute coffee-break, and during the interim they would listen to music from Carteret, New Jersey. Just as I was about to identify the station, Neff interrupted me and said to me,
“John, I will now prove to you and to your guests that teleportation is a real phenomenon; and when we return from the coffee-break you can tell your audience what had happened.”
I identified the station, gave the verbal cue to my engineer by saying, “Let’s hear the music.”
Normally, at this point everybody jumps up to get at the sandwiches and the coffee because usually, after two and a half or three hours of talking, they’re famished.
Not a person moved from his chair.