The Men on Magic Carpets by Ed Hawkins

Author:Ed Hawkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472942623
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

12

Beaming Out the Mojo

‘What he does with his team, he was doing with us.’ The woman who said that to her friend as she left Pete Carroll’s talk had obviously got her money’s worth. But what was he doing? Was he brainwashing us like he did with his USC players of old? Let’s remind ourselves of that quote from the meeting in his office that day. ‘I knew I had a chance to make a statement, and that a lot of people would hear it – control the mindset of a whole lot of people.’

Rationally, I put it down to a skilled orator with energy and confidence preaching to the converted. He was also, more simply, the most famous and successful person present (he has over 2.1 million Twitter followers). But in the context of this story, why did I have to be rational? I thought about cosmic forces, channels and the Jedi Force. I also recalled Mike Murphy’s whammy at Candlestick Park and Dr Zoukhar’s mind control. Pete Carroll did not put anyone on his backside that night. But could he have done? And did he get inside the heads of his audience? Probably. Maybe he was inside my head. I had, after all, spent an inordinate amount of time trying to work out what was going on inside his.

So if Pete was a good-time whammy merchant, unlike Mike when he was trying to upset baseball pitchers, or a mind-control specialist like Zoukhar, the question was, in fact, this: how was he doing it? The man who had an answer, of sorts, was Rick Leskowitz (the one with the finger cymbals).

A few years ago you could find Rick sitting right at the top of one of the stands at Fenway Park, the home of the Boston Red Sox baseball team. On his own. There was no game on. The place was empty. But Rick would just be sitting there, his arms folded across his waist, giving himself a cuddle and slapping each hand alternately on either bicep. Maybe rocking a little bit. And he was repeating a four-step mantra:

‘Step one: release all doubts. Alternately tapping each side of your body will balance the two hemispheres of your brain.

‘Step two: state your affirmations. Even though I have second thoughts about this pitcher we’re facing tonight, I really love the Red Sox. Even though we always have trouble against this guy I choose peace of mind.’

Step three was a bit of breathing. Standing up this time. ‘Breathing in through the heart, out through the heart.’ While doing this he was pulling his arms in and pushing them back again so that to those on ground level it looked as though he was in some sort of distress and needed assistance. But Rick was not in distress. He was on step four. He was connecting to positive memories: ‘Connect to your favourite Red Sox moments or favourite players, feel it in your body and beam those positive emotions out to the team and favourite player.

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