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Graphite is a soft, black, lustrous carbon that conducts electricity and is used in lead pencils, crucibles, electrolytic anodes, and as a lubricant and a moderator in atomic-energy installations. A small piece of graphite can be hooked into a Wheatstone bridge of two resistors. The bridge then conveys the electric potential shifts of the graphite into some kind of recorder, while the recorder then outputs the shifts on chart paper with a fluctuating inked pen. The electric potential shifts drive the pen this way and that, and a path is traced onto the paper. In its normal state, graphite has a small, continuous range of natural electric potential shifts, usually shown on the chart recorder as a slightly wobbled line without much deviation. This is called the "base line." When something extraordinary influences the graphite, its electric potential shifts increase, and the line on the paper starts wobbling or jerking this way or that. This is a simple and straightforward arrangement. And if the influencing is successful, parapsychologists refer to it as psychokinesis (PK) -- or "mind over matter." Backster had hooked a piece of graphite into a Wheatstone bridge and chart recorder and had let it run continuously while I was recovering from the flu. The continuously recorded base line had showed no significant deviations for several days. Other "subjects" had tried to influence the electric potential shifts, and some had managed something along these lines.