OVO

A true personal experience by Nabil Shaban. Nabil is about to embark on a full time postgraduate Masters degree in Psychology Research Methods, and upon hopefully successful completion, will move on to Ph.D research in Parapsychology.

During the winter of 95, I was on a theatrical tour of England and Scotland. I was starring as Volpone, a lecherous old con artist, in a new adaptation of Ben Johnson’s play. (You probably know Ben Johnson was a contemporary of Shakespeare). Our theatre company, Graeae, had created a radical version which was entitled FLESH FLY. The poster was a colour photo of me, semi-nude in kinky bondage gear and a gag-ball in my mouth, suspended from the ceiling. People who came to see the show often complained of being disappointed that I didn’t actually appear on stage as depicted in the poster. I guess it was just a cheap advertising gimmick… not my idea, I hasten to add… but I did enjoy going along with it.

All the actors in the production had a disability… Graeae, which I created with a friend in 1979, is a theatre company of disabled performers. Although I left the company in 1981, I occasionally return to do the odd production. FLESH FLY was the last show I did with them.

A production assistant on the show was a woman called Teresa… her boyfriend was acting in the play with me. After a week or so, I noticed that Teresa was paying a lot of attention towards me… I had a feeling she was somehow attracted to me. She was always making me coffee, sitting next to me in the bar… then when we stayed in hotels with indoor swimming pools, she would volunteer to teach me how to swim, she would ask to go in the sauna with me and often ask me to go shopping or to the cinema with her. All the time I was feeling a bit awkward because I could see that her boyfriend was getting quite stressed by our friendship. I was determined to keep the relationship platonic. I didn’t want to hurt my colleague and I didn’t want to jeopardise the play. I try to stick to my rule never mix business with pleasure… I try not to get sexually or emotionally involved with people I am currently working with. But… I still couldn’t help falling in love with Teresa and desiring her. However, I kept these feelings and yearnings to myself… except…

One day, when we were in Aberdeen, Scotland… it was now January 96…  I was driving through the city to the theatre. It was the afternoon and we had a performance that evening. I was thinking intently about Teresa… wanting her badly, wishing that I could have a relationship with her without having to hurt anyone… I wanted her to somehow “feel” my love, know that I was thinking about her. As I drove I kept thinking her name, pouring all my emotion into an mental image of her.

I was convinced she would be aware of my sendings… because I had been successful before with another woman I had been madly in love with several years previously. I mean, I had managed to send a telepathic message to a fellow student when I was at university. At the time I was having a bad trip with a load of magic mushrooms I’d taken. I was feeling very sad, alone, depressed, paranoid and I was desperate for love of a woman. There was this Pakistani girl (her name was Bangla) I had fallen in love with. We were friends and she had told me she was psychic. She had once heard her father’s voice calling her name in her room when they were thousands of miles apart. Minutes afterwards the phone rang and it was her father asking if she was alright… he had had a feeling she was in deep trouble and she was. Since I knew she was psychic… .and I knew that certain hallucinogenic substances can enhance telepathic abilities because there had been successful ESP experiments with people on LSD and magic mushrooms… plus – it was well-attested that love as energy was a powerful booster to psychic transmission… I concluded that with all these conditions present, if I tried to communicate to Bangla, there was a high probability it would work. So, I kept calling “Bangla” in my mind, calling her name over and over again, pleading with her to come to me. It was 3 o’clock in the morning… well, she didn’t come when I mentally called for her… so I eventually went to my room and crashed out. Then at nine in the morning there was a knock on my door and in walked Bangla. She looked at me strangely… deep concern was etched across her face. She asked me if I was alright. I said “yeah, fine, thanks.” She sat down on my bed and kept staring at me. She asked again if I was okay because she thought I looked a complete mess. Had I been drinking heavily? Was I suffering from a hangover? I said No but I had spent the night tripping out on magic mushrooms and now I’m just coming down to earth, chilling out, man. Everything is fine, I feel cool.

She laughed and then frowned and shook her head. “Something weird happened last night” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah – well, actually it was this morning, early this morning. I was still up at my desk, trying to finish this essay which I have to hand in today” she said, still staring hard at me, but mainly out of the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, did you get the essay written?”

“No, because what happened really disturbed me… I haven’t been able to concentrate since.”

“What was it that freaked you out?” I asked, intrigued.

“As I said I was writing at the desk… when I heard a voice in the room… behind me.”

“You heard a voice?”

“Yes… right in the middle of my room, behind my back. It kept calling my name – Bangla, Bangla, Bangla… ” she said.

“That’s amazing,” I exclaimed “What time was this?”

“I don’t know exactly. Around three o’clock, I think.”

