Book Report: Sorcery by J. Finley Hurley (C) 1985

Imagine an experienced scientist putting aside any professional biases and exploring the idea that people can influence each other and their surroundings through thoughts (more or less) thought alone, analyzing every step of the process in a scientific method and weighing it against established researcher and observations. Well, that's the book we have here.

You'll probably have noticed a lot of books about metaphysical abilities in the book report section of my blog. What makes this one different is that the author is a clinical psychologist and this book is his analysis of "magical powers" through the lens of scientific data and empirical case studies. And he claims to have based it on his own observations and research.

Since "sorcery" can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, it's worthwhile to clarify that the author's focus is primarily telepathy and it's ability to influence people with or without their knowledge, and he also touches on other cases where practitioners seemed to be able to influence people and events in seemingly magical ways. 

Happily, Hurley is a fun and engaging author, and because he also writes as a scientist, he backs up his observation and hypotheses with some kind of scientific reference (at least enough to satisfy himself). This is pretty unique for this kind of book and also very practical for anyone who wants to delve into the research instead of just taking the author's work for it.

The author hypothesizes that the other-than-rational effects of "Sorcery" cannot be justified by the conscious, rational mind and so must originate in the subconscious, which he terms "Cthonic" mind.

He begins with the well researched phenomena of The Placebo Effect, an often observed phenomena where an inert drug or treatment has a demonstrable effect on a patient simply because of the patient's belief in the outcome or had faith in the healer. He also includes the somewhat more controversial Pygmalion Effect, which suggests that the healer's belief in the placebo is as important or more important than the patient's belief. He cites situations where the placebo effect has been used to heal people, and also to curse them. In the author's view, telepathy is the vehicle whereby a sorcerer's influence is most commonly carried, and he quotes many studies that explore different forms of telepathy.  

This book falls short of offering an illustrated blueprint to practice from, but adventurers will find plenty of inspiration to work with in this tome.

 The biggest problem with this particular book is how hard it is to find. When copies do show up on the market, they usually cost several hundred dollars, and in an interview the author admits that even he doesn't own a copy. Fortunately, PDFs do float around the web, and you should be able to find one with a quick search. 

Book Report: Secret Mental Power: Miracle of Mind Magic by Frank Rudolph Young (c)1973

Secret Mental Power: Miracle of Mind Magic by Frank Rudolph Young (c)1973

Background Information: Frank Rudolph Young ("F.R.Y.") is a bit of a cult figure, an author who wrote a number of books on health practices, psychic powers and self-development. Many were published in hardcover by Parker Publishing. What distinguishes Young's books stylistically is the hyperbole. He must have been a naturally intense individual and he really tries to impart that, while presenting his material as mysterious and exotic. It makes the books a lot of fun to read!
Trying to find reliable biographical material is a bit difficult, partially since he seems to have presented several different stories about himself. The Legend is that he and his other family members traveled the world, ferreting out mystical secrets of longevity and occult powers.
According to some diligent researchers on the internet, he was born in Panama in 1911 and lived in Chicago (Chicago was a major center of the "New Thought" movement). He may have been a dentist, a chiropractor, and a body builder. From his published works it's safe to assume he was an avid yoga practitioner, at least.
You can find much more research here: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/64281/what-biographical-information-do-we-know-about-author-frank-rudolph-young

The kind of "magic" the author discusses in this book are powerful, practical, mental habits of reasoning, decision making, projecting confidence, making friends, pain control, improving one's health, and so forth. Each skill gets at least a chapter of it's own, with a lively discussion, clearly defined how-to instructions and further hints and a few "testimonial" type stories. He writes with incredible enthusiasm and encouragement as you'd expect from a pop-psychology book of the 60s.

His approach to achieving success lies in combining logical methodologies with a powerful emotional intensity, and you'll find variations of this idea in all of his books, and he usually has a specific exercise to develop it and a specific bit of hyperbolic terminology. In this book he calls the practice of developing the required intensity the Miracle Mind Magic Stimulator, which consists of visualizing your goal with increasing detail to the point of being "savagely real." The subsequent exercises for decision making, confidence, making friends and so forth mostly all employ the Miracle Mind Magic Stimulator in some way. (in other books of his, you'll find the same or similar techniques with different names).

