Ashes To Ashes Read online

  You need to have an understanding of the way hypnosis works if you are going to believe the rest of this story.

  I doubt that anyone knows for sure precisely how or why it works, but those of us who have worked with it do not doubt that it does work, and sometimes in awesome ways.

  So please bear with me a moment, while I refresh your understanding whether it needs it or not—and as only I, in my noncredentialed way, may approach the subject.

  The human mind appears to be a duality of form, fit, and function (an old engineering term that works very well here) that manifests consciousness as the conscious and the subconscious minds, or the objective and subjective (psychology terminology), but which I prefer to consider a single force exhibiting various aspects at specific levels of activity (pure physics) to provide a totality of individual experience that we humans quantify as a living soul (metaphysical stuff).

  This is not an auspicious beginning, is it?—but, remember, I asked you to bear.

  One aspect of the duality has to do with reasoning power: How do we understand with the intellect what we perceive through the senses?

  Psychologists and logicians alike recognize two basic modes of reasoning, the inductive and the deductive methods. Hypnosis theory tells us that the conscious mind is capable of both modes, but that the subconscious mind is capable only of deductive reasoning.

  Let us examine that idea, since it is crucial.

  Inductive reasoning is when you notice that little Johnny has bleary eyes, a runny nose, fever, and little red blotches about the skin, and you pick up the phone and tell Dr. Jones that Johnny has the measles.

  You have taken various noted particulars and put them together into a general assumption: Johnny has the measles.

  Dr. Jones receives this information, but is aware that you do not have a medical diploma and do not therefore belong to the AMA, so he asks you if Johnny has a fever, are his eyes bleary, and does he have little red blotches upon the body. He is exercising the deductive mode.

  He has taken your general assumption and broken it back down into particulars.

  In a well-organized human mind, both modes are operating pretty much all the time. If someone comes up to you and tells you that Johnny has the measles, and you look at Johnny, and he is exhibiting none of the symptoms of measles, you are probably going to disagree with that someone—at least until you take Johnny's temperature and look closely for spots.

  Thus, between the two modes, you exhibit a certain ability to discriminate reality—what is true and what is false; you can exercise judgment.

  In hypnosis theory, the subconscious is purely subjective and deductive. It cannot discriminate or judge sensation or even thought: in fact, it does not think, was not designed to do so except in a most elemental sense, is merely a plastic web, so to speak, on which is impressed instructions to the motor nerves and in which is stored the living memory.

  In trance, so the theory goes, the conscious mind is shoved aside and the subconscious brought to the fore, under the direct influence of an outside mind, which imparts information directly onto the receptive, nondiscriminating subconscious web—which is always there and ready to serve, even in sleep—in effect bypassing the judgmental functions of the conscious, or thinking, mind.

  So if you are in trance and I tell you it is very hot in here, you will sweat; if I say it is cold, you will turn blue and shiver; if I say you have the measles, and the trance is deep enough, you will break out in spots imitating the measles rash and you will probably run a fever and develop bleary eyes and all the other symptoms.

  Your subconscious is thus responding dutifully to the stimuli placed in it and reasoning deductively to harmonize your body and your being with the truth it has been told, and it accepts every stimulus as "truth" without question or even the power to question, because this is what it is designed to do.

  Form, fit, and function; conscious and subconscious designed to work as a team; aspecting all levels of human activity; a human soul growing into its own individual potential for what reason only God knows.

  Curious thing about hypnosis, though. A subject in even the deepest trance does seem to exercise some sort of threshold judgment in matters very dear to the soul, suggesting that the duality of functions may not run as deep as may appear; the mind is still the mind, a cosmic entity, and it may be pushed just so far.

  For example, a person who will not kill in the waking state cannot be forced to kill in trance. A truly chaste person awake is a chaste person in trance. The moral imperatives sometimes take a quirky twist, though: a hypnotized woman who disrobes entirely without a qualm under hypnotic demand balks at removing her wedding ring; a man with holes in his socks refuses to remove his shoes but picks up a dagger and attacks a dummy upon command; a minister of the gospel will tell ribald stories and agrees to sexual seduction but will not take the Lord's name in vain.

  Most experimental hypnotists have discovered, though, that wiles succeed where strong-arms fail.

  All sorts of bizarre effects may be produced by simple suggestion placed into the subconscious receptive. Through positive hallucination, an oak tree may appear beside the couch and the subject will describe the birds in it and even try to catch them if you ask him to.

  Through negative hallucination, all the furniture in the office may disappear and the subject will wander around for hours seeking a place to sit down.

  These effects may even be triggered or "operated" weeks or months following the registration of a posthypnotic suggestion, with the hypnotist nowhere about.

  But I was speaking of wiles.

  The woman who will not disrobe may be tricked into doing so through simple negative hallucination, by which she believes herself to be alone in the room and preparing for her bath.

  The man who would abruptly awaken if ordered to kill may be tricked into picking up a knife and attacking the first person to enter the room if he had been told to expect a maniac who meant to murder his children and rape his wife.

  Is your hypothesis already formed?

  Are you ready to leap ahead of me, again, now?

  Please wait. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

  Chapter Twenty-Two: 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 Ashton Ford."

  "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 no
t 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 Ashton Ford."

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

  "Why did Karen seek out Ashton Ford and engage his 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 Ashton Ford help Karen in this trouble?"

  "He 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, Ashton. 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 Kare
n?"

  "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?

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Highland

  I had the whole thing on tape, using a cassette recorder from Powell's study. Some of my later conclusions were arrived at only after a careful analysis of the material, together with a few leaps of mind, but I had already, at this point, been doing a bit of mental leaping, the constructs of which have been more or less borne out by the final conclusions.

  It was not a pretty story, but it was a very human one, perfectly understandable and even worthy of sympathy in its finer movements. I have faithfully transcribed above that portion of the hypnotic session covered thus far, with only a few necessary editorial comments to aid your understanding of what was going on there. The entire session, though, took up that whole Sunday morning, with only a few brief breaks, here and there, to relieve an occasional unbearable tension in the both of us.

  I will not burden you with all that detail, much of it given to mental maneuvers and laborious retracings of difficult routes to truth and packaging knowledge as a way around blocks of various types. It is kinder, rather, that I recapitulate and paraphrase the session in a straightforward narrative account, which I have done below, and ask that you simply take my word for it that this is the real story, to the best of my understanding—and about 98.5 percent of it straight out of, or straight through, Karen Highland's mind.

  JQ had been a very lonely man, prisoner to his own hermitage, fifty years old and twenty years a widower, when Elena and her brothers came to Highlandville. Elena was about twenty-five, very pretty and vivacious—a real Latin knockout, I guess—well educated, but a bit old-worldly in her moral outlook.