OAK, INC. Thinktank of the ORIGINAL Holographic Concept of Reality, 1973
I Married the Wizard of Oz Our Adventures in Parapsychology, Paraphysics, and Metaphysics by Iona Miller, 2001
When I first met Richard Alan Miller in 1976, his career in Parapsychology was in full-swing. We had both come up with a strong background in Theosophy. Not only that, his interests in metaphysics, alchemy and Magick, which paralleled my own, as well as our mutual interests in Jungian and Transpersonal Psychology made us a formidable couple. So click the heels of your Ruby Slippers together three times, and come along for the ride.
Rick was notorious in Seattle, known as the "Emerald City" as their local media-savvy magician/witch and operated Beltane Occult Books and Beltane Herb Co. at the time, centers for a variety of what have come to be known as New Age activities and services. But these were no channeling housewives nor slacker hippies, for Rick was trained as a rigorous scientist, having built a cloud chamber, then a linear accelerator for the national science fair in high school, and a plasma jet in college. Clearly he was destined for experimental, rather than theoretical physics. Wherever he went as a "strange attractor," he surrounded himself with an innovative group of individuals.
Miller had worked for duPont and Boeing in infrared countermeasures and in biophysics as an instrumentation specialist at the University of Washington, Department of Anesthesiology, under pain specialists Dr. Ray Fink and Dr. John Bonica. There he participated in the first studies in the U.S. on acupuncture. He had been taught by eminent scientists such as Dr. Charles Muses (hyperdimensional math) and Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorki (quantum biochemistry). Linus Pauling and Richard Fineman, on sabbatical from Cal Tech, were his first chemistry and physics teachers, in the John Day Lecture Series at the UW. Along with 12 graduate students, he audited David Bohm's 1970 class in Quantum Geoelectrodynamics. In graduate school, his thesis advisor was Dr. R. B. Murray, winner of the Nobel Prize in solid state physics. He also picked up such enrichment courses as Helmut Schmidt's "Eight Lectures on Yoga on the I Ching."
And he brought that rigor, and his security clearance, to the then embryonic science of parapsychology where his worked was picked up for publication by Dr. Stanley Krippner, now Dean of Consciousness Studies At Saybrook Institute, the Transpersonal Psychology graduate school.
Miller had learned, as Kuhn told us, about the structure of scientific revolutions and how science purges itself of outmoded notions roughly every 20 years. He considers science to be the leading religion of the times--the modern day form of magic. And he was well-poised to be a player in the latest revolution which was forecast and outlined by Marilyn Ferguson in 1980 as The Aquarian Conspiracy, and by Fritjof Capra in The Tao of Physics and The Turning Point, and by Ken Wilber in The Holographic Paradigm.
The wise and wonderful Oz says, "Pay no attention; don't look at the man behind the curtain..." But since I was no naive Dorothy, but more like Glinda, the good witch of the South, I had a front-row, center seat for the festivities. Unlike Dorothy, there was no "falling asleep" in these excursions through a variety of multidisciplinary consciousness-altering "fields."
KIRLIAN PHOTOGRAPHY
Rick began his professional career as a physicist, then as a biophysicist and instrumentation specialist. His first foray into Parapsychology, or more accurately Paraphysics, came in Nov-Dec of 1972. He conducted experiments in Kirlian Photography with Karl Elmendorff at the University of Washington. He was aided in this effort by Dr. John Bonica and Dr. Neidemeyer, who had worked on the Manhattan Project.
Miller wrote the field theory for Kirlian photography; these experiments showed the effect to be a secondary emission of electrons ionizing local gases, rather than a bioluminescent phenomenon of extrasensory or spiritual importance. People were pre-disposed to see physical demonstrations of so-called auras, and so they attributed the phenomenon to this traditional analog, because it served their belief system. This effect also can occur among researchers where it is known as experimenter-bias.
However, even when Miller's finding was published as "The Physical Mechanisms in Kirlian Photography" in 1975 in The Energies of Consciousness, edited by Stanley Krippner and David Rubin for Gordon & Breach, the superstitious interpretations continued, and continue to this day. Other contributors to this Krippner book included Edgar Mitchell, Victor Adamenko, William A. Tiller, John Pierrakos, Theodore Barber, David Bresler, and James Hurtak.
