My first magical lesson came when I was five. I was playing with the crippled girl who lived down the street. We didn't like each other much, but being the only children in the neighborhood, we made do with each other in a grudging, bickering way. At one point in our play she took two bananas off the kitchen counter and told me to pick the one I wanted. I wanted the bigger one. I knew I shouldn't take the big banana. To take it from a crippled girl would be especially bad. But I wanted it. So I took it.

At this point, in defense of myself, I'd like to mention that I was cross-eyed. I'm not saying that cross-eyed trumps crippled, and to be completely truthful, it wasn't much of a factor in my case -- morally speaking, I mean -- because I didn't know I was cross-eyed. No one had mentioned it, and I wasn't an observant child.

I might have forgotten about the bananas by now except that mine had a big brown soft spot in it that ran all the way down the side. About two inches of my banana was edible. Her banana was perfect, and she ate it while I watched. If I had been generous, she would have been eating the rotten banana.

I knew what this meant. Somebody was watching, keeping score. It was God maybe. Who it was didn't matter. What mattered was that I got the message. I never have taken the big banana again. I've never taken the biggest piece of chicken or the last scoop of mashed potatoes or the cookie with the most chocolate chips. I've never pushed anybody aside at the bargain table. I say to myself that I don't care as much about such things. I don't want them as much as other people do, but that's not the truth. The truth is that I am still ruled by the bad magic of the big banana.

I was smart enough not to tell anybody in my family about it. If I had, they would have given me the horselaugh and brayed, "Taught you a lesson, huh?" I didn't call this experience magical even to myself, but it clearly was, just as magical as that bad witch who wasn't invited to the party and got so mad that she cursed poor little Sleeping Beauty.

It was a curse for sure. Luckily the big banana curse was a minor, manageable spell, evoked by my behavior and not by a capricious universe. The behavior it evoked dovetailed well with my Christian upbringing. But the lesson of the banana was deeper even than Christian teachings because it didn't have to be taught. It had been experienced, and it seemed to affirm something basic in the fabric of reality. It didn't, of course. But it seemed to.

Life went on. My eye got fixed, sort of. The doctors call it satisfactory. It turns outward a little instead of inward a lot. It hasn't been much of a handicap, as far as I know, and it has helped me some. I understand outsiders in a way that not everybody does. Or I try to. Not because I'm smarter or more sensitive, but I know how it feels to be among those who can be summed up with one word of physical attribute. There are lots of them -- cross-eyed, fat, crippled, bald, weak-chinned, spastic, crazy -- and knowing what that feels like makes me listen harder. Or try to. If I wanted to make it a joke, I'd say I look at the world askance. Nobody who knows me would disagree with that.

I grew up. I became a big-city newspaper reporter, which is not a hopeful or fanciful or magical profession. If anybody had asked me two years ago to describe the age we live in, I'd have painted a picture right in line with what the world's wise thinkers expected of me, except that it would be utterly dismal.

I'd have said science is our true God. I'd have said that we live in a world of marvels gone stale, adrift in an empty cosmos. We hear no voices but our own. We believe no omens, listen to no oracles. If otherworldly visions come to us, we close our eyes. And we never, ever think that we might have some great task, noble destiny, or grand calling. Such thoughts are generally believed to indicate a need for medication.

That's how lots of people would describe life, but if an extraterrestrial were to watch these nonbelievers as they go about their lives, it would become quite clear that they do believe in much more than a material, soulless world. I first began to know about these hidden beliefs because I wrote a book on Lily Dale, a western New York community of Spiritualists where people have been talking to the dead for five generations. I wrote the book because I thought people with such extravagant ideas were rare, an oddity, something strange that would excite wonder. What a chucklehead.

Whether the dead talk back is a matter of contention, of course. I was careful about that, not wanting to be branded a crazy. But it didn't matter. In writing the book, I'd bee

I might have forgotten about the bananas by now except that mine had a big brown soft spot in it that ran all the way down the side. About two inches of my banana was edible. Her banana was perfect, and she ate it while I watched. If I had been generous, she would have been eating the rotten banana.

I knew what this meant. Somebody was watching, keeping score. It was God maybe. Who it was didn't matter. What mattered was that I got the message. I never have taken the big banana again. I've never taken the biggest piece of chicken or the last scoop of mashed potatoes or the cookie with the most chocolate chips. I've never pushed anybody aside at the bargain table. I say to myself that I don't care as much about such things. I don't want them as much as other people do, but that's not the truth. The truth is that I am still ruled by the bad magic of the big banana.

I was smart enough not to tell anybody in my family about it. If I had, they would have given me the horselaugh and brayed, "Taught you a lesson, huh?" I didn't call this experience magical even to myself, but it clearly was, just as magical as that bad witch who wasn't invited to the party and got so mad that she cursed poor little Sleeping Beauty.

It was a curse for sure. Luckily the big banana curse was a minor, manageable spell, evoked by my behavior and not by a capricious universe. The behavior it evoked dovetailed well with my Christian upbringing. But the lesson of the banana was deeper even than Christian teachings because it didn't have to be taught. It had been experienced, and it seemed to affirm something basic in the fabric of reality. It didn't, of course. But it seemed to.

