Chapter 5 Operations of the Essence
The various operations which I, Michael, do for Ralph fall into three groups — mental, physical, and social. Mental Operations of the Essence Memory Management: I have already described, in Chapters 2 and 3, our use of the Akashic Records, which are recordings of all personal memories in Thoughtspace. As is true with the Internet, all memories are subdivided into packets ("bits and pieces"), so that I can bring them back to Ralph's conscious mind in safe doses. An emotional overlay accompanies each geographical experience, which I may or may not allow him to recall. I choose the safest dosage of the geographical experience he can handle to be returned to consciousness, along with the degree of intensity of the emotional overlay he can handle. Intuition: I am the "still, small voice within" which warns him to hurry up and go somewhere special, and there he finds a new friend I want him to meet. I also can warn him not to board a plane scheduled by the CIE to crash, if it is not his time to end this lifetime. Usually I do not yell at him but provide a push or pull he feels impelled to obey. He then feels he "just has to do it." Situational Ethics Problem Solving: As previously mentioned in Chapter 2, when there is a new problem to be solved, Ralph, the emotional one of us, will try to find the socially approved correct way to solve it. What rules have already been established to solve this problem? This approach might work well in solving software problems where the HELP menu has all those rules listed. He can try them out until he finds the one that works. But in most interpersonal matters, there is no available authority with Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to review and follow. I will contribute an idea based on a review of the facts of the matter. I ignore how we dealt with a similar, but different, problem previously. With a new set of circumstances, we are in need of a new best answer. Whereas the emotional Personality might look for a win/lose solution, I always seek a win/win answer. The intellectual approach will allow that to come into his mind, while the emotional approach will not. Dreams: While there is currently much debate about the usefulness of dreams, I use them to advise Ralph on what to do during the next day. This happens in the few hours before he is due to awake in the morning. Before then, the store of prior mental concerns needs to be cleaned out. When he goes to sleep, his first period of dreams are the left over junk from the day's activities. I clean them out just as he does his junk files on his computer hard drive every evening before he shuts down his machine. Then, during the middle of the night, dreams about lifelong concerns come into his mind. These are the dreams which psychoanalysists, especially Jungian ones, love to hear about from their patients on the couch the next day. It is in the third stage, the time before he wakes up, when I can get in my messages for the coming day. Then I give Ralph a picture or an idea on how to solve a current problem. If he will pay
attention to me, I can get him started in a new direction after he has been stuck in a nonproductive groove. Since dreams are usually pictorial in nature, and Ralph is primarily an auditory receiver, he pays little attention to dreams in pictures. I find it more effective to speak to him in his light sleep state so he hears me telling him what I want him to know and do. He is much more likely to take seriously my quiet but insistent verbal messages. Flashes of Insight: While he is awake, I can provide Ralph with flashes of insight when he needs them. If he is in the middle of a crisis, I give him instructions on how to get out of it. That is a primary purpose of my being. One way Ralph can start the flow of messages from me is to turn his eyes upward. Looking upwards seems to dissolve much of the mental blockade he has between himself and me. Filling in the Blanks in Visual Fields: When the Personality is hypnotized and instructed to have a "negative hallucination" of her hypnotist, she will not see him when he is actually there. The Essence will fill in the empty space with a "positive hallucination" of what the Personality should see. If the hypnotist is sitting in a chair and instructs the hypnotic subject not to see him, she will see the seat of the chair instead of the therapist's body. Physically, photons are being reflected off his shirt into her eyes, and neurological signals are being transmitted through her optic nerves to her occipital visual cortex. But her Essence is blocking these photons from creating any mental representation of his shirt in her brain. To make her believe she is not seeing the hypnotist, the Essence can create, in the subject's consciousness, a false image of a chair without anyone in it,. This "positive hallucination" of an empty chair will replace the data blocked by the "negative hallucination." Such interference with the usual visual input signals is what happens if the Essence wants her charge to stumble and fall over some object in her pathway. The Essence can cause the Personality to "not see" the object under foot, so she will walk right into it and fall down. Example When Ralph's son, John, was visiting him, Ralph hoped John would be willing to meet Marie, whom John resented for having any role in his father's life. Ralph had set up a possible luncheon date for the three of them at a harbor-side restaurant. When Marie called to see if the lunch was still on, Ralph asked John if he was willing to share lunch with Marie and himself. John answered, "NO!" So Ralph told Marie that the lunch date was off. But he decided to take John out to eat lunch at the restaurant by the harbor. The sign-in podium was outdoors, where there were also seats and tables. After signing in with the hostess, Ralph and John stood waiting a few minutes in the open air before the hostess called them to come inside to their table. As Ralph walked with John to the door, he saw Marie sitting in a chair by the podium, but he saw her only as he was passing on his way inside. He had no time to greet her and introduce her to his son. He realized that she had to have been sitting there in that chair, by the podium, all the time he and John were waiting for their table. She was in plain sight of both of them all the time they were waiting to be called by the hostess. Becky had asked me to give Ralph a negative hallucination of Marie's body while she was
sitting in that chair, so all he saw was an empty chair. Once he was on his way inside, I let him see Marie's body off to the side, but too late to do anything about it. He could only walk inside the restaurant to his table. Becky asked for my help because she wanted a glimpse of John for herself. She wanted to see his aura so she could decide why he was so unwilling to have anything to do with her charge who had become an important part of Ralph's life while they were writing her story together. So Becky sat there in front of the two of them for the few minutes they had to wait for a table. John did not know what Marie looked like, so no negative hallucination was needed for him. But, if Ralph had seen Marie's body sitting there, he would have felt compelled to introduce her to John, which would have created a problem which he didn't need. Alter-Personalities All alter-personalities (alters) are created by the human's Essence. Becky made 60 alters during the time Marie suffered from MPD. Becky describes the process as taking "personality traits" out of Marie's "warehouse of personality traits" and fashioning the alter which is needed at that time for her survival. Becky then acts like a computer programmer who designs the alter to do what is needed for the benefit of the total package of alters. There is no Original Personality operating in a patient of this type. If the alter later veers off course and behaves inappropriately, Becky can recall her from duty and reprogram her before returning her to duty in the patient's body. This happened once with Marie when one of her helper alters fell in love with a scoundrel and started having sex with him at the mental health quarterway house where she lived. She neglected her duties of straightening out the messes the other alters got into, so Becky pulled her from duty and reprogrammed her. When Becky returned this alter to duty, she was now compliant with Becky's instructions and no longer was interested in having a torrid romance with the scoundrel. Out-of-Body Experiences and Near-Death Experiences: Many people have reported out-of-body experiences (OOBE) and near-death experiences (NDE). Such experiences are multi-sensory hallucinations created by that person's Essence as a teaching tool for the Personality. Marie, a former MPD patient of Ralph's, had an NDE, created by Becky, her dissociated Essence, each of the many times she attempted suicide. Becky created these experiences so as to crack through the intense depression and hopelessness Marie felt at the time. The NDE convinced her to try again and try something new next time. Inspirational Imagination: If the Life Plan of the Personality is to become a professional artist, then the Essence will spend much time providing "inspirational imagination." He will provide pictures and concepts from the Akashic Records which the Personality can then paint on canvas. Before that can happen, the Personality has to learn the skills of the trade from competent teachers. Then the Essence can send subject matter for original paintings in the Akashic Records. Many professional fiction writers report they write their novels by chronicling what they "see" in the fictional family they write about in each novel. This family of characters have their being in the Akashic Records, from which the writer's Essence makes them available to his consciousness. Symbolism: When Ralph and Marie tried to locate a friend's house in a strange city, Ralph was driving and handed the city map to Marie. He asked her to count for him the number of blocks he would have to drive before turning. She took the map but could not relate it to the streets they were crossing.
