COSMIC DEBRIS: Put Pyramid Power to Work For You!

Designed by pyramid master Max Toth, these are the ONLY pyramid models for sale authorized by Karl Drbal, inventor of modern pyramid power! Available in red, blue, purple, black, or green ... though pictures of the actual product are hard to come by nowadays.

From The Renewing Power of Your Mind by Rolf Alexander, M.D., published by Warner Books for Destiny Books.

WHO, ME FLY? by Robert Scharff

It's fun, it's fast, it's economical ... it just makes sense! Do-it-yourself master Robert Scharff wants us to know: you can fly!

Pianist wunderkid Skitch Henderson pens the forward, cementing the midcentury Americana flavor of this somewhat odd text. According to author Scharff, flying your own private plane for business and pleasure is as easy as 1, 2, 3, and his occasional asides on safety and maintenance come off as rather glib.

So too does his math on how economical it is being a private pilot - though to be fair, he's helpfully included some coupons for a flying session with a licensed Cessna trainer, for an additional cost of only $5! The miracle acrylic bubble makes it possible ...

Alongside the training and registration/certification guidance, Scharff also gives an overview of trip ideas by region for the continental USA. Whether you're a dentist or a CPA, a swingin' bachelor or dedicated family man, you'll find somewhere to fly anywhere you are, for any reason. Just do it!

Six whole coupons are included, by the way. Give some to your friends and then plan a trip together!

The few pictures included are very nice, and the glossary of flight terms does what it says on the tin. Like Steiger and Smith's treasure hunting guides, this text may have been meant more for easy chair dreaming than actual action. In either case, fly on, through realms of sleep and waking life ...

Tower Books, 1966

HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR ESP by Susy Smith

Whether instant or persistent, from Edgar Cayce to alpha states to Johann C.F. Zollner, Susy Smith's teaching us HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR ESP! Smith melds practical how-to advice with historical background on ESP in her usual professional treatment. Dig that funky vintage cover!

Booze is not recommended for cultivating psychic ability, as it turns out, though shamanistic drugs trips are successfully utilized by the Mixtecos. Smith references Freud and J.B. Rhine's perspectives on the ESP powers of the "primitive" mind, hitting the same notes as Brad Steiger did in his introduction to Warren Smith's Strange Powers of the Mind from 1968. Australian Aborigines, Maori, and "the Kaffirs of South Africa" are some of those peoples blessed with some atavistic connection to ESP. Smith also name checks Walter McGraw's The World of the Paranormal from 1969.

It's a blockbuster presentation, though Smith's credulity lessens the impact somewhat. Earnest attempts at probing the unknown nestle uneasily alongside scammers like "faith healer" Jose Arigo, promoted alongside other psychic surgeon frauds by the gruesome twosome of spooked up writer John G. Fuller and Dr. Andrija Puharich ... more background on Puharich can be found as part of Tanner F. Boyle's audio series on the Starseed phenomenon, which also touches on that old spoonbender Uri Geller. Geller's thankfully absent from Smith's text, as of publication not yet a titan of the paranormal entertainment field. Other vintage psychics like Peter Hurkos and Gerard Croiset do make appearances.

Smith provides a bibliography and index, not always a given for this field, and another reason her writing was a cut above. Despite some caveats, How to Develop Your ESP is a worthy addition to any library of the vintage paranormal.

Pinnacle Books, 1973

PHRENOLOGY: SECRETS REVEALED BY YOUR FACE AND HEAD by Devi Sonero

Now here's a real curiosity: a pro-phrenology text from 1970! Author Devi Sonero defends Dr. Franz Josef Gall and his "misunderstood science" with no small amount of passion and quite a lot of quibbling - to whit, right off the bat Sonero tells us that the wonderful, scientific, paradigm shifting practice of phrenology is already FULLY ACCEPTED in forensics and psychology, and that even though phrenology is capable of launching us into a golden age of perfected human specimens, it's also not fair to criticize it ... pobody's nerfect, after all!

Hmmm ...

Sonero marshals more than a few luminaries to phrenology's defense, from Horace Mann and Oliver Wendell Holmes to Mark Twain and William Seward. Phrenology goes hand in hand with eugenics, and as we read on through Sonero's text we can see the tragic arc of pseudoscience through the modern era, promises of understanding curdled by our own limited perspectives, as we grasp for some illumination through the haze of our bigotry and blindspots.

Like any good self help title, there's a section profiling celebrities of the time, with Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, King Hussein of Jordan, Burl Ives, and others being analyzed through phrenology. No women are present, notably, nor does Sonero seem much interested in what any prominent female minds thought of phrenology.