This work was also published as part of Kirlian Electrophotography, a data package prepared by Mankind Research Unlimited, Inc. headquartered on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington D.C., a government front organization. Miller's contribution was the Kirlian Device Circuit Diagram.
SEAL CORPORATION
In the spring of 1973, Rick met Burt Webb through the Experimental College at the University of Washington. The Experimental College was the graduate project (MBA thesisi) of another friend, Michael Wells Mandeville, and became the model nationally for community-based continuing education. Michael is now pursuing his predictions of earth changes based on Edgar Cayce's prophecies, and often appears on talk radio.
Burt was a technology forecaster in the local chapter of the World Future Society. He had coordinated the computer exhibits at the Global Villiage conference at Evergreen State College, sponsored by the Governor's office. Burt shared Rick's interest in exploring the interface between science and the paranormal.
By September, 1973 Miller had found funding under the sponsorship of Seal Corporation, a thinly disguised front for Army Intelligence, doing business in Maine. Rick's handler was Ted Krueger. Experiments conducted here were primarily in ESP monitoring and induction through Hypnosis.
Rick subcontracted Burt for a research project requested by Krueger. Burt's job was to develop a series of products which could exploits the public's interest in the paranormal. He reported back with 6 possible product designs.
The techniques for Inducing ESP through Forms of Self-Hypnosis came through collaboration with Yugoslavian hypnotist Milan Ryzl, who was a guest for several weeks. Employing Ryzl's techniques with his own synthesis, Miller was able to win the First Psychic Tournament, sponsored by Llewellyn Publications at Gnosticon Conference in Sept1975 . He competed with around 40 other self-styled psychics, such as Noel Tyl, Jean Dixon, Sybil Leek, James Hurtak, Isaac Bonewits.
Another development of this work is the ESP Questionaire, which Miller gave to around 1000 students at both the Gnosticon Festivals and his Experimental College class, where he taught the induction of ESP with self-hypnosis.
Another concurrent project at this time was Project Parafile, a computer-based bibliography of parapsychology and occult references to psi phenomena. This project was done in the days of card files, and the work was extensive. A full 10% of the entries related to ESP, even though the field was still in its infancy.
Burt led a group of volunteers who carefully keypunched thousands of citations onto punch cards. Ken Hockett and another Boeing employee utilized Boeing computers to create a database from the punch cards.
The Seal Reports were Miller's first paranormal works for the government, initiating him into the world of Black Ops as one of the original "Men in Black." Having shifted his worldview from that of a buttoned-down scientist to that of an open-minded psychonaut and consciousness explorer, he often found his experiments demonstrated the hypothesized psychophysical phenomena. He embodied the paradox of being an underground regional "edge-celeb," yet at the same time being sponsored by a government often hostile to his worldview and orientation. In other words, he cleverly got the government to sponsor his parapsychology hobby! Or so he thought, little realizing how that information might be employed in twisted mind-control experiments, or how his own notoriety with the government could affect his further work.
THE HOLOGRAPHIC CONCEPT OF REALITY
In 1973, what has come to be known as the Pribram-Bohm Holographic Model was non-existent. But this Seattle think-tank, lead by Miller and Burt Webb were able to put together the work of Northrup and Burr on the electromagnetic nature of the human being with Gabor's work on holograms and come up with a new notion. Pribram had postulated 2-dimensional interference patterns, physical holograms, as underlying all thinking. The holographic component, for him, represented the associative mechanisms and contributed to memory retrieval and storage and problem-solving.
However, Miller, Webb and Dickson boldly asserted that the holographic metaphor extends to n-dimensions and therefore constitutes a fundamental description of the universe and our electromagnetic embedding within that greater field. Thus was born the "Holographic Concept of Reality" in 1973. This paper was presented at the 1st Psychotronic Conference in Prague in 1973, and later published by Gordon & Breach in 1975, and again in 1979 in Psychoenergetic Systems: the Interaction of Consciousness, Energy and Matter, edited by Stanley Krippner.
