Overview of the Intent of This Article
On this page I will be presenting, for informational and historical purposes, an invited article on fringe science devices employing exotic energies which I authored for Technology Tomorrow journal in late 1980; the article eventually appeared in a shortened version in the April 1981 issue of the journal. I intend to present on this page a JPEG image of the original article as it appeared in the journal, along with a plain text verbatim copy of the article and the author note which appeared at the end of it. I will also offer some notes on the article and on the rather unexpected response which it generated, including a rather funny tale of my subsequent encounter -- engendered by the publication of the article -- with a rather famous or infamous figure of the fringe science world at that time.

Background

In 1979 and 1980 a number of short articles, notes and commentaries authored by me on the topics of fringe science devices which employed exotic energies (aka subtle energies) and which often employed high voltage discharges appeared on the pages of several tiny small-circulation newsletters and journals -- all of which are now long extinct -- devoted to such esoteric topics. Because of the small amount of publicity generated within these esoteric disciplines by these articles and notes, in the Fall of 1980 I was approached by the editor of Technology Tomorrow, a journal published by the (nowadays largely extinct) Special Studies Division of the World Future Society and invited to submit an article to the journal on fringe science devices, including healing devices, which employed exotic energies and/or high voltage discharges. The original article invitation had been for a three page article, and my final draft as submitted to the editor had been a bit over 3.5 print pages in length; I gave the editor unlimited permission to cut and edit the article to allow it to fit in the available page space. Ultimately, the final edited version of the article which was finally published in the April 1981 issue was – due to last-minute page space usage decisions related to the emergent impending demise of the journal -- a bit less than one page in length. In fact, the issue in which my article appeared was the last issue of the journal; the editor announced in that issue that the Society had decided to discontinue the journal because it was not profitable. 

The Article
For a look at a scanned copy of the article as it appeared on the pages (on page three, I believe) of the journal presented in JPEG image format, please click here.

To read a plain text verbatim transcript of the article, please see the section immediately below.

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I am quite sure that somewhere in my paper file folders or in my legacy data files from my early MS-DOS PCs of the 1980s I likely have a copy of the original and longer article text as submitted to the editor of the journal. If I can find a copy of that manuscript, I will upload it to this webpage as well, and will insert it, or a link to it, in this section.

The Aftermath of the Article
Quite unexpectedly, the appearance of my article in the journal triggered my receiving, over the next four months, a small avalanche of postal mail from persons from around the world who had read my article. About one half of the letters were from folks who were quite sincere in their overtures or inquiries; a number of these correspondents were fellow researchers in these obscure fringe science realms. In fact, a letter received from a San Antonio, Texas college student/researcher named Steve Dennis, led to a lifelong friendship; we stayed in touch sporadically over the ensuing years, and we still occasionally exchange emails 26 years later.  

While about one-half of the letters which I received were from sincere persons, I noticed with some concern at the time that the other half of the volume of letters -- and incidentally, serving as somewhat of a harbinger of what would come to be a fact of life on the web when the Internet evolved over a decade later -- were from rather disturbed persons or persons who had some kind of bizarre agenda and who were not pulling any punches in a strident attempt to attain their agenda. In the "disturbed persons" category, I received a number of letters from folks across the USA who claimed that either the CIA or space aliens or their (undisclosed) "enemies" were using "mind control" to inject thoughts and images into their minds. Some were wearing aluminum foil hats to protect themselves against the imagined attacks, while others begged me to develop a spark-based scrambler/interference device which they could employ to "protect" themselves against the putative attacks. One writer claimed that his "enemies" had taken control of the apartment adjacent to his own apartment's bedroom wall, and that they were beaming X-rays at his head and torso for over 12 hours per day in an attempt to weaken him, and that furthermore, the X-ray beam was modulated with mind control commands intended to take over his mind; he demanded that I develop a machine to protect him from these "attacks".

I mentioned above that some of the letters in the latter category were from persons with bizarre agendas; these letters were in the minority compared with the "disturbed person" letters, but one such letter, along with subsequent telephone overtures from the parties involved, stands out as quite notable and funny; I still laugh about it 26 years later. Here is the tale:

One day, about two months after my article (which included in the About the Author section at the end of the article my postal mailing address) appeared in Technology Tomorrow, I received in the mail an official-looking envelope from an attorney's office in Montreal, Canada. Upon opening the one-page letter, I discovered that it bore the letterhead of a Canadian for-profit corporation devoted to something along the lines of "developing international resources in the realms of energy and mining". The letter, signed by an attorney, complimented me briefly on my recent article which had appeared in Technology Tomorrow, and then, without further ado, came abruptly to the point. It stated that the attorney and the principals of the company named on the letterhead were "aware", from a close reading of my article, that I had come into possession of a number of vitally important "long-lost and secret" manuscripts on transmission of energy and free energy authored by the Serb-born inventor Nikola Tesla. The attorney advised me firmly that I had the only known copies of these documents in my possession, and demanded, under threat of civil action (and the possibility of unspecified other actions), that I immediately turn over to his organization any and all copies of all of these putative Tesla documents.