In Ted Kennedy's case, his stolid "motor temperament" doesn't seem related to actual motor ability, sadly.

Sonero's only other credited title is a work on hypnotism. Phrenology can be read and downloaded in full at archive dot org.

Tower Books, 1970

HOW TO USE ESP: THE HIDDEN POWER OF YOUR MIND by Dorothy Spence Lauer with Brad Steiger

We're getting a late start this month and rolling out SELF HELP SEPTEMBER! Yes, all entries this month will be part and parcel of that slippery category of paranormal/occultic self help literature, and what better way to launch this theme than with one of Brad Steiger's patented promotional numbers, cowritten with a (semi)famous psychic celebrity? We're learning HOW TO USE ESP with Dorothy Spence Lauer!

Dorothy Spence Lauer (1909-1990)

Lauer was a midlist seer with a regular column in Ray Palmer's Mystic magazine (later renamed Search) where she dispensed the usual vague affirmations and warnings. Select issues of Mystic/Search featuring Lauer's column can be downloaded at the Luminist archives. Says Palmer at the start of a column:

Editor's Note: Dorothy Spence Lauer is a Psychometrist, specializing in precognition. Ordinarily she needs but an object belonging to, or handled by, the subject, or the presence of the subject, to become aware of the psychic influences from which she draws her information. However, for the sake of expediency in providing her with a sufficiently strong personal psychic impression, the editors of this magazine hit upon the playing card method. By laying out the cards, while concentrating, as described in the instructions given at the end of this article, and by writing them down on the chart, we hope that a sufficiently powerful psychic impression will be made to enable the medium to receive the information
she seeks. We have made this service available to our readers purely in an experimentative atmosphere, in an attempt, first, to determine whether or not this ability is of a nature both real and valuable; and second, to provide you with an interesting bit of entertainment. Naturally we cannot publish all the requests for readings we receive, but we will forward all charts to Mrs. Lauer, asking her to select several which give her the strongest and most interesting impression, for publication entirely free in this department of MYSTIC Magazine. We assume no further responsibility for the charts.

If you wish to correspond personally with Mrs. Lauer, we will be glad to forward your letters.

Steiger starts off his book with some flashier fish, quoting Palmer in a 1964 issue of Mystic on Lauer's incredible prediction of JFK's assassination! Between Lauer, Joseph Goodavage, and Jeane Dixon, it's a wonder Jack didn't just call off that trip to Dallas ... Lauer doesn't usually concern herself with big shot predictions like this though, seeming to prefer personal matters. Steiger assures us she's a warm, wonderful, humble, Godly lady who just wants the best for her clients. She's so humble and honest that she doesn't even have a spectacular psychic origin story like most of the famous seers, Steiger claims ... and then immediately tells us of Lauer's spectacular psychic origin story as a premature birth! Oh Brad, you cad.

One of Lauer's big ideas for ESP self improvement is the GOLDEN MAGIC CIRCLE, a protective area you should envision around yourself that hones your ESP powers while also protecting you from negative energy. She doesn't feel that ESP is "supernatural" per se, as it comes directly from God. Lauer quotes an article from the August 1961 issue of Exploring the Unknown by a Baptist minister named Vance L. Milligan that defends her from Christian criticism using a Biblical perspective, including St. Paul in 1st Corinthians 12: 4-11 and John 14:12. Milligan concludes that "God approves of people like Mrs. Lauer. She is a modern prophetess."

Her other tools for training your ESP are the usual mystic self help guff: positive thinking, the law of attraction, visualization, but Lauer is engaging enough, even when she's telling us that cancer comes from negative thought waves. These are either being directed at you by a foe or boomeranging back onto you from your own poor attitude towards someone. Lauer emphasizes that your burgeoning ESP powers should NOT be used to harm others, as the forces you send out can easily bounce back to you. On the other hand, if you wish others good fortune, those positive waves may just benefit you as well! If enough people start using ESP in a self-reinforcing cycle of good vibes, Lauer says the day may come soon when we tell each other, "Pardon me, your ESP is showing!"

True to midcentury aesthetics, Lauer also tells us to visualize a control panel (of "rich mahogany," even!) with red buttons, each labeled something like "money," "friends," "love," etc. If we can visualize strongly enough as we press one of these buttons, that thing will come to us! The same push button control can be used to heal a marriage where two people have grown apart, or reignite passion in the bedroom.

This title must have sold well, because Lancer reprinted it at an unknown date:

And it even got reprinted in 1998, with cover art updated in that era's cheesy New Age style:

Lancer Books, 1969