Kate's "esoteric beliefs"

[ganzer%trout@nosc.mil (Mark T. Ganzer)]

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I don't think that Kate has any "esoteric beliefs" other than not
discounting any idea that cannot be proven one way or another. In the
1979 BBC Radio 1 interview, they tried to play her up as a mystical
person who believed in deja vu, reincaration and the like. Yet when
asked about "Strange Phenomena" being about deja vu, she insisted that
the song was merely about coincidences that happen in everyones life.
When questioned about reincarnation and related a story about a dentist
who regressed people into past lives through hypnosis, she commented
that she wouldn't want to do that because she really didn't feel it was 
healthy. She does admit a belief in it because she doesn't believe that
a person's energy just disappears when they die. To call this "esoteric"
is a surprise to the millions of Buddists to whom reincarnation is a
fundamental belief. And it is really esoteric to wonder if
the Buddists may be right, rather than Christianity. After all, who can
prove it one way or another?

IED has described the details of Kate disassociating herself from the 
beliefs of Wilhelm Reich (even the in the video, the newspaper headline
refers only to a "Rainmaker"). Being seen from the viewpoint of Peter
Reich, what child believes that their father or mother is psychotic?
Aside from the references to being reminded of the cloudbuster every time
it rains, this song could be about the feelings of anyone who has had a parent
taken from them when they are young. That the story happens be be about
the son of a "mad" scientist only makes the story more interesting, not
evidence of Kate's belief in the elder Reich's work.

About Houdini:
Knowing that Kate is inspired mostly by visual things (TV and movies),
and being an admittedly slow reader, her inspiration was probably a movie
about Houdini (I recall a Tony Curtis movie  about Houdini that I
am reminded of by Kate's song) and the beauty of a story about a man that
not only was trying to escape in this life, but also in the afterlife,
and his wife's love for the man that kept her continuing his work to
uncover phony mediums who prey upon grieving relatives, yet also leaving
the door open to the possibility of an afterlife. Whether the message
is genuine or not is insignificant to the way Kate trys to portray the
emotional response of the woman as she hears the message.
Jesus H Christ! This is beginning to sound like WSI material...

"But everytime it rains, you're here in my head..."
MarK T. Ganzer
Internet: ganzer@trout.nosc.mil  
UUCP: {ucbvax,hplabs}!sdcsvax!nosc!ganzer
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