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burroughs on becoming a magician

It is Colonel Bradfield's job to investigate the practical potentials of ESP, sorcery, witchcraft, the lot He doesn't give a shit for natural laws, what is and isn't possible. All he cares about are results. "Bring me the ones who work" "What you bring this old beast in here for?" A withered old man dressed only in a loin cloth, stiff with yellow piss-stains, stinking like a snake cave in spring sits down in a leather armchair. Fumigating the chair will be inadequate the Colonel decides. "He's a natural Chief, he can throw an operative curse"." I don't doubt it, he can kill by proximity. "He's got a good track record, Chief", "Sure, Sure". And eighty years in the making. So how did he get that way? To be a magician you got to be inhuman in some way. Easiest thing is to eat your own shit and eat it steady. You eat it in and shit it out and eat it in again, it gets eviler and dirtier, a stink nobody can smell and live. But who am I to be critical? Trouble is it just isn't practical" "But Chief, no trays, nowhere to put trays for us" "The Hell there isn't. You think the Ivens aren't into this shit, up to the ass? You can..they can.. make up the evidence. We all do it and no one can trace it. Big deal! eighty shit-eating years!. to turn out one old human centipede (who) can throw a curse if you hold him steady on target. I can train an agent in hours with untraceable poisons and toxins, electronic devices to produce arhythmic heartbeats." "He died in his sleep dreaming about a beautiful deadly woman and all he wanted to do was die in her arms". See what I mean? We don't need it". "But, Chief, we can't just throw away a thing like this?" "Indeed, where can we throw it? It's radioactive, get it out of here, for starters, and take the chair out with it. Thank you."