Finally, in frustration, Ralph parked and asked her why she could not read the map correctly. Becky, her dissociated Essence, came out and explained, "But that's my job. When Marie looks at a map, all she sees are lines and text on a piece of paper. She can't relate them to the concrete and asphalt roads outside the car." So the capacity for symbolism seems to be a talent of the Essence. The lines on the map stand for, symbolize, the road we are on or want to be on. The Essence can connect the lines on paper to the concrete paths we see. Knowing Sex of the Unborn Baby: The Essence knows the gender of the baby when it is still in the uterus of the pregnant woman. A hypnotized pregnant woman can give an accurate hand signal when asked the sex of her unborn fetus. The Essence of the woman uses the hand signal to give that information. Blind Sight: When a human has had brain damage to one side of his occipital cortex, the part of the brain which receives input from the opposite side of his retina, he is blind in half his visual field. But when such a patient is tested with some object being brought into the blind side, he reports an awareness that something came into that blind area. It is the Essence which "sees" the intruding object. The Essence does not have the need for eyeballs or optic nerves to see what is there. Protection and survival is the primary duty of the Essence. To do that, the Essence can see what might be a danger, whether the eyes are functioning or not. The Essence warns the Personality that something is out there which might be dangerous. He is not specific as to just what it might be, but he gives a warning to the Personality to be careful because of it. This ability is called "blind sight," and those rehabilitation therapists working with such humans have no explanation as to why their blind patients "know" something is there. Universal Translator: In the fictional Star Trek stories, members of all species of all planets are outfitted with a brain implant called a Universal Translator. This allows all of them to speak English to an English-speaking audience. Otherwise, plot lines could not advance. I provide the same service to my charge, Ralph, as do all other Essences to their charges. This permits instantaneous translation of what a person is saying in a foreign language the charge does not understand. We do this for survival purposes. It is also useful if we wish a romantic liaison to develop between a Personality whose Life Plan includes him meeting and becoming attracted to a female human of the other culture. Example In 1990, Ralph visited the USSR with a small group of psychotherapists. In Kiev, their Intourist guide instructed them to board a small jet plane of the Aeroflot fleet so they could fly to Odessa, on the coast of the Black Sea. The plane usually carried 32 passengers, 16 on each side of the aisle, with two seats in each row on both sides. The guide instructed Ralph's group of eight to sit in the first four rows of seats on the right. Ralph and his wife sat in the first row, just behind the pilots' cabin. On his left, he noted that the first row of two seats was missing. After the American tour group was seated, the Russian passengers boarded from the rear. One man sat in a seat two rows behind Ralph, on the other side of the aisle. While the others were buckling their seat belts, that Russian man walked up behind Ralph and poked him on the shoulder. "My ticket says Seat 1A. You are in Seat 1A. GET UP!" Ralph heard him say this in thickly Russian accented English. Ralph's wife also heard his demand and whispered to Ralph, "Don't move!"
Ralph was stumped as to what to say or do. He was bigger than the Russian and could have thrown him off the plane. But he might start an international incident. The man kept repeating his demand that Ralph give him his seat, but Ralph sat there, unable to decide what to do. Then the airline stewardess, dressed in a military style uniform, approached them and asked, also in thickly Russian accented English, "What is the matter here?" The man repeated his demand for Ralph's seat, and she looked at his ticket. She then walked to the front of the plane and looked at the left bulkhead behind the pilots' cabin, as if she were reading something on the steel wall. She then faced the angry Russian and said, "Seat 1 A used to be here, but it was taken out so we could put packages there." She walked back to the seat he had vacated, pointed at it, and announced, "I hereby designate this seat as 1A. SIT DOWN!" Upon her order, the man sat in his old seat and gave no trouble for the rest of the trip to Odessa. Ralph watched, listened, and wondered what had happened. Was this man crazy or was he a "typical Russian"? After much silent thought, he decided the man was a typical Russian. He was totally erratic until given orders by someone in a uniform. Then he followed that official's orders immediately and completely. Ralph was no such official, so nothing he might have said or done would have been mattered. The stewardess, in military garb, though only five feet tall, was the one with the power here. This experience was engineered by the CIE and me as a teaching lesson for Ralph. But were these two Russians speaking English on a Russian airplane in the middle of their own country on a short local flight? Both Ralph and his wife clearly heard them speaking English. No, they were speaking Russian, a language completely foreign to Ralph and his wife. We Essences knew what the Russian man was saying and provided an immediate English translation to them. I needed Ralph to know exactly what the man and stewardess said, so he would not make a foolish mistake. He had to know the facts. Otherwise, he might have assumed there was a problem which didn't exist. I could not permit that. Now, why did he hear the two Russians speaking English with thick Russian accents? I had to do that to make it believable to him. If they really knew English, they would speak it with a Russian accent. If he heard them speaking English with a Scottish accent, Ralph would not have known what to believe. He would probably think he was hallucinating and would have become quite upset. That would not have met the needs of the situation, which was to teach Ralph something about the unique Russian character. Physical Operations of the Essence Sleep: Each Essence can control his charge's brainstem sleep center, so as to cause him to stay awake or to sleep all day, whichever is needed. The Essence can also cause the Personality to faint and fall on the floor. Example Ralph was treating Dora [not her true name], who had MPD, on the 12 bed psychiatric ward of the general hospital in Santa Cruz. One of her alter-personalities kept trying to escape through the unlocked door of the ward and head for the elevator across the hall. The nurses kept bringing her
back when she waited for the elevator to come. They appealed to Ralph to do something about this problem. One answer would have been to lock the door, but that would have kept in all the other patients, who were not trying to escape, and they would then feel they were being punished. Ralph called out the dissociated Essence of Dora and asked her for help. Ralph told her that she, the Essence, had the power to "pull Dora's plug," which would cause her to faint and fall to the floor. The Essence said that she could, indeed, do that. Ralph then asked the Essence to pull Dora's plug whenever the patient put one foot outside the door of the ward without staff permission. Her Essence agreed to do that. The patient's alter-personality later opened the door, put one foot into the hallway, and promptly fainted, collapsing on the floor. The nurses carried her back into the ward, where she regained consciousness. She tried to escape two more times. Each time she found herself face down on the floor just outside the door. She finally figured out she was not going to get away from the ward and quit trying to escape. The door was kept unlocked, and the other patients were satisfied with our answer to the problem. Walking Away From Danger: Since survival is our most important job, if our charge is in danger, we can take over his body and walk away from a dangerous situation. We can do this even if our charge has broken bones