An eminently readable guide to spiritualists, mediums, fortune tellers, and other purveyors of would-be prophecy! Garrett was a titan of the field herself, an interesting woman who "attributed her mediumship not to spirits but to the activity of a 'magnetic field'" or some other scientifically measurable influence. Chapter Three is an especially enjoyable rundown on psychic fakery featuring a composite "Madame Zola" with whom Garrett skillfully (and not without sympathy) illustrates both the mechanical aspects of fortune telling as well as the often ignored mental/emotional state of the fortune tellers, who often believe in their own "gifts" even as they deliberately defraud their marks. Garrett's writing is warm without being sappy or credulous, with following chapters delivering the same scoop on crystal balls, tarot, palmistry, and so on.
It's worth noting that Garrett was always researching and developing her theories on ESP and mediumship and evolved her positions over time:
Garrett wrote "In all my years' professional mediumship I have had no "sign", "test" or slightest evidence to make me believe I have contacted another world." She considered that her trance controls were personalities from her subconscious and admitted to the parapsychologist Peter Underwood, "I do not believe in individual survival after death".
Almost a decade after her death John G. Fuller wrote a book on her supposed contact with deceased airman Herbert Carmichael Irwin back in 1930. Despite statements against an afterlife (such as quoted above) this story seems to be her most lasting influence some 50 years after her passing, which does little justice to her complex personality.
A Berkeley Medallion Book, 1968 (original pub. 1950)
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