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
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