The Trial Of The Man Who Said He Was God (20 page)

WITNESS: He got me to look steadily into his eyes. At close quarters, of course - the tourist-class seats made sure of that. He passed his hand several times in front of my face, back and forth. He was talking all the while, in a strangely quiet but insistent voice. Soothing and persuasive it was.

COUNSEL: And he was saying?

WITNESS: This is the embarrassing bit. He kept on telling me I didn’t have a head! I shall never understand how I fell for that story. Probably it was a combination of several things. Air travel always puts me in a slightly dreamlike state. Is it that the reduced air-pressure makes one light-headed? The food and the wine had their effect. But what did the trick, of course, was his steady staring, the movement of his hands, his soothing voice and the repetition of that crazy thing about having no head. Result: I really did believe him. Just imagine: a few minutes of that treatment, and he had me quite sure that, crouching there in the window-seat, was a monster without a head! None of the other people, just me! So complete was his power over me, so complete was my surrender to it, that I do believe if he’d told me I had three heads or was legless and armless, I’d have agreed with him.

COUNSEL: Then what happened?

WITNESS: I stayed under the influence the rest of the journey, though there was no more staring into my eyes or passing his hand in front of them. It wasn’t needed. He went on feeding me what I now recognize were post-hypnotic suggestions. I’ll say this for him, however: so far from telling me that I was to forget his instructions, I was to remember them. Amnesia was the last thing he was after. He assured me that the headless life I was going to live would be very different from the old one. I might well lose interest in my less creative hobbies, and gain energy for my creative work - whatever it turned out to be. I would certainly care less about what people thought of me. I would certainly notice colours and shapes and sounds more. Everything would be different.
Upside down
was a phrase he used several times. Yes, we didn’t go to sleep at all, but went on talking through the in-flight movie. I kept on asking questions, and he answered in that very assured, persuasive voice of his. As I look back on it now, it all seems out of this world, a dream...

COUNSEL: A nightmare?

WITNESS: Not at all. It was wonderful - while it lasted. Wonderful, and kooky. There’s one thing I shan’t forget in a hurry. He talked me into believing that on my shoulders, in place of the head of a human being, was... I feel awful saying this... the Head of the World. He actually got me agreeing with him that, as he put it, losing my human head was finding my divine head!

COUNSEL: How did it all finish?

WITNESS: Well, as we got near the end of the flight, he gave me his address in England and said I could write. And he gave me the addresses of a number of his ‘seeing’ friends, as he called them, in the Vancouver region, and urged me to get in touch with them. Doing so, he said, would help me to live the new life. Also, he suggested that I should show my friends and relations that they didn’t have heads. It was quite easy, he said.

And then, on arrival in Vancouver, we parted, not to meet again until today... There was I, in the baggage claim, thanking him profusely and promising to stay headless, and not forget the marvellous Being I really was. I tell you, I’d gone all funny. I really was off my head.

COUNSEL: Kindly tell the court about how you got it back on again. How soon was it before you came to your senses?

WITNESS: I went to stay for six months near Castlegar, in British Columbia, with my brother and his family. He and his wife are physicians, and know quite a bit about hypnosis. At once they were struck by the change in me. I was in a kind of trance, they said. They noticed how I’d lost interest in my hobbies, including astrology and bridge and a novel a week. And how I did a good deal of just hanging around, as if expecting instructions or waiting for something to happen. Before, I’d always kept busy, and hated being alone. Now I loved going for solitary walks. My brother and sister-in-law say I mooned around with a vacant look on my face. Not just my behaviour but my appearance had changed, according to them. l must say I felt different.

COUNSEL: In what way different?

WITNESS: It was as if the wind had swept right through me, blowing me clean away. As if I was a sort of imbecile, irresponsible, not giving a damn, light-headed and empty-headed. Colours blazed out. Food tasted delicious. For a change, I didn’t resent housework. Not so pleasant was the fact that quite a number of folk that I used to admire seemed to me to be putting on acts. I could see through their games so easily. Some old friends were upset, angry with me for no special reason I could make out... And so on. Life had changed all down the line, just as he said it would.

