During my university career, I transferred a few times. I had begun at Brown University with a merit-scholarship and stayed my freshmen year. As they did not have a program in Chemical Engineering, I transferred to UC Santa Barbara for a quarter and then to UC Berkeley for a year. I returned to UC Santa Barbara as I found the professors more amenable to my desires.

The department head, Dr. Myers allowed me to complete both my junior and senior year courses at the same time. This left time for independent research my last year.

It was the year of the draft lottery and my number was 19. I was only able to complete two quarters of independent research as I was drafted and so returned to Northern California and went to my induction appointment in Oakland. Fortunately, I had fractured my 5th cervical vertebra at Brown in the wee hours of the morning, having fallen over the 4th floor banister and onto the steps just above the 3rd floor. The last thing I remembered was hoping that I did not fall between the railings as that would have really hurt!

I heard a loud thud when my upper back and neck struck the red rubber lined wooden stairs. It was a very old dormitory located on Thayer St, Providence, RI. The thud brought me to consciousness and I realized that it was most amazing that I was not dead! As I lay there, my feet faced up the stairs and my neck and back were on the landing. All of a sudden I was surrounded by students as a party had been in progress on the 4th floor. A basketball player from Springfield College picked me up and over his right shoulder. I yelled, put me down–this is killing my stomach.

So he put me down and steadied me as I return to my room on the first floor. I opened the door and told my roommate John (who was involved with a young lady) that I had just fallen off the 4th floor to the 3rd floor and needed to go to bed. And this is what I did.

Skipping over the remainder of my freshman year, I found the sequellae of my injury was constant, sharp, and stabbing pains in my shoulders and neck. Fortunately, as I did not know any thing about drugs, I came to the conclusion that I guess the pain was here to stay. So I made peace with it and decided to continue doing sports and getting along with my life as if the pain was not there.

The pain never went away while I was in university–and some days it was intolerable-but, most of the time I just forgot about it. My shoulder hurt, yes, but, I did not have any significant amount of suffering. It finally resolved itself some 15 years after the injury for reasons unknown.

The injury turned out to have a good side as it kept me from being drafted. I remember waling toward the exit door on the ground floor of the induction center and a brother asked me why I was smiling. I told him I been rejected from the Army and he congratulated me. We parted and as I walked to the exit, I realized how unfair human life truly is. I thought, “Here is a nice man, undereducated, but with a good heart. He is going to die in Vietnam and I will not. Not that I am better than he, but, only because I had the advantage of foresight and education so to make a plan to avoid serving in the armed forces by insuring that my injury had a long medical treatment history.”

My induction day in Oakland, CA was indeed an eye opener of a day!

The reason I brought the matter of the injury up is that I would be at home for some time. Five months before starting graduate school at MIT in Boston, MA and three months before a summer job in Delta, PA working on construction of the Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant.

So I decided to study the occult material of the Golden Dawn , as I had found an early copy of Francis Israeli Regardie’s The Golden Dawn. I was a diligent student and prepared all required magical paraphernalia–including, lotus wand, sword, and a set of Enochian Angelic Tablets. I prepared and completed all the Temple Grade rituals as best I could, given my limited monies and talents. I do not remember having any fears about my results.

During this time interval, I contacted Regardie so to locate whether or not Crowley’s AA still functioned. Surprisingly, Regardie replied by sending me a very cryptic note with name and address of another person. I wrote to the second initiate(?) and received another name and address. I continued to follow the path and at last introduced by letter to the secretary of an AA chapter in Los Angeles, CA. The man’s name was John.

John and I began correspondence and I was provided more information as to occult practices. After several months, I was invited to come to the bookshop where the AA was headquartered and participate in an evocation of Beelzebub. John said that this invitation was a very high honor and a catapult.

I did attend such evocation on the scheduled night. As it was impossible for me to physically travel to LA, I accomplished a presence using bilocation, or astral projection.

I will not go into the ritual details of the evocation, as occult practices are often damaging to unprepared psyches, other than to say it was a resounding success. And most entertaining!  Demons are quite misunderstood creatures.

I continued to toy with the occult world experience for a few more months so to continue my experiences. Modifying the rituals using my intuition, I was able to evoke the shades of past historical greats, study with discarnate occult masters, speak with elementals, and even partake of the favors of succubi.

But, in the end, I came to the conclusion that occultism was just dream world manipulation. Moreover, I really never was taught anything significant as to the actuality of human life. So, I left the occult arts to the occultists and began the study of the mystic path of the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC. It was more attuned with my particular personality.

Though, at times the occult arts have proven useful tools for spiritual growth.