NS: David and his Jonathan-Part 8

Doctor Mitchell set up an appointment for Starsky with Dr. Les MacGruder, a hypnotherapist who had experience not only in past-life regression, but also memory retrieval therapy.

Looking like any other psychiatric office with dark paneling, masculine colors, and the staple bookshelf, Dr. MacGruder sat down at a plain table with a simple white tapered candle in the middle. He offered the chair opposite him to Starsky while Hutch sat behind his partner in a leather wing chair.

After introductions and a brief rundown of what brought them to Dr. MacGruder’s office, Dr. Mitchell and Hutch sat behind Starsky so as to not distract either man.

“I thought Dr. Mitchell would’ve mentioned all this to you at the time she set up the appointment.” Hutch inquired as he took his seat, not sure now of his confidence in the abilities of the either professional.

“Yes, she did. But I wanted to see upfront if Mr. Starsky–”

“Dave, please.” Starsky interrupted.

He nodded an acknowledgement of Starsky’s request. “Okay, if Dave, was going to be upfront and honest from the beginning. Trust is very important in the art of hypnotizing.” He looked around the small office. “Shall we begin now?”

“Mr. Starsky, I would like your permission to tape our conversation as Dr. Mitchell did with your sessions together.”

Starsky nodded, knowing this was normal procedure, then belatedly remembered to add a verbal agreement.

After turning on the machine that sat unobtrusively by his elbow, Dr. MacGruder began the process of hypnotism. “Okay, first I’d like you to close your eyes and take several deep breaths.”

Shaking his shoulders to loosen them, Starsky complied.

“Now starting at your toes and continuing with each muscle upward, clench and unclench them twice, making them totally relax the second time you unclench the muscle.”

This process took approximately ten minutes, and while Starsky was doing this, Dr. MacGruder turned on a soundtrack overhead of waves breaking, and lit the white tapered candle.

“Now David, I want you to open your eyes slowly and look into the flame.”

“Keep looking at the flame, and don’t blink. Breathe slowly in through your nose and out through your mouth.”

Staring at the flame and breathing slowly, Starsky began to feel slightly lightheaded, but not enough to pass out.

“Keep the image of the flame in your mind, and close your eyes.” The therapist told him. “Do you still see the flame?” Languidly Starsky nodded. “Okay, visualize a stairway before you. You’re at the top step and the flame is still before you.”

“I want you to walk down the first step and continue to follow the flame downwards. As you go down the stairway, you’re going back…back to another time…back to another person. I want you to distance yourself emotionally from anything you see. You’re still David Starsky and you’ll be able to hear and answer me.”

“Tell me what you see when you get to the bottom of the stairs.”

A few more minutes passed before Starsky let out a deep breath and responded in a husky voice, “There’s a doorway, the flame is filling most of it.”

“Is the door opened or closed?”

“Closed. I think.”

“Okay, before you open the door and go through it, if you need to come home, at any time I want you to say the word ‘ball.”

The curly head nodded once in acknowledgment.

“Good. You can walk through the flame and open the door now, David. It won’t hurt you.” Dr. MacGruder waited another minute before he continued. “What do you see?”

“Desert. It’s warm, dry. There’re some tents and flags to the right and farther away.”

“Walk toward the tents David. Can you tell what’s happening?”

“There’re men dressed for battle around a large tent and several guards in front of it holding long spears. Some of the men are walking toward me.”

“Describe them.”

“They’re kinda short. Long brown hair to their shoulders. Everything’s dirty and dusty. They’re wearing leather skirts, hide vests with no shirts underneath, and bows strapped to their backs. On their feet are some kind of open-footed leather sandals with hide or cloth straps that crisscross up to their knees. On their heads are metal helmets that kinda look like half a football and come down over their ears. Some of them are bloody and have scratches or other injuries.”

This was a much better description that the doctor had hoped for. “Excellent. You said they were approaching you. Do they say anything?”

“Yes. One is telling me that the Israeli battle against the Philistines has been lost. They drop to their knees and offer me their allegiance. They’re talking in a different language, but I can understand them somehow.” Starsky’s face showed awe. Behind him, Hutch’s eyes started to go round with dawning understanding.

“What happens next?”

“I put my hands on their shoulders and walk toward the tent.” Starsky’s face shows visible shock before he speaks again. “There’s a man’s head on a post.”

“Can you describe him?”

“He’s older, maybe 50. He’s wearing a helmet too, bronze maybe, with gold; and he’s got gray hair in Shirley Temple-like curls, even his beard.” Starsky’s voice fades a little and gets sad. “I know him. He was my adopted father, my king. He loved me, but he feared me.”

“David, are you okay?” Dr. MacGruder broke in as he noticed Starsky’s forehead beginning to bead with sweat.

“Yeah, I think so. It’s so sad. He could’ve had everything, but was jealous – of me!” He sounded incredulous.

Dr. MacGruder continued, seeing no other outward distress in his patient. “What happens next?”

“I’m walking toward some big hills. Or dunes, I think.” Beneath his closed lids, Starsky’s eyes were squinting, as if looking at a distance or towards sunlight. “There’s men lying everywhere. Blood and broken arrows and spears. A battle, this is a battlefield.” He said in dawning understanding.

