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For years Crichton responded by traveling like a tramp, the anthropologist in him exploring exotic cultures hard to reach. From Malaysia to Pakistan to an ascent of Kilimanjaro to a descent with South Pacific sharks, literally, he roamed. Along the way he was a spiritual pilgrim as well, exploring psychic phenomena the scientist within him assessed carefully but many times failed to discredit. He says he bent spoons, visited a past gladiatorial life in Rome, had his aura fluffed as you would a poodle. Once, he found himself in the desert conversing with a cactus, which he insulted, only to feel contrite.
"Will you forgive me?" Crichton asked the cactus. "No answer. Hardball from the cactus."
Skeptical? So was Crichton. "Sometimes I thought, 'You've been in California too long, and you've gone from a perfectly O.K. doctor to a guy who lies on a couch while somebody puts crystals on him and you actually think it means something, but it's nothing but a lot of hippie-dippy-airy-fairy baloney. New Age Garbage, Aquarian Abracadabra, Karmic Crap. Get out now, Michael, before you start to believe this stuff.' But the thing is, I was having a really interesting time."
He explored the landscape of the mind, or consciousness, as he explored the physical landscape of the planet. And then . . . for whatever reason, by 1985 Crichton was back working; by 1987 he was into his most solidly satisfying marriage (to Anne-Marie Martin); by 1988 he was a deliriously happy father (her name is Taylor); and by 1993 the money he was earning by his wits rolled up in 18-wheelers (the film rights to Disclosure went for $3.5 million).
The new book may turn out to be his most provocative yet. Asked if provocation is his intent, he laughs. "I don't really enjoy it. I feel I am caught up in something, and I am made to do it." He knows he will be attacked and will find it extremely unpleasant, as he did with Rising Sun, and he will come away feeling that an honest attempt to educate and entertain on a complicated topic has been given a simplistic reading. He still picks at the abrasions from the Japan-bashing charges Rising Sun raised.
"I'm a clean look in any given area, and I'm a single look," he says. "I won't be making the issue my life's work. I'm not going to be making future sources of funding angry. I can walk in the door and say what I see in the room and walk out. That's what I do. I tell the truth. I believe very strongly in equality for women, and there's only one way to get it. Egalitarian feminism is the only way. That's the story. Egalitarian feminism says equality of opportunity and pay, period. That's it. People say women have special problems. Well, men have special problems. I'm very tall. That's a special problem." Here Crichton is arguing, as his book does, against any "special protection" for women. "Equality is clear. No favoritism is clear. If you say, 'No favoritism except here,' then it's not clear. I think everybody understands equal. It's relatively easy to measure, as in exactly how far we've gotten and exactly how far we have to go. Protectionism is not clear. It's possible to imagine there's something even anti-American in it. Limiting free speech . . ." Crichton drops it for a moment with some sort of back-of- the-throat sound of exasperation.