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Monday, December 26, 2011

Christopher Pike Research Paper

Christopher Pike Research Paper

The story begins in present day LA during the last few days of FBI agent David Conner's career. At age 39 Conner A 15-year veteran of the FBI is retiring for good after the murder of his girlfriend and the accidental death of the young girl David was sent to rescue on his last assignment. David believes that he indirectly caused both of their deaths and because of this he has lost his faith in Truth, Justice and the American way, unlike his good friend and boss Ned Calendar who at the age of 70 is also about to retire. Ned gives David one last assignment which he insists only he can handle, and after a short briefing and much deliberation, David is on a plane to Boise Idaho to investigate a Channeling group headed by Anthropologist Dr. Spear, a strange man with a mysterious past.
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Channeling is a new age term, which is basically going into hypnosis and allowing entities to speak through you. David is curious as to why the FBI would be concerned with such matters and Ned reluctantly informs him that the FBI had come across some memoirs that spear wrote in which he talks about an entity that the group channeled. This entity which calls itself the Big Mind described certain classified information within the government and when the FBI checked it out they found that the Big Mind's information was correct. They are concerned about how much the Big Mind knows so they want to sent an agent undercover as a reporter to investigate the group on their retreat. When David arrives in Boise the first members he meet are identical twins, Vera and Lucy. Lucy had discovered her talent a year ago when she was working as a massage therapist during her senior year in Stanford. She often used Applied Kinesiology or locking of the muscles to learn things about her clients, eventually she realized she didn't need to use AK to learn things about people, that the answers just popped into her head. She also discovered that when Vera was present she was much more accurate. After attending one of Spears lectures she told him about her talent and he immediately recruited her and Vera into his group. Dr. Spear himself does not participate in the channeling. The next person David meets is Margaret Farrow.

Margaret a paraplegic has no special talent and does not participate in the mutual hypnosis but has been with Spear since the beginning. There's Dr. henry Deering a nuerophysiologist who also has no special talents but he has been studying the group for the past year, next is Panda Gopal a young Indian man who had a dream about Spear and searched him out, Panda is the leader of the channeling group. There is Tom Forester who as a long distance truck driver and aspiring country singer used tape himself singing as he drove cross country only one time he went into a trance while driving and accidentally channeled a being. He heard himself speaking in a different language when he played the tape. The last member of the group is Jon Horst a Swedish Arnold Schwarzenegger wannabe who's ability to bend silver wear with his mind earned him a place in the channeling group. While talking with the group members David learns that Dr. Spear hasn't informed any of the group members about where he learned the technique of mutual hypnosis. Until 12 years ago Spear was a respected anthropologist. However he soon developed a fascination with the Dogon people of Mali descendants of the Egyptians. Spear, his wife, her sister, and a colleague went to Mali to study the ancient tribe. It was the Dogon's knowledge of astronomy that caught Spear's attention-apparently the Dogon knew things about The Sirius Star system to be specific that modern astronomers are only now discovering. The only thing that David and the FBI know about Spear's trip is that Mrs. Spear never returned home and her sister returned insane and now resides in a sanitarium. The remaining members of the group said that an animal killed Mrs. Spear. David does not tell the other group members about this. He soon earns the trust of the group with the exception of Spear and the affection of Lucy. While David continues his investigations Ned visits Carl Buckley- the colleague of Spear's that was with him in Africa. He doesn't get much out of Buckley but he does warn Ned to stay away from Frances Cumberly- Mrs. Spear's sister. Ned goes to see Frances, which is for lack of a good explanation an interesting experience. Ned normally a conservative thinker is now convinced that Francis Cumberly is a supernatural being. He returns to Buckley and confesses his thoughts about Frances, he convinces Buckley to tell him the truth about Africa. What really happened was Spear tricked a Dogon priestess to teach him the secrets of mutual hypnosis, he used his wife and her twin sister and experimented with a forbidden form of hypnosis. Something went wrong, penny was knocked unconscious but kept alive, and Frances was possessed by some entity. Spear apparently killed his own wife to break the strength of Frances. Ned instantly makes the connection of identical twins and calls David to warn him of the possible danger. David who has fallen in love with Lucy tells her that he needs to get her away from Spear. He does not tell her about Africa but in order to convince her to leave he does tell her a little about the identical twin hypnosis. While he is preparing to leave Lucy sneaks away with Vera to experiment with this new form of hypnosis. As in Africa one is knocked unconscious and the other is possessed. Ned has been trying to contact David but with no response. In fear for his friend he boards a plane to Boise. Vera kills Jon. The group finds Lucy with a brain hemorrhage and they all move into the church because there is no way off of the mountain and no one around for hundreds of miles. Vera enters the church with Ned. Spear tries to kill Lucy but Vera kills him. Vera locks the remaining group members in the basement except for Ned. David kills Lucy and Vera comes down to the basement to stop him but is too late and she dies. David discovers that Margaret is actually the Big Mind and she asks him what he wants. David says he wants Lucy and Margaret brings the sister who was possessed back to life we then find out that it was Lucy and not Vera who was possessed.

Protagonist vs. Antagonist:
The Protagonist in this story is obviously FBI agent David Conner. A poor broken man who in the end regains his faith in life. The Antagonist in this story is more difficult to Identify. It could be Dr. Spear who lost his wife and sister in-law because of his reckless curiosity and was about to do the same with Lucy and Vera. Although he has bad qualities Spear did make sacrifices and did have redeeming qualities. The next antagonist would be the entities that possessed Lucy and Francis, it was actually an ancient race that millions of years ago was extinct, and Dr. Spears Genetic regression which is having a person regress through their genetic chain all the way back past humans and dinosaurs. The race can only re-enter the world through a genetic mirror or identical twins. I would say that the Antagonist is these entities.

Theme:
The theme or general idea is that people can either move forward in time or backward. Spear concentrated on the past Margaret on the future, the author was trying to say not to dwell on the past as David Conner was-his girlfriend Sandy Quin and Angela Wilson were dead and in the past and Lucy was his future. The Big Mind had told David when they first talked that a wave was coming to take him to shore to bring him back, in the end that wave ended up being Lucy.

Personal Insights:
I was actually very surprised by Pike's book. Usually I wouldn't recommend his work to anyone who wasn't well versed in eastern mythology, which has become a repetitious wall for Pike. This book which is deeply rooted in Egyptian, African, and to a lesser extent eastern mythology is well written, unique, and a refreshing change. This book like most of Christopher Pike's Novels seems to have an outrageous plot but it so well written I just don't care. One thing that really surprised me about this book was how accurate the information was. After reading it I researched some of the information and found it almost scary that the facts included in the book were true. The mixture of fact and fiction is very interesting and deeply effective and if you have an open mind the theme of the story sends a powerful message.

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Warning!!! All free online research papers, research paper samples and example research papers on Christopher Pike topics are plagiarized and cannot be fully used in your high school, college or university education.

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