One of the interesting principles of this book are what he considers the use of the conscious mind to make the changes you want to, rather than the subconscious because he feels you're more resent and able to make needed decisions. I suppose this puts him more in the camp of the New Thoughtists who felt one could overcome all obstacles with will power.

Despite the over-the-top style, it's really a very practical book for improving emotional self control, achieving goals, dealing with others and more. Not all of it may be the best or most current approach, but he puts forth a workable approach. And I've noticed that somebody must be making good use of FRY's books. He seems to have a growing fan base on line, and while I used to be able to pick up his hardcovers for about 6 bucks, some of them are now going for ten times that.

Book Report: Professional Stage Hypnotism by Ormond McGill -- Stage Hypnosis How-To c.1970s

Professional Stage Hypnotism by Ormond McGill, (c) 1977 Westwood Publishing

Background Information: Ormond McGill was a major figure in both hypnotism and stage magic. He was called "The Dean of American Hypnotists" and performed both magic and hypnosis under the name "Doctor Zomb." He wrote extensively about hypnosis and magic and he and his brother traveled the orient in the 1940s and 1950s in search of hypnosis and mysticism. He has written a number of books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormond_McGill

This is a no-nonsense how-to book on stage hypnosis, and because it's from an expert with an enormous amount of experience, it's chock full of little pearls of wisdom not only in going the technique, but how to do the technique more effectively. It's a real master-class that includes what to do, but also why and how. Moreover, he presents each of the various skills, from basic convincers, tests, inductions and suggestions, and finally how to put these things together into a complete show. 

Moreover, he also includes some of the induction methods of other well known practitioners, including Gil Boyne, John Kappas and Bill Barras. 

Rather than calling the things he does "tricks" or "effects," he refers to the as "experiments" which I think is a very powerful way of approaching it--his approach is always that the hypnotist and his subjects are working together to learn something new. for you fans of psychic phenomena, he includes experiments in ESP and Clairvoyance. Interestingly, these are practiced with mesmeric techniques more than hypnotic ones (ie: "magnetic passes").

Some of the material may seem a little old-fashioned. There are elements of mesmerism in his technique, and the effects and suggestions he recommends for the stage may seem a little tame by today's standards. Nevertheless, This fairly small book is a treasure trove of expert techniques. 

As an interesting aside, I read this book at the beginning of the COVID lockdown, and some his observations on mass-suggestion seemed to be playing out right in front of me on the evening news! 

While the book is written for the beginning stage performer, it is sophisticated enough that advanced hypnotists will get a lot out of it, and I'd even say that previous knowledge of hypnosis is strongly recommended. If you're a hypnotherapist with no interest on stage work, I think this book will still be very beneficial to improving your persuasive skills. I'll go out on a limb and say this book is highly recommended!

Hypnosis... or WITCHCRAFT?

Or maybe witchcraft is just hypnosis? If you think we have a unique, modern understanding of the mind-body connection, consider this quote which is the opening of Compendium Maleficarum, a 17th century manual for witch hunters and exorcists: 

"MANY authors have written at length concerning the force of imagination.... All are agreed that the imagination is a most potent force; and both by argument and by experience they prove that a man's own body may be most extensively affected by his imagination. For they argue that as the imagination examines the images of objects perceived by the senses, it excites in the appetitive faculty either fear or shame or anger or sorrow; and these emotions so affect a man with heat or cold that his body either grows pale or reddens, and he consequently becomes joyful and exultant, or torpid and dejected. Therefore S. Thomas.has well said that a man's body can be affected by his imagination in every way which is naturally correspondent with the imaginative faculty..."

-- Fr. Francesco Maria Guazzo, "Compendium Maleficarum" (1608)*

Of course, being  a witch hunter,  the rest of Guazzo's book goes on to discuss how, while witchcraft is all of the imagination, the power behind it comes from the devil, and is evil by nature.

The book itself is quite an interesting read, and a real insight into the state of science and psychology of it's time. You can read stories of possessions and enchantments and consider how today we might understand those things to have psychological causes rather than Satanic ones. 

"Compendium Maleficarum, by Francesco Maria Guazzo, Translated by Montague Summers (1929), Republished by Dover Books