COUNSEL: And then?

WITNESS: Well, two or three weeks of my brother’s strongly expressed anxiety about me, plus what I can only call normal company and sane conversation, and I snapped out of all that. I woke from the dream. I became my old self, feet back on the ground. My brother and his wife - I’m so grateful to them - patiently showed me how I’d been hypnotized by a very dangerous man, and gone on to act out his instructions. Once I clearly understood what had happened, and had read something about the quite amazing effects of post-hypnotic suggestion, and seen a couple of videos on the subject, I quickly got back to normal. My old interests returned, I lost that vacant look, loved all sorts of company again - and got my head firmly screwed on once more. My relations were much relieved. No permanent harm done, I think. But I’ll always feel ashamed of falling a victim to that spellbinder over there.

COUNSEL: I take it you didn’t get in touch with the people whose addresses he’d given you?

WITNESS: In the end, I did so. My brother felt it was my duty to write and warn them against the danger they were in from Mr Nokes. Probably they were too far gone, too much under his influence to break free the way I’d managed to. But at least we had a try.

COUNSEL: And how would you sum up your present feelings about the Accused?

WITNESS: I’d put him in the same class as Svengali. Rasputin would be going too far. But even they, I think, only played God. They didn’t set up to be God. What an awful thing he’s doing! And yet, you know, I don’t dislike him at all. I just feel terribly sad and sorry for him. He’s really ill. With a very, very infectious disease from which the public should be protected.

COUNSEL: Please stay in the witness-box. The Accused signals that he wishes to cross-examine you.

Defence:
Hypnosis and Counter-hypnosis

MYSELF: Yes indeed. I‘ve a whole bunch of questions to put to you. But first I’d like to remind you of what really happened on that plane. I know you’ll be as truthful as your memory allows, and that I don’t need to stress that you are under oath. It’s a fact, isn’t it, that I wasn’t the one who started our serious conversation? We just talked casually, and then you happened to notice that the book I was reading had the intriguing title of
On Having No Head - Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious,
and you wanted to know what it was all about. I replied (you’ll recollect) that it would be too difficult and take too long to explain the book’s message, but I could very quickly and easily
show
you - if you were sure you wanted me to. ‘Yes please!’ you said, eagerly. So I did just that. I did indeed show you. Am I right, so far?

WITNESS: I remember asking about the book, so I guess I let myself in for what followed. The business about not having a head, I mean.

MYSELF: It’s vital that we get this straight. I
didn’t
tell you you were headless. Quite the contrary. Remember, I made you get out your hand mirror and find your head in there. Also I proved to you that I was in possession of your head. How else could I describe in endless detail all sorts of things about it that were currently hidden from you? You’ll recollect we agreed that, so far from your being headless, you had innumerable heads lurking inside the polished objects and the people and their cameras all around you. And we shared the joke that the
only
place in that Boeing 787 which was quite free of that topknot of yours was the beautifully clear region on top of your shoulders! Your merry laughter had our neighbours staring. Oh, yes, and about that book: we agreed that the silly old author had got the title all wrong. He should have called his book
On Having Millions and Millions of Heads!

WITNESS: I didn’t agree with you about anything. Not at first I didn’t - until you went into your Svengali routine. Your gazing into my eyes, and passing your hand in front of my face, and talking in that monotonous voice were what did the trick, what sent me off my rocker.

MYSELF: Svengali routine my left foot! This really won’t do! You must try to remember what
did
happen and forget what your brother said happened... I tell you what: I’ll quickly run through the business again with you now, to jog your memory. Never mind about the court and all those people eavesdropping. Let’s go into this together again, the two of us, just as we did in the plane. [A small rumpus in the gallery. The Witness waving, as if to assure whoever was making it that she was all right.]

