Volume 34, Number 6 · April 9, 1987
Isness Is Her Business
By Martin Gardner
Out on a Limb
by Shirley MacLaine
Bantam, 367 pp., $4.50 (paper)
'Out on a Limb'
an ABC TV miniseries written by Colin Higgins, by Shirley MacLaine
Dancing in the Light
by Shirley MacLaine
Bantam, 405 pp., $4.50 (paper)
Ramtha
edited by Steven Lee Weinberg
Sovereignty, Inc., 217 pp., $19.95
In the halcyon days of spiritualism, psychics whose vocal chords were seized by a spirit, or in whose presence the dead were able to speak without using a live mouth—often by talking through a floating trumpet—were called 'direct-voice' mediums. In the United States the most gifted direct voicer was George Valiantine, of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. His entities had more than a hundred different accents, and spoke in half a dozen languages. One of his 'controls,' as the directing spirit was called, was Confucius. Valiantine's followers were typically undismayed whenever he was caught in fraud. After a luminous trumpet was found warm on the side and moist at the mouthpiece, doubters were told that spirits couldn't use it without materializing warm hands and wet lips.
Review, 4612 words
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