Other notable contributors to this volume included Michael A. Persinger, (now famous for his neuromagnetgic simulations of alien abduction often demonstrated on TLC and the Discovery Channel), John Curtis Gowan (taxonomies of states of consciousness from Trance, Art and Creativity; Development of the Psychedelic Individual), Robert O. Becker (effects of electromagnetism on physical systems), Theodor Barber, David Bresler, S. D. Kirlian, and Thelma Moss.
Picking up on the work of Pribram independently, David Bohm published his explication of the holomovement in his classic text Wholeness and the Implicate Order and the Pribram-Bohm theory was born and embraced widely as a foundation of the new sciences from physics to neuropsychology. This theory was fundamental to a deep understanding of the later emerging Chaos theory and Complexity, the dynamics of complex interrelated systems.
Rick took a primitive remote terminal to the Omniversal Symposium. He linked up to the Project Parafile database in Seattle, took questions from the audience and read off the answers returned by the database. This was the primitive forerunner of what have become laptop computers, but this terminal was briefcase-sized.
Miller and Webb followed up their ground-breaking paper with "Embryonic Holography," which was also presented at the Omniversal Symposium at California State College at Sonoma, hosted by Dr. Stanley Krippner, September 29, 1973. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to address the quantum biological properties of human beings--the first illustrations of the sources of quantum mindbody. Dropping a level of observation below quantum biochemistry and conventional biophysics, they proposed that a biohologram determines the development of the human embryo; that we are a quantum bodymind with consciousness informing the whole process through the level of information. They postulated DNA as the possible holographic projector of the biohologram, patterning the three-dimensional electromagnetic standing and moving wave front that constitutes our psychophysical being.
This work was reprinted much later in the journal Psychedelic Monographs and Essays, Vol. 6, 1993. However, in the meantime, Miller had drawn the attention of the government in a less favorable way. "Spooks" (Feds and Army Intell) came to his business, arrested him, searched his files, and seized all work on embryonic holography, for whatever reasons they did not disclose, but we can only conjecture. Perhaps it had to do with implications of the theory such as physical regeneration of tissue, or the liquid crystal properties of body fluids. Or perhaps it had to do with his research in Allan Frey's work in the .3-3 gHz regions, which is a microwave input which allows the brain to directly receive voice transmissions. This discovery has recently resurfaced as synthetic telepathy. Miller and Webb were able to reconstitute the bulk of the Embryonic Holography paper from memory, but laid low with their findings for many years after this traumatic experience.
MANKIND RESEARCH UNLIMITED
By this time, Miller was the Northwest Regional Director of Mankind Research Unlimited (MRU), the Washington D.C. based paranormal phenomena investigation team. He worked under the direction of Dr. Carl Schleicher. A large portion of the work of Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama was turned over to Miller, including original strip-charts, to duplicate his experiments in psychokinesis, one person's mind influencing the body of another, in the same and in remote locations.
Rick as well as many doctors at the University of Washington were wondering what was happening with "psychic surgery." Rick brought the problem to Dr. Motay, Dean of Pathology at the UW. This incident was recounted in The National Observer, March 30, 1974:
"Richard Miller, director of Mankind Research Unlimited's Northwest Regional Office here says that a study by the University of Washington's Dept. of Pathology showed that one man, Warder Bacon, probably had his body entered by the psychic surgeons. 'An X-ray before he left for the Philippines shows that he had a great amount of cancerous tissue in his liver,' says Miller. 'He died about two months ago, and the liver showed no traces of cancerous tissues upon autopsy.' He says that not enough is known about the healers to make a positive or negative statement. It certainly warrants a definitive study, says Miller, who also is director of the Dept. of Parapsychology and Paraphysics at the Experimental College of the University of Washington."
To this end, Miller conducted experiments with Filippino psychic "surgeon" Tony Agpaoa. Perhaps the results are best described in his own words, at this time those of a "true believer," although subsequent research has disclosed the sleight-of-hand tricks of psychic surgery, as shown by debunkers on the Discovery Channel. The former article continued:
"Psychic surgery is an emotional issue. There have been no authoritative studies of it. AMA statistics show, says Miller, that persons who have terminal cancer have a one-in-five recovery rate, even after the bad news is pronounced. The key will be to determine what percentage of persons who have been treated in the Philippines recover, says Miller, who adds that he is working to have a follow-up study started."
ORGANIZATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE
In 1974, Miller incorporated O.A.K. as the Organization for the Advancement of Knowledge, also known to its inner group as the esoteric Order of Ascending Kundalini. OAK sponsored several projects of its own, and under its auspices director Miller taught Shamanism at Evergreen State College and Parapsychology at Edmonds Community College between 1974 and 1976. He also taught at the Experimental College at the University of Washington, several classes on parapsychology and the occult, publishing a regular column in The Daily.
Meanwhile, fellow OAK member Burt Webb inspired his colleagues to create a science fiction short-subject of a religion based on biofeedback, called EAT THE SUN. Burt plays the High Priest. The documentary-style film became a cult classic in the underground, revealing the evils of cult indoctrination long before many of the now-famous incidents. The film describes the Tapazia Ritual, an electronic trial by fire, wherein one's psyche and physiology are put into total synch through a videofeedback process conducted by the Church of Self Amplification, lead by Guru Telemahandi. But in the movie, something goes wrong to the film's creator, Jim Cox, and they "fry his brain." The guru's philosophy was summed up in a few choice aphorisms, such as "Eat the Sun, and then you will be your own father," and "The ecology of the soul is to recycle one's consciousness," and the parting-shot, "If they're old enough to pee, they're old enough for me!" A curious phenomenon about this movie is that, even when told it is a spoof, most people come out believing this actually happened!
Experiments conducted under the Organization included those in biofeedback, in conjunction with Burt Webb and manufacturer J. & J. Enterprises, Inc. A group of 60 students at the University of Washington were monitored while engaging in Autonomic Training of various physical parameters, and they were trained in the induction of alpha brainwaves through hypnosis.
Around the same time, Miller attended the Claremont Conference with Walter Houston Clark, where he presented papers on Time Distortion and Electrophoresis.
In 1975, Miller produced and Webb directed Paracon I. The symposium at Seattle Center was attended by some 3000 people during the annual Bumpershoot Festival in Seattle. It was a day long conference on parapsychology. There were 5 different tracks covering cody, mind, spirit, nature and science. Burt gave the keynote address in the evening which brought all the subjects together.
In 1976, inspired by the synergy of Rick and Iona's magickal pursuits, OAK sponsored the infamous Tiphareth Experiments, with participation by invitation only. These experiments became the basis of a later mystical compendium, The Holistic Qabala, (1981). These disciplines were drawn from traditional and eclectic sources and this Retirement Ritual was designed for the qabalistic invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel, or one's Higher Self, facilitating creativity and the embodiment of self-actualization or self-realization. Regular practices included the Banishing Ritual, Middle Pillar Exercise, HGA Invocations, Tantric Lunar Resonance Meditation, (later published in Psychedelic Monographs & Essays) and Qabalistic Pathworking techniques for altering consciousness and stabilizing or integrating changes into a steady state.
Beginning in the late 70's, Rick and Iona collaborated on The Magickal and Ritual Use of Herbs (OAK, 1978; Destiny, 1983), The Magickal and Ritual Use of Aphrodisiacs (Destiny, 1985), The Magickal and Ritual Use of Perfumes (Destiny, 1990), and The Modern Alchemist (Phanes, 1994), with artist Joel Radcliffe.
OAK eventually became largely the publishing wing of Miller's endeavors and those of his wife, Iona. In 1981, still pursuing the elusive psychotronic goals of Eat the Sun, they published The Diamond Body: A Solid State Mandala. This modern alchemical view of the philosopher's stone linked the Synergetic geometries of Buckminster Fuller with those of Qabalah's famous glyph of the Tree of Life, and forecast the fad for Merkabah Mysticism. A synopsis of this work is presented in Iona Miller's article "Buckminster Fuller and the Qabala."
Miller and Miller further pursued this interdisciplinary thread in the Diamond Body Trilogy, which includes Electro-Magick: Self-Realization through Yogatronics, Video-Graphics and Light-Loops, an advanced biofeedback technique implementing a mind/computer interface. The final volume, Yogatronics: Experiments in Perceptual Synergetics foresaw this application of synesthesia and Virtual Reality for inducing discrete states of consciousness. This led to Iona Miller's collaboration with Burt Webb on two papers in 1992, on Virtual Magick and Virtual Therapy.
