COSMIC DEBRIS: "God Bless You, Shawn Robbins"

Introducing a new old player on the psychic scene: Shawn Robbins, who graced many an ad in Fate magazine with her piercing glare and lethal face card, as the kids say. Robbins was a particularly gloomy psychic, with her origin story involving a snapped fuel line on a dangerous flight across the Great White North, and one of her major claims to fame being her supposed prediction of the horrific, record setting 1977 Tenerife Airport Disaster.

For just $3 (and 50 cents postage) you can receive your own personalized horoscope and personality analysis from Shawn ... with all her terrible knowledge, can you afford not to?

From Fate magazine, Volume Volume 32 - Number 2, February 1979. 

COSMIC DEBRIS: The Dick Sutphen Seminar Tour!

Another blast from the past as Dick Sutphen launches a Western tour all the way from Texas to Portland, OR, followed by a Super Seminar in his hometown of Scottsdale, AZ! Sutphen also plugs his books, his tapes, and his self-help magazine. It will change your life ...

From Fate magazine, Volume Volume 32 - Number 2, February 1979. 

COSMIC DEBRIS: Tapes to Explore the Unknown!

In sync with Brad Steiger's article on Dick and Trenna Sutphen, here's an ad in Fate magazine for some of the Sutphens' self-hypnosis tapes. The ad also features upcoming seminar dates, with Brad Steiger as a guest speaker at the Scottsdale, AZ conference, and an offer of a free subscription to Dick's Self Help Update magazine (just pay S+H)!

The Sutphen Family channel on youtube has archived many, many recordings and home movies of the Sutphens, including some vintage tapes. Check 'em out!

From Fate magazine, Volume 32 - Number 4, April 1979.

COSMIC DEBRIS: Pyramid Water Bed

"We make no claims that our bed could make you live to be a thousand. That all remains to be seen. However, if our bed helps you to live a healthy life cycle of 115 years it is well worth the investment." And if you don't live to 115, how are you going to complain? The price tag alone is enough to give you a heart attack though ...

It's all backed by pyramid monger Dr. Patrick Flanagan, a man with a lot of experience in, well, let's call it "innovative" ways of unleashing pyramid power .

From Probe the Unknown magazine, Vol. 4 - No. 6, November 1976.

COSMIC DEBRIS: Astro-Word Puzzle

It's fun for all with our big 500th post! Theme: authors and their birth-signs. From Dell's Horoscope magazine, Volume 41 - Number 11, November 1975.

COSMIC DEBRIS: Brad Steiger Speaks!

Giant sized interview with the man himself, conducted by Timothy Green Beckley and concerning Steiger's latest theories about the ultraterrestrial equation and humanity's spiritual evolution. 

Steiger had dipped his toes into the UFO/ultraterrestrial idea with Mysteries of Time and Space (1974) and as of this 1977 interview had shifted fully into the Starseed/revelatory New Age subject. Brad also describes his personal history with the unknown, including the sighting of an elf when he was around 5 years old, and a Near Death Experience at the age of 11. 

Beckley asks if Steiger took his nom de plume out of caution for his "straight" teaching career, but Steiger tells him that he just never really vibed with his birth name of Eugene Olson, and that "Brad Steiger" is truly his nom de vivre. Brad doesn't even say his birth name aloud, actually, he's so disconnected from it!

"Even now I can remember his compelling eyes and a cross between
a friendly and conspiratorial smile ..."

Available to read and download at archive dot org.

From the Saga UFO Report, Vol. 4 - No. 5, September 1977.

COSMIC DEBRIS: Return of the Nazi UFOs

A jam packed ad from Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, making use of Official UFO magazine's large format to list off several of his eye catching titles and flash art. Note the drift from UFO subject matter to straightforward Nazi conspiracism, part of Zundel's funnel scheme to promote his Hitlerism. Zundel outlined this strategy in an interview with Frank Miele for an article about Holocaust denial and freedom of speech in Skeptic magazine:

In a later phone conversation, Zundel told me that the UFO book was in fact a ploy. "I realized that North Americans were not interested in being educated. They want to be entertained. The book was for fun. With a picture of the Fuhrer on the cover and flying saucers coming out of Antarctica it was a chance to get on radio and TV talk shows. For about 15 minutes of an hour program I'd talk about that esoteric stuff. Then I would start talking about all those Jewish scientists in concentration camps, working on these secret weapons. And that was my chance to talk about what I wanted to talk about."

Zundel will dangle a reference to UFO's or the wisdom of the ancient Atlanteans. If it has no effect, he just moves on. If it elicits skepticism, he blows it off with a jovial "for whatever it's worth." Given our early conversation on the UFO book, I'm still not sure whether Zundel really believes any of this esoteric stuff or whether he's just learned how effective pushing hot buttons is in grabbing the media spotlight and perhaps bringing in donations. "It's a lot like operating a church" he explained. "We survive on donations."

It's worth noting that Miele himself is a former contributor to the scientific racist magazine Mankind Quarterly, and that being "skeptical" of UFOs does not necessarily correlate with rigor in regards to other pseudoscientific subjects.

From Official UFO magazine, Volume 1 - Number 6, February 1976. 

