THE WORLD'S MOST AMAZING MAN! by Ernest Shinbaum

Our man who knows the plan, "Doc" R.C. Anderson, gets a gushing profile in Ray Palmer's Search magazine, courtesy his friend Ernest Shinbaum. Would you believe Doc is the kindest, gentlest, most psychic fella you'd ever want to meet? He donates crutches to cripples! Don't cross him though, because he's performed feats of strength that would make your eyes bug out ... and even if you're his best friend, he's not above predicting your son's gonna die in the war and your wife's gonna die of a broken heart! See pages 14-15 for this and some other far-ranging predictions that Shinbaum says were typed up by Anderson in 1944 and sealed in an envelope, not to revealed until 1956. 

Sadly, Shinbaum's son and wife died in the manner Anderson predicted ... if he really did predict it! The ballyhoo with sealed envelops and sworn affidavits is typical of 20th century psychic hooey. Shinbaum could have been rooked or he could have been a co-conspirator, or Anderson could have worked some personal magic after the fact to convince him of how things really went down. 

There's no mention here of Anderson's supposed bumming around in China during WWII that he related to Warren Smith, only a short stint as a Marines athletic instructor before becoming a traveling strongman. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Anderson seems like he was a classic bullshitter! His geopolitical predictions are the usual psychic guff as well, either so obvious as to be pointless (conflict in the Middle East), so vague as to be useless (ditto, plus conflict with Russia and China), or just plain boldly wrong - dig a reunified Germany "within five years!"

Anderson was also a bullfighter, and it's appropriate that a psychic scammer and sideshow strongman would be into this rigged macho "sport" with its one, inevitable outcome. Looks are everything whether you're massaging a mark, bending iron bars, or pantomiming bravery in the bullring.

This issue of Search was pure Doc-o-mania! We also get another another ad for Ray Palmer's chili recipe!

Shinbaum's article is available to read and download at archive dot org.

From Search, Issue No. 19, February, 1957. 

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

COSMIC DEBRIS: Chili, Dandruff, and Flying Saucers

Here's another couple of ads from the May, 1959 issue of Fate magazine, starting off with former editor Ray Palmer's offer for some delicious homemade chili and his new Flying Saucers magazine - he'd left Fate in 1953 and would found other publications like this and Mystic (which was eventually renamed Search). Palmer also pops up with an ad for some hair dye/dandruff reducer by one Guy L. Turner called, believe it or not, Turn-er's!

Ray Palmer and his luscious locks

I'm not sure what exactly Palmer's relationship was with Turner's outfit, but he claims to be a client, at least!

Elsewhere in the issue is an ad for Palmer's other magazine Mystic/Search. And right below that is a very interesting looking book, Flying Saucer Pilgrimage!

It's a road trip overview of the '50s contactees scene, covering all the big names. This tome is available to read and download at archive dot org along with issues of Mystic/Search and Flying Saucers. Below Pilgrimage is an ad for a real mystical blockbuster, Other Tongues, Other Flesh, by contactee gadfly and raconteur George Hunt Williamson. Williamson was introduced to the murky world of the '50s contactees by the fascist/antisemite William Dudley Pelley but would soon forge his own peculiar path as a chronicler of deep time and the secret plans of our space brothers. His book is free to read at sacred texts dot com.

That's three huge flying saucer sources in one little ad bar, with rat holes aplenty to get lost down! As linked before, this May, 1959 issue of Fate is available to read and download at archive dot org.

EDIT: anon commented below that Palmer was using Williams brand chili seasoning, as named in this ad from the May 1959 issue of his Flying Saucers magazine:

Williams has since been gobbled up by a faceless investment firm, but we still have the vintage designs to reflect on:

Playing cards!

And 5 pounds of seasoning! Wondering how much Palmer made off of
parcelling one of these babies out into foil packets?

The full May 1959 issue of Flying Saucers is available to read and download at the ever dependable archive dot org. Thanks, anon!

MAPS OF THE UNKNOWN: Land of the Nude Lamas

ARE NUDE TIBETAN LAMAS THE MONSTROUS ABOMINABLE SNOWMEN OF THE HIMALAYAS? Holy cannoli, what a headline from the May, 1959 issue of Fate magazine! The story comes from one Father Franz Eichinger, a far east missionary who was visiting a tribe of "Shavrong nomads" on a medical mission in the mountains of Qinghai when he met a strange holy man. The mysterious man had set up camp next door in a "torn, ragged flax tent" ... and emerged the next morning almost totally nude, seeming to have no issue with the brutal subzero temps that had Eichinger and his local hosts shivering in thick furs! Eichinger's hosts told him the holy man normally went completely nude, but wore a thin cloth for modesty when visiting people. The fascinated Eichinger got a photo, with a caveat:

Eichinger's hosts explained further that there was a whole class of Nude Lamas who wandered the mountains, sleeping in caves and surviving without furs or shelters. Sometimes they would briefly visit nomad camps to perform healings. Eichinger theorized that sightings of the Nude Lamas may account for tales of Abominable Snowmen, with their long unkempt hair, tanned bodies, and sometimes shocking, sudden appearances in hostile terrain. He noted that the wandering holy men are fully human nonetheless, though possessed of uncanny powers of survival. Eichinger reached a bit when he claimed that the footprints of the Nude Lamas' might somehow melt and refreeze to appear larger than they originally were, accounting for Yeti footprints ... I don't know about that part, man!