From 1992 to 1998, Richard was the first instructor in Metaphysics on AOL's IES, and the archives of those classes are available and being codified. During this period he assembled an extensive, searchable Metaphysical Library of available works for FTP download from the Internet. Rick and Iona had never written screenplays before, but Burt Webb had experience in screenwriting and in designing technological-looking sets for Star Trek movies. So when our literary agent requested we try a script, we were all game. PSI-OPS (4-92) was a proposal and script treatment written at the request of our agent Bernard Shir-Cliff for his friends at FOX who wanted to produce a TV show around the Unknown. Rick, Iona, and Burt came up with a Mission Impossible-type team of researchers whose adventures would take them through the gamut of the paranormal. Our proposal came in second to a little show called the X-Files, but we've noticed it was followed shortly by Psi-Factor which certainly shares a lot in common with our original proposal.
In 1992, OAK published Iona's Anatomy of the Star Goddess: Quantum Cosmology, Virtual States, Energy Science, and Scalar Fields. Also in 1992 came Dreamhealing: Chaos and the Creative Consciousness Process with shaman/therapist Graywolf Swinney. In 1996, she published Lost In Translation: the UFO Phenomenon as an Informational Virus, a prescient description of the phenomenology of what are now known as memes. In 1999, she co-authored SYNDEX I & II: A Synergetic Perspective on Number Dynamics with Bob Marshall, graphically demonstrating a solution to the prime number enigma and the 9/11 basewave in the number continuum.
In 1999, Iona's alchemical article on drug-free experiential journeys "Chaos as the Universal Solvent" was published in Tom Lyttle's Psychedelics ReImagined (Autonomedia), which features a foreword by Tim Leary. During this period she also self-published Chaosophy '93: A Journal of Chaos, Consciousness, and Philosophy; Chaosophy 2000: CRP Monographs; and Chaosophy 2001: Neuropsychology and Quantum Metaphysics.
Though we have been divorced since 1994, we are still best of friends and our work continues. Now in 2001, Miller and Miller are investigating leading-edge Neuropsychology, Neuromagnetic Therapy, Brain Fingerprinting, and PGO Waves. We are still in the process of realizing our Qabalistic Pathworking game in VRML, a further illustration of our interest in altered states and synthetic realities. Our work and interest in the deep nature of Reality, Quantum Metaphysics, quantum cosmology, psi phenomena, altered states (including dreams and REM), natural psychedelia, neuropsychology, and consciousness studies continues unabated.
Iona Miller is a multimedia artist, web author and designer and continues working through the Asklepia Foundation (asklepia.org) and Chaosophy Journal on the relationship between experiential journeys, healing, creativity, illumination, dreams, consciousness and chaos theory with Dr. Stanley Krippner as mentor. As of 2007, her work with several of the intelligence and science experts at MRU continues in such arenas as Virtual Physics (ZPE), Climate 2012, EVP, Resonance, and a variety of other 'esoteric' research and intelligence/security programs. She continues pubishing internationally in the popular and academic press.
Richard Alan Miller pursues his career as the foremost international expert in the growing and marketing of botanicals, under his company Northwest Botanicals, (nwbotanicals.org). In that regard, he appears in Who's Who in the West, and America. His current parapsychological interest is in exploring synthetic telepathy and writing a book on self-induction of ESP. As of 2007, he is collaboring with researchers and scientists in the Lay Foundation, and pusuing his theories on cold fusion and the "Brain Spa".
Rick and I have also had many adventures in the world of alt.culture and Mysticism with a wide variety of players in those fields...but that, as they say, boys and girls, is another story. Along the way we found a lot of Brains, Heart, and especially Nerve! And learned "There's no place like Home."
"We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto!!!..."
PSI OPS TEAM loses battle of the network screenwriters to X-Files Truth is Stranger than Fiction Dept.
In early 1992, our literary agent, Bernard Shir-Cliff approached Rick and I because his buddies at FOX Network wanted to produce a show about the occult. Based on our own personal experience at SPOOK CENTRAL (MRU) we wrote a treatment of a psychic Mission Impossible Team, which had NOT been done at the time (prior to Dan Akroyd's show). Only the names have been changed to protect the usual suspects.
