The Road To Elmira

by Richard Kendall

Chapter One

All Roads Do Not Lead to Rome

I was nineteen years old in 1969, and changes in the mass consciousness of this country were beginning to bubble up, and in some cases, the bubble just outright burst. The Vietnam War was in full swing, and in November of 1969 approximately two hundred fifty thousand people marched on Washington, D.C. in opposition to a war that had divided the country into warring factions of its own. In that same year, Woodstock, billed as “3 Days of Peace and Music” attracted close to five hundred thousand folks. I was one of them, and while there was music a plenty, the peace part of the equation was very scarce. The movie Easy Rider made its way to the wide screen that year as Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper traveled by motorcycle in a horizontal direction in search of the real America. Neil Armstrong took a vertical route, and became the first man to walk on the moon. By the end of the decade the ideology of the 1960’s had reached its crescendo, and within a few years, yesterday’s hippies would become today’s lawyers, doctors, and Wall Street brokers. For some, this transition was relatively easy. For me, thoughts of finding a steady job; settling down; focusing on making money; all these goals were anathema to the hippie spirit that still lived within me.

As I held on tight to my counter-culture stance, the world in which those ideas had found a home was quickly disappearing, and the new world that was rising up to take its place left me feeling unsure as to how I might fit in to this new paradigm. So as the decade drew to a close, uncertainties hung in the air all around me. There was only one thing I felt for certain: I needed some answers before I could move on with my life; answers to just a few simple, basic questions. Questions such as why am I here; is there a God; what happens to us when we die; have I lived before; why is there so much suffering in the world. Like I said, just a few simple, basic questions. I had tried plenty of drugs in my search for answers, but the insights I received during those seemingly heightened states of awareness had a nasty way of fading into so much pulp in the morning, as the drug’s effects would begin to wear off. Ultimately, I used drugs not to seek knowledge, but to numb the pain that was coursing through me; pain born from confusion, from fear, and from an endless procession of unanswered and perhaps unanswerable questions that kept exploding inside my brain. But while these drug-induced moments of peace were certainly pleasurable, they did not provide any real answers, and moreover, spawned a fresh set of new problems, which was the last thing I needed. Turning to organized religion was not an option, for I could not accept the limited picture of reality they present with their tales of heaven and hell, and a vengeful god who would not hesitate to destroy us if we did not follow his rules and worship him on a regular basis. Perhaps a nice brisk walk on the moon might provide some insights, but I was way behind in my astronaut training at this point. The need for me to find answers became more than just an important issue, it became an imperative.

Right around this time, a friend of mine who was also interested in spiritual matters told me about these metaphysical classes he started attending in response to an ad he saw in the newspaper. These classes were taught by a fellow named François, who claimed to be a master of occult knowledge, privy to the secrets of the gods themselves. If you studied under him and followed his directions without question, (all of this according to François) you would have the opportunity of reaching levels of enlightenment that very few ever achieve. It was understood you would never reach the level of level of enlightenment that François had achieved, but at this juncture in my life, any light would be welcomed. When you’re stranded on an island feeling alone and helpless, and a ship approaches, you don’t ask what flag it’s flying, you just hop aboard. So with hope tucked under my sleeve, off I went to meet François, thinking that perhaps he just might be the one to lead me out of the darkness.

François was a tall, black, charismatic figure. His voice rang out with confidence. He let you know in no uncertain terms that he had mastered many levels of reality, and had access to secret and hidden knowledge. This knowledge, he emphasized, should not be shared with others until they were properly prepared to receive it; for otherwise, doing so could be very dangerous for the recipient. He attracted mostly young people and looking back I can honestly say he was a master; a master at exploiting the insecurities and fears that lived within others. Feelings of hopelessness combined with little belief in one’s own worth were a perfect recipe for François, and he knew just how to mix the ingredients. His intentions were to open a school, create an elite army of metaphysical mentors, who would then descend upon the ignorant masses to help save their miserable souls. But not all the students who were studying under him would be chosen to become part of this army. Those who weren’t chosen could still study his teachings, but would be outside of the inner circle he was in the process of forming. Rumors began to circulate as to who the chosen ones would be, and one day I heard through the grapevine that I was not going to be one of them.

When I was in the sixth grade, an announcement was made that classes were going to be divided in a new way. Special classes were being created called SP, for those whose intelligence ranked above the norm. No tests were given to determine the criterion for this ranking, and no explanations offered. Your parents would receive a letter which would indicate you were either going to be part of the SP group, or not. Everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting for that letter. I remember how terrible I felt when my parents informed me that I was not one of those who had been accepted. I didn’t feel much better when two weeks later they sent my parents another letter, this one stating that they had decided to accept me after all. Even at that young age I knew there was more to this than met the eye, and figured there was probably some problem in filling up some of the classes, hence my new found intelligence miraculously rising to the surface. Trying out for a school team or school play and not making the cut can be a difficult pill to swallow. But being denied a place in François’s school was too much to bear without at least finding out why. So I gathered all my courage and decided to call François and find out if the rumor was true.

His voice on the other end of the line sounded like it was right inside my brain. He proceeded to tell me in a calm and imperious manner that I could not be admitted to his school for the following reason: I was in the grips of a demoniacal thing. Let me tell you, this felt a lot worse than not qualifying for SP classes. He spoke to me my very worst fears about myself. Maybe there really was something fundamentally wrong with me, that somehow I was not put together quite right, and that I had better keep a very short leash on myself, lest all hell break loose and god knows what damage I might do to myself or to others. As I look back upon François’s pronouncement all those years ago, I feel bad for that nineteen year old self who so willingly accepted François’s proclamation as truth. But demoniacal thing or not, life goes on, and François was willing to throw me a bone. He told me I could continue studying his philosophy from outside the school, and if I read certain books in the order he told me to, I could find some measure of enlightenment. Some measure of enlightenment sounded a lot better than continuing to wander in the dark, so I was determined to follow the path he set out before me. And then, in the latter part of 1970, the winds began to shift.

One of the girls who had been selected for François’s school came across a book called The Seth Material, by Jane Roberts. Though this book was not one of those on François’s reading list, she started telling fellow students about it. If history teaches us anything, it teaches us that word of mouth is one of the most powerful forces on earth, so word spread quickly, and in short time François was dutifully asked if we could add this title to his list. He agreed to the request, never telling us that he had already contacted Jane Roberts by phone numerous times, a fact I was to find out about much later. Another fact I was to find out about much later was that François drove Jane Roberts up a wall, had wanted to visit her, but she was having no part of it. She saw him not as a kindred spirit, but as a self-deluded individual. Furthermore, his brand of esoteric knowledge was saturated with concepts that were opposite to those Jane was teaching. So while allowing us to read Jane’s book, François went out of his way to let us know that Jane was not very evolved spiritually, and not someone to be taken seriously. He did however decree that Seth’s presence made the book worth reading, for Seth was more in line with the level of metaphysical expertise that François himself had attained.

I can’t tell you the exact date in 1970 when I first picked up The Seth Material, but I can tell you that from page one bells began to ring. As I continued to read the chimes grew louder, and it felt like a part of me started to wake up that had been asleep for centuries. I wanted to go to one of those classes Jane wrote about and although my attention was still riveted on François, in the summer of 1971 I wrote Jane a letter asking if I could attend one of her classes. She wrote back saying that if I was going to be in the area there was no problem with me joining her class for the evening. She only asked that I let her know beforehand. Sounded like a fair deal to me, and I proceeded to tell François about my letter and Jane’s response. I asked him if going to one of Jane’s classes would be alright with him, and he said yes.

Summer and fall passed quickly that year, and by the beginning of December, bitter winds were enveloping New York City. Snow-covered streets soon followed as the yearly ritual of standing out in the cold to scrape off ice from the car windows was upon us once more. When temperatures really began to plummet, people bundled up in such a way that the only visible part of them was their eyes, the only evidence that the creature walking toward you was of the human kind. On one of those winter evenings I was sitting in my kitchen enjoying a hot bowl of pea soup, (one of my favorites) when the phone rang. The news that reached my ears stunned my brain, and for a few moments I felt my consciousness wobble. The caller informed me that earlier that day François had dropped dead on the street. They had no further information at this point. This just didn’t seem possible. François was only in his forties, and had always seemed so vibrant, filled with energy, in league with the gods themselves! How could this be? But it was. François had dropped dead on one of those cold and snowy New York City streets, the causes being unknown. Like so many things in life, this was another mystery, with questions that went begging for answers but returned with an empty cup.

As often happens when any kind of leader dies, others rush in to try to fill the void. Occasionally, the right kind of person is able to keep things going, but this would not be one of those occasions. No one was going to fill François’s shoes, and the glue that had held the school together quickly came apart. The fledgling army of enlightened soldiers who were going to help François build his school and liberate mankind went their separate ways, and before too long melted into the anonymous masses whose ignorant souls they were one day going to save. As for me, I didn’t like the idea of my spiritual quest ending so abruptly, so despite François’s comments about Jane Roberts, I wrote her another letter, and she agreed to let me attend one of her classes in Elmira, New York, during the first week of January, 1972.

Life has a funny way of opening doors for us when we least expect it, and while there was nothing funny about the death of François, doors were being opened. There was just one pressing question that had to be answered sooner rather than later: where the heck was Elmira anyway?