Wow! I was amazed and amused... You see, a minute earlier, I had been a rather obscure mad scientist/engineer, and now, upon opening a letter, I had discovered an attorney for an "international corporation" was advising me that he "knew" that I held some important secret documents about wireless energy transmission authored by the famed inventor Nikola Tesla in my possession, and that he and his associates were prepared to take all kinds of legal (and perhaps other...) actions against me if I did not turn over those documents immediately! Double wow! Had I hit the big time? I folded the letter and returned it to its envelope, and, about a week later, I grew just too curious for my own good, and I gave in to the temptation to explore this matter further. So, I picked up the phone and called the Canadian attorney at the number disclosed on the letterhead. After a few tries and after one referral to a telephone phone number at an office in a different location in Montreal, I reached the attorney, whom I shall call "Peter". Peter seemed rather discomfited by my call, and seemed like he now kinda wished that he had never authored the letter in question, and, after a lot of hemming and hawing, he stated that he had written the letter merely as a favor for one of the "principals" of the Canadian "international" energy investment company named on the letterhead. After a bit more hemming and hawing, he advised me that the name of the principal who had enlisted his aid was "Andrija", and that in the future, it might be best if I were to direct any inquiries to this man Andrija, whom, he said, lived somewhere in New York State near New York City. However, Peter could not provide me with a phone number or an address for "Andrija"; it seemed that he did not have that information at hand. Much to Peter's apparent relief, we terminated the call in short order, and, after jotting a few notes and after realizing that the "Andrija" in question might perhaps be the fringe science researcher cum MD named Dr. Andrija Puharich -- of whom I was aware because of his frequent articles on fringe science topics in some of the journals and newsletters which I was reading at the time and because we were both members of the US Psychotroonics Association (USPA) -- I decided to shelve the entire matter as merely a bizarre curiosity.  However, as you will see below, Fate was not about to let me escape quite so easily!

About two months later, I received a phone call from a man who identified himself as Andrija Puharich, and, without further ado, he advised me somewhat cryptically and with a bit of dramatic flair that he was currently living in an unfurnished and bare apartment near Ossining, NY, because, he told me, his home had recently been "vandalized and burned" while he was out of the country on travel. I was a bit confused; why was this man, a stranger till now, trying to invite me to his "pity party"? I cautiously replied that I was aware that he had once apparently owned an estate in Ossining, but that I had read that it had burned back in 1978 or 1979, quite a while earlier. Puharich told me that he had since moved into a smaller home in Ossining, and that it was this newer home that had recently been burglarized and burned by "them" (there were vague references to the CIA and an international "gang", but it was all very muddled), and that thus he was now forced to live in a bare apartment and he was not at all happy about it. Quite willing by now to change the topic, I asked Andrija about the purpose of his call, and he came to the point: he told me that he "knew" that I held some important secret documents authored by the famous Nikola Tesla in my possession, and that he and his "associates" were prepared to take all kinds of legal actions (and perhaps other actions as well, he hinted) against me if I did not turn over those documents to him immediately. Sigh... deja vu.... ...shades of the letter from the corporate attorney in Montreal.. With a big sigh, I replied to him that while it was really none of his business in any case, I could reassure him that I did not have, and had never had, in my possession any secret or long-lost documents from Nikola Tesla, nor from anyone else for that matter. Puharich became a bit irate at this disclosure, and haughtily but civilly informed me that he "knew" with one hundred percent certainty from an impeccable source that I was the possessor of the putative secret and long-lost Tesla documents, and that they held the key to free energy generation and to "free" transmission of wireless energy, and that he must have those documents immediately. Starting to grow rather tired of this bizarre exchange, I once again assured Puharich that I held no such documents in my grimy clutches, and that his "impeccable source" must surely be mistaken. Puharich then told me that his "source" was "The Council", and that the "council" was never wrong, that it was omnipresent and omniscient*, and from another galaxy. Oh boy... double sigh... I reminded myself that I had encountered a real psychotic here, and I was rapidly growing very tired of this exchange.... time to get out quickly... I made haste to excuse myself from the call and suggested to Puharich that he never call me back again unless he was willing and able to let go of his obsession about "secret long-lost Tesla documents", and we ended the call.
paragraph endnote: I learned years later that Puharich had been involved for many years, perhaps since the early 1970s, with a non-physical channeled "extraterrestrial" and "extradimensional" entity to which he and others referred as "The Council of Nine". Although Puharich never used the term "Nine" during his calls with me, and instead referred to his non-corporeal extraterrestrial source only as "The Council", it seems highly likely that he was referencing the Council of Nine.

