Mediums Rare by Richard Matheson

these parapsychical abilities in some degree.”

    It is interesting to note that Dr. Rhine and his wife initially established all of their scientific procedures to investigate their major interest.
    Survival after death.
CONCLUSION
    Parapsychology today would interpret the incidents dramatized in this book in a far different way then they were interpreted when they first occurred.

    The King Croesus incident, for example, appears to be an ancient precursor of what parapsychologists, today, call distance vision—or remote viewing—a form of “traveling” clairvoyance.
    In this case, the clairvoyant ability of the sixth oracle allowed him to view and describe what the King of Lydia was doing at some distance, namely cooking a tortoise and a lamb in a brass cauldron.

    Sister’s Teresa’s spontaneous rising into the air, on the other hand, would indicate a form of what today’s psi investigators would likely refer to as levitation.
    This is an area of study not well advanced in parapsychology in that it appears to indicate an ability to negate the law of gravity, a feat even today’s more lenient parapsychologists would not be inclined to advocate in any way.

    Swedenborg’s ability to “see” his house on fire three hundred miles distant would, of course, again be suggestive of distance vision.
    His ability to locate the hidden drawer in the desk of the deceased Dutch ambassador would probably be interpreted, by contemporary parapsychological thought, as an example of telepathy in that the ambassador’s wife knew, if only sub-consciously, (via telepathy from her husband when he was alive) about the drawer’s existence.
    That the incident might illustrate, to any degree, the existence of communication from consciousness existing beyond the grave (life after death) not many of today’s psi investigators would even consider much less entertain any concession of likelihood.

    At any rate, all of these events are little more than anecdotal.
    It is only with the advent of Mesmer’s work that any degree of “scientific” application to psychic events is noted.
    His consulting rooms might, in a general—admittedly crude—manner be considered as the first parapsychological testing laboratory.
    The inducement, via “Mesmerism,” of various psychic manifestations such as telepathy, clairvoyance and self-diagnosis could certainly be considered an initial step in psychical research.
    Especially in light of the fact that it led directly to the acceptance of the phenomena which we still refer to as
hypnosis
, a major tool in the study of man’s “inner” mind.

    With the Fox sisters (a prime example of telekinesis?), the background of modern parapsychology becomes definite in outline.
    By laying the ground work for the establishment of the Spiritualism movement, the main stepping stone to modern parapsychology was set in place.
    As indicated, historians date the birth of Spiritualism at 1848, the year the Fox sisters first began to experience the odd events in Hydesville, New York.

    The incident with D.D. Home is an example of one of the greatest—if not
the
greatest—physical mediums in the history of Spiritualism in action.
    Although very few of the phenomena displayed by the Scotch medium are, as yet, grist for the mill of today’s parapsychologists, they represent—if literally true—an incredible display of inexplicable (to date) occurrences.
    The apparent elongation of his body.
    His ability to handle hot coals without injury.
    His reported levitation through the window opening of Lord Adare’s sitting room.
    Admittedly more colorful than scientifically verifiable, these phenomena were certainly of great dramatic impact.

    The incident at the White House in which young Nettie Colburn gave so-called psychic advice to President Lincoln doubtless would be interpreted by today’s parapsychologists as a prime example of telepathy in that Lincoln was only told what he had been giving much thought to and wanted