Of course, we came in 2nd of their solicitations to a little show called the X-Files, which I hear did pretty well ;)
Years later, I was surprised to see the star of our first episode, Trinity Church, turn up as the reveal in NATIONAL TREASURE.
Ah well, great minds think alike! Here is the original treatment proposal file:
THE PSI OPS TEAM c1992 by Richard and Iona Miller, with Burt Webb
Basic Idea:
Occult entities and energies from other dimensions are creating a real crisis on earth, jeapardizing the Ionosphere which screens earth from ultraviolet radiation death. A psychic "Mission Impossible" team is created to clean up the equivalent of psychic and spiritual toxic waste. The twist is that it all takes place against a kaleidoscopic backdrop of international, political and corporate intrigue. This one has it all: secret societies, dirty politics, Wall Street sharks, the Third World, ecological crisis, cloak & dagger, the occult, UFOs, cyberpunk brain interfacing, lunatic fringe, psychotronic weapons, and a global playing field whose prime time is running out.
Background:
The basic idea is that a wealthy industrialist has a change of heart about the impact of development on the world. He decides to dedicate his company to ecologically responsible projects, especially in the Third World. He runs up against a very powerful group of businessmen who have their own plans for exploiting the people and resources of the Third World. Strange things begin to happen to his projects. Poltergeists, ghosts that scare native workers, and other magical things. As he investigates, he finds that these are not hoaxes. He assembles a team including an occult scholar, a Russian biophysicist, and a parapsychological tinkerer with his EVP Ghostbox.
They begin to discover and explore a complex environment of other planes and dimensions which coexist with the earth. These planes have life forms which are intelligent and can sometimes communicate and even visit the earth. They are responsible for UFOs, ghosts, and other occult phenomena. There are different types with different power-bases and homes. There are groups with strong leaders, renegade individuals, etc., and they have complex and conflictive motivations.
One group feeds on death energy, while another feeds on birth energy. A third group consumes negative emotions and a fourth positive emotions. Some are acting out of ideological intent, others are feeding, still others are just playing jokes. There are objects and places on earth which have been "energized" by interactions with these other dimensions and their inhabitants. There are also occult rituals and drugs which can breach the barrier. The inventor in the Psi Ops group discovers a way to use complex microwave holograms to stimulate certain areas of the brain to access these realms.
Because of the increase in human population and the acceleration of social interactions and cultural change, more and more of these entities are interfering with human affairs. They exploit objects, places and people. The leader of the Psi Ops group decides to use his money and power to neutralize objects, places and people who are a conduit for these forces. This places him in direct opposition to the leader of the other group, who is a powerful wizard with his own agenda.
First known as the Entity, he plans to cause a major interpenetration of these other planes with the earth, so that magic becomes the normal state of affairs, with him as the ultimate power. He has powerful allies on the other planes. The Psi Ops Team must use their technology and make allies to oppose him. The adventures have to do with specific objects, sites or people, but the whole world is a game board, with them winning and loosing battles in a war with the Entity, who is trying to bring about a sort of unharmonic convergence.
CAST
Blake Martel - The Industrialist Age: 55 Background: Inherited an international contracting firm from his father. Divorced with two sons, one deceased. Personality: Authoritarian, not much humor, lots of honor, workaholic. Abilities: Shrewd businessman, charismatic leader by virtue of natural intensity and deep resonant voice. Appearance: Medium height, medium build, brown hair and intense brown eyes.
Karen Thorson - Executive assistant to Martel Age: 40 Background: Came up through ranks to run her own corporation which Martel bought, had affair but now only friends, interest in occult. Personality: Pleasant but only opens up around her close friends. Abilities: Highly intelligent, hard worker, great with details. Appearance: Slender figure, red hair and freckles, cute face.
Iron Claw - Pilot for Martel Age: 32 Background: Native American, Hopi. Personality: Quiet and efficient but reserved. Abilities: Excellent pilot and mechanic. Appearance: Tall, good build, handsome, black hair and eyes, dark skin.
Stan Carter - Head of security for Martel Age: 40 Background: Ex Army Intelligence (Eastern Europe), P.I. Personality: Usually easy going but has a nasty temper when crossed. Abilities: Intelligent and observant, weapons, explosives, martial arts. Appearance: Black, medium height, stock build, rugged features.
