Book Report: Astral Travel for Beginners by Richard Webster (c) 1998

Astral Travel for Beginners by Richard Webster (c) 1998 

Background Information: Richard Webster is an award winning author and one of New Zealand's most successful and prolific authors, having written over 100 books on the subjects that he's passionate about, including New Age topics, magic tricks and mentalism. He's has written beginner's guides to all sorts of metaphysical topics.
https://www.richardwebster.co.nz/

A pretty thorough guide to going places while staying home! The author discusses the history and lore of Astral Travel, also known as an Out-of-Body-Experience (OOBE of OBE) as well as all it's variations, like mind travel, deliberate and spontaneous travel, bilocation, etheric doubles and more. Much of the book is a collection of various techniques and their histories, so that the aspiring traveler can find the one that appeals to them the most. Various preparatory relaxation and meditation exercises are also included.

Book Report: The Laws of Psychic Phenomena by Thompson J. Hudson (c)1893

The Laws of Psychic Phenomena by Thompson J. Hudson (c)1893

This is a big book that discusses a lot material dealing with the mind and consciousness, and is well worth a read, even if you're not a devotee of psychic phenomena. I imagine that in it's day, it was widely received, considering that it was discussed in other books of the period, including some of William Walker Atkinson's writings on New Thought (and I think he even lifted a paragraph or two directly!) The author was a lawyer with a keen and logical mind.

Within the scope of the book is a great deal of what was then cutting edge psychological thinking, some of which is still valid today. At the time he was writing his book, spiritism was very popular with the public, and some of the top thinkers of the day were investigating the possibility of any validity to their seances. While the author is confident in telepathic psychic phenomena, he is not a believer in spirits of the dead or the ability of spiritualists to communicate with them, but he is willing to concede that some genuine psychic phenomena may unwillingly be generated by the spirit mediums themselves, and he also explores the psychology he feels is behind both the people involved and the practice which produces what seems to be messages from beyond.

He describes the Conscious mind and the Subconscious mind as the objective and subjective minds, respectively, and that practical terminology is still occasionally used today. His observations on the subjective/subconscious mind are particularly valid and modern-sounding, such as it's ability to focus deeply on a subject while being oblivious to things like the passage of time, how it has incredible recall of memory, and how it has little objective judgement and so it can easily be led into imaginary experiences and even hallucinations. He even posits that some mental illnesses may be the result of an imbalance between the objective and subjective minds. 

In discussing the three big varieties of hypnotism at the time of his time -- those of James Braid, The Nancy School of France, and Mesmerism-- he defines them more practically with the following terms: "Physical hypnotism" for Braid's use of physical suggestion, like the eye-lock (subject rolls his eyes upward until eye fatigue occurs), "Suggestive Hypnotism" for the Nancy practitioners that employed purely verbal techniques, and "Magnetic/Fluidic Hypnotism" to refer to Mesmerism.   

A lot of his book discusses events and experiments being published at the time which come from a variety of sources, from newspapers to the official publications of scientific organizations, and he examines them with a clear an logical mind. 

Of  course, he is very confident in the reality of psychic phenomena, and his book, after all, is an attempt to bring it from an occult art to an applicable science. He examines various practices for their effectiveness and finally endorses Mesmerism, since it is the only trance method that employs the metaphysical magnetic fluid that seems to be responsible for psychic phenomena. He discusses telepathy and also remote healing (another very popular subject art that time), and cites examples recorded by the British Society for Psychical Research. His primary interest in in what is called "Mental Therapeutics" which is to say, using Mesmeric power for healing people. To that end, in Chapter 13, he presents "A New System of Mental Therapeutics," which takes into consideration all the latest data (from 1893), some of which he cites in the book. (Some rather un-PC experiments carried out by the experimenters from the British Society involved projecting a "ghost" of themselves into the bedrooms of unsuspecting female acquaintances, and happily reporting that the terrified women contacted them the next day to tell them of the of their experience!)

His simple solution to the eternal bugaboo of why time and distance are irrelevant in psychic communication is surprisingly simple-- those dimensions are relevant only to the objective/conscious mind. Psychic phenomena is subjective communication.

Towards the end of the book, he reconciles his scientific psychic observations with Christianity, which he feels are completely compatible. If this sort of thing interests you, he offers some interesting observations -- if people had a better understanding of the laws of psychic phenomena, the biblical descriptions of Jesus' miracles would have been much shorter and more technical, that the subconscious/objective mind is the immortal soul of the person and that the objective mind is merely a kind of logical function, and more. 

 

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: Are You Psychic? by Hans Holzer -- Psychic Phenomena and exercizes

Book Report: Are You Psychic? (c) 1997 by Hans Holzer 

Background Information: The author, Hans Holzer, was a passionate paranormal researcher with over 100 books to his credit, and produced a great deal of research material (perhaps more sensational than hard-science, but still very interesting). More information can be found at his wiki entry, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Holzer

This short, edifying book on psychic phenomena is a great introduction to the topic of psychic phenomena. He clarifies and distinguishes a variety of the terms and concepts which often get muddled together, such at telepathy, clairvoyance, extraocular vision, psychometry, trance mediumship, astral projection, bilocation and other exotic powers of the mind. He even distinguishes four different kind of dreams, both psychic and psychological. 

I imagine the biggest attraction of this book are the practice exercises with which you can experiment and possibly develop your own occult powers, and there are a few things you can try for yourself. 

If you want to explore your own potential, or just want to learn more about the variety of psychic phenomena, this book is a great source.

Just for fun, I bought this at the same time as Sanders' You Are Psychic! https://successworkhypnosis.blogspot.com/2021/10/book-report-you-are-psychic.html because they looked good side by side on the shelf! But I think they're both good additions to a mind-science library.

Book Reports!

Science library of Upper Lusatia in Görlitz, Germany. Photo by: Ralf Roletschek

Hypnotists love to read material that we can apply to our practices, right? I'm no exception. 

Now, there seem to be two types of material we love to read: one is the latest scientific research and material, the other is historical material and pop-psychology. I like both, but I have to say the second category is my guilty pleasure. Sure, some of them are downright silly and unworkable, but they are extremely positive and often have really useful metaphors and perspectives that I can use with my clients.

I often find these selling inexpensively in used book stores, and how can you resist a book that promises to grant all your wishes?

As time permits, I wanted to share some "book reports" on some of my favorite titles.