I
would like to address something I have never mentioned to or discussed with
anyone. From a very young age all the way through high school I had out of body
experiences. This is an area under study by science and there have been people
of note who experienced and even attempted to induce such events, such as
Thomas Edison and Salvatore Dali. Some researchers have estimated as many as
35% of people have experience this at least once, although the more acceptable
figure is 1 in 10. I do not see these as being in any way supernatural. There
are several perfectly rational and natural theories explaining the phenomena. Unfortunately
there are as many therapists and theories about the cause of out of body
experiences as Dr. Carter’s proverbial pills. A couple of things of note concerning myself might include studies
in the 1980s that concluded people who had OBEs had fantasy prone
personalities. Keep in mind I was a professional horror writer and you'll soon find out about some fantasies concerning pirates that I became prone to. Another curiosity related to me is as far as I recall these OBEs began while I attended
West Whiteland Elementary School, the institution I can remember nothing about.
Whether there is any connection between the two I don’t know. The experience
did continue, though, all the way through high school. These experiences
happened to me quite frequently is all I know.
I would be sitting at my desk and have this very strange
feeling come over me. My body would feel very relaxed and I felt it bending
forward toward my knees. Then I would have the sensation of floating upward.
Soon I was looking down at myself from somewhere in the air. I could see I was
still sitting at my desk looking very still, but perfectly awake, yet I knew I
wasn’t really there in my body. I saw everything in the classroom, heard the
teacher and others if they spoke all while floating overhead. After a time I
would feel a tugging, like the pull of the tide in the ocean, and I would float
gently down and everything was normal again.
These
little excursions came over me all during my school years. Usually it occurred
in a classroom, but sometimes it would happen to me at home. There were times I was able to induce it. It never frightened me. It was enjoyable, pleasant and peaceful. There were even times when I regretted rejoining my body.
In the 1950s the human body was considered a bit too risqué
for human beings to consider. It was not, putting the introduction of the Bikini aside,
so openly displayed. There were cracks in the coverings enforced on sexual
matters and bodily displays beginning to appear. A magazine called “Playboy”
had appeared in December 1953, for instance.
Meanwhile, McCarthyism had begun its decline in April 1954 during the
McCarthy-Army Hearings. As the focus of the political spotlight
on Communist Sympathizers was beginning to fade, the politicians didn’t take
long in finding a new target, Juvenile Delinquency and its cause.
In the spring of 1954 the U. S. Senate Subcommittee on
Juvenile Delinquency: Comic Books, “Soda-pop”, and Societal Harm chaired by
Senator Robert Hendrickson was called in session by Hendrickson saying this is
“not a subcommittee of blue-nosed censors”.
Thus began an all-out assault on comic books.
The highest visible member of the committee was Senator Estes Kefauver (pictured right), so much so the press and public often referred to it as the Kefauver Committee. Kefauver was the most known man on that committee having gained fame in the early 1950s for his
investigation into organized crime. He had campaigned to be the Democratic
presidential candidate on the strength of that fame, but lost the nomination to
Adlai Stevenson. Kefauver believed the attack on comic books would revitalize
his fame and gain him the 1956 nomination.
The
Committee claimed it was investigating the rising problem of juvenile
delinquency after World War II. Being politicians they did what Congressmen
always do, look for an easy answer to a complex problem so they can garner
publicity and give the appearance of doing something while actually doing nothing. First they surveyed a
large number of people with backgrounds in the area, including comic book
publishers and cartoonists, juvenile court judges, probation officers,
psychiatrists, and social workers. The
overwhelming conclusion of this survey was comic books and juvenile delinquency
had no relationship with an even higher percentage agreeing banning comic books
would have no effect.
When the experts concluded this in disagreement with the
Committee’s premise, the Senators simply ignored their opinion, kept the
results quiet and continued their worthless quest. Failing here to get the
answers they sought, they turned to the Postal Service and ordered an
investigation into how many comic books had been found breaking the Postal
regulation on suitable mailing material. The
Post Office failed to find any such violations and the Postal investigation was
dropped.
