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ALAN PORTER FOLDED HIS GOLIATH FRAME into an oversize leather chair, crossed his legs, put his glasses on the desk and smiled at me

"Okay," he said, "let’s have it Take your tiained consciousness on Frank and Elizabeth’s living roo over me concernedly My first reaction had been to stare, then to smile sheepishly Before we left we told Frank and Elizabeth I hadn’t been feeling well all day It wasn’t h to accept it At least Elizabeth was; Frank didn’t look very convinced

We went home and, after a short, pointed discussion, I’d phoned Alan He’d told us to co tensely in the outer office,for us

"Well, you’ve had a time of it," Alan said after I’d finished my story

"You remain, as always," I said, "a master of the understatement’’

He smiled "Quite so" Then he shook his head and clucked

’ "The fantastic potential of the human mind," he said

I didn’t reply I didn’t think I was supposed to

Alan straightened up in his chair

"Well, to start," he said, "you’re not, of course, losing your ht I was either but a treh me to hear verification fros the question," I said

"What is it," he asked, "exactly?" He knit his fingers together and flexed theoes," he said, "it couldn’t of course, have bestowed any unique power on you What it ht have done is, shall we say, released an already latent power

"Which is not to say," he went on, raising a hand as I began to speak, "that this is anything unnatural It’s doubtless a case of what psi investigators choose to call the supernoruished from the old hackneyed ters which fit into the natural sches than it is to deal with beyond-the-pale hosts then," I said, "no powers of divination" He smiled

"I think not," he said "No matter how apparently weird the occurrence, there’s a relatively natural explanation for it I say relatively because there are, of course, basic predications to be accepted-such as the existence of telepathy and its supplements-clairvoyance, psychometry, et cetera The so-called para-or beyond- normal abilities of the human mind"

"But me?" I said "Why should I have them?" I hadn’t told him about my father Somehow that minor parlour trick seemed inconsequential now

"You or anyone," Alan said, slowly "This goes beyond particular heredity" He looked a of a rebel in ues through whosenow in regard to you"

"I wouldn’t blame them," I said "Now that I look back, I’ve behaved rather weirdly this past week"

"I’d say so," Alan said

He shifted in his chair

"Well, now," he said, "before tackling details it eneralizations I think would be of interest to you"

"Shoot"

"You see," he began, "mental evolution has followed a definite pattern For consciousness Instinct Little individuality of function; much collectively The pri response Maxie for maximum direction and power In a word - focus The state we’re prettyin at the moment We’re absolute masters of technique and, conversely, absolute fue

"The final step, the step yet to co, is this: To retain the values of rationality, of objectivity; yet-at the saain What will appear to be a step backill actually be a step forward into subjective speculation The step toward self-direction Toward, in short, awareness"

He sh"

"Sort of," I said "Are you-leading up to saying that what happened to me was a sort of mechanical speed-up of this evolutionary trend?"

"Not exactly," he said, "although I think the hypnosis-or, more accurately, the faulty extraction of your mind from hypnosis-did tap your latent powers of dissociation Or, putting it in another way, unlocked your psychical double jointedness Your psi"

I must have looked confused for he said, "I’ve used that word twice now Probably it throws you What it’s accepted asis sinition takes place"

"I say ’oh,’ " I said

He grinned briefly

"Which brings us to a particular," he said "A tangential point accepted by only a few; a them, me"

He shifted in his chair and looked fixedly at o, when you asked why you? I said, you or anyone This is a pri is, frorees of psychic perceptivity-and needs only a touch to itsto experience

"Naturally," he went on, "this power is little suspected The entire concept, for that matter, is pretty disreputable at the moment And, because it is, not veryattention to bring it out The negative approach hurts it It’s not a measurable factor which can be examined whether one believes in it or not that’s the tricky part of it The part which makes it, scientifically, suspect I do believe, however, that in time men will realize the existence of their psi, and in so realizing be able to reactivate their too-long unrealized potentialities"

"You know," I said, "that’s odd Because there’ve been times when I could have sworn that Richard knew’ what I was thinking-and knew that I knehat he was thinking"

"More than possible," Alan said "Until children acquire the power of verbal communication, they very likely make a more or less undirected use of their natural telepathic powers

"Which," he went on, "also applies historically I believe that, in primitive times, before verbal communication became established, these paranormal talents were commonplace It stands to reason Could all the hurunts and shoves?"

"Then, when people began speaking to each other," I said, "these abilities were lost?"

"Not so much lost, I think," he said, "as repressed I believe they still exist in us, faint echoes of their former vitality"

He paused and looked at me in silence for a moment

"As to your particular case," he said, "I think that the perceptivity released in you is more akin to that of the primitives than it is to that of the, shall we say, man of tomorrow But don’t feel too badly about that Ninety-five per cent of the so-called h they’d be double-damned before they’d admit it Their actions prove it, however; the disorderly, directionless, pointless ras of their seances; the absurd contradictory results they so often get

"Which is why," he continued, "these things which have been happening to you have co except for that occasional physical heightening-which heightening is also proof of its imperfection The fully developedphysical after effect you’ve been having Their perceptivity is strictly mental It comes, if we choose to put it this way, frouts And in addition, of course, it is at all times under strict control It doesn’t creep up on theuess it’s a sort of coone through the sas I have"

"Plenty of theh they would likely call it a ’psychic gift,’ I’d call it more an affliction In its lack of self-direction and self-understanding, in its inchoate, disjointed functioning, it does far ood"

"Arim sound in my voice, then went on