"Barry Longyear - Dark Corners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Longyear Barry)

Dr. Raeder pursed his lips, placed the glossy on top of his desk and dropped into his chair. “I’ll tell you
why, Lyle. It’s for the same reason you’re dragging your anchor right now. Just as no one would take
alcoholism and addiction seriously as diseases back in the thirties, lycanthropic hysteria has been passed
off as a moral problem, or hoax, for almost eighty years. That’s why this study, almost thirty years old,
wasn’t taken seriously. It was never published and little new work has been done in the field. There is
simply no grant money available for research in this field. But just as those who wanted to recover from
alcoholism back in the thirties put together their own therapy program in the form of Alcoholics
Anonymous, thereby pioneering the treatments for a host of compulsive disorders, those who want to
recover from lycanthropy are doing the same. I think the field is ready for a courageous new look at this
problem.” He shrugged and held out his hands. “If you want a new thesis topic, it’s the best suggestion
I’ve got in the shop. It will be new work and much more impressive than another herd of tired rats run
through yet another maze.”

Lyle twiddled his thumbs for a moment, then leaned forward and held out a hand. “Could I look at that
photo once more?”

Dr. Raeder allowed himself a slight smile. “By the way, Lyle, if you decide to go to the meeting, don’t
make a point out of you being free of this condition. Also, don’t take any notes or bring a recorder. They
are adamant about their anonymity, and for very good reasons. Finally, don’t call them wolf men or
werewolves. Call them lycanthropics. They are quite touchy about that.”

“What time is the meeting?”

“Eleven thirty at night.”

“That late?”

Janos Raeder’s eyebrows went up. “You’re kidding. Midnight is the toughest time for lycanthropics. If
nothing else, Lyle, this experience will be an excellent opportunity to raise your consciousness regarding
the plight of a much neglected minority.”




There was plenty of time before the meeting, and, after an uninspired taco at the student center, Lyle put
in a few hours at the university library. First he tackled the subject of stigmatization with examples
beginning with Francis of Assisi in 1224 to Louise Lateau in 1868. The latter was a peasant girl whose
case was investigated by Professor Lefebvre of Louvain. The girl’s “Christ wounds” began on April 24th,
1868 and bled regularly every Friday thereafter. The ability of the human organism to alter its tissues
radically through intense belief was well established. What was not so well established was a degree of
alteration sufficient to turn a human into a completely different species.

Search as he might, his pursuit of a work on quantum physics for dummies was fruitless. The only works
available were either dripping with equations or too general to discuss the application in which he was
interested. Reluctantly he resorted to pulling Chopra’sAgeless Body, Timeless Mind from the shelf and
paged through it. The thesis seemed to be that every cell of an individual’s body is constantly listening to
what that individual is telling it. If you tell yourself “I’m too old for that kind of stuff,” the cells listen and
you become “too old for that kind of stuff.” By the same token, if you decide to become more youthful,
the cells listen and can actually reverse the aging process. He wrote: