The Beloved Disciple and The House of Hippo

About the Book

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

Some years ago, 1989 to be precise, while discussing hypnosis with a colleague, I was informed that his nephew had been having dreams reminiscent of the past-life memories fashionable in the 1970s but by that time yesterday’s fad. Knowing that I had spent many years touring with concert hypnotists, including Canadian superstar Peter Reveen, he asked me to hypnotize his nephew and try to determine whether his dreams really were remnants of a previous incarnation.

Despite my disbelief in virtually all of the metaphysical elements of the tale the youth told under hypnosis, I was able to recognize that his story, while fantastic, might be publishable. So I had both uncle and nephew sign the necessary releases granting me the right to publish the youth’s story in exchange for $1 cash, a specified number of copies of the book, and a share of the profits if they exceeded an agreed-upon sum.

Rather than writing a verbatim account of each session of hypnosis, I instead edited the tapes of the several sessions into a continuous narrative, even when that meant inserting details that emerged later into an incident described at an earlier session. I did retain the subject’s first person narrative, but at points where I asked him clarifying questions, I put into his mouth expressions such as, “In answer to your question,” rather than make myself a virtual character in his story. I would not have done that if I had believed the story he told was something other than a product of his unbridled imagination. I view his tale as fiction. Some readers may not agree.

THE FALL AND RISE OF THE HOUSE OF HIPPO

The odds against the Kennedy cousins ever being born were billions and billions to one. Had their grandfather Rupert masturbated just one more time before impregnating their grandmother Rosanne for the first time, the resulting offspring might still have been named Joyce, but she would not have carried the specific forty-six chromosomes that made her the Joyce Kennedy of history, inventor of the infamous "suppressed memory syndrome" that destroyed so many lives. And if the alternate Joyce had still seduced her uncle Gilroy from his priestly vows and borne his son Manny, that Manny would not have been His Sanctity. Similarly, if Rosanne had zigged rather than zagged at the instant Raymond was being conceived, a different sperm might have won the race, a different Ray might have been produced, and the alternate Ray´s son Danforth, despite bearing the same name, would not have been His Mediocrity. That Rupert impregnated Rosanne at all was improbable. To a penis-directed laborer like Rupert, one recreational orifice was the same as another. He had been satisfying his orgasm needs with Mary Baker for more than four months, and was probably within a single ejaculation of making her big of belly. But at that point his astrologer had warned that, if he were to contract a Taurus, bad luck would surely follow all the days of his life. So he switched his attentions to Rosanne. Within a month he had her on her back. Within three months he had her pregnant. And within six months she had become his legally registered cohab according to the statutes of the province of Columbia, known as British Columbia back in the days when the United Secular States and Provinces of North America´s frozen north had been two independent nations called Canada and Quebec.

About the Author