Journal of Possible Paradigms
Issue 4, Summer '96
Reviewed by S & M
I read where Levy talks about Ira's working with Vallee on PLANET, and where he mentioned receiving extraterrestrial implants around 1978 (rather an early point in the 'wave' of the abduction phenomenon.) Also, the science fiction writer in Ira's network who described to Ira his visions of kaleidoscopic imagery and what sounded like Russian minimalist music must have been Philip K. Dick.
So there's those connections.
Levy seems to be arguing pretty persuasively that Ira did kill Holly, based on the fact that he did not seem to have a very progressive or nonviolent attitude toward the women in his life. Certainly, three previous near-murder attempts suggest a problem.
But I was left wondering. Ira could not possibly have been stupid enough to leave her body in a trunk in his closet. Levy suggests he made one attempt to get rid of the trunk, and that failed, and that he gave up either out of arrogance or fear that disposal might endanger him worse than holding on to it. Nonetheless, a decomposing body gives off a terrible odor, as the neighbors soon discovered. Ira could not rationally have thought people would not notice that odor, unless he had become irrational. However, if this was a frame-up job, it seems impossible to me that Ira could not have noticed it HIMSELF before the detectives did. Why would someone kill Holly and then not put the body in the trunk for a full year? That does seem rather unlikely.
And as Puharich suggests, there really wasn't anything THAT striking in the Tesla documents Ira was looking for. Nothing the KGB or CIA would kill over, no matter how much he hyped up the matter. After all, the International Tesla Society in the U.S. holds a good portion of his patents and other documents.
Levy devotes one sentence to the possibility of psychotronic mind control, but not unsurprisingly dismisses it immediately. For two reasons, it seems to me a plausible scenario:
1 - It would explain why Ira failed to dispose of the body. If he temporarily was not in control of his actions and did not remember ever committing the murder... he might have even been 'programmed' not to be sensitive to the smell and to leave the body in a place where it could be easily found. (Of course, this requires explaining why Ira acted defensive when people went near the closet with the trunk. This could either be because he was telling the truth about sensitive papers in the trunk, which was all he remained aware of, or because he had been 'programmed' to do this.)
2 - In the book Levy mentioned that Ira was irritated sporadically by a humming, buzzing sound in his head which unnerved him. (Shades of the Taos Hum.) Levy only gives this fact a sentence of discussion also. He seems to only be mentioning it on the offhand chance that it might support insanity, although if Einhorn was insane, it would hardly be possible to extradite him from Ireland for premeditated murder...
The fact that Andrija Puharich's house suffered arson around the same time seems to be an interesting coincidence. I have heard lately that Geller spends much of his time dowsing for oil and mineral companies, so I wonder what Ira would think today of the man he and Puharich supported so much.
What's weird is that Levy seems to be taking a noncommital position toward Ira's psychic beliefs, but he uses statements from his friends of paranormal things in regard to the case rather straightforwardly, without discussion. So Levy for example mentions the woman who had the dark and frightening nightmare in Ira's house... and seems to suggest this is more supporting evidence for the Ira-Did-It hypothesis, even though this would seem to be a psychic dream...
Anyway, the original question remains in my mind. Why did Levy write the book? It sounds like Einhorn was very involved in the area of computer conferencing in the 70s, and so was Levy. He was at least interviewing those people, if not working with them, based on the book Hackers. (I don't really know Levy's background that well.) So, I suspect Levy may have known many of Ira's associates. I do find it interesting that AT&T decided to pay the costs of Ira's mail-missive network. Ironic that now they could have saved themselves a lot of money setting up an email network for him.... especially considering how AT&T is reportedly getting into the Internet provider business in a big way.
Why were corporate honchos so interested in the Ira rap? Did he have help in escaping from Ireland? How exactly did he 'reorient' himself from hippie to New Ager to Tom Beardenite anti-Soviet paranoid all in one lifetime? A lot of questions left unanswered.
