It's All In the Playing Read Online Free PDF Page B

Stoddard had suggested his number one choice to be Robert Butler. Butler had directed the pilot films for Hill Street Blues and Moonlighting and if we were lucky enough to find him available, we should grab him.
    Butler was available, but that didn’t mean he’d want to do the show. How many directors could feel conversant with extraterrestrials, spiritual entities, and reincarnated love affairs? Well, we soon found out.
    My daughter Sachi’s birthday was September 1. I decided to throw a little party for her in Malibu and invite Kevin Ryerson, who was the trance channeler I wrote about in Out on a Limb. The question now was: Should he play himself in the film or should we get an actor who could act that he was channeling entities from the spiritual dimension? To witness Kevin channeling, along with the proposed director, Robert Butler, I invited producer Stan Margulies, Colin, my agent Mort Viner, and some of Sachi’s best friends. Aside from Colin, none of the people involved in the show had seen the phenomenon of trance channeling. Sachi had, of course, and was longing to speak to several of the entities she hadn’t had contact with for some time. So for everyone it would be useful.
    But several of the friends present were not working on the film and didn’t know a spiritual entity from the Exorcist—and frankly couldn’t have cared less. But because I don’t feel anything is an accident, I was comfortable with the thought that everyone there was present for a reason. I would have a chance to see the level and quality of skepticism, so that I’d have an idea of what to expect from a wide television audience which would almost certainly include many individuals who would think we were not playing with a full deck of cards.
    So, after dinner and the cake and presents, we turned down the lights (spiritual entities say they can see our vibrational light-frequencies better when electricity doesn’t interfere with the medium’s own eyes), and settled into a channeling session. The waves gently lapped outside as I turned on the tape recorder and waited for Kevin to go into trance. Everyone in the room watched intently. It was the transition into the trance state that usually told the story. If they believed the medium was “acting,” it would be during that transition. I, on the other hand, was checking the process in a professional sense, knowing that we should not allow the film editor to cut away from Kevin going into trance because such a cut would give the impression that a trick was being played on the audience.
    In about four minutes the first entity, John, came through. Was four minutes going to sustain itself on the screen? Could we even afford such a length of time?
    “Hail!” he said—as usual. “Greetings and state purpose of gathering.”
    Everyone leaned forward. What was this strange Biblical dialect? Sachi returned John’s greeting. She said we were all gathered for her birthday and even though there were people present whom John would consider strangers, we were in fact all friends.
    John responded immediately. “There is no such thing as ‘strangers,’” he said. “There are only friends one has not yet met.” Several people blinked and sat back to digest this remark.
    “Oh,” said Sachi. “Excuse me.” She hesitated. At once John offered cordial birthday wishes and congratulated her for deciding to come into an incarnation on the earth plane at this period of time. She thanked him. He then asked for questions. No one said anything. Subtle body movements, the odd uneasy glance indicated that some of those present were busy adjusting to a new method of communication, or were simply uncomfortablewith the whole scene, or possibly were afraid to speak up in “public”—even though this was not a large audience of strangers. We all knew one another more or less. Still, I suppose no one had quite figured the way through to an actual confrontation with a nonsolid person….
    I could sense