George Chesbro: An Affair Of Sorcerers

"Pretty," I said. "What is it?"

"It's a Kirlian photograph. The technique is named after a Russian who invented it a few decades ago. By the way, the Russians are far ahead of us in the field of parapsychology."

I knew: the Rafferty case again. What had started out as a lazy Friday was turning into a very strange day filled with haunting memories and racking tensions.

"They're very good at this kind of research," Janet continued quietly. "Healing, ESP, clairvoyance-that sort of thing. Kirlian photography is supposed to show what's known as the human aura, part of the energy that all living things radiate. The technique itself is quite simple: you put the test subject-or object-into a circuit with an unexposed photographic plate, run a small current through the circuit while the subject touches the plate with some part of the body-in this case the hand." She pointed to the print I was holding. "This is the sort of thing you end up with."

"Esteban?" I asked, tapping the print.

"No; me. That's an 'average' aura, if you will." She reached back into the drawer and withdrew another set of negatives; she studied them, then handed one to me. "This is Esteban."

The print looked no more spectacular than Janet's, and I told her so.

"You might say that's Esteban at rest; he's not thinking about healing." Janet handed me another print. "Here he is with his batteries charged."

The print startled me. The bands of color were erupting from the fingers-especially the index and middle fingers. The apogee of the waves extended beyond the borders of the print. It reminded me of pictures I'd seen of sun storms.

"You won't find that effect in the other examples," Janet continued in the same, soft tone. "Simply thinking about healing makes no difference with most people. It does with Esteban-as you can see."

"I'm impressed, Janet," I said, handing her back the prints. "What does it mean?"

Janet smiled disarmingly. "Mongo, I'm a scientist. I can only afford to deal in hard facts- especially when I'm working with a controversial subject like Esteban. Even the Kirlian technique is controversial; but the fact of the matter is that Esteban does produce one hell of a Kirlian photograph. The implication, of course, is that he can literally radiate great amounts of energy from his body-at will."

"Do you believe he can actually cure diseases?"

She took some time to consider her answer, then said, "Since you insist on putting me up against the wall, I'll say that there's no doubt in my mind that he can. And he's not dealing with psychosomatic disorders. Esteban has been involved with research projects at other universities. In one, a strip of skin was surgically removed from the backs of monkeys. The animals were divided into two groups. Esteban simply handled the monkeys in one group, and the animals in that group healed almost twice as fast as the ones he didn't handle." She paused, smiled wanly. "Plants are supposed to grow faster when he waters them."

"What did you have Esteban working on here?"

"Enzymes," Janet said with a hint of pride. "It's the perfect research model, inasmuch as there are no personalities involved. Enzymes are the basic chemicals of the body. If Esteban could heal, the reasoning went, he should be able to affect pure enzymes. Well, he can."

"I take it the results were good."

"Good? They were spectacular, Mongo. You see, irradiated-'injured'-enzymes break down at specific rates in certain chemical solutions; the less damaged they are, the slower the rate of decay. What we did was take test tubes full of enzymes supplied by a commercial lab and irradiate them. The samples Esteban handled broke down at a statistically significant lesser rate than the ones he didn't handle." She paused, then added: "Ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the population wouldn't be able to affect the enzymes one way or the other. On the other hand, a very few people seem to be able to make the enzymes break down faster."

"Negative healers?"

"Right," Janet said, smiling thinly. "Pretty spooky, huh?" Her thoughts must have shifted to the Senator and his daughter; her smile vanished. "The longer I work with science, the more strongly I'm convinced that we haven't even begun to plumb the depths of God's gifts to us. Just imagine: there seem to be people alive today with Jesus' miraculous healing gift."

"And most of the ones I've heard of try to package it like oatmeal," I said.

For a moment I was afraid I'd offended the nun, but Janet slowly nodded in agreement. "So true," she said softly.

"But this is incredible," I said. "You're saying you have a man here who may actually be able to heal sick people with some kind of natural energy, and only a handful of people have ever heard of him." I thought of Younger, his desperation and frustration. I wished he hadn't left; I'd have liked to apologize to him for my impatience and bad manners.

"It's next to impossible to get funding for this type of research, much less good publicity," Janet said tightly. "Believe it or not, there are a lot of religious groups opposed to this kind of research; they feel it takes away from the spiritual aspect of healing. As I told you, Esteban is considered part of the occult. Most of my colleagues are laughing up their sleeves at me."

"Wasn't acupuncture considered occult at one time?"

Janet nodded. "Yes; and you know how long it took Western scientists and doctors to get around to taking acupuncture seriously. Psychic healing just doesn't fit into the currently acceptable pattern of scientific thinking. When you do get a study done, none of the respectable journals want to publish it; they're afraid of the subject." She sighed. "But that isn't important now. What matters is that Senator Younger's daughter needs Esteban to keep her alive, and Esteban's in jail."

"Tell me about this Dr. Samuels."

Janet thought about it for a few moments. When she finally spoke, I had the impression she was choosing her words carefully. "Well, Dr. Samuels was never happy about his part in the project. Now I'm beginning to wonder about Dr. Jordon; I'm still waiting for his anecdotal reports."

"You've lost me, Janet. What did Samuels have to do with this project? Who's this Dr. Jordon, and what reports are you talking about?"

She looked at me strangely for a few seconds, then pressed her hand to her forehead. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I thought I'd explained all that. My mind. . I've been so upset."

"I can see that. Just take your time and tell me everything that you think could have any bearing on the case."

Janet breathed deeply, nodded. "I only needed Esteban about an hour or two a day, when he actually handled the specimens," she said, her voice very soft but steady. "The rest of the time I was involved with computer analysis of the test data. I decided it might be interesting to see what Esteban could do with real patients-under medical supervision, of course. I wanted to get a physician's point of view. I put some feelers out into the medical community and got a cold shoulder from everybody but Eric Jordon, who happened to be Robert Samuels' partner."

Janet was beginning to tremble. I took her arm and eased her into a chair. She smiled her appreciation, then continued in the same quiet voice.

"We worked out a plan where Esteban would go to their offices after finishing his work here. They'd refer certain volunteer patients to him. The volunteers were in no immediate danger, but their conditions had been diagnosed and all would eventually require hospitalization. The patients would report how they felt to the doctors after their sessions with Esteban. Both Samuels and Jordon were then supposed to prepare anecdotal reports. Not very scientific, but Dr. Jordon and I thought it would make an interesting footnote to the main research project."