Svetlana Mishkin - Russian biophysicist Age: 29 Background: Emigrated to United States during Gorbachev years. Personality: Friendly and trusting, passionate. Abilities: Brilliant theoretical scientist in a variety of disciplines. Appearance: Big, full figured woman, features a little too strong to be beautiful, but attractive.
Chet Billings - Parapsychological tinkerer Age: 25 Background: College drop-out, estranged from family. Personality: Withdrawn, almost antisocial but lonely. Abilities: Computers, electronics, chemistry, great in lab. Appearance: Short, thin, long scraggily blond hair, poor dresser.
Moshe Ben Gurion - Occult Scholar Age: 65 Background: Survivor of holocaust as a child, emigrated to US to escape conflict in Middle East. Personality: Old World Gentleman. Abilities: Encyclopedic knowledge of the occult and mythology. Appearance: Tall, slender, silver hair, big nose, dresses formally.
Fernando Castille - The Entity (Head of Opposition) Age: 45 Background: From noble Spanish Aristocracy. Personality: Arrogant and demanding, charismatic. Abilities: Shrewd businessman and powerful occultist. Appearance: Tall and dashing, impeccable dresser.
STORIES
Obviously the first story needs to be a two hour, made for TV movie which sets up the premise. Opens with Stan Carter witnessing a spontaneous human conbustion of a native who had been helping him learn why workers are deserting a project in the interior of Brazil. (Turns out to be some hydroelectric project which will flood an ancient ruin which is a power site that Castillo wants to exploit).
He reports back to Martel who puts Karen to work assembling a team to investigate the paranormal nature of the problems. She goes to University to talk to Moshe who teaches courses. He introduces her to two of his ex-students, Sventlana and Chet.
There follows the usual stuff with personality conflicts, slowly tracking down the opposition group and its leader, Chet building the brain interface, Martel fending off the financial attacks, Stan dealing with the occassional car chase and gun fight. Moshe handling an occult confrontation or two and a grand finale in the jungle of Brazil with the aid of an old shaman where both conventioanl and occult weapons and combatants duke it out. The bad guys are beaten, but escape to fight another day. Show ends with decision to act as a sort of Metephysical Protection Agency (MPA) to clean up toxic sites and objects by somehow "valving" off the esoteric energy charge.
EPISODE I: THE MANHATTAN CONSPIRACY
Basic Story Line:
A high ranking member of a Secret Lodge is inducted into an inner circle and finds out he cannot accept some of the past actions of the Order. Among other things, he finds out about the theft of Manhattan (Manhattan Conspiracy). He decides to bail out and takes the deed, among other things, for insurance. The Lodge put the heat on him and he contacts (Tom Lyttle). This man remembers family legends about the deal and agrees to meet the Lodge, but is killed before he can keep his appointment. Now a race is on to find the deed. The main character enlists the aid of detective. The detective hires a hacker to crack the Lodge files. There are the usual car chases, threats, gun fights and narrow escapes. The main character eventually recovers the deed and some real nasty dirt on Lodge activities. Now he has to decide what to do. Will anyone believe him? If he is believed and what he knows is made public, will the Lodge retaliate? If he says and does nothing, will he suddenly disappear?
(3 Acts, 2 subplots)
Act I: The Set Up
Opening Scene - Begins with Ben Gurion's initiation into the inner echelon of The Lodge, and the revelation of its various manipulative activities, both financial and psychological. Martel's team has attempted an infiltration for months, so this is their chance. Upon closer inspection, Ben Gurion realizes he is dealing with very "dark forces." He quickly formulates a plan to steal key evidence of the plot, including the deed to prime Manhattan property, allegedly under the control of an orthodox church (actually a front for The Lodge activities).
Chase scene around Manhattan ensues, showing landmarks and back alleys. Ben Gurion winds up at the occult shop of an acquaintance, where he is shuttled into a strange contraption which allows him to slip into another dimension for escape. He is now a fugitive from The Lodge (through the remaining shows). This mystery character has many enemies from around the world because of his activism, and has lived as an "underground" person for many years. He is a master of disguise, and hypnotic manipulation, (sort of like "Yoda").
