Gloria Rising: pgs., xiii-xiv

I struggled to keep my writing hand steady. It trembled as if detached from my body. I frantically scribbled down this note after finishing Gloria’s manuscript out of fear of a terrifying premonition that I would not awaken to see the dawn. This whole experience has been as if I had awoken from a nightmare, but it wasn’t my nightmare—it was real—too real to have imagined, let alone lived through and survived. I am Dr. Adam Jaxon, and if by chance you are reading this, I am already dead.

I was a renowned and distinguished hypnotherapist and treated thousands of people in my lifetime, but Gloria B’s electrifying hypnotherapy captivated and stunned me. Unfortunately, I was reluctant to share her terrifying and heart-wrenching story for fear no one would believe the otherworldly powers that literally came to guide and help me heal her. I feared my old associates would think I had gone senile or worse mad.

Now I feel ashamed for being such a coward, for allowing myself to be controlled by the homogenized expectations of my profession and being paralyzed by irrational fears that I would be scorned and rejected, if I spoke my mind. I now feel shame and guilt that my arrogance and fear got the best of me and nearly bankrupted my morals and destroyed me.

After all Gloria and I had been through, I could not live with the thought that, in the end, I had betrayed her trust and let her down. But thanks to her endearing memory and loving spirit, I came to my senses while gazing at my image in a mirror. I flew into a rage and smashed the pathetic image with my wine glass into a million pieces; blood trickled down my wrist, but I didn’t care. I shouted, “To hell with my ego and reputation,” over and over again, until my voice grew too hoarse to scream anymore.

I yielded to my guilty conscience to write her story that I had promised her. Besides, my health was failing, and Gloria’s story was too momentous and meaningful to be forgotten and buried in my cold grave. So, I feverishly wrote over the past year, and finally finished the manuscript this very night—just days before my 100th birthday.

But alas, this morning, I sensed a chilling premonition that I would not be here to celebrate it. So, I left the precious manuscript, and this postscript, on my oak writing desk with a poignant note and scrupulous instructions for its publication, for my daughter to find. It would be my last fond gesture and chance to share my lifeworks with her, albeit, beyond the grave.

I know if I died tonight, I would die a happy man at peace with myself knowing Gloria’s story would finally be told—a mysterious and astonishing story that defies the timeworn precepts of modern psychology and psychiatry—where insanity, genius, the metaphysical, and the mystery of life come together to beguile and confound our contemporary understanding of the mind and its limitless powers to heal.

Dr. Adam Jaxon