Page 41 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire

Cabalocracy and the Hall of Mirrors

beyond the pale, a liability to the military-industrial complex and its
trappings of legitimacy.
The unemployable analyst then became a hermit, rarely venturing
from his suburban home in daylight. In the early stages of that drastic
change in habits and personality, Capra’s wife had left him. With his
remaining resources he tried to publish his ideas and find like-minded
people—neither effort met with much success, but it did attract the
attention of Al Magnus. Here was a man thriving in a responsible
position for years, suddenly coming up with an unshakeable belief
that made him a crackpot’s crackpot: he had formulated a conspiracy
theory attractive to no one else in the community of paranoiacs.
Magnus had decided to give the poor fellow a chance, and I was the
designated prize-giver.
At the time of my phone call, Capra had been reduced to placing a
short personal ad in a monthly journal of speculative fiction. His
appeal was one of many, but it caught the Argus eye of Al Magnus.
“Infinite regression reflects without movement. Can you? Contact
Curtis Capra, 779-803-2295.” Definitely not a come-on for casual or
simple-minded simple-answer seekers. No space aliens, no messiahs
or demons in disguise, no promise of cosmic revelation: just a
challenge, an invitation to a mind-game devised by an unknown
puzzle-master. At least I wouldn’t be going in totally blind. The
dossier I had in hand supplied some probable answers, enough to get
me in the door. The rest was up to me and, if I succeeded, the deep
pockets of Al Magnus.
Capra called back, and I arranged to meet him the same day.
“Come empty-handed and open-minded,” he said. That had to mean
unarmed, unbugged and unprepared. I could oblige him only on the
first two counts, but what I was prepared for was not anything
specific. He would test me before his own test of fire could be
arranged. One could not expect to waltz in off the street and be
handed the Secret of the Ages. But I was a good dancer.
I dressed in high-quality sports clothes that did not match, a guy
who was well off but socially clueless. A city bus took me within five
blocks of his house and I walked the rest of the way. Capra’s house
was in need of repair: an old bungalow, it hadn’t been painted in
decades and a couple of windowpanes were held in place with tape. A
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