Notes of a Fringe-Watcher

MARTIN GARDNER Notes of a Fringe-Watcher The Unicorn at Large TRANGE as it may seem, radical In 1964, Einhorn taught English for Spolitical views, both left and right, a year at Temple University, in Phila- often go hand in hand with beliefs in delphia, but his teaching style was too pseudoscience and the occult. In Phila- unconventional and the post was not delphia, throughout the sixties and renewed. In 1967 he sponsored the city's seventies, the most prominent person to first Be-In. While emceeing the city's have his feet firmly planted both in the Earth Day in 1970, which he also student leftist counterculture and in the organized, he startled U.S. Senator Ed rising New Age obsessions was Ira Muskie, in front of television cameras, Einhorn. This is an account of how his by kissing him on the mouth. life turned into a horror movie.* In 1971, Ira ran for mayor in the Einhorn, or "the Unicorn," as he liked Philadelphia Democratic primary on the to call himself for obvious reasons, was Planetary Transformation ticket and got born in Philadelphia in 1940 to working- 965 votes. Philadelphia newspapers loved class Jewish parents. When he graduated him and covered his many lectures, from the University of Pennsylvania with calling him the city's "counterculture a degree in English, he was a large, muscu- mayor," its "local guru," and its "oldest lar, slightly pudgy young man with pink hippie." cheeks, fierce blue eyes, a scruffy beard, For years Einhorn ran an interna- and long dark hair that he often wore tional information network of some 350 tied in a pony tail. He frequently broke members, to whom he sent batches of into high-pitched giggling. During the material on psychic research and related sixties he was friendly with Abbie topics. The network was funded, incred- Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, ibly, by the Bell Telephone Company Alan Watts, Baba Ram Dass, and other under a barter arrangement. Bell printed counterculture heroes. He experimented and mailed the releases, and Ira in turn with LSD. He was an active environmen- helped Ma Bell handle the hippie com- talist. Bright, charismatic, gregarious, the munity. At Penn's "Free University," he Unicorn was a walking symbol of love, lectured on the virtues of psychedelic gentleness, compassion, and peace. drugs. In 1974, Doubleday Anchor pub- * My account is based on Philadelphia lished Einhorn's only book, 78-187880. newspaper clips, on Steven Levy's remarkably The title was the book's Library of detailed book The Unicorn's Secret: Murder Congress number. It is a wild work, filled in the Age of Aquarius (Prentice Hall, 1988), with drivel about how the world will soon and on a lengthy informative front-page article, "Blinded by the Light—the Einhorn- be transformed by New Age thinking. The Maddux Murder Case," in the Village Voice book, bought and edited by Einhorn's (July 23, 1979). good friend Bill Whitehead, was one of 16 THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 14 Doubleday's biggest commercial flops. Whitehead moved to Dutton, where he was conned by Einhorn into publishing a variety of worthless New Age books of which Space- Time and Beyond (1975), by Fred Wolfe, Bob Toben, and Jack Sarfatti, was the worst. Of the many books about Israel's psychic charlatan Uri Geller, surely the most demented was Andrija Puharich's Uri, published in 1974 by Doubleday Anchor at Ira's insistence. (See my review in Science: Good, Bad and Bogus.) Einhorn and Puharich were buddies, both persuaded that Uri's spoon-bending powers would revolutionize physics. "Ira Einhorn's imagination helped to formu- late this book," Puharich wrote on the acknowledgment page, "and to get it to the attention of publishers." Ira had earlier written the introduction to Puha- Ira Einhorn, as he appeared in 1971. rich's Beyond Telepathy (Doubleday Anchor, 1962). From Einhorn's other articles I Here is how Ira evaluated Puharich's singled out "A Disturbing Critique," crazy book on Geller. I quote from Ira's which ran in CoEvolution Quarterly "Uri and the Power of UFOs," in Arthur (Winter 1977/78). Its theme: Russia has Rosenblum's oversized paperback found a way to build Nikola Tesla's Unpopular Science (Philadelphia: Run- "magnifying transmitter." This device is ning Press, 1974): said to use extremely low frequency (ELF) waves to transmit electrical power Having spent much time with Uri Geller, without wires. It can disrupt our radio and having seen him produce evidence communications, addle our brains, again and again that his powers are trigger weather disasters, cause massive genuine, I can only say that it behooves power blackouts, transmit horrible us to accept his