A month or so after my aborted call from Puharich, I received a phone call one evening from a woman who identified herself as a researcher living in New York City; she said that she knew of me from my article in Technology Tomorrow and briefly mentioned that she was a "colleague" of Andrija Puharich. I realized that Ii vaguely recognized her name from some of the fringe science newsletters and journals which I read. She advised me that she would be speaking at an upcoming conference on a fringe science topic in Manhattan, and wondered if I would like to come to Manhattan to attend the conference free of charge as her guest, or if I might at least visit the city to go to dinner with her at some time in the near future. For various reasons, including a creepy sense that all was not right with this call, I declined her invitation, but we promised to stay in touch with each other due to our mutual interests in various fringe science topics.

A couple of weeks later, I received a phone call from Andrija Puharich, still complaining a bit bitterly about his sparse temporary living quarters near Ossining, NY, and still complaining as well about "persecution" that he was suffering at the hands of unnamed tormentors (well, he did hint that the "CIA" was involved, and with some beumusement, I briefly wondered why the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), which was located about 20 miles from Ossining, would be concerned with Puharich). Puharich did not directly reference the putative "lost Tesla papers" this time (thank God for small blessings), but he quickly got to the point and mentioned the female researcher who had recently called me from New York City, and told me that she ws a good friend and colleague of his. He advised me that he had investigated me and knew that I was single, and told me that the female researcher in question was not only a PhD scientist, but that she was, if I had not yet heard through the fringe science grapevine, a beautiful young blonde woman, and, amazingly, he proceeded to try to pimp her to me, telling me that if I "cooperated" with him and his colleagues, I would be able to "date" this woman, that it would all be "arranged". I was a bit stunned, as I really could not believe that I was suddenly the subject of all this attention, but I managed to demur politely, quietly mumbling something to the effect that I was currently romantically involved with a beautiful nanny goat and that I would feel guilty cheating on her with a beautiful young blonde PhD scientist. Sigh... To my best recollection, I never heard back from Puharich again, but a couple of months later, I received a phone call from the young woman in question. She told me that she was calling me to advise me that she was no longer associated with Dr. Andrija Puharich in any way, and she intimated that she was quite irritated with him over certain business commitments that she felt that he had not fulfilled; she also made a point of telling me that she felt that he was not a trustworthy person. I reassured her that even prior to her call I did not think very highly of Puharich, due to my own encounters with him, and thanked her for her interest and for her call. To my best knowledge, I never heard again from either Dr. Andrija Puharich nor from the beautiful female researcher. Strangely and coincidentally, a few months later I ended up in the upper East Side of Manhattan  while doing some consulting for one of the first vendors of "mind-brain" machines (you, know, the things with the goggles with flashing lights and binaural sounds), who lived in the area, and I realized with some amusement that I was only two blocks from the apartment of the allegedly-alluring young blonde female PhD researcher whom Puharich had tried to pimp to me.

As a brief and funny postscript to the above tale, years later, in 1994, I was, after having completed grad school and a stint in acupuncture grad shool as well, living in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern U.S. with my then-wife Lisa. One day as we were checking out our groceries at the cash register at the local natural foods store, and while I was talking with the young woman at the register, Lisa made a joking remark to her that I was a "mad scientist". Our cashier brightened up, and told us excitedly that her uncle, now rather elderly and doddering, had been a famous New York-based "mad scientist" and inventor, and that his name had been.... you guessed it... Andrija Puharich. The cashier and I exchanged a few anecdotes about Puharich before Lisa and I left the store. ...small world! I learned about a year later that Puharich had died in early 1995, just about six months after I had met his twenty-something niece.

In Closing
The stream of letters from readers tapered off about four months after the article appeared in the journal, and the only really bizarre one -- aside from the paranoids who were concerned about alien mind control -- was the letter and the subsequent overtures from Dr. Andrija Puharich.

In closing, all I can say is, gee... I do kinda wish that I could contact Puharich on the Other Side to see if he is still willing to pimp beautiful female PhD scientists to me in return for secret long-lost Tesla documents! Golly gee whiz wow!

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