Scene 2 - Opens in the Psi Ops lab in Seattle, Washington, a couple of days after his escape. Ben Gurion awakens from a hypnotic trance. He has just undergone a regression to determine what really happened during his escape, and to recall helpful details and specifics about his pursuers. His description of the Manhattan Conspiracy for the benefit of the Psi Ops team fills in the viewer through dialog and interrogation by the other characters present. Martel is present, but shown only from behind. He remains a mystery man for several episodes. Thorsen and Carter are also present, helping plan security and recourse.
Scene 3 - Ben Gurion calls for his former students Svetlana and Chet to join the team in planning their strategy. Flashbacks describe the sexual tension between these two. Even though he is four years younger, Chet harbors a crush on Svetlana, because he worships her brilliant intellect. They had previously worked together on developing an interdimensional brain interface. She is a biophysicist, he has background with biochips.
Though it is really unrequited love, there was a time or two in the past when Svetlana succumbed to his advances in a moment of weakness. This old fuel keeps his fire burning, and he pursues her relentlessly, even though he is not (and never will be) her "type." He is a great programmer, but hopelessly immature, emotionally.
The sexual undercurrent is a continuing theme throughout the series, which never consummates or resolves. They are virtually forced to work together due to circumstance, though it is painful for them both for different reasons.
Act II: The Confrontation
Scene 1 - Through their vast network of informants and "dark forces," The Lodge manages to locate Ben Gurion in Seattle. They descent like a plague of locusts, attempt, and are successful at retrieving their documents. They take them back to The Vault which, though in another dimension, is accessible only from the catacombs underlying the old Trinity church property in Manhattan. They now perceive the entire team as their enemy, and plot to eliminate them all for their highly proprietary knowledge.
Scene 2 - Back in the Lab again, a discussion of how to retrieve documents from the timeless/spaceless alternative dimension ensues. Using the brain interface, how to break into the Vault from a remote location is explained, and Carter can now go in and get the job done. The problem is that in the process, he is observed by The Entity (unknown to the team), and he mobilizes even more of his vast resources. There is the implication that he is "otherworldly." Yet, his world-wide financial grip gives him tremendous political clout.
Scene 3 - In the course of a seemingly unrelated government business activity (IRS audit), Thorson is lured and captured by the minions of Castille. Because of her attempt to protect Ben Gurion, Karen Thorson is captured and held for ransom, only to lure the other players within reach. She is the easiest mark. The subplot of tension between Svetlana and Chet continues. Though the heavy "baggage" of their past interaction is very apparent, they must now put that aside, and focus on their respective specialties.
Act III: The Resolution
Scene 1 - Back at the Lab, hacking their way into top level computers, the team gets a better idea of who the Entity is, his world-wide network of influence, and his alternative dimensional resources. Hints of his past manipulations of world economy, psychology, and culture to gain an economic stranglehold, and dupe the world into enslavement for his own glory - almost an Anti-Christ figure with his behind-the-scenes machinations.
Scene 2 - Lots of action now ensues, depending on the close coordination of the entire Psi Ops team. Karen is rescued, plus the documents, plus dirt on The Lodge. The team can now threaten or blackmail The Lodge to leave them alone, but of course they are undaunted, since they are prepared to sacrifice their dark souls for their "cause." Each minion has their own idea of what their reward will be, predicated on their personal psychology (lust, money, fame, power, etc.). Again, Castille almost prevails.
Scene 3 - Though temporarily thwarted, Castille tucks his tail and musters his forces for another day. Perhaps he retreats to his compound in Spain, with its underground hi-tech/occult training ground. With his "generals" around him, he feels secure for the moment to live to fight another day.
The ill-defined group of researchers and intelligence operatives become more cohesive in rallying around Ben Gurion. Even beyond his protection, they now have a common mission to "save the world" from immanent social/political/financial collapse.
Martel provides the necessary funds as patron and world-wise director. But we still aren't exactly sure just who he is on the world stage. He is still shown from the back only to preserve the mystery. A future show will disclose in more detail the context of his life and involvement. Personal conflicts in the group remain evident, but bonding experiences moderate these as time goes on.
The documents provide the basis for a legal battle to usurp The Lodge's power spot in downtown Manhattan. The Trinity Church, which has been the dupe of Castille, musters its financial and political power against the team for another episode.