Angelo Chiari is a fifty-something-year old news reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is sent to the C.T. Merriman Institute to do a week-long Open Door course and see if any of it is for real. He is sceptical of the assignment, figuring that of course it isn't for real and somewhat dreading the prospect of spending a week among ungrounded New Age crazies. But although he doesn't suspect it, such an attitude of scepticism is actually a pretty good attitude to bring to the experience.... It isn't long before Mr. Chiari begins to experience, first-hand, some of the things he has always assumed to be impossible. As new perceptions and intuitions accumulate, he has to consider how much of his old world-view he can modify without becoming one of the crazies. And there are more practical concerns, including the question of what happens when a long-married man falls in love (for reasons that cannot be explained rationally) with a long-married woman. Yet this dilemma is almost pushed aside by other extraordinary happenings and concerns, until Angelo finds himself living in a different world. Based on the author's personal experience, BABE IN THE WOODS shows what it's like to take the first tentative steps toward greater awareness. We've all heard of mystery schools, places where people can go to further their psychic and spiritual development. As it happens, I have been fortunate enough to attend a sort of modern American shorthand version of such a mystery school, namely a series of week-long courses at The Monroe Institute. (A week is not a lot of time, but in the right circumstances it can be enough time to get you the tools you need. Then you spend the rest of your life applying them.) This novel is my attempt to give readers the flavor of the experience. -- Frank DeMarco