Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

• a note to the reader •
T HE IDEA FOR THIS BOOK began with a bolt of lightning and a
clap of thunder. I was walking on the Upper West Side in Manhattan
when I was caught without an umbrella in a fierce summer down­
pour. I spotted a possible shelter: a handsome brownstone building
with gleaming black double doors. A brass plaque read: “American
Society for Psychical Research.” Lured by the possibilities within, I
rang the bell, and spent the rest of the day perusing the Society’s
archives.
Like the first public library that I visited as a child, the room was
jammed floor to ceiling with the leather and cloth spines of old
books—little tombstones of ideas and history clothed in midnight
blue, purple, brown, and black, the titles imprinted in fading gilt let­
ters. In the center of the room were tall stools, a narrow wooden
table, and cabinets housing Dewey Decimal cards. Within “A–Ca,”