However, RonBoyd, can you give a very brief description of what that article says?
Here is the whole article: (
http://webpages.charter.net/boerad/NewsletterFall2005.pdf
Michener’s Egyptian Princess
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[FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]by Stephen J. May[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]James A. Michener can r[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]ightly take his place among some of the best selling authors of the twentieth century: Agatha Christie, Taylor Caldwell, Stephen King, and more recently J.K. Rowling, who has literally transformed publishing with her exploits of a boy wizard. Unknown to many readers is that Michener followed the teachings of his own wizard—a fortune teller in actuality. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]When I first became involved writing Michener’s biography, [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=FUEKTE+AGaramondPro-Italic,Garamond Pro][FONT=FUEKTE+AGaramondPro-Italic,Garamond Pro]Michener: A Writer’s Journey[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro], I interviewed many people and uncovered a myriad of tales surrounding the distinguished author. Perhaps no tale was as strange as that of Michener’s relationship with a woman he referred to simply as "The Princess." He detailed this bizarre relationship in a 120-page (typed and double spaced) manuscript, which was held for many years by his agent Owen Laster. In 2003 Special Collections at the University of Northern Colorado acquired it. To a lesser degree, Michener wrote about her in his memoir, [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=FUEKTE+AGaramondPro-Italic,Garamond Pro][FONT=FUEKTE+AGaramondPro-Italic,Garamond Pro]The World is My Home [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro](pages 407-11). [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]Jim first met The Princess in 1933 while he was a research student in Scotland. He was in his mid-thirties and she was in her sixties. Stranded in Cairo, Egypt, "awaiting the arrival of a group I was to accompany up the Nile to Luxor and Aswan," Michener found The Princess in a smoky tavern nestled close to the right bank of the river. "I could not see her well," he recalled. "Her face was in shadows but I did catch a glimpse of a tall woman … black haired, with deeply lined face and piercing eyes. I imagined that she knew exactly what she was doing and that she intended me to visit her table." [/FONT]
[/FONT][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]Michener soon became involved in her complex method of fortune telling, a method so accurate that it was to ensnare the curious student and beguile him for the rest of his life. [/FONT]
[FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]Although the gypsy woman’s system is far too lengthy to relate here, suffice to say, it took Jim several years and countless hours to figure it out and put it into practice. She told him: "You must remember that when you have mastered the system I use, you will have in [/FONT]
[/FONT][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]your hands a powerful tool. The beauty is that it’s so much subtler than the others are. It combines the best of numbers, the best of astrology, and the best of cards." [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]After I studied The Princess’s intricate and lengthy system for several hours, one question persisted: Why was a reasonable, intelligent man such as Michener so captivated by the work of a fortune teller he met in a Cairo bar? The answer came slowly: Michener loved games involving logic and mathematics. The more challenging they were, the better he liked them. The Princess’s system was probably one of the most clever and demanding he had ever encountered. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]Twenty years after his encounter with her and after Michener had achieved notoriety as a writer, a friend, Bill Vitarelli from George School, Newtown, Pennsylvania, suggested he use his "psychic" powers and become "Mitch the Witch" at the local arts festival in eastern Pennsylvania. "With some trepidation I reported to the festival," Michener noted, "found thirty people in line waiting for me, and at fifty cents a fortune, earned the festival some sixty dollars and myself a rasping larynx." [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]In the years that followed, as Jim became an expert on the method, a curious thing happened: what he considered entertainment, his clients viewed as deadly serious. He began to feel guilty for using such an accurate way to predict people’s tragedies and failures. "When I saw the eagerness with which otherwise sensible people sought me out to read their cards, and particularly when I began to listen seriously to the questions they wanted me to answer, I began to see that they were taking this frolic much more seriously than I, and the consequences startled me." [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]Eventually, he gave up his role as "Mitch the Witch" at the festival and temporarily renounced fortune telling as entertainment. Over the years, however, as he traveled throughout the world writing his books, people urged Jim to tell them their fortunes. On most occasions, he good-naturedly consented. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]After their initial encounter, Michener never saw The Princess again. In the 1960s, while traveling through Egypt, he happened to stop into the Cairo bar and found out from the owner that she had died. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]As for her method, Michener remained a staunch advocate: [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]
[FONT=AUVLBO+AGaramondPro-Regular,Garamond Pro]"If there are people who illogically insist upon consulting fortune tellers for guidance that they should be getting elsewhere, I can state confidently that this is the best and most helpful system so far devised." [/FONT]
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