#022: Communicating

"Can you hear me, Karen?"

"Yes, of course, I can hear you."

"Are you comfortable?"

"Yes, thank you, I am quite comfortable."

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yes."

"Who am I?"

"You are Naru Springsteen."

"And who are you?"

"I am Karen Highland..."

"Do I detect a certain confusion in that response?"

"Is that what you want?"

"I want the truth, Karen, always the truth. Do not let my questions become your answers. You are not to attempt to interpret what I want. You are always to reply truthfully, to the very best of your ability. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, I understand that."

"So, now, tell me... who are you?"

"I am Karen Highland. And ..."

"Yes?"

"I don't know. I am Karen Highland."

"Okay, let's rest it awhile. Don't become agitated, just let it rest for now, but we are going to come back to it, so be ready. How old are you, Karen?"

"I will be twenty-five years old."

"Soon?"

"Yes, soon."

"Any anxiety about that?"

"No."

"Again, though, you seem a bit undecided about your age. I am going to ask the question again. I want you to think about it, very carefully, before you give me the answer. How old are you, Karen, in your totality of expression?"

"In my totality ..."

"Yes."

"I will be twenty-five. I would be thrice that."

"Say that again."

"I will be twenty-five. I would be thrice that."

"Should we say, then, that there are two Karens?"

"If you want to say that."

"It is not what I want, dear. Give me the truth."

"How many Karens?"

"Yes."

"There is but one Karen."

"One Karen?"

"Yes."

"Let us put it this way, then. To the one Karen, how old are you?"

"I will be twenty-five."

"To the one who is not Karen, how old are you?"

"I would be thrice that."

I had stumbled into something hot, already, hardly a minute into the dialogue. There is an almost eerie quality to this particular type of session with a subject in very deep trance, at every time I have experienced it. The personality is there before you, spread open like a book, though the script is written in indecipherable symbols; you may turn the pages by verbal prompting, but only the personality under review may read what is written there.

So it is a game of wits in which you probe and the subject responds in usually a very direct and limited way. However, personalities even in deep trance will sometimes attempt to evade an honest response and may even openly resist or simply awaken if you get too close to a moral imperative. In that connection, please remember the discussion above.

This session with Karen is particularly eerie. She appears to be wide awake and our eyes often clash, but I am not dead certain as to who or what is behind those eyes.

"Let us tie this back to the earlier confusion, Karen, when I asked you to identify yourself, and let us place these responses regarding identity and age into a single package, then let us put that package away for the moment. When we come back to it, though, I will ask you only for the package and you will give me the package unscrambled in language that I will understand. Okay?"

"Okay."

"We will give that package a name. We will call the package Highland. When I ask for Highland, you will open the package for me. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"Who am I?"

"You are still Naru Springsteen."

A bit of sarcasm there, see, even in deep trance. Eerie.

"Why did Karen seek out Naru Springsteen and engage her services?"

"Why?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Because... Karen is in trouble."

Hell, I was not sure as to exactly whom I was dealing with now.

"Karen is in trouble?"

"Serious trouble, yes."

"How can Naru Springsteen help Karen in this trouble?"

"She is doing so. Keep it up."

Eerie, yeah. I was not talking to Karen, now, though the voice seemed the same. Whomever I was working with, at this point, did not seem to be "in trance." Yet Karen definitely was in the deepest of trances.

"There is a sexual confusion?"

"Yes. But that is minor and easily overcome. You understand the problem, Naru. Do not abandon her."

"To whom am I speaking?"

"You are speaking to Karen."

Yes, at that very moment, I was. This may seem very confusing—and I must admit to a certain confusion within myself, at this point, but already I was beginning to pick up the subtle nuances of the play unfolding here.

Let me see if I can explain it, as I was beginning to understand it, myself, in some coherent fashion. Karen was in hypnotic trance—probably as deep a trance as any I had ever witnessed. In that mode, her personality was spread before me in a most receptive state. I could ask it questions and it would respond, using Karen's regular motor functions as the vehicle of expression. But another personality, another entity that did not appear to have its source in that trance-receptive mind, was also present—perhaps no closer, physically, to Karen than I was, but nevertheless present and also using Karen's regular motor functions as a vehicle of expression.

If that sounds confusing to you, here, think of what it was doing to me, there.

"Are you still comfortable, Karen?"

"Yes."

"You have no discomfort or pain of any kind?"

"I have no discomfort or pain of any kind."

"That was not a suggestion. It was a question."

"I understand. I am fine, thank you."

"Great. Stay comfortable. I am going to ask a very important question. Stay comfortable while you examine the question and give me the truthful answer. Did you kill Carl Powell?"

"No. I killed the werewolf."

"Which werewolf is that?"

"The one that was in possession of Carl."

"Who told you that a werewolf was in possession of Carl?"

"The operator told me."

"Which operator was that?"

"The one immediately preceding you."

"Give me a name."

(Silence).

"Give me a name, Karen."

"I don't remember the name." There was a pause, then one of those subtle shifts. "There is a blockage there."

I was getting help, from God knows where.

"Work around the block."

"We cannot work around the block."

Maybe I did not tell you during the earlier discussion: A hypnotic suggestion (read that, command) can have both a positive and a negative connotation. The subject's own name may be "blocked" by the simple suggestion that he will no longer be able to remember it. Even a numerical concept may be blocked: tell a subject that the number three no longer exists and he cannot perform mathematical computations involving that number. He will not be able, even, to utter the word or to evince a "three" concept.

The most significant thing to me, though, in this particular connection, was the information that "We cannot work around the block." Wherever the help was coming from, it was limited by the physical route. So maybe that "other personality"—whatever or whomever—was in pretty much the same relation to "in-trance Karen" as I was. Interesting idea. There she lay, between us, both of us using her.

"We will let it go for now, then, and maybe we will come back to it later. Stay comfortable."

"I am comfortable."

"Okay. Think about this carefully, now, before you answer. Did you kill your mother and father?"

"I killed my mother."

"Your mother is...?"

"Dead."

"Yes, but give me your mother's name."

"My mother's name was Elena."

"You killed Elena?"

"Yes."

"How did you do that?"

"I blew up the boat."

"But you did not kill your father?"

"No."

"He was on the same boat, wasn't he?"

"No."

"No? TJ was not on the boat?"

"TJ was on the boat. I killed TJ too."

"Let's do this again, Karen. Did you kill your mother and father?"

"I killed Elena and TJ."

"But you did not kill your father?"

"No."

"Who killed him, then?"

"The cancer killed him."

Well, hell, where were we headed? Never mind, I knew exactly where we were headed. And it scared hell out of me.

"What is your father's name, Karen?"

"Joseph Quincy Highland."

"Aren't you confused, dear? Isn't that the name of your grandfather?"

"Yes."

"But it is also the name of your father?"

"Yes."

"Your grandfather is also your father?"

"Yes."

"Package this for me, Karen. We'll come back for it. Okay?"

"Okay."

"What happened to Bruno and Tony?"

"What happened to them?"

"Yes."

"She came for them."

"Who came for them?"

"Elena came for them."

"Why did Elena come for them?"

"They needed her. Elena always took care of Bruno and Tony. When she could."

"Did Elena kill her brothers, Karen?"

"Oh no. I just ... came... to take them... home."

Who the hell was I talking to? I was having the devil of a time trying to keep up with it.

"Am I speaking to Karen?"

"Yes." Subtle shift. "With a little help."

"Where is this help coming from?"

"We cannot explain."

"The same as a blockage?"

"The same, yes. Similar."

"Is Karen a murderer?"

"No."

"I don't mean in legal or moral shadings—is she a killer?—has she killed anyone?"

"No."

"Did she blow up a boat?"

"No."

"Did she try to drown Marcia Kalinsky?"

"Not... no."

"Did she pick up a rock and bash in the skull of Carl Powell?"

"Her body did."

"But she did not?"

"She did not."

"Have we communicated before? You and me—have we communicated?"

"In a manner, yes."

"Are you Joseph Quincy Highland?"

"I am Karen Highland."

Yes, she was back. But who the hell had I been talking to?