which would usually make it impossible for him to walk. We can navigate over steep terrain which would otherwise be an impassible obstacle. It may appear that the person has used superhuman strength to make that journey, and, when the need is there, we can call upon the CIE to add their strength to ours. Infections: The Essence is in charge of the bodily defense mechanisms, including the immune system. In cooperation with CIE of the Bacteria and CIE of the Viruses, the Essence will decide how severe an infection of what organism the body will have, so that the necessary disability will come about. If the Essence does not want his charge to exercise his Free Will To Mess Up that day, he can cause his charge to have a temporary infection as the best way to keep him at home, away from those he wants to harm. Chronic and Fatal Diseases: While your culture views diseases as enemies to be fought as in a war between nations, there are many people who personally feel greatly benefitted by having a severe illness. A world champion bicycle racer, Lance Armstrong, gives credit to his bout with testicular cancer, which had metastasized to his lungs and brain. He was successfully treated, but he changed his mental attitude in such a way that he was now able to win races far more often than anyone else. However, when the Essence knows the time has come for the end of this incarnation, the Essence will allow the disease to end his charge's life. Then, if his doctor uses aggressive treatment which works, the Essence will have to resort to backup plans, such as pneumonia (called "the old man's friend" before antibiotics) or generalized organ failure, to bring about the desired demise. Here is where I must advise not using life support machines when the patient has no hope of having his body repaired. When the lifetime is at its planned ending, the Essence has the duty and ability to shut down the body in the proper order. But it cannot compete with mechanical devices which keep the blood pressure up, the heart beating, and the lungs breathing. When a person who is
supposed to cease to exist is attached to life support equipment with no expectation of bodily recovery, the Essence is left in the lurch. He was not trained for such an eventuality. During the time the Personality is sleeping or in a coma, 98% of the Essence is in Thoughtspace conferring with its CIE as to what to do next. All this was not part of the Life Plan he knew so well. An Essence can think quite frustrated thoughts in such a situation. This situation can go on for decades if no one is willing to pull the plug on the life support machine. Only then is the Personality plus Essence allowed to leave the useless body and enter a new one. By the time reincarnation can occur, the level of negative thinking may have risen quite high in this Essence. It would take only a small amount of negative experiences in his new incarnation for him to decide to exercise his Free Will To Mess Up and become a turned Essence. This is one source of the child killers who have become more common in our society. They were not raised in abusive, dysfunctional families, but their parents found them to be cruel and aggressive toward pets and other children from an early age. They might have been called "a bad seed" by frustrated caretakers. Those Essences were the product of decades of thinking they were useless because of being replaced by life support machines and having no opportunity to do what they were trained to do. In the case of someone who is living as a severely disabled human, it is important to understand that, while the body and Personality may be severely disabled, the Essence is not disabled. If a fire starts in the nursing home where a totally demented patient is bedfast, her Essence can take over and walk her out of her room to safety outside the burning building, if her time to cease to exist had not yet arrived. Example Ralph's brother-in-law, Fred, has phenylketonuria, (PKU) which is due to a genetic lack of the enzyme needed to metabolize phenylalanine, an essential amino acid. His brain was severely damaged physically, so his Personality became warped as well. At the age of four, his parents put him in a long-term hospital, and he has remained institutionalized ever since. When Ralph visited him at Agnew Developmental Center in San Jose, California, his home was his bedroom area, and the nurses were his mothers. His Essence had actually found him a better home there than his natural parents would have provided him, had he no disability. He was not forced to endure the home life difficulties his siblings had, with a constantly combating mother and father, who polarized the family. But his surgeon had to perform surgery on his bowels several times for atonic bowel obstructions, and finally he recommended Fred have a large bowel resection and colonostomy. Surgery would leave him with a hole in his abdomen through which fecal material would be expelled into a plastic bag attached to his skin. Such might be unpleasant, but it was essential to his continued well-being. The surgery was successful, and Fred returned to his own room to recover. The nurses had to decide how to teach him to handle his colonostomy. He would have to learn how to clean the area, and remove and replace the bag. They wondered if he would be able to understand their instructions, as he had an IQ of 10 and was nonverbal in any language. The nurses decided to first treat him as a regular patient and teach him the routine for colonostomy care. If he didn't understand them, then they would have to figure out what to do next. When they taught him colonostomy care in the usual way, he understood them and soon learned how to take care of his apparatus quite capably. They were understandably surprised, being unaware he had a capable Essence inside who needed to know how to do this, as his physical life
depended on it. This was a human who did not know how to open a door by turning a door knob! But he always had a staff member around to open doors for him, so he really did not need to know how to open doors. But he had to know how to take care of his personal waste products by himself, and his Essence learned that skill on his behalf. Pregnancy, Miscarriage, and Abortion The mother's Essence decides if and when her charge will get pregnant. If her Life Plan includes having a child now, the Essence will allow one fertilized egg with the correct DNA combination for that child to implant in the uterine mucosa. The Personality plus Essence will implant successfully at the first breath after delivery. This does not mean the child is meant to live into adulthood, however. It may have a Baby Essence and Baby Personality who only need to experience a loving family for a short period of time. No outside person can know this. If her Life Plan is to be childless in this incarnation, no amount of tinkering with her hormones will cause pregnancy. If a fertilized egg does implant in her uterine lining, her Essence can cause a spontaneous miscarriage. Such is the fate of the vast majority of eggs implanted in all women. If the woman is emotionally in need of becoming pregnant but is not ready for motherhood, the Essence will cause a stillbirth. This happens when the CIE choose not to implant a Personality plus Essence in the newborn's body after delivery. There is no first breath. If no Personality plus Essence joins the physical body, the body cannot live. The decision for this child not to live is made by the Spiritual Guardian CIE of the mother. Only the Essence of the mother and her supervisory CIE know the Life Plan for the product of any pregnancy. No doctor, lawyer, or family member knows that bit of information. Therefore, elective surgical abortions should not be done. If the fetus is not meant to be born, the Personality must have faith in her Essence to take care of the matter. Such faith is missing in most women. If they are not ready to bear a child this month, the CIE will cause either an abortion or a stillbirth..If a baby is born alive and screaming, then that baby's Life Plan is to live, and the baby should be allowed to grow and mature. This does not mean that every unmarried pregnant teenager should be expected to raise her child. This advice only applies to the