“That is fantastic!” I then proceeded to tell her of my attempts to psychically transmit a plea for help to her. “And that was about three this morning” I added.

“Yes, I thought it was you. The voice was like yours except it was more childlike… it sounded like you was a child in trouble. But it was definitely your voice. That’s why I thought I’d better come and see if you were alright.”

That was one of the most important experiences of my life. It was proof of paranormal abilities, of being able to use them at will. I realised it was totally possible to develop and exploit the latent skills of telepathic communication.

However, I chose never to try it again… until that day in Aberdeen, 7 or 8 years later. This time without the narcotic boost of magic mushrooms… just LOVE. I concentrated hard on Teresa.

Well, eventually I reached the theatre and went to the dressing room and got ready for the evening show. I saw Teresa before the show but she didn’t say much except that there was a party after the show in the bar. I’m a bit of an introvert and I don’t drink alcohol (I stopped back in ‘82 when I could see the writing on the wall warning me not to go the way of the likes of Richard Burton and Oliver Reed… not that as an actor I was in their league but I could have been as a drinker), so I don’t normally socialise after a performance. I usually prefer to go straight back to the hotel room and read a book. I’m so boring, aren’t I…

This night, however, I decided to be different. I like to be unpredictable. I surprised everyone by appearing at the party. Teresa was particularly pleased when someone told her I was around, hiding in a corner. She sought me out and asked if she could sit in the empty chair next to me. I was overjoyed. “Yeah, of course” I said.

“You save it for me, then?” she asked mischievously.

“Nah, you must be joking. There’s this tall leggy blond, I’ve got my eye on.” I lied. “Can’t you see… her name is carved on the back of the seat.”

“Well, I’d better not hang around, then. Don’t want to ruin your chances, eh?”, she said, grinning, giving me a sharp dig in the ribs.

“Nah, it’s alright… she won’t mind you having the seat for five minutes. She’s not the possessive type.”

Suddenly, there’s a serious expression on Teresa’s face. “Are you really reserving this chair for someone?”

“Nah, just joking.”

“Because I’ve got to tell you about something that happened this afternoon. Something really weird.”

“Oh? What was that, then?” I asked, intrigued.

“You don’t mind me telling you about it? I know you like to be left alone after a performance. I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

“No, of course not. What was the really weird thing that happened?”

“Well, I was in your dressing-room, gathering your costume together to put it in the washing machine and have it ironed before this evening’s show.”

“About what time this afternoon?” I asked.

“Hmm… something like two-thirty.”

“Oh right”, my mind was racing… I had a feeling I knew what was coming next.

“Well, you know on the back of the dressing room door, there’s this full length mirror?” Teresa says, watching me intently.

“Yeah… ”

“Well, as I picked up your washing, I turned and looked at my reflection in the mirror… and this bit is really weird… I swear it happened. It was as clear as I see you now.”

“What?”

“I saw my reflection and then suddenly, my head disappeared and was replaced by YOURS. Your head was on my body. You looked straight at me and smiled. Then your head disappeared and mine came back.”

“You are joking?”

“No…  I knew you wouldn’t believe me.” Teresa sounded depressed.

“No, I do. It’s just… I’m amazed. So… I mean… did you just imagine my head on your neck? Was it an image you superimposed in your mind’s eye?”

“No. I had nothing to do with it. It just happened. One minute I saw my face in the mirror… and the next I saw yours. It was a real reflection. It wasn’t like an hallucination.”

“How did you feel when you saw me in the mirror?”

“I was shocked at first. But I felt calm. Seeing you didn’t worry me… except… ”

“What?”

“Well, I’m just left wondering what did it mean? What do you think it happened?”

“Got no idea,” I lied. I was too embarrassed, too scared to tell her that I might have put the image in the mirror. It would have meant declaring my love for her. And I couldn’t possibly do that. I couldn’t rock her boat. “Its all very strange” I said quietly. I really wanted tell her that she saw me because we loved and wanted each other… that there was a special psychic connection between us… but I felt it would have been irresponsible of me to do so… and besides, I might have been mistaken. And I didn’t want to upset my fellow thespian, I didn’t want him to be heartbroken if I ended up taking his girl.

I couldn’t look at Teresa as I denied knowing why she saw me in the mirror. As she got up to rejoin her friends, she asked more emphatically “Why have you got into my head?”

“I don’t know. Do you know?”

“Perhaps it’s best not to know.” she said walking away.

“You could be right, there.” I said feeling both sad and elated. Sad because it was a cop out… an easy retreat… we were both aware of something extraordinary happening between us but neither were prepared to admit it, and take the consequences. Elated because I was privileged to witness another example of the paranormal power of love.

Love and Telepathy copyright © 2000 Nabil Shaban