Fate follows Eichinger's story with a 10 page excerpt from influential orientalist/explorer Alexandra David-Neel's book Magic and Mystery in Tibet (original pub 1932), explicating some of the mystical concepts behind the Nude Lamas' hardiness in subzero climes - it all boils down to an inner fire produced through the spiritual practice of tumo (or tummo).

Fate titled David-Neel's excerpt as a riposte to Eichinger's account, but it's really just a deeper exploration of the phenomenon and doesn't mention the Yeti at all. The full text of Magic and Mystery in Tibet is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969)

Different editions of Magic and Mystery in Tibet

Later in the issue we get a two page spread for Magic and Mystery from the Mystic Arts Book Club:

Along with David-Neel's Magic and Mystery, the full May 1959 issue of Fate is also available to read and download at archive dot org. A look at the table of contents gives us a good time capsule of occult and paranormal thinking ... as does the cover price of 35 cents:

THE UNDER-PEOPLE by Eric Norman

Still high on his NEW UFO BREAKTHROUGH from yesterday, Brad Steiger takes a spin under his pen name Eric Norman and delivers a rewrite of that same text, simply shifting the main focus from UFOs and Men in Black to the Hollow Earth and the startling discovery of THE UNDER-PEOPLE! It's (mostly) the same cast of kooky characters and twice-told tales, but Steiger tweaks the perspective just enough with some additional mythology. Material from this book would be heavily recycled by Steiger and Warren Smith for later Hollow Earth releases.

Who lives inside the Earth? Devils, angels, a master race? Cannibal lust demons? Steiger's just asking questions here, and there's room for reasonable debate! A revealing nitpick: Steiger cites the myth of Christopher Columbus disproving the Flat Earth as an example of the establishment brooking no dissent on the shape of the world. Of course, medieval people understood the Earth was round and weren't the ignorant dirt eaters the Columbus Myth would have us believe, but this citation of false historiography serves its purpose for Steiger's laundering of the fringe. A similar example is the common comparison of crank theorists to Galileo, persecuted by the Church. With that pedantic puffery out of the way, let's start digging into "one of the most provocative books of the year" and see if we can't unmask the Under-People!

Classic map by "Shavertron" artist Max Fyfield

Steiger must have had alchemy on the brain around this time, because that's where we lead off, before unearthing some OOP artifacts, mysterious roads and tombs, and celestial visions by trapped miners. There's also a weird black dwarf who gets drunk in a monastery wine cellar and is temporarily recruited as a monk, before being cast back into the darkness as a devil! Talk about a lost weekend. Shambhala and Agharta, Ultima Thule and Hadding Land, these and more mythologies figure into Steiger's decoding of the Under-People's identity. There's also the Zuni and other indigenous peoples' creation myths about an inner Earth origin. After a nasty overview of Pizarro's conquest of the Incas, with attendant myths of underground tunnels and secret treasures, Steiger cites his own New UFO Breakthrough and Harold T. Wilkins on ancient underwater ruins and nuclear bomb shelters.

One "Maggie Rogers" has her manuscript about contact with the Under-People summarized in a chapter. Originally published by Ray Palmer in Amazing Stories alongside the ongoing Shaver saga, it's a similar story, with "Tamil and Nephli" underlords and a druggy, sexed out atmosphere. That phony story of the good ship Jesmond landing on Mid-Atlantic ruins introduces us to a section on Atlantis, and Steiger casts quite a wide net here, dredging up ol' Madame Blavatsky and Edgar Cayce among others. Next we hear from Gray Barker and his Saucerian Bulletin, setting us up for a dark section on Hitler and the Hollow Earth which would also be reused by Steiger and Smith in future. More recycling occurs with Olaf Jansen and the Smoky God - this chapter would be repeated verbatim by both Smith and Steiger in many later books.

We're nearing the end of the saga, checking in now with modern proponents of Hollow Earth such as Marshall B. Gardner who asks "Have the poles really been discovered?" His full text from 1913, A Journey to the Earth's Interior, is available for reading at the Sacred Texts website. His book seems to be the source for the story of the "mysterious origin of the Eskimo" which, again, wound up in many of Smith and Steiger's other books. Finally now Steiger rolls in the big guns and gives us Richard Shaver and Ray Palmer, the two men who most popularized modern Hollow Earth with their eminently readable paranoid pulp fiction. Steiger quotes heavily from an article by Palmer on Hollow Earth and UFOs, which seems to quote without citation from Dr. Raymond Bernard's book The Hollow Earth  on Admiral Byrd's expedition "beyond" the pole. Perhaps this is an error by Steiger or Award Books and Palmer cited Bernard in his original article. A quick sketch of early Hollow Earther John Symmes and a detour to mysterious Mt. Shasta are inserted before we make one final push into that blockbuster Shaver Mystery! By the way, the first five stories of the Shaver Mystery are available to read and download at archive dot org, so you can see for yourself Shaver's strangely compelling psychosexual Pellucidarian saga.

Shaver and Palmer together

After all this melodrama, Steiger ends abruptly by asking us "What do you believe?" This would become Warren Smith's go-to ending for his Zebra specials from the mid-70s, but it's a limp copout line if you ask me: "I dunno, here's some wild stuff. Crazy, huh?" Stick to your guns, Steiger! Or at least steal a better ending!

Available to read and download at archive dot org.

Award Books, 1969