Al had left his job in the computer field in 1973 and decided to visit a friend. The friend, preparing to leave for an appointment with a renowned hypnotherapist, Dr. E. Arthur Winkler, invited Al to tag along. When the session was over, Dr. Winkler and the friend coaxed Al to have a session. The hypnotic suggestion given was, “You will now go back to that time and place of greatest spiritual significance to you.”
The next thing Al knew, he was standing under a twilight sky. He held his hands up. They weren’t his. The shirt he’d had on at the beginning of the hypnosis session was replaced with a coarse robe-like garment and, instead of the shoes he was wearing, on his feet now were sandals. He heard men talking quietly behind him and turned to look. A small group was gathered around a campfire. He saw a few palm trees beside a small pool and sizable dunes silhouetted against the dark sky. The men were not paying particular attention to him. He turned back to face the night and a feeling of joyful anticipation came over him. Someone he cared deeply about was soon to arrive. As he searched the horizon, waiting, he wrestled with thoughts —what is going on, where am I, who is this I’m waiting for? But the thrill welling up in him about the one he was expecting to come walking out of the darkness any moment continued to build until his attention was utterly captured. Then, he began to hear a voice calling to him, barely audible at first but growing louder.