Herb Wood hired me at Billboard Magazine, he said, because I was crosseyed, and that in particular my left eye turned inward. He said that if my right eye turned outward he never would have hired me. That is because supposedly, the left eye was looking inward toward my soul. And the right eye turned outward was a sign of sexual deviation. Of the two, to be perfectly honest, I was glad that my left eye was looking at my soul, though also in honesty I sometimes questioned some of the sexual thoughts I had.
After a few weeks on the job Herb called me into his office to tell me about a former employee he had worked with. He said that the man was highly spiritual and that even though he had been a clerk, everybody at Billboard, including the publisher Mort Nasatir, had become enamored with him because he taught esoteric concepts centered around Gnosticism and in the late sixties and early seventies many people had been turned off by formal religion and were searching other areas for answers.
I met this man a few days later. It was on Broadway at a deli and I had gone there with my boss, Herb. I knew nothing about this guy except that his teachings had something to do with "the gnosis," whatever that meant. I felt uneasy about him and meeting him was worse. His voice had a soft quality like Harry Belafonte's, but for all I knew he could be into anything, even voodoo. Moments after I was introduced in the middle of the sidewalk on Broadway outside the deli, he hypnotized me withou touching me and not by saying a word. Even though there were many people walking around us I couldn’t move a muscle. I was aware of what was going on around the three of us but it instantly became clear and obvious to me that my new acquaintance had total control over me. I did have the ability to ask if he was "doing this" to me. He smiled and said "yes, I don’t want to waste you’re time or mine; I need to get to know who you are and this is the only way to do that."
The stranger had told me that he lived in the West End Plaza Hotel, was my age, and said his nairm was Francois Nesbit. This lasted only a few minutes and then the trance was broken. We went into the deli to sit and eat.
"How did you get interested in Gnosticism?" he asked when he saw that I was comfortably settled in my seat after ordering a sandwich from the waiter. Herb Wood said absolutely nothing from the moment he introduced Francois to me but was clearly interested in the exchange between Francois and myself.
I replied that I didn’t know much about Gnosticism, but had found what Herb had told me about it interesting, and had given me books to read, which were very interesting. Francois told me then that he had been an editor at Billboard Publications. This belied what Herb Wood had told me. I took a quick glance at Herb but he did not flinch. One of them was lying.
"What have you as reading?" he asked me
Not wanting to embarrass myself, I searched my brain, then replied, "just recently I read Joseph Campbell's "the Hero With A Thousand Faces" but the truth was I was reading JP Dunleavey's "Gingerman," not at all esoteric, but a wonderful novel about an American expatriot in Ireland.
This brought a wide smile to his lips. "He's my guru," he said about Campbell, indicating that the relationship was that of an admiring fan but not as one of his students.
Then he mentioned other favorites. One was by Freud, another, Jung, Campbell again, and the fourth one was J.C. Forlong or Godfrey Higgins, I can't recall.
Then he said, "you are not reading Campbell, not now anyway." He knew. And he knew I knew I had lied to him about who I was reading. He also knew that I recognized his lie about working at Billboard. In a heartbeat, as if he were reading my mind, he said sharply "but the master who knew that all, was Gerald Massey!"
Nesbit said sharply, "Herb gave you books; those are the books you must read first! My students don’t get Massey until they've been with me a year!" One of his students was Jim Morrison of the Doors.
The entire encounter was no more than an hour and for the entire hour I was in various states of hypnosis but was also very much aware of all that was around me. The only thing I don’t remember is whether or not a ate lunch, or if I did what I ate.
"As you know, I've had my dreams and my visions," I said. "But this time, here with you, this is not a dream or a vision. I am super awake, super alert!"
He told me about his visions and I recalled one of them myself at the moment he started to say that.
I interrupted. “That was a vision that I had many times since I was a child. That had to if with a war. I was with my mother when I was a young boy. Many missiles and hundreds of enemy planes flew over our heads and I knew there was a war but was afraid to turn to see the damage. My mother was calm. The planes came from in front of us on the right, flew directly overhead and then flew off to the rare right. My mother was not emotional; she seemed to know everything. My father was not there.”
When I finished telling Francois about the vision I came out of the hypnotic state. "I know you,” he said. "Come to my Hotel and meet the others who study."
I went to a few sessions and I read the materials. They included some of the teachings of Gurjieff and the Seth Materials. I was particularly interested in Gurjieff and years afterward I read everything he had along with his student Ouspemsky. I even joined Gurdjieff group for awhile but they eventually threw me out. I even saw Jim Morrison at one session of Francois’ group. But I stopped going.
Other students called me many times to return but I never went back.
Herb Wood also tried to convince me to go back. I took a job at the Chelsea Clinton News and the Westsider and wrote freelance for Billboard.
I din’t meet another esoteric for almost a decade. I learned that Francois had died of a heart attack in a store right next to the hotel in which he lived. When I called him before his death just t say hello people were living at his hotel. To this day I believe that the story about his death was a lie. I believe I was told that he was dead because they thought he was dead to me.
Two years after my encounter with Francois I was ill and had not had anything to drink for about a week so I would get better. One afternoon, sitting in my apartment I went into some kind of a trance; I wasn’t asleep and I wasn’t awake. I went into a trancelike dream.
In the dream there was an elderly man who I instantly recognized as Francois. My emotions were unable to accept that he hypnotized me from death. He talked to me.
“You fear to be whole runs between two urges. The first inclines you to outdo youreself, reach for the unobtainable, to seek the limits of you’re being, to fulfill yourself. The other controls this urge, that disciplines this and channels that, giving that direction to help you concentrate and achieve mastery over you’re emotion. Consequently, you are always trying to control this internal contradiction. Orfen, they blend into a tremendous passion, giving you, at times, a meaningful direction to you’re life, possibly, a priest, diplomat, perhaps even a politician.”
I took out a Marlboro and lit it.
“The latter inclines and directs you to the conquest of vast horizons, advancement on a social or spiritual level, seeking space, by fulfilling yourself through travel or dreams of freedom and escape.”
“Judging what is bad for you, let me say that although bad, that gives you balance. Occasionally though, even this has its negative side. Since you can see both sides of a question equally well, at times you are unable to take a decisive stand. You’re weaknesses are minimal, but never-the-less exist.”
Tell me who you are. Are you Francois?
“Seek balance. You must avoid acting in spasmodic fits and starts.”
I reached for the pack of Rolaids that were in his right breast pocket, ripped the metallic paper back and popped a tablet into my mouth.
“We now must consider our deepest instincts and hidden tendencies. This is our unconscious. That reigns over our dreams and meditations, our intuitions and all manifestations of the subconscious world.”
Its was a very odd experience because I could think freely and listen and comment in my mind and yet I also knew I could not get away, like for taking a piss, if getting a bare. I was stuck here in this very rum position.
But still the ever-present sense of Francois was real. The trance ended. The dream ended. I didn’t think about Francois Nesbitt for many years.
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