Volume 9, Issue 8, page 2

1 Readers' reaction to the
story, "The ABERREE goes to a
Seance", in last month's issue
has been quite widespread, and
in some cases, equally violent.
Those who believe in seances,
and insist that an ex-star of
the seance room, Ks. Bertie
Lilly Candler, can do no wrong,
objected to our account as too
facetious and negative; "an
insult to one of the great mediums". And there are others
who say we sounded too gullible -- that the entire performance was a "fraud': The latter,
after attending seances in various cities, including Mrs.
Candler's home base at Los Angeles, cite some of the evidence to support their claims:
The "tinned voices", in which
all of the "spooks" sounded
alike; altho Jimmy Gordon, the
trance medium-, -- fnsisted he be
"frisked" before the lights
went out, Mrs. Candler, who sat
close to the curtained corner,
wasn't searched and she could
have passed to him any paraphernalia necessary for fakery ;
persons sitting where the spirit at times was between them
and bright spots on the opposite wall, which picked up the
rays of the dim red light,
claim there was a suspicious
solidity about the "spectres"
that could have been (and
probably was) Jimmy playing
hookey from his corner; the
spirits failed in several instances to call persons they
were supposed to be "coming
back to" by the names they'd
used when mutually in physical
bodies -- and so on and so
forth... 1 We're not going to
pass judgment with no more evidence than we have. We were a
bit antagonistic toward the
appearance of the "newsboy,
Frankie", which to us sounded
like sick melodrama, but the
remainder of our part in the
"show" sounded reasonable, if
one is to believe in seances
at all. However, Jacob Ansel,
who has done a lot oTTnvestigating these things, may be
correct when he says he'll
never accept any "appearances"
that aren't done in bright
Iights; if it can be done at
all, they don't need such rigging. Which isn't to say that
seances are frauds just because they're conducted under
2
dim-light conditions, but the
opportunity is greater... 1 Anyhow, we do know this: in the
month following "Mark Twain's"
promise to help with production
of The ABERREE, there has been
more work (for Ye Ed. and Pub.)
and less time in which to do
it than we've had since we
launched The ABERREE -back in
1954. If Twain is supposed to
be helping, we suggest he get
busy -- or find another job. Unkept promises won't get magazines in the mails
1 We haven't found out what
happened yet (and maybe we
never will), but shortly after
the November ABERREE was printed, an urgent plea came from
Rev Herb Blackschleger, of Sun
Valley, Calif., asking us to
cancel his ad on the discs because "the FDA just stole my
entire stock ". Maybe some Government officials took your
statement seriously, Herb, that
they "improve the characteristics of water", and you know
the waters of the Caribbean
have been considered in pretty
bad shape for some time, now...
1 We often speak of ABERREE
readers as "our ABERREEated
family" (don't try to pronounce
that), but its operation as a
unit was demonstrated recently
when three members -- Alberta
O'Connell of Wilton, Conn.,
Muriel Griebe and Ethel Foresof New York -- got together
for a get - acquainted meeting
in the "big village". Mrs.
Foresman had a previous luncheon engagement, but what happened to Alberta and Muriel
was "one of them things" unknowing writers o f ten call
"coincidence". In Alberta's
words: "After Ethel left us,
Muriel and I went to an Italian restaurant on 48th Street.
As soon as I entered the door,
a strange thing happened to me.
It was on West 38th Street
where Buonarroti had his vocal
studio and we used to get our
meals at the restaurant run by
Mama Leoni connecting the studio in a brownstone house. When
I was seated at the same kind
of a round table with the same
kind of table linen, etc., I
was back 5 0 years at 38th
Street and was looking for Buonarroti to come thru the door
any moment. And when a young
The ABERREE
and handsaw wither came up,
that did it. I Ins in a semistate of self-hypsosis and enjoying every minute of it. I
started rightin asking the
waiter about Mama Leoni and if
she still was on 38th Street,
etc., etc., and the waiter
said, 'Mama Leoni is still living and they moved to 48th
Street just two doors from
here six months ago.' F o u r
hours of talk and several bottles of burgundy later, Alberta took the train for hose. "I
was walking on air... and got
50 years ago all mixed up with
1962, and didn't care," she
adds. (Auditors please note --
can you do as well in helping
a subject "run thru" a past
pleasure moment?)....
1 A. B. van Vogt, known primarily as a science-fiction
writer, is proving it's only a
short step from science-fiction
(and Dianetic auditing) to the
writing of a character study
that is getting top reviews in
the nation's press. We haven't
read "The Violent Man" yet,
but we understand the protagonist (main character) does a
bit of self-auditing -- with interesting results. And since
it's claimed that most fiction
(including science-fiction) is
(at least partly) autobiographical, "The Violent Man" might
be more revealing (to other
auditors) than the author intended. Of course, we're just
guessing...
1 When John and Bonnie,
Jones lived in Enid, many a
metaphysical problem was solved
in The ABERREE office when
they'd drop over evenings for
a bit of discussion and a cup
of coffee or so. But when the
greener electronic pastures of
Dallas called our electrical
wizard, metaphysics suffered a
blow to its yak-yak department
from which it may never recover. However, when our erstwhile
neighbors found a method of
electronically treating oil
sludge -- t h e bane of the o i l
industry -- they were assigned
to nearby Cushing, and recently we got together for a Saturday night of our old disease -- discussing metaphysics,
which is an ailment over which
the A.M.A. has not tried to
exert its octopean monopoly.
During the evening, it was disclosed that John and Bonnie
have a new enthusiasm -- working
on human "sludge "(aberrations)
thru electronically-induced...
John calls it "hypnotism", but
after seeing a demonstration,
we're inclined to believe he
has libeled by mislabeling the
process he uses -- abicb is putting yourself or smother into
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