All of a sudden Starsky took a gasp of breath and jerked backward in his chair. “JONATHAN!” His breathing got faster, as if he had just run a race, and more sweat began to bead from his pores.

“David. Stay with me. Who is Jonathan? What happened to him?”

“My brother, my soul mate…He’s lying here in this battlefield. He’s all bloody and his brown eyes are staring at me, but he can’t see me.” Starsky began to tear up and shake his head back and forth. “No, no, no.” He chants.

“David. Distance yourself. This is not really happening, remember.”

But Starsky was on a single minded course and didn’t hear the therapist. He lamented….


More than a brother to me, Jonathan,
One in soul with me...
How could I have taken such evil advice
And not stood by your side in battle?
How gladly would I die
And be buried with you!
Since love may do nothing greater than this,
And since to live after you
Is to die forever:
Half a soul
Is not enough to live.
Then - at the moment
of final agony -
I should have rendered
Either of friendship's dues:
To share the triumph
Or suffer the defeat;
Either to rescue you
Or to fall with you,
Shedding for you that life
Which you so often saved,
So that even death would join
Rather than part us.
I can still my lute,
But not my sobs and tears:
A heart too is shattered
By the plucking of stricken hands,
The hoarse sobbing of voices.**


Dr. MacGruder tried to intercede. “David! Concentrate! Listen to my voice. Can you hear me?”

A slight nod once.

“I want you to look at the sun David. Look at the sun and watch it turn into a flame.”

His crying slowly subsided, but the sorrow was still evident in the hypnotized detective’s demeanor.

“Do you see the flame?”

“Yes.”

“Now walk toward the flame. Just beneath it you will find some steps. Walk up them - following the flame - toward the sound of my voice.”

Starsky began to relax, but his face still showed some lingering anguish and fear.

“Take a deep breath when you get to the top of the stairs and blow out the flame.”

Pursing his lips together, Starsky exhaled a puff of air, which blew out both the imaginary and real flame.

“Open your eyes now, David.”

By this time Hutch was sitting forward in his chair with his hands clasped in his lap. The sound of waves crashing from the ceiling speaker seemed louder to Hutch.

Starsky opened his eyes. Their dark blue was even darker with glistening tears and sorrow.

Dr. MacGruder looked intently into his eye. “Do you remember anything?”

“Just the same feeling of loss I always feel when I wake up. But…” He looked around for Hutch, slightly disoriented.

“But what?” Dr. MacGruder prodded gently.

The detective turned around in his seat and pointed to his partner. “Hutch was there, I think. He was on the ground. Covered with blood.” Starsky seemed confused, and his voice reflected it. “But it wasn’t him.”

Hutch’s face drained of any remaining color. “Maybe he’s overlapping events from the other week when I was injured?”

Dr. MacGruder sat back and put a finger on his chin. “Could be. But in my professional opinion, you were reliving an experience from a past life, possibly as King David.”

“King David? The Bible’s King David?” Starsky fell back and began shaking his head. “No way. Can’t be.”

“Why can’t it be, Detective?” The doctor asked. “Don’t you believe our souls can travel or experience other times and lives and then be reborn?”

“I don’t know. It’s not really my cup of tea. It’s sounds kind of brazen to me to assume that I was King David. Besides, my ma – not to mention her Rabbi – would have my hide if I claimed to be King David in another life. The only reason I can pinpoint this is because I’ve studied Jewish history and tradition.” Starsky shook his head picturing his mother smacking him upside and calling him ‘cheeky’.

The other man chuckled. “There’s no need to tell her.” He looked over Starsky’s shoulder at Hutch. “How do you feel about this, Detective Hutchinson?”

Blinking rapidly, Hutch sputtered out, “I don’t…I guess I believe in the possibilities, but I…I never thought…Starsky? King David?”

“Why not?”

“And do his dreams signify that, uh I was, uh King’s Saul’s son Jonathan? Is that why these dreams and feelings he’s been having map over so vividly in real life?”

“Who’s to say that what Dave is dreaming isn’t also real life? I prefer the term, ‘current day’. But to answer your question: Possibly. If you are a believer in reincarnation – as I am – then we believe that many soul mates have a tendency to find each other throughout time and history. Sometimes their lives meet but don’t touch; sometimes they have such a profound impact on each other that time cannot simply erase those emotions. Such as you two do today, and possibly did as King David and Prince Jonathan – if those were your personas. And judging by what Dr. Mitchell told me about your partner’s reaction to your stabbing the other week, Detective Starsky has this lingering fear of you leaving him in some form or another.”

“So what do we do with this information now?” Hutch asked. Starsky was obviously still stunned over the therapist’s conclusion of his dreams; Hutch didn’t think he’d twitched a muscle in the intervening minutes.

Looking and nodding at the man across from him, Dr. MacGruder suggested that David continue with some therapy, perhaps joint counseling, until his deep seated fear could be overcome. “In the meantime, unless he has problems or issues on the job, he should be okay for desk duty. I would suggest street duty wait until we’ve had a chance to talk a few more times.”