delivery process. The child's Life Plan may include being raised in an adoptive home, maybe with a legal open adoption arrangement where the birth mother can continue contact with her child and learn how to be a good mother to her future children. There should be no limit on the creativity society uses in providing good care for its children. But only the mother's Essence is privy to the facts of the planned future of that child, as laid out in The Creator's original plans. There is currently a cultural divide in the USA regarding the use of elective surgical abortions to remove a fetus from the uterus of a pregnant woman. The battle is framed as one between the right of the mother to choose what to do with her own body versus the right of a fetus to live on and be born alive after a term pregnancy. The debate also is about when the fetus is implanted with a soul (which we call the Essence), as at that moment she becomes a human being, with the legal right to be allowed to stay alive. Before that moment, the fetus is an organ of the mother's body, with no special rights, similar to her spleen or appendix. Birth is similar to what happens at the end of an auto assembly line. No driver is needed in the car until it is completed and rolled off the line onto the parking lot. Before then, a driver in the car
would only cause confusion and chaos if he tried to drive the car somewhere. That is what the robotic assembly line machines are for. But when the car is completely constructed and no longer controlled by the robots, it needs its own driver. Otherwise, it will go nowhere. That is why the CIE wait until the first breath after delivery to implant the Essence plus Personality into the newborn baby. This action completes the total construction process of a human. Accidental Death: When a Personality's Life Plan indicates he is to cease to exist, the Essence may arrange for him to be hit by a drunk driver and fatally injured. Or the Essence will not give an intuitive warning that a certain airplane is going to crash and will make sure his charge checks in for the airplane's flight on time. In such cases, the Essences of all passengers and crew will know this will be their last flight. Mass casualties are no surprise to the Essences of those killed. They will then all be available for reincarnation. Social Operations of the Essence The Spiritual Guardian is the CIE responsible for bringing each Personality in touch with the correct family members, friends, fellow students, and coworkers. But all she can do is get the others face-to-face with the Personality. The job of the Essence is to cause his charge to become attracted to these other humans who are not family members and to be brave enough to interact with them. If the Personality is innately shy, that can be difficult. In Ralph's case, I had some problems with that, since his father was a quite unsociable person. All boys model their behavior after their father's, and Ralph was no exception. Since his father, Ted, could not carry on small talk with guests at a party, Ralph failed to learn how to do that while growing up. Ralph watched what was going on around him, but it took a strong motivation for him to become involved in a conversation with someone he did not already know. He never had the training needed to easily initiate a conversation with a stranger. He also took to heart certain cultural standards he thought applied to men in his culture. One was that a man does not start a conversation with a strange woman. So I had to do a lot of pushing to get him into a relationship both his Spiritual Guardian CIE and I thought best for him. Falling In Love: We Essences are responsible for triggering the "I fell in love with her the first time I saw her across the room" type of attraction. As mentioned previously in Chapter 2, we do that so that the two humans who are only casually acquainted will feel attracted to each other and then get involved at a deeper level. The reason can be anything from the need to feel loved by someone that particular day to a Life Plan goal of a lifelong romance. The Essences turn up the voltage of the love-magnet of their charges. What happens after that depends on many factors. Example Ralph deliberately avoided serious romances with young ladies while in medical school, since he had to use all his energy in his studies. But when he reached the last month of his senior year in medical school, I encouraged him to look at the available women as prospective mates. The Berry Doctors' Draft was in effect at the time, and it mandated that he enter a military service after completing his internship. I knew he would be miserable living on a military base in Bachelor Officers' Quarters. He needed to be married by that time.
His Spiritual Guardian CIE introduced him to his wife-to-be, Mitzi, by having her take a job as a night surgical nurse at the UCLA School of Medicine when he was a senior medical student there. He was then covering the Emergency Room with Harry [not his true name], a friend in the class ahead of him, who was now the intern on ER duty. The CIE arranged for the UCLA homecoming queen to have an attack of appendicitis that day, and she came to the ER., where Harry and Ralph were on duty, at 8:00 p.m. They decided surgery was necessary, and Mitzi Burden was the surgical nurse on duty. Harry introduced Ralph to Mitzi while all were standing around the sedated body of the homecoming queen, in their surgical gowns, with caps and masks hiding most of their faces. They could only see each other's eyes and foreheads. A week later, Ralph had moved onto another rotation at a local hospital, where student nurses also trained. One invited him to a party to be held at the apartment of three nurses. When they arrived, he discovered that one of the three nurses was Mitzi. She soon pulled him away from his date and took him for a walk outside. She told him bluntly that she wanted to have a child by him since he looked so much like her father. Her parents had borne a son, Fred, who was severely retarded with phenylketonuria (PKU), and he was physically built just like her father, tall and lanky. So was Ralph. Mitzi came to think of this younger brother with PKU as her own son, after she watched her mother reject him. When he was four years old, he was such a difficult boy to manage, his parents put him in a private hospital, and he had been hospitalized somewhere ever since. Mitzi, then age 11, felt that her "son" had been taken away from her, and now she wanted Ralph to help her make a replacement for Fred. She announced this desire of hers before either one of them had a chance to know what the other one was like. They had no idea of each other's likes and dislikes or strengths and weaknesses. Any objective observer would have seen this as Mitzi wanting a donation from Ralph's sperm bank to meet her own emotional needs. I had prepared for this encounter with intense discussions with his Spiritual Guardian CIE, who knew what wife and co-parent he needed to have in this lifetime. The Essences of the Personalities of their children had already been chosen, and we knew they needed this particular pair of parents to provide the proper DNA interactions to allow them to fulfill their Life Plans. We also knew Mitzi's Life Plan, as well as her past lives. Ralph had been picked by the CIE to be her mate in this lifetime, to allow her the chance to resolve certain karmic problems, mainly her difficult relationship with her mother, a mean and selfish alcoholic woman. If Ralph were to have told any premarital counselor what he knew about Mitzi and her needs, that counselor would have advised him to avoid this marriage. I knew any clear thinking person would have passed up this chance at marriage to her, but the CIE insisted that I keep Ralph interested in Mitzi and eventually marry her. Much depended on the match coming to fruition. Prior to this meeting of Ralph and Mitzi, he had fond feelings for two other single women. One was from his boyhood days in Ontario, California, a girl five years younger than himself, named Sue [not her true name]. She had gone to college and had written him about a boy she had met there, named Melvin [not his true name]. They were dating, and she was "sort of interested" in him, she wrote.
