The morning began uneventfully enough, even considering the unusual subject matter and the techniques being taught. About a third of the way into the material, I was at the podium, reciting the Twenty-Third Psalm in the original Hebrew, as part of the demonstration of the actual, ancient technique used to summon angelic help, when I kept noticing the odd movements of the Methodist minister who was video taping the session at the back of the classroom. He would look into the camera’s viewfinder, then he would just as quickly look away to the side, back up at me at the podium, as if to make sure that what he was seeing in the camera’s viewfinder was what he himself was actually seeing without the viewfinder. Apparently somewhat stressed and confused, he reminded me of a windshield wiper, going back and forth, up, now down, again and again. Obviously not satisfied with what he thought he was seeing, he repeated these strange antics over and over. Finally, in an apparent surrender to his own confusion, he motioned for my wife, who was sitting quietly nearby, to come over. He pointed her authoritatively to the camera’s viewfinder with his index finger, as if saying," See what you make outa this." Slowly, she got up from her seat and went over to the camera and looked through the viewfinder, and as quickly as the minister had, she looked up to make sure that what she was seeing was actually what was taking place at the podium, as she later said, " To see if somehow the camera lens might be distorted or damaged." She just couldn’t believe that what she was seeing was really what she was seeing, as nonsensical as that might sound.

Now, while all of this was happening at the back of the class, I was at the front, of course, seemingly trying to balance my attention, like a tightrope walker on a wire, between all of what was going on in the back of the room and the lecture I was trying to give at the front. Then, suddenly, I began to feel as if there were a warm breeze blowing on my neck, a strange sense of, what I can only call, "comfortable enclosure," like you would feel if someone slipped a blanket around your shoulders on a cold, cold day.

A man, sitting on the front row, whom I later learned was a medical supply salesman and completely new to the class, not to mention the subject matter, had been fidgeting in his seat since the beginning of the class, obviously somewhat uncomfortable, if not out rightly bored, at least up until now; but strangely now, at least since all of the commotion had started around the video camera at the back of the class, he appeared to be suddenly very attentive, if not enthralled, while seemingly to stare, not so much exactly at me at the podium as to be looking curiously around me like someone watching a fly, if there had been one, buzzing around my head. I could not help but wonder what it was, or what I had said, that so lately entranced him. Suddenly, he would look directly at me, then just as suddenly to my right side, then to my left, then again back at me, jerking his eyes back and forth, again and again, obviously now totally consumed with watching the fly or whatever it was that had mysteriously captured his total attention. Surprisingly, as I later learned, he was the only student in the class who had not had any other previous, spiritual training, other than mainstream Christianity. His girl friend had slipped him under the fence, so to speak, telling him that the class would help him to de-stress his life. As he later said, "I mean, after all I’m a Baptist for God’s sake. We don‘t do weird." He then went on to say," If you had told me before the class, that what actually happened in that class --- I mean, what I myself saw with my own eyes --- was what was going to happen, I would have said you were nuts,…but I have to admit, it happened. I was there. I saw it --- I mean,… them --- with my own eyes."

By now, besides the way the minister, my wife, and the medical supply executive were behaving, others in the class were strangely staring, once again, not so much directly at me, as around me. I continued on with the lecture, thinking whatever it was that I had said or had done that had caused all the stir would soon pass; I did not realize then that it was not me at all, but rather what was around me that was causing all of the apparent excitement.

Fortunately, after about ten minutes into all of this disruptive activity, it was time for one of our scheduled class breaks. I had no sooner announced this fact, barely getting the words out of my mouth, before the Methodist minister was the first to reach me from the back of the room. Appearing very excited, if not somewhat frantic, as he ran up to the podium, he said,

"Did you see them? --- Did you see them? He was almost yelling. Others, just as excited, were beginning to gather around me, waiting to see what I would give as an answer to the preachers question. I guess they were somewhat perplexed that I did not seem as excited as they all were, but I have to admit, other than all of the uncharacteristic behavior that had been going on among the students, I had seen nothing, though, admittedly in retrospect, at least while all of this sudden excitement had been taking place, I mean, around the camera at the back of the room and the odd looks from the students, I had felt and had had a sudden, inexplicable feeling of "safe enclosure," as I earlier pointed out, like a child feels when it is picked up and hugged by its mother.

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