Life went on. My eye got fixed, sort of. The doctors call it satisfactory. It turns outward a little instead of inward a lot. It hasn't been much of a handicap, as far as I know, and it has helped me some. I understand outsiders in a way that not everybody does. Or I try to. Not because I'm smarter or more sensitive, but I know how it feels to be among those who can be summed up with one word of physical attribute. There are lots of them -- cross-eyed, fat, crippled, bald, weak-chinned, spastic, crazy -- and knowing what that feels like makes me listen harder. Or try to. If I wanted to make it a joke, I'd say I look at the world askance. Nobody who knows me would disagree with that.

I grew up. I became a big-city newspaper reporter, which is not a hopeful or fanciful or magical profession. If anybody had asked me two years ago to describe the age we live in, I'd have painted a picture right in line with what the world's wise thinkers expected of me, except that it would be utterly dismal.

I'd have said science is our true God. I'd have said that we live in a world of marvels gone stale, adrift in an empty cosmos. We hear no voices but our own. We believe no omens, listen to no oracles. If otherworldly visions come to us, we close our eyes. And we never, ever think that we might have some great task, noble destiny, or grand calling. Such thoughts are generally believed to indicate a need for medication.

That's how lots of people would describe life, but if an extraterrestrial were to watch these nonbelievers as they go about their lives, it would become quite clear that they do believe in much more than a material, soulless world. I first began to know about these hidden beliefs because I wrote a book on Lily Dale, a western New York community of Spiritualists where people have been talking to the dead for five generations. I wrote the book because I thought people with such extravagant ideas were rare, an oddity, something strange that would excite wonder. What a chucklehead.

Whether the dead talk back is a matter of contention, of course. I was careful about that, not wanting to be branded a crazy. But it didn't matter. In writing the book, I'd be

I was smart enough not to tell anybody in my family about it. If I had, they would have given me the horselaugh and brayed, "Taught you a lesson, huh?" I didn't call this experience magical even to myself, but it clearly was, just as magical as that bad witch who wasn't invited to the party and got so mad that she cursed poor little Sleeping Beauty.

It was a curse for sure. Luckily the big banana curse was a minor, manageable spell, evoked by my behavior and not by a capricious universe. The behavior it evoked dovetailed well with my Christian upbringing. But the lesson of the banana was deeper even than Christian teachings because it didn't have to be taught. It had been experienced, and it seemed to affirm something basic in the fabric of reality. It didn't, of course. But it seemed to.

Life went on. My eye got fixed, sort of. The doctors call it satisfactory. It turns outward a little instead of inward a lot. It hasn't been much of a handicap, as far as I know, and it has helped me some. I understand outsiders in a way that not everybody does. Or I try to. Not because I'm smarter or more sensitive, but I know how it feels to be among those who can be summed up with one word of physical attribute. There are lots of them -- cross-eyed, fat, crippled, bald, weak-chinned, spastic, crazy -- and knowing what that feels like makes me listen harder. Or try to. If I wanted to make it a joke, I'd say I look at the world askance. Nobody who knows me would disagree with that.

I grew up. I became a big-city newspaper reporter, which is not a hopeful or fanciful or magical profession. If anybody had asked me two years ago to describe the age we live in, I'd have painted a picture right in line with what the world's wise thinkers expected of me, except that it would be utterly dismal.

I'd have said science is our true God. I'd have said that we live in a world of marvels gone stale, adrift in an empty cosmos. We hear no voices but our own. We believe no omens, listen to no oracles. If otherworldly visions come to us, we close our eyes. And we never, ever think that we might have some great task, noble destiny, or grand calling. Such thoughts are generally believed to indicate a need for medication.

That's how lots of people would describe life, but if an extraterrestrial were to watch these nonbelievers as they go about their lives, it would become quite clear that they do believe in much more than a material, soulless world. I first began to know about these hidden beliefs because I wrote a book on Lily Dale, a western New York community of Spiritualists where people have been talking to the dead for five generations. I wrote the book because I thought people with such extravagant ideas were rare, an oddity, something strange that would excite wonder. What a chucklehead.

Whether the dead talk back is a matter of contention, of course. I was careful about that, not wanting to be branded a crazy. But it didn't matter. In writing the book, I'd be

I grew up. I became a big-city newspaper reporter, which is not a hopeful or fanciful or magical profession. If anybody had asked me two years ago to describe the age we live in, I'd have painted a picture right in line with what the world's wise thinkers expected of me, except that it would be utterly dismal.

I'd have said science is our true God. I'd have said that we live in a world of marvels gone stale, adrift in an empty cosmos. We hear no voices but our own. We believe no omens, listen to no oracles. If otherworldly visions come to us, we close our eyes. And we never, ever think that we might have some great task, noble destiny, or grand calling. Such thoughts are generally believed to indicate a need for medication.

That's how lots of people would describe life, but if an extraterrestrial were to watch these nonbelievers as they go about their lives, it would become quite clear that they do believe in much more than a material, soulless world. I first began to know about these hidden beliefs because I wrote a book on Lily Dale, a western New York community of Spiritualists where people have been talking to the dead for five generations. I wrote the book because I thought people with such extravagant ideas were rare, an oddity, something strange that would excite wonder. What a chucklehead.

Whether the dead talk back is a matter of contention, of course. I was careful about that, not wanting to be branded a crazy. But it didn't matter. In writing the book, I'd be

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