The other young lady, Laura [not her true name], was another nurse at UCLA who had dated Harry, the ER intern, before he became too busy to date anyone. She then started inviting Ralph to the parties held by students and nurses there. During the week after Ralph and Mitzi met at the party, they went out together every single evening. Mitzi literally would not get off Ralph's lap, and she smothered him with affectionate kisses. She wanted him. There was no question in his mind about her goal. He was used to being an analytical thinker, but the presence of a fairly attractive young lady acting madly in love with him was quite an ego booster. While he had dated some, he was not a woman chaser, as had been some of his roommates. While Mitzi had been the overtly aggressive pursuer, in his mind, the man was the one who should propose marriage. Each weekend Ralph drove from his room in Los Angeles to Upland, California, where his parents then lived, taking along his dirty laundry to wash. He did so again after a week of constant necking with Mitzi. At his parents' home, I kept him from telling his parents about this new romance, knowing they would warn their beloved son to be extra cautious about proceeding too quickly. So he did not bring up the subject of his new romance. On the drive back to Los Angeles, I brought up the subject of whom he should marry. I laid out in his mind that he had three ladies on his list, all of them being available and desirable as potential mates — Mitzi, Sue and Laura. Let us look at them one at a time, I told him in his head. In my presentation, I stated categorically that Laura was to wed Harry. That was what their Life Plans demanded. Sue was to marry Melvin, as that was what their Life Plans required. That left Mitzi, ands he was to marry him. I repeated this speech many times during the drive back to Los Angeles until I had Ralph convinced. Regardless of what any objective observer might note as problems, he was to marry Mitzi. With that memory of my talk to him, he proposed to Mitzi on their next date. He was not surprised when she readily accepted his offer of marriage. They had been dating for only a week. By then he had been accepted for an internship in Oakland, California. He told Mitzi he was not in favor of a long distance romance. She promised to move to Oakland to be with him, which she did. Later, she steadfastly denied ever making such a promise to him. She had amnesia for making that promise, which was actually stated by her Essence, who also knew this was a match that needed to happen. Making Work Intolerable: We can make our charge revulsed by other people at work so that he does not want to get up and go to work at all. This will happen at a time when the Spiritual Guardian CIE knows it is time to quit that job and move on, but the Personality does not want to do so. He will not "read the writing on the wall." Example I had to pull out all the stops to get Ralph to leave Santa Cruz and move to Davis, California. The CIE insisted upon this move as they had Marie, who was then suffering with MPD in Sacramento, ready to move to where he could treat her. He had to be there when she arrived. But I knew he would not move for such a noble cause, but he would move for one reason — more money. The CIE and I decided on a series of actions which would force him to move because, if he stayed in Santa Cruz, he would go broke. He had helped set up the psychiatric ward at Dominican
Santa Cruz Hospital, and a third of his gross income came from his inpatient billings there, mostly MPD patients. If the ward closed down, he would lose a third of his income. The CIE therefore instructed the Essence of the nun who was the hospital administrator to give the lady a heart attack. She had always kept the psychiatric unit operating as a public service. When she went on disability leave, the man who had been the hospital finance officer, a "bean counter," replaced her. He immediately issued orders that the psychiatric department must admit enough patients to cover their specific costs, which they already did, and also their share of indirect costs, such as laundry and groundskeeping. They were not then bringing in enough fees for this second portions of the costs. He gave Ralph and the other psychiatrists 30 days to prove they could bring in double the money the hospital had collected for their patients' care each month so far. This was impossible, and the new administrator closed the psychiatric ward. All psychiatric patients were then routed to the county hospital psychiatric ward, where none of the private psychiatrists had admitting privileges. Ralph lost a third of his income that way. I then had Ralph sit down and analyze his financial situation. He saw that he had cut his expenses as far as he could, but he had no way of increasing his income. One problem he had created for himself was his desire to take care of all the patients on low incomes, including those on welfare. These were covered by MediCal, the state's medical insurance plan. Their fees were now far below what he needed to open his office doors each morning. I had him check with the local medical clinic business manager to see how he handled this problem. He told Ralph he limited his MediCal caseload to 13% of the patients. Beyond that, they could not afford to go. Ralph's MediCal caseload was 51% of his total cases. So I dropped the idea into his head that he should look for a salaried job, and he did so. He was offered two jobs I didn't want him to accept. One was in a hospital in San Jose to which he would have to commute over a mountain road every day. In his mind, I showed him a picture of himself in a massive traffic jam on this winding mountain road coming and going every day. He got the message and refused a generous offer of employment there. Then he visited a private psychiatric hospital where he was offered a position. I had him follow an attending psychiatrist on rounds, and he discovered most of the young male patients were put there by their rich fathers to keep them out of jail. They were allegedly too mentally ill with "borderline personality disorders" to go to trial. I told him he would be a prostitute to his profession if he went to work there, and he heard me loud and clear. With the word "prostitute" repeating in his mind, he turned down their generous offer. The CIE and I still had to get him into the correct place, which was the Yolo County Mental Health Service, west of Sacramento. We conspired with the Essence of the psychiatrist who was then working in their clinic in Broderick, on the eastern edge of Yolo County. This psychiatrist's time to cease to exist had come. His Essence caused him to get hepatitis, then treat himself with cortisone. This caused total system failure, and he ceased to exist. Ralph had met the Yolo County MHS Program Chief at regional meetings, so Ralph called him to see if he had an opening. He told Ralph his Broderick clinic psychiatrist had just died a few days before, and he had not even had time to put out an advertisement for someone to fill the position. As we had anticipated, the Program Chief was delighted to invite Ralph to apply for the position, which he did. Thus we manipulated him to move out of Santa Cruz to Davis, the university
town in Yolo County. That was where the CIE wanted him to move to, so he could begin another phase of his Life Plan. But it took the creation of a heart attack of a nun and the demise of a psychiatrist to bring it about. Erectile Dysfunction: While the Spiritual Guardian CIE is in charge of lining up the partners of all kinds for the Personality, it is up to me, the Essence, to be sure my charge can physically make the relationship work. I may want Ralph to be interested in a particular woman so both of them can gain from the relationship, but I might not want him permanently committed to her. In such a case, I can give Ralph what is called Erectile Dysfunction (ED), which not even prescribed drugs can overcome. I have to take the risk of him feeling sexually inadequate, and he has to be mature enough to realize this is not a fact. Once sexual intercourse has occurred, the relationship takes on a whole different meaning for both parties. For the women in Ralph's life since his divorce, the relationships were meant to be temporary, as each one was at a crossroad in her life and had to make important decisions. The Spiritual Guardian CIE brought him into each woman's life at that time in order for him to help her make the correct decisions. They may need to feel in love with him to do that, however. This did not mean they should stay in love after their choices were made. Example Ralph's marriage to Mitzi was filled with many incidents of unsatisfactory sexual behavior. She also continually pointed out what she considered his many character flaws. He was constantly on the defensive, which made the relationship even worse. During their marriage, I kept all his emotions dampened down so he would never lose control and hurt her. I could not afford to allow him to lose control, or she might end up in a grave and he in prison. After they divorced, he lived in his own small apartment. I decided it was time to let him experience a full