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Other friends had reactions as strong against Dan. Barbara was attractive enough to support herself as a topless dancer while going for her degree in philosophy, which was how I met her. She also did typing jobs: stories for the creative writing department, an occasional thesis for others. When I brought her the latest draft of Dan’s book to type, she and I had known each other for a couple years. We started out lovers and then spun apart after a few months. Yet we periodically bumped into each other at school, occasionally having sex, if we were between lovers. I was never in love with her, if I was even capable of love then, still it was an ideal relationship in some ways. She was completely undemanding, extraordinarily sexy, with the pendulous breasts and dark nipples that provided most of her living, and when she didn’t want to have sex, we always had a lot to talk about. When she handed me Dan’s manuscript in the doorway of her apartment, I anxiously asked what she thought of it. “Oh that is such a bunch of crap!” she said with stunning vehemence. “Wh… why? Wh-what didn’t you like about it?” Her response couldn’t have been further from what I expected. “Oh c’mon, you don’t take that stuff seriously, do you?” “Yeah, I do. I think you’re probably taking it too literally. You’ve got to read it kind of like…poetry. It’s …” “Oh, c’mon. That stuff is just …egomaniacal… delusional… rantings.” “Wh-what about Nietzsche! He wrote the same kind of thing. Are you calling Nietzsche, er, rantings?” That was the last time I ever saw her. But if some of my friends weren’t able to appreciate Dan, others were. The most important of these was a former professor of mine from San Francisco State . Newman was not only brilliant, getting his PHD in philosophy from Harvard in his early twenties, but also exceptionally personable. He had the openness, candor, and sincerity of a true seeker. After several courses, I saw him as a friend as well as a teacher and started sending him some of my “finds,” the visionary lottery winners, those who, like Dan and unlike me, had gotten wet in the Sixties rain of visions. Newman seemed flattered and bemused when I sent him a frumpy, middle-aged beatnik poetess who pleaded that she had exhausted all the psychiatric nostrums for getting rid of intrusive, inexplicable, semi-mystical episodes. About a year later, I sent him Bernie’s nubile, nineteen-year-old sister-in-law. If she wasn’t quite pretty, she was very sexy, especially in hiphugger jeans with a gauzy blouse pressed against her breasts by the seawind of Point Reyes , where we were hiking one day. We were on our way to an isolated sylvan pond where, as part of my plan of seduction, I hoped we would go skinny-dipping. But half way there, she decided I was the right person to tell about a certain troubling and inexplicable experience. That dominated the rest of the afternoon and we didn’t even reach the pond. Both women only met with Newman once yet both seemed to have gotten something out of it. I suspected that he might be feeling imposed upon when I showed up at his office one afternoon, but that suspicion was dispelled when I saw his fascination grow as I described Dan and his experience. When I was sure the hook was set, I brought out the manuscript. In the years I was taking classes from him, Newman wrote a bestseller about the booming interest in exotic religions. This was soon followed by his becoming the editor of a series on religion for a major international publishing house. So I left the manuscript of Dan’s book with him and, as I had hoped, he was impressed enough to want to meet Dan.
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