John Michael Thornton talks about the path that brought him to work for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey at the World Trade Center.

Eric Harper: Was New York a good environment for you to pursue metaphysical interests?

John Michael Thornton: No, because I didn't look for it to be. I went to New York to take a break from creativity. People go to New York a lot for creative reasons: theater, music, art. I never had to look for that. I found theater, music, and art everywhere I went. And so to go to a place where it already existed seemed less of a challenge, I guess. Creating theater in Virginia Beach was one thing ...

Harper: ... Creating it in NYC was another.

Thornton: It's already there! You don't have to create it.

Strangely enough, my time in New York was mostly about trying to be normal. I worked in the an office, wore a tie, had my little apartment. I didn't do psychic readings. I did a little Yoga but not much, more for physical fitness than anything else. It was a bit of a backlash from growing up here [in Youngstown], being a Religious Studies major [at Youngstown State University], and then working for the Edgar Cayce Foundation in Virginia Beach. New York was my attempt to be normal.

It didn’t work out.

Harper: What was your job at the Edgar Cayce Foundation?

Thornton: I started off in the Youth and Family Life Department of the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A. R. E.). My first job there was to revise the internship program. There was nothing codified about it, so my job was to figure out what the internship program should be.

Then I worked with the child development series that the A. R. E. had put out in the 1970s, but had sort of abandoned since then. I worked to revise and re-publish that, although it didn't ultimately go anywhere. Finally, I ended up working at the Edgar Cayce Foundation--a part of the A. R. E.--in their archives digitizing [computerizing] all their old files.

I worked at the A. R. E. for quite a few months. From there I moved to New York ...


NEXT ISSUE: "Why It All Began." John talks about founding AmericanMetaphysics.org.

ERIC HARPER is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles. Please send your feedback to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it