Personal Flight

I was amazed to hear these words years later, from Alice. She was telling me about her ex-boyfriend, Chris Barber, who joined the Floaters, a Southern California cult that practiced, well, yes. “Personal flight.” “It can’t be the same thing…” I said. “The same thing as what?” “It’s a long story.” “Then you can tell it when I’m done,” Alice said, sensibly. “Anyway, Chris…”

Much later, when I was researching Luminous Airplanes, I learned that the Floaters are in fact descended from Mr. Philips’s Ohio community. Their official name is “The Society of Philips (Reorganized).”

More on this later, perhaps.