COSMIC DEBRIS: Successful Meditation With Lobsang Rampa

The Rampathon returns for a limited time with unbeatable prices on spiritual enlightenment! Robes, prayers, incense, figurines, and THE ONLY AUTHORIZED RECORDING of Lobsang Rampa's meditation guide can all be yours if you enclose a check or money order now! Note the botched title Caves of the Ancients in the third party advert from the Metaphysical Centre of San Francisco, which should read as a singular cave:

See?

Rampa's meditation record is available for listening on youtube:

From Fate, Volume 23 - Number 02, February 1970. 

COSMIC DEBRIS: Wise Sayings of Lobsang Rampa

Closing out our RAMPATHON for October, here's a selection of wise sayings collected from Rampa's works and presented in The Thirteenth Candle, with notations as to titles and page numbers:

A man has to hold his mouth open for a long time before a roasted partridge flies into it! Mrs. Maria Pien organized the topic index from The Thirteenth Candle which also uses this title abbreviation system:

Courtesy Corgi Books, 1973. THE END!

COSMIC DEBRIS: Signs of the Times

Two midcentury touchstones: cheap dinner wine and superpowered cold medicine! Lancers and Contac are both still around today - however, Contac has changed their formula over the years, straying from their original phenylpropanolamine concoction and microcapsules gimmick.

From A Time For Astrology, by Jess Stearns. Courtesy Signet Books, 1972.

COSMIC DEBRIS: Amazing Feats of Komar the Hindu Fakir!

From an online listing for the April 1973 issue of Occult: New Dimensions of Life in the Field of Psychic Phenomena, a slick looking magazine put out by Popular Library, we find an article by Brad Steiger on the performer Komar the Hindu Fakir, aka Vernon Craig. Steiger would use parts of this article as a chapter in his pseudonymous 1974 title The Occult in the Orient, as well as a book called Life Without Pain co-authored with Craig in 1979.

Meanwhile, the striking cover art for Steiger's The Occult in the Orient came from this September 1971 issue of Occult magazine which also promised work by Steiger, as well as Susy Smith:

Issues of Occult magazine are asking hefty prices online, otherwise one may be tempted to see how many recycled Steiger offerings are at hand ...

Popular Library, 1973

COSMIC DEBRIS: Dreams Pick Up Sailors' SOS

From the September 1969 issue of Fate, here's one of several articles from that storied periodical that Brad Steiger mined for his 1974 pseudonymous text Psychic Travel. Here's the relevant chapter from Steiger's book:

Steiger relates the nitty gritty facts of the two cases, thin as they are, but his summary is missing the charming personal details from author S. Ralph Harlow, including his claim that his great-uncle the Reverend Enoch Mudge served as inspiration for Father Mapple in Melville's Moby Dick. More information on Harlow's life and works is available at sralphharlow.com, a site maintained by his granddaughter Susanna Harlow Omaç.

From Fate, Volume 22 - Number 9, September 1969.

COSMIC DEBRIS: The Crone Papers

Backpage ad for a magick "participation newsletter," taken from an issue of Société:

"Société is the periodically published journal of Technicians of the Sacred, The International Religious and Magical Order of Société, La Couleuvre Noire, and The Neo-African Network, and Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua. It is dedicated to the preservation and practice of Voudoun and other Neo-African religious systems, its magic, art and culture."

From Société, Volume 2 - Number 2, 1989.

SMOKE BREAK: Vintage Cigarette Ads

Put down that paperback and have a smoke! Tobacco giant Lorillard spent good money on these ads, inserted into countless vintage paperbacks for their brands Kent, Newport, True, and Max. Whether sandwiched into UFOs and ghosts, smut, or swords and sorcery, we've seen our fair share here at the blog:

A True ad from Tark and the Golden Tide, from Leisure Books

On the bitter cold eve of December, here are some more warm and fuzzy vintage ads culled from the paperbacks:

Lorillard's patented "Kent Micronite" filter was infamously made of crocidolite asbestos between 1952-1956, touted then as a safety measure and taste enhancer. Cigarette plant workers, their families, and smokers all were devastated by exposure to the carcinogenic fibers. The cigarettes in these '70s ads are sporting a replacement cellulose filter, though as multiple cancer/cigarette archives online will tell you, no filter of any kind is going to make smoking any safer, and neither will smoking "low tar" cigarettes such as Lorillard's True, advertised below:

However, smoking could bag you some sweet swag at a discount! For the proof of purchase of just two packs of Kent Menthols, you could get 60% off an ugly utensil set, some hideous "permanent dinner candles," or a cheap camera or radio. You'd be throwing money away not to send for them!

Here's another ad for True, the low tar cigarette marketed to smart fellas who knew smoking wasn't great for you but couldn't quite kick the habit. Meanwhile, Max was Lorillard's cigarette for women, complete with an insulting ad campaign and gimmick as detailed by Stanford's Tobacco Archive:

Ads from the 1970s featured stylish women who explained, “The longer they are, the fewer I smoke.” Because the statement is completely false, the woman goes on to say, “It’s wacky, but it works. Max 120’s take longer to smoke so you don’t light up as often.” The truth of the matter is that the human body will seek a certain amount of nicotine to feed addiction, regardless of the length of the cigarette.

This pair of ads from Stanford's collection illustrate:

"Whadda I know, I'm just a dipshit woman!"

Look sexy as hell while killing yourself

$19.95 plus two pack bottoms doesn't seem like such a steal compared to the knickknacks on offer from Kent, but I dunno, maybe they were really nice body wraps. Smoke 'em if you got 'em!