range of all human emotions, something I had prevented during the marriage. At 3:00 a.m. one morning, I reset his "emotional rheostat" from low to normal. He awoke with a wild array of feelings coursing through his body, all at the same time. Only then was he able to fall in love with a woman. He had not married Mitzi after falling in love with her, but because I convinced him it was his duty to do so. He was following my advisory. He knew it was what was expected of him. Now, in his retirement, at an age you humans might call elderly, he was able to fall in love with a suitable woman for the first time in his life. So his Spiritual Guardian CIE started bringing into his life space a select series of women, each one giving him social and sexual opportunities which he would have had if he had dated them in his adolescence. Each one taught him a new lesson he needed to learn about women. We introduced him to two new women a year for the next several years. When he had gained the confidence and social skills to have a full sexual alliance with a willing woman, his Spiritual Guardian CIE had Sarah [not her true name] approach him after church choir practice. Sarah was still in the Survival Training phase of her reincarnations and, in her recent past, she had moved from one alcoholic mate to another. Finally she had met a preacher of this church who introduced her to a list of ways to solve all personal problems, as taught by this particular church. She spent a year studying this church's list of approved ways to solve problems, and she finally had a list of guidelines on how to live responsibly in society. Many humans who are just finishing the Survival Training period of reincarnation find churches very useful for this service.
I pushed Ralph's "fall-in-love" button as Sarah's Essence did with her charge. She invited Ralph to dinner at her apartment, where they eventually progressed to the kissing and hugging stage of a romantic relationship. I knew she had a long term goal of inviting Ralph to move in with her on a permanent basis, so she was willing to start a sexual relationship with him. They discussed the idea of sex openly, but she did not bring up the idea of his moving in with her. Both agreed they would start with an overnight visit by Ralph when both could enjoy each other's sexual company. The evening before he was due to stay overnight, they were necking on the couch, and she was so erotic in her caresses, Ralph ejaculated into his trousers. So he knew that his machinery was working well. He therefore anticipated no problem the following night. Now Charity, the Spiritual Professor CIE, and I had discussed this new plan thoroughly and had approved of the idea. The Creator told us to avoid watching him in bed that night, so he would not feel there were observers in the bedroom. Charity told Ralph that none of his spiritual teachers would be looking in on him that night. Therefore, he need not feel he was being watched while he made love to Sarah. Thus he knew this new sexual role had been approved at the highest spiritual levels. The evening of the planned overnight stay came, and he arrived at Sarah's apartment with his overnight bag and found a woman willing to make love with him. After dinner and socializing, they went to her bedroom, undressed and went to bed together. But nothing happened. No matter what either of them did to sexually stimulate each other, Ralph could not get passionate enough to get an erection. Everything had been set to go. He was not feeling guilty of violating any moral standards since Charity had told him The Creator approved of this liaison. So what was wrong? Finally Sarah told him that maybe their bodies had to get used to each other, and they should stop trying to have sex and get some sleep, which they did. The next morning he left after breakfast, thinking that I, Michael, was behind his impotency of the night before. He was right. While he was socializing with Sarah that night, I had second thoughts about their new relationship and called for a conference with the CIE and The Creator. I told them that I knew Ralph better than any of them, and I knew that, if he were to be able to have successful heterosexual intercourse with a woman, he would feel obligated to stay with her forever afterwards. This was his code, and I could not change it. It was what made him unable to have any one night stands. This attitude came from his prior lifetimes as a woman. Though I have not mentioned any but lifetimes as a male, about half of his were as a female. In his mature lifetimes as a woman, he felt that, when she allowed her romantic partner to have genital sexual intercourse with her, the relationship changed forever. Instead of it being temporary and teasing, it was now permanent and passionate. Instead of it being playful and testing, it became serious and committed. Once she had "opened her doors" to her man and let him into her body, she now was committed to taking care of him, soothing his fevered brow, and being by his side when he needed her. He was now "her man," and she was "his woman." When she reincarnated as a man, those attitudes stayed the same. Sarah was fine as one in a series of women with whom he could experience sexual and social pleasures he had never had with Mitzi. I had thought this was a worthwhile program to continue. But I definitely did not want him feeling obligated to stay with her. I knew he would feel he should, once he had successfully had intercourse with her, so I had to stop that from happening.
The Creator and CIE understood my concerns and accepted my reservations, as they had not considered this aspect of the situation. Once they thought it through, they agreed to let me block the physical mechanism which allowed an erection while he was with Sarah. We knew her Personality was in love with him, adored, and admired him, and she would not castigate him as being sexually inadequate. She would take this setback in stride and not hurt his male ego. It was safe to proceed. So I blocked his sexual response mechanism. Her caresses and kisses did little to arouse any sexual desire for her, and he just could not get an erection. They both gave it their all and finally rationalized that their bodies were not yet attuned to each other. Ralph also knew that he could not revert to the previous relationship, which was petting and foreplay. He had to break it off, and he carefully explained that to Sarah. I knew she was close to inviting him to move in with her, if the love making had been successful. I could not allow that to happen. Both Ralph and I also knew there were two other men who were smitten with her and wanted a chance to date her. But she had decided to be with Ralph instead of either of them. They were still standing on the sidelines, waiting for her to accept their invitations. Ralph had brought her out of the shell she had been is, as they had both enjoyed several months of dating. She had now come to see herself as a loveable, desirable woman, with a much higher sense of self worth than she had felt for a long time. She was ready for one of the other suitors. Breaking With Family Traditions: Many families feel traditions are more important than the individual plans of their family members. If a son wants to be an oceanographer instead of a lawyer as all his forefathers have been, his Essence will push him to find his way into the correct occupation. This is not to be done in a rebellious fashion, but with a win/win attitude. Hopefully, his Essence can convince the Essences of the mother and father to recognize that truly loving parents want their son to devote his life energy to doing what he feels he must do and thereby contribute greatly to his own culture. Communication Between the Essence and the Personality One of the most important duties of an Essence is to advise and mentor the Personality of his charge. I have had major difficulties in getting Ralph to recognize that I exist and then to listen to me. Everyday there are situations in which I have advice to give, advice which will allow him to have a much more rewarding experience. But he has not heard me most of his life. When he went to college and medical school, his experts were the professors who taught his classes. When out of school, his experts were the authors of the professional books and articles he read, trying to be the best he could in the medical and psychiatric professions. He never considered the concept that I was inside his own head, ready to advise him on what to do about situations he had to face every day. Then the CIE brought to his attention patients who had made alter-personalities. The first one he diagnosed with MPD showed him her dissociated Essence, which he later called an Inner Self Helper or ISH. In the trade, this became known as the Allisonian ISH. This was the wise and healthy part of the patient's mind, who became an inside co-therapist while he was the outside co-therapist. But he did not easily make the leap to realizing he had the same mental mechanism working inside his own head, until Elise became his patient in Santa Cruz. She was the most exotic MPD patient he had at the time, and she was highly psychic, as is true of all MPD patients.
