84. The Conundrum Addendum

About 1½ years ago I wrote a piece about my friend and partner, Ken Bakeman, now deceased some four years. (please click link to my post #42, The Conundrum) He had a following of fans of classical music and keyboard instrument making, as well as the alien-UFO-conspiracy world. My short story has continued to draw a trickle of readers from all over the world. I am pleased to know that it is one of my most-read pieces!  In case there are some who are interested in hearing more about Ken, I do have a few thoughts to share. For others of you, please allow me now to write again about the most enigmatic person in my past. It's a little woo-woo, I know.

In about 1976, while working with young Ken in our musical instrument building business, he boarded with my girlfriend Bethany and me across the street from the workshop. It was a good solution to his discomfort of living with his parents and commuting to work.

After our full days of work, we usually walked home and withdrew to our separate spaces. But when one of us got interested in the writing of Jane Roberts, mystical channeler of a spirit entity called Seth, soon the book made the rounds in our house and stirred up quite lot of conversation. Instantly we all had something in common; Ken wanted to see if we could communicate with spirits too. Jane Roberts wrote about using the Ouija board as an entry-level practice, so we started our evening sessions.

Ken would much later write in The Verges and his website about gradually recalling his strange experiences that began when he was a little boy; having many encounters with aliens of different sorts, he was taken away in ships and subjected to wonderful, weird or terrifying experiences. As an adult, he’d had a traumatic injury accident that kicked off a return of repressed memories that included these alien encounters. From my perspective, his reading of Jane Roberts’ books and using the Ouija board looked very much like his first exposure to alternate understandings of reality. The way he lit up with interest in it suggests that his memories were scratching to get out and be understood.

So, back to ’76. We three gathered in the dining nook with two of us hands-on at the Ouija board, and the third ready with notebook to record any intelligible communication. The very first time, it started answering our questions, streaming out sometimes-coherent words and sentences, and even predictions from a source identifying as “Eugenia.” It was a little hair-raising! Say what you want about the Ouija board and its users, we were sincerely into it and convinced we had made a connection. But as far as connections to the spirit realm go, “Eugenia” was a little skimpy on useful information! The Ouija board is, compared to the Smart Phone, about as satisfying as two soup cans and a length of string. But no… even with cans and string you can almost manage a conversation. After transcribing many pages of somewhat interesting stuff, we quit our sessions after a couple of months.  I saved the notebook, checking now and then in case any of “Eugenia’s” predictions came to pass! So far, not yet. Curiously though, I just thumbed through the notebook and found a short session of questions to “Eugenia” where Ken was asking about claustrophobia.  I’ll comment on the significance of that below.

In those days, besides everyone wanting to hear predictions about the “Big One” when an earthquake will cause California to slip into the Pacific, the other topic of concern was knowing about one's past lives. Ken was happy to learn from “Eugenia” that he and I had once been great instruments makers during the 17^th century, somewhere in northern Italy. Bethany had served Egyptian Queen Nefertiti as a handmaid. My cat, Bandilegs, was once a sperm whale, and Ken’s beloved dog, Puchok, had been a pig. Ken was insulted and shocked. “Whoa, that can’t be right! Ridicuous!” Ken believed Puchok was supposed to have regal qualities. Bethany and I, however, could see the pig link.

Ken’s attitude seemed to shift dramatically as a wider field of study drew him in. Plus, musical instrument making was losing its appeal, so he allowed himself plenty of time to read and learn. He started creating other things in the workshop to make money, little “no-brainer” wooden gadgets and novelties that he sold to retailers. He sat among a great stack of books on famous mystics—Blavatsky, Gurdjieff, Ouspenskii, Nostradamus. Ken was delighted with anything concerning spiritualism, the afterlife, and channeling. He read up on some of the mystical parts of the Bible, and delved into ancient texts from the Hindus, Mayans, Egyptians, and Hopis. He learned about unseen forces and supernatural phenomena, especially when it came to the extraterrestrial guidance ancient people must have received when building their monuments and temples. The topic that really got to him though, “ancient aliens” theories, resolved so many mysteries on earth that defied conventional explanations. That, right there, was the seedling that took root in Ken’s life—growing into his quest for truth about the origins of his many talents and traits. Again, there is much detail on that in his book, The Verges.

The drafting table and walls in our workshop were covered with large overlay plans of Stonehenge, Chartres Cathedral, Ankor Wat, Chichen Itza, The Great Pyramid. He was enthusiastic and emphatic. “See how they all match up in proportion and alignment? And imagine what minds or Mind could command such precision, and have them built with all these puzzling symbolic features and hidden codes, right in the stones.” And then he’d rattle off all those amazing things, page after page, always eager to debate the how and why of it. Ken was obsessed with the idea that the structures were all oriented to similar astronomical coordinates, and incorporated the same patterns of prophecy, geometry or numerology. To Ken, the word “coincidence” had lost its meaning.  Understanding of the past flowed into predictions for the future. I had seen Ken pour himself into a study before, but this was a new intense level!

One of the theories that Ken focused on was that the earth had energy channels that we could detect and utilize. “Ley lines” are supposed to be a network that circle the planet, and ancient architects may have planned their structures to sit upon ley line intersections. For example, he believed that the megalithic stone monuments in Europe were designed to conduct or enhance ley line energy for the benefit of human societies. Ken learned that ley lines could be felt using dowsing rods, or by certain individuals with heightened sensitivity.

When the idea of moving our workshop to Whidbey Island came up, Ken was certain that a particular vicinity there was a ley line hot spot. He knew the island well from the many times he and his family vacationed there, and when a parcel along that road came up for sale, Ken was determined to test his homemade dowsing rods on it. He said that if we built our instrument making shop there, who knows what amazing things could happen?!  After walking all over the acres, I think Ken was satisfied that the energy was good, and we made an offer on the land. Unfortunately, Whidbey Island has a water table problem with saltwater intrusion. In order to get fresh water on the property, an expensive community well would have to be drilled very deep, which put us out of range for the purchase. Sadly, the project had to be abandoned.

After several years, our musical instrument business ended and we each went on to other ventures and relationships. I married Linda and moved across town. Ken's creativity led him to work that would give him freedom to explore his esoteric interests. He and I would reunite sporadically over the years, and there was always something new and amazing for us to share.

About that quest for truth that inspired Ken to know more about his talents? It also shone light on his demons, but apparently not in a way that would lead him to healing. Ken ended up a recluse, only his artwork and writing connecting him to others. He could have called out for help from me, but eventually he became homeless and ill. He died in 2021 in Seattle, at the age of 66.

With Ken, there was always a claustrophobic reluctance to get close to people. I saw it as Ken’s fear of touch, so strong that he avoided physical proximity at all costs, moving to opposite sides of a room to keep his distance. I would see him flee a room if he felt it was too small and crowded. Most people may not have caught on to that. He was subtle about it, except when a person got a little pushy near him. I don't remember how this came about, but he tried a blind date once that ended badly. He said that while walking together on the beach, the young woman “...wanted to snuggle and hold hands.” He shuddered, “Or worse!” Early life traumas with unkind family or lizardy aliens could do that to a person! Ken figured out that he had a frightening psychic sense of peoples’ jagged energies. Besides his strategies to keep people at a distance, the way he coped with that fear was to deaden his mind with alcohol. Some people are able to capitalize on that psychic connection, but for Ken it was probably his undoing.