The
Senators carried on anyway. They had targeted comic books as the cause of
juvenile
delinquency and nothing such as the truth would dissuade them, any more than it
would their future political replacements, who blamed societies ills on Rock
‘n’ Roll, music, movies, violence and sex on TV, right up to video games, the
Internet, sugary soft drinks and Global Warming. This is typical of our
so-called leaders; give easy answers with little substance and maybe a new nuisance
tax.
Eventually the committee made William M. Gaines (pictured
right with some old friends) the biggest villain of their attacks and many of his EC comic line ended. The only real result of all the fuss was a voluntary adoption of the Comic Book Code in September 1954 by the major comic book Publishers, Dell, DC et al, and on the positive side the introduction of Mad Magazine.
Somehow juvenile delinquency continued to exist unabated.
I
followed some of this bladder at the time because of my love for comic books.
Much of it was downright silly. Dr. Fredric Wertham (pictured left), a
psychiatrist and long time campaigner against comic books, received kid gloves
treatment from the committee. While the Senators made Wertham the hero, they
portrayed Gaines as the villain. Wertham presented what he called the “Superman
Complex” as a leading cause of juvenile delinquency, despite the contradiction
that its effects were not upon the street hoods, but on “primarily
the normal child”. Superman supposedly “aroused in children phantasies (sic) of
sadistic joy in seeing other people punished over and over again while you
yourself remain immune.” He also stated in his testimony the most “morbid”
children were unaffected by comic books “because they are wrapped up in
their own phantasies [sic].”***
He went on to claim that Superman epitomized the
Nazis.
“Actually, Superman (with the
big S on his uniform — we should, I
Wertham
supplied what he called “seductive images” placed in comic books. These were
more a reflection of his imagination and own dirty mind than reality. In this
sample (above) he claims it depicts explicit female anatomy. Since I 
This is similar to the technique I used to
illustrate the mind’s ability to assume something that isn’t there with my book
cover to, Knowing My Essay from My Elbow
(1969) a collection of my essays). First of all the title is a pun off an old
cliché used to imply someone was stupid. The picture was designed to then play
off the original expression with the title running from an “ass” to my wife’s
elbow. In reality the perceived rear end was just another elbow on a woman in a
Best Buy newspaper ad. Or maybe Best Buy was employing subliminal placements of
“explicit female anatomy”.
There
were also claims from Wertham and these Senators concerning Batman and Robin. The psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, he of the “Superman Complex”, wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocent in which he claimed the comic books
portrayed Batman and Robin “as lovers”. It was said the comic book’s
“homosexual overtones” promoted homosexuality in young boys. They portrayed the comic book story line that Dick Grayson was the ward of wealthy Bruce Wayne as perverted and that actually Batman had an illicit relationship with The Boy Wonder. They said here was this young boy living alone in the mansion of a rich older man not his father. 
These ridiculous allegations were easier for
politicians and Senators to embrace than the more logical explanations of the comic’s creators. The publisher gave two reasons for the debut of Robin in the April 1940 issue of Detective Comics. One was it gave the young readership a character they could identify with. The other came from Bob Kane’s collaborator who said he created Robin to be a Dr. Watson to Batman, because Batman needed 
Comic books had no more influence on my indiscretions during
childhood than comic books were the cause of Ronald Tipton’s homosexuality. In
my own case, Wertham was correct when he stated, “they are wrapped up in
their own phantasies [sic].” My behavior resulted from a repressive
society that did not prepare children for their sexual maturation and the
denigrating abused both at home and at school. The absent of information and
care led to me becoming wrapped up in my own fantasies.
***In case anyone wonders about Dr. Wertham
constantly spelling “Fantasies” as
“Phantasies” here is a possible explanation.
Dr. Wertham was a psychiatrist and the words Fantasies and Phantasies have a
slightly different psychological meaning.
Fantasies in our common layperson usage is akin
to daydreaming, an imaginary but unreal world or event that anyone can create
in their mind. We can fantasy about the life we wished we lived or use fantasy
to look at what we think our future might be. It is a conscious endeavor.
Anyway, Wertman was not a poor speller; he just
used a word most of us wouldn’t encounter in our daily lives.
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