Elise was in the audience when Ralph participated in a Health Faire at the local junior college. He was on a panel of health providers, while she was in the audience. After the performance was over, she came up to Ralph, her psychiatrist, and told him, "Dr. A, I could see Michael talking into your left ear during your presentation. I see him all the time in the office when I come to see you. He is trying to tell you what to say to me during therapy. But you don't listen to him. If you would, you would know better what to say to me in therapy, and I would do better." This was a shock to Ralph, the idea that there was something called Michael inside his head who knew what he should say to patients. No psychiatrist likes to think of anyone else being brighter or more clever than he is. But she said it in all sincerity, and the idea of somebody named Michael being there ready to help was implanted in his mind. Later, one of Ralph's other MPD patient, Patsy [not her true name], was found dead in her bedroom with a bullet hole in her head. She was living with the family of a bail bondsman. She had met him while dating his eldest son, who had recently paroled from a federal penitentiary. She then moved into the father's house to housekeep for his other six children. When the police were called by the family, they all reported that, while Patsy was alone in the back bedroom, they heard a shot from there. When they went to investigate, they found her dead with a bullet wound to her head. One of them picked up the pistol she had used and test fired it, shooting a bullet into the mattress. The investigating deputy didn't believe their story, but, with all the family members giving the same story, he could not prove any other cause of death but suicide. None of those who knew her believed she killed herself, as she was doing better than ever. If she was not the primary target, then she was a secondary target of some family member who was shooting at another family member. But none of these conjectures could be proven. Four months after her death, Ralph and his secretary arrived for work at the front office door together and found an unstamped letter which had been slipped through the mail slot in the door. It seemed to be a letter composed by Patsy, but written by the hand of a live woman who felt guided to deliver it to his office. One part of the letter said: "Dr. Allison, "I have been asked to communicate with you. But my dear friend, I have many times. I've spoken with you. You need to listen for me. I have been in your office 14 times since I passed on. I'm deeply sorry for the grief I caused you. (For the record, I did not take my own life, and I was not murdered!) . . . I have tried to help you with many different patients. I've been in your office for as long as four hours at a time. I've put words in your mind to speak and write. I've read minds and tried to feed information to you. Please listen! I sit by the door on the carpet. If you do not care for my assistance, simply tell me. "I feel you do not have the knowledge to visualize me yet. But you can hear me, and if you desire to do so, you can feel my presence." So here was another indication that Ralph was not paying attention to spiritual sources of valuable information about his patients and their problems. When Ralph had moved to Davis, he met Marie, his most exotic MPD patient in Yolo County. Her dissociated Essence and ISH, Becky, was his constant co-therapist in therapy with her. After Marie integrated all her alter-personalities, Ralph moved to Los Osos, California, to work as a psychiatrist at the California Men's Colony State Prison (CMC), in San Luis Obispo.
When he retired from there after 12 years, he contacted Marie to see if she would cooperate with him in writing her story for publication. She agreed, and Becky was his primary coauthor. During 18 months of writing, Marie made a number of important life decisions, many of which seemed quite foolish to Ralph. He remonstrated her for her poor judgment and told her to listen to Becky, who always knew the best things for her to do. Marie replied, "Why should I listen to Becky when you don't listen to Michael?" She had a point. In the story of Marie's therapy with Ralph, there were many descriptions of my discussions and interactions with Becky, as well as with the CIE named Faith, Hope, and Charity. It was not because he was unaware of how I had operated in his life as a therapist. At least in the office and hospital, where he often had no second chance to repair mistakes, he listened to me and learned to follow my guidance. In Santa Cruz, Ralph lived in a house which was a ten minute drive from the hospital where he treated his MPD patients. Quite often, the evening shift nurse would call him to report a problem with one of his patients. He would drive the ten minutes to the hospital. During those ten minutes he had to figure out what to do when he got there. That was when I had his full attention. I would lay out in his mind the treatment plan, including whatever items I wanted him to pick up at his office on the way to the hospital. He always followed my instructions and arrived at the psychiatric ward with the tools he needed, such as a tape recorder and, one time, a crucifix. I had him take it off the wall next to the elevator as he got off on the second floor of the hospital where the psychiatric ward was located. He had no intellectual insight as to why he might need any of these items. I also might tell him to call certain humans to be in the room with him and the patient. He learned to follow my instructions, and he was able to handle each and every emergency correctly. He never left the hospital without the emergency being properly dealt with. But when it came to his personal life, that was different. He didn't consider me to be present for family problems, for example. He just emoted and became more distressed. The pressures on him at home, in Los Osos, became so severe that Charity decided that she had to take action. One of the persistent character traits she had noted in Ralph was his stubbornness. He considered it a worthy trait named "steadfastness." She considered it a personality flaw named "stubbornness beyond all reason." One evidence of his stubbornness was his staying in a marriage with a repeatedly hostile wife for 39 years, after all four children had left home for their own careers. When the proper time came, Charity took action. Ralph sat in his family room watching TV, and his wife, Mitzi, walked into the room and stood in front of him, confronting him. She said, "Ralph, I want a divorce. I can't stand living this way anymore. You force me to stay in the bedroom and watch TV all day." Ralph looked up at her and wondered what in the world she was talking about. He never forced her to do anything. She stayed in the master bedroom watching videotapes she had purchased, all showing killings of humans, either in war stories or murder mysteries. She never watched comedies, only killings. But now she said she wanted a divorce, something he had been thinking about for a long time. But he didn't know how to bring it about without looking like the bad guy Mitzi kept accusing him of being. But now, she had said the "D word." He had a gleeful feeling inside himself, realizing that now he could get out of this terrible marriage without being the bad guy. His wife wanted out, and he would just be kind and give her what she wanted.
