My Library

Chapter 43 HAIL TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND ONE’S CONTROL As a child and young man, I had always understood that circumstances beyond anyone’s control indeed existed. But I also quite seriously bought into the very popular, and very uniquely American idea that one’s life is what one makes of it. This idea, of course, more or less has to ignore circumstances that are beyond one’s control. But there were so many examples building spectacular lives by rising above or dominating circumstances, and these examples seemed to prove that such circumstances were irrelevant. And indeed, up until the morning of 11 June 1972, I felt that my life had more or less been under my control, even if for better or worse. I was very serious about exiting parapsychology, very serious about not returning to SRI. As but one example of this seriousness, I believe I could have reinstated the slush fund that Buell Mullen and Dr. Kinzell had hoped to establish. Certainly the auspices of SRI would have been approved by Kinzell. I could have routed several thousands of dollars to Puthoff, and he and SRI would have been glad to accept. But doing this would have involved my participation.