WITNESS: Good heavens, No! Why should I agree to such a thing?

MYSELF: Because I’m on trial for my life and your refusal could be the death of me. And because His Honour is allowing me to conduct my Defence in my own way.

WITNESS, clearly very embarrassed: Well, I don’t like this at all, but if the Judge thinks I should -

MYSELF: You see, he graciously nods. All right, then. Look now at this face of mine. Take in this balding dome and greying beard, these greenish-darkish, slightly squinting eyes, this very busy mouth, and all the rest. Unlike me, you’re registering the lot (aren’t you?), down to the last pock-mark and scar and wrinkle. Now
on present evidence
is there anything, anything at all where you are, to get in its way? Any remnant of a face or a head of your own with which to keep mine out? Aren’t these moving hands of mine no more than a distant broom, helping you to brush away all that imagined clutter of yours? To wipe your mirror clean of its imaginary grime? In fact, with no help from me, aren’t you busted wide open now, wide open for all these other faces as well, for absolutely everything that’s on show? And yourself as clear as clear? Gone with the wind once more? [Witness, convulsed with laughter, doesn’t - or can’t – answer...] Tell me now, have I just been hypnotizing you, or de-hypnotizing you? Have I been talking you out of your senses, or bringing you to your senses? Getting you to hallucinate, or to stop hallucinating? To deny, or to admit, the blazingly obvious? To lie, or to tell the simple truth?

WITNESS, pulling herself together: Well, I must admit… Oh, my God, you’ve done it again! [She breaks into new peals of laughter, growing rather hysterical...]

COUNSEL, intervening: You two are having quite a ball. And trying the court’s patience. The demonstration we’ve just witnessed is pretty marginal to what this Trial is all about. You aren’t charged with witchcraft, or fraud, or misusing hypnotism to take advantage of a suggestible subject. Such misbehaviour - though shocking and perhaps actionable - is relevant here only in so far as it involves blasphemy. This is exactly what, we gather, it did involve on that plane. The Witness testified how you induced her to exchange her human head for her God-head - as you have the nerve to put it. Blaspheming yourself, you got this lady to follow suit. Now that is relevant to the charge against you. Jury, please note.

MYSELF: My answer to that one - about misusing hypnotism - will come out later. Meantime allow me to conclude this interchange between the Witness and myself, by addressing the all-important question of just where God’s dwelling-place is. [I turn to the Witness.] Please attend very carefully. Isn’t it a fact that, right now, cradled on your shoulders - instead of just one particular human topknot, blonde and female and fifty and Canadian - is Room for all the other topknots in court? A Proper Place for them to happen in? Just Aware Capacity, perfectly simple and clear and changeless, for this hugely complex and ever-changing scene? And perfectly conscious of Itself as Empty for that filling. Yes?

WITNESS: Yes!

MYSELF: Now tell me, would it make sense to call this marvellous Alertness - this widest and brightest of Cloudless Skies - Mrs Ingrid Mary Stevenson? (I hope I’ve got the name right.) Or would it be nonsense and blasphemy?

WITNESS: Nonsense, for sure.

MYSELF: But instead to call it that Pure Awareness that some of us recognize as God - would that be nonsense and blasphemy?

WITNESS: Well... No, I don’t think so.

MYSELF: I see that Counsel is doing his writhing act. If he can suggest a more fitting name for this Incredible One Who is Awareness itself, or can think of a more roomy and comfortable Palace for His Majesty to hold court in, we’d all love to know about it. So would His Majesty, I bet you.

COUNSEL, to Witness: I’m wondering how long you’ll have to spend with your relations (who I believe are in this court) before you recover from this new attack on your integrity and common sense. Do you seriously believe that this time the treatment will stick? [Witness, now in tears, is unable (or unwilling) to reply. She’s allowed to stand down...]