That was not Mitzi saying those words. Charity had been patient long enough, and she realized Ralph's stubborn refusal to end the marriage would not change. So she took over Mitzi's body for a few minutes and gave him a speech which she knew make him feel free to agree to a divorce. A few months later, he did leave when Mitzi insulted him one time too often. Nine days later she filed for divorce, and he cooperated to the fullest to grant Mitzi her wish. Then he was on his own, with only me, Michael, to tell him what to do. He had lots of decisions to make then, and Charity, who was using the body of Marie to talk to him, constantly encouraged him to communicate with me. He was reluctant to listen to some quiet voice inside his head, as it could be his own emotional thoughts. How could he trust his own thoughts? Then Charity suggested he try automatic writing. One of his patients, Henry Hawksworth [not his true name], the author of The Five of Me, communicated with his dissociated Essence primarily by automatic writing, so he knew he could do it if he tried. He started typing questions to me on his computer keyboard, and I typed answers back to him. He first had to learn to phrase questions in such a way so that someone else would be able to answer them. Vague philosophical questions are worthless. Straightforward questions about what to do with specific people in expected situations are answerable. When he finished typing his questions, he quieted his mind, body, and fingers, and let me take over his hands. I would then write a short, concise answer to him. He then continued the same line of questioning until he got a complete, useful answer. Then he switched to another topic, if he had one. Becky sat by his side at first, critiquing what he wrote, noting those answers with emotions inherent in them. Those answers were not from me, as I cannot emote. They were from his own mind and were to be ignored. Only calm answers without any emotional overlay could be trusted as coming from me, his Essence. Finally, Ralph got the message that I am here, always on the ready to aid him in each and every problem he faced. He then started teaching this method to others he met who were very confused about what to do next. He recently taught it to a lady with MPD who e-mailed him in confusion and distress. He told her she had an ISH inside there somewhere, and she might contact her with automatic writing. She tried to on her computer and immediately got a reassuring answer from her ISH, who offered to help her get well. The ISH advised her to let her psychiatrist know of her discovery of the ISH, as he was willing to work with her ISH to help this lady. Ralph has also learned to let me take over his body when he has an important public statement to make. He can then sit back and listen to me tell the story that needs to be told. The first time I did this with his full awareness and cooperation was in court in Davis. A young black man from Sacramento named Harlan [not his true name] came through Davis with some friends on his way south. He had several alter-personalities, one of whom wanted to find the most racially prejudiced woman in Davis, a predominately white town. He believed his mother had lost custody of him as a boy because a white social worker was racially prejudiced against blacks in her caseload of clients. He failed to take into account the fact that his mother was a prostitute. Harlan was looking for someone in Davis just like that white social worker he hated. He found her in the wife of the County Health Officer, after knocking on her front door and questioning her.
After he decided she was the most racist woman in town, he forced his way into her house and stole her wedding ring. He was later arrested in another city and returned to Davis to face charges. Harlan escaped from jail in Davis but was caught at gunpoint. Escape charges were added. Ralph had talked to his alter-personalities during jail sick call, so he was ready to testify for his defense attorney, when he came for trial. Harlan was a most unsympathetic defendant in the courtroom when Ralph was called to testify. His testimony was geared to give him a legal defense, so everyone but his lawyer were antagonistic against Ralph, who appeared to be on the side of this monster of a defendant. Ralph was on the witness stand all morning long, facing the questioning of a hostile district attorney and a judge who did not appear to believe a word he said. During lunch with the attorney, Ralph wondered out loud if he could stand the stress of testifying for the rest of the day, as he was scheduled to do. Then he remembered me, his Essence, Michael. He thought, "Why should I testify? Let Michael do it." I agreed with him, and he then thought, "OK, Michael. You can borrow my mouth and vocal chords this afternoon. I will just sit back and listen to you." And that is what he did. All afternoon long, I testified for him. Being unemotional, I did not react to the caustic comments of the District Attorney. I relayed the information Ralph had gathered on this strange defendant and made sure everyone in the courtroom knew just what he knew, whether they liked him or not. The afternoon court session went calmly and smoothly, as far as Ralph was concerned. Harlan was convicted and was sent to prison, so Ralph's testimony did not get him acquitted. Later, Ralph did present his case to the psychiatrists in the prison where Harlan was incarcerated, when he went there for a case conference on MPD. Harlan refused to cooperate in any demonstration in front of the prison psychiatrists. But he watched while Marie, who did come, demonstrated switching of personalities. This finally opened his eyes, as he had denied to himself that he had MPD. Now he saw what others had seen him do so often. Ralph was able to guide the Chief Psychiatrist in how to handle this difficult inmate, who created problems wherever he went. I testified in another court case in which Ralph was involved. An Apache Indian man was arrested and charged with four rapes. His Caucasian wife had called in Ralph to interview him, hoping for a mental illness diagnosis. He admitted to all four rapes to Ralph and explained his motivations for each one. At trial, he was found guilty on two rape charges and had hung juries on the other two. Ralph was called to testify in the penalty phase. The defense attorney was concerned that the District Attorney might ask Ralph if the man had confessed committing the two rapes for which he had not been found guilty. If that information came out, there would be retrials on those two charges, which the attorney hoped to avoid. So he and Ralph worked out a plan of action if the District Attorney should find out from Ralph that the man had confessed to him committing all four rapes. This was a case where there would be no second chance, so I decided to testify in place of Ralph. He got on the stand, but then I took over. I focused on the defendant's extensive history of child abuse by his father and grandfather, and how those men had also damaged his brothers and sister. I never mentioned the rapes at all, and the District Attorney never mentioned them either. After my testimony was over, the humans in the audience were allowed to speak. His sister and brother stood up and told of the trauma they, too, had suffered in that terrible family they all
came from. The defendant's wife spoke for herself and their son, who was there in the courtroom with her. A young lady who was one of the rape victims had a chance to make her statement. What surprised Ralph, but not me, was that those humans in the audience then started going to each other and hugging one another. There was such a catharsis of feelings being let loose in that courtroom that day, they were all starting to heal from the severe wounds they all had suffered over the years. The reconciliation process was in full swing before the courtroom was emptied of humans. This was much more useful than finding the defendant guilty of another two rapes. He was sentenced to prison, so all worked out in the end. But it could not have happened if we had gotten side tracked into knowing just how many women he had raped and when. I took over for Ralph to avoid that happening.