explanation for his diseases, and even translocate ships. By powers. He is a medium for an extra- the late seventies, among some extreme terrestrial civilization that has been right-wing groups, Tesla had become a monitoring earth for thousands of years. cult figure. The Tesla Book Company Uri, by Andrija Puharich, is the story (POB 1649, Greenville, TX 75401) still of the development of those powers, and issues catalogs listing dozens of books will be utterly convincing to anyone who and tapes extolling Tesla and warning of is capable of reading with an open heart. Soviet advances in psychotronic warfare. I lived with Andrija while he was writing Research on Tesla's secrets was one of the book and was in constant dialogue Puharich's obsessions. He currently sells with him about Uri's powers during that time. Still, the book blew my mind. wrist watches made to combat the deadly . My editor at Doubleday, who is ELF radiation beamed to us by the evil a close friend, and the agent who is Soviets. working with the book, were so over- In January 1977, Einhorn organized whelmed by Uri that they wondered if a "Mind Over Matter" conference at I would be connected with a fraud. Penn. at which Puharich was a principal Kail \9W 17 speaker. In the keynote address of a Holly's leaving for brief periods, desper- "Towards a Physics of Consciousness" ately seeking her own "space," always to symposium at the Harvard Science return. It was during their trip to Europe Center (May 6-8, 1977), which he coor- in 1977 that she decided to dump the dinated, Ira spoke about how far Russia Unicorn for good. Holly came home was ahead of us in psi-warfare research. alone, settled on Fire Island, in New Our nation can be saved, he argued, only York, and began dating another man. by a great spiritual awakening based on On September 11 or 12, 1977, Holly parapsychology, Eastern religions, and a vanished. After a year of missed letters "more accurate model of the universe." and phone calls, her parents hired a Beneath Einhorn's flower-child exte- private investigator. Ira's pad was then rior flowed dark undercurrents of nar- a second-floor-rear apartment at 3411 cissism, monstrous egotism, priapism, Race Street, in the Powelton Village and sexual rage. "He wore women like section of west Philly, near the Penn jewelry," a friend commented. Although campus. It was the hippie center of the Ira demanded unlimited sexual freedom city, a "commune with traffic lights," for himself, he was insanely jealous of someone called it. Ira slept on the floor similar freedom on the part of any surrounded by hundreds of books. First- girlfriend of the moment. In 1962 he came floor residents told the detective about close to strangling a young Bennington a foul odor that seemed to descend from student. "To kill what you love," he wrote Ira's screened-in back porch. The terrible in a notebook, "when you can't have it smell lessened in the winter, returned in seems to me so natural that strangling the spring. last night seemed so right. On March 28, 1979, a homicide Insanity, thank goodness, is only detective and six other men arrived with temporary." a search warrant. Ira said he had lost In 1966, he almost killed a Penn the key to a big padlock on the door to undergraduate by bashing her head with a back-porch closet. The hasp was a Coke bottle. Later he wrote a poem snapped with a crowbar. In the closet was about it. Titled "An Act of Violence," a black steamer trunk. Again Ira said he it contained these lines: had no key. The trunk was pried open with the crowbar. Inside, wrapped in Suddenly it happens. plastic, was stuffed a decomposed, Bottle in hand, I strike mummified body. It had been drained of Away at the head. blood, packed with styrofoam chips, and In such violence there may covered with newspapers whose dates be freedom. matched the time of Holly's disappear- ance. The front and sides of the skull were Ira fancied himself a talented poet, fractured at a dozen places. but like all his other poems, this is on "It looks like Holly's body," said the the lowest level of free-verse doggerel. detective. Helen Maddux, or Holly, as she was "You found what you found," said Ira. called, grew up in the East Texas town The Unicorn was released on $40,000 of Tyler, the daughter of a wealthy bail. A trivial cash bond of $4,000 was draftsman. She was blond, blue-eyed, paid by Barbara Bronfman, wife of beautiful, shy, frail, fey, and diabetic. A Charles Bronfman of Montreal, a Sea- graduate of Bryn Mawr, with a degree gram liquor heir. Barbara was and is a in English, Holly was 25 when she and true believer in the paranormal, and to Ira met and fell in love.

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