not be! It would be madness....

* * * * *

Extract from a letter from Dr. Karl Thurn to Professor Albrecht Aigen.

... I deplore your reaction. It has the emotional quality of a reaction
to witchcraft or magic, but psi is not witchcraft. It is a natural
force. No natural force is either nonexistent or irresistible. No
natural force is invariably effective. Psi is not irresistible under all
circumstances. It is not always effective. My rat cannot levitate
cheese-crumbs weighing more than 1.7 grams. My she-dog could not make
you give her dog-candy once you were on guard. When you went again into
the laboratory she looked at you and wagged her tail as before. You say
that you thought of the box and of opening it, but you did not. It was
not even an effort of will to refrain.

A lesser will or a lower grade of personality cannot overwhelm a greater
one. Not ever! Lesser beings can only urge. The astrologers used to say
that the stars incline, but they do not compel. The same can be said of
psi--or of magnetism or gravitation or what you will. Schweeringen could
not make the computer err when it had to err too egregiously. A greater
psi ability was needed than he had. A greater psi power than was
available would have been needed to make you give the dog candy, once
you were warned.

I do not apply these statements to your so-called appalling idea. I
carefully refrain from doing so. It is your research, not mine....

* * * * *

Extract from letter to Professor Albrecht Aigen from the Herr Friedrich
Holm, supervisor of electrical maintenance, municipal electrical
service, Untersberg.

Herr Professor:

You have written to ask if I knew a certain Herr Schweeringen, attached
to The Leader's personal staff during his regime. I did know such a
person. I was then in charge of electrical maintenance in The Leader's
various residences. Herr Schweeringen was officially one of The Leader's
secretaries, but his actual task was to make predictions for The Leader,
like a soothsayer or a medium. He had a very remarkable gift. There were
times when it was especially needful that there be no electrical
failures--when The Leader was to be in residence, for example. On such
occasions it was my custom to ask Herr Schweeringen if there was apt to
be any failure of apparatus under my care. At least three times he told
me yes. In one case it was an elevator, in another refrige