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