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Trance mediums were nothing new in 1850. In the Bible’s First Book of Samuel, Chapter 28 describes how Saul consulted a medium (‘‘... a woman that hatha familiar spirit’). Mediums acted as oracles in ancient times, and people with this peculiar gift appeared in each new generation. Such persons seem to serve as instruments through which the ultraterre- strials can speak to us directly, and they often come up with amazingly accurate prophecies of the future and precise details of events that could seemingly be known only to the dead relatives of the people who consulted shan them. Of course, when spiritualism became a national fad, a goodly number of charlatans and hucksters moved in. But most of the genuine mediums exercised their talents carefully and for free. They did not indulge in fancy hocus-pocus and did not need paraphernalia, such as spirit cabinets. They were—and are—people who can apparently summon up unseen entities or alien intelligences and extract information from them. I am nota spiritualist myself, although I have attended a few seances over the years, usually in the role of a scoffer and disbeliever. As a longtime amateur magician, I have been able to see through the frauds, but I have also been genuinely perplexed by some of the manifestations I have personally witnessed. Essentially, a trance medium lapses into an unconscious state, and while in this condition, his or her body is taken over by some outside influence. This influence is usually a self-styled “Indian guide’’ from “‘the other side.” Many mediums have been simple, uneducated people, but when in a trance state they have been able to talk foreign languages fluently. Scientists and clergymen have put countless mediums through severe tests over the years. At one group of seances in the 1920s, sitters, who were all versed in different languages, grilled mediums in everything from ancient Chinese to Swahili, and the controlling entities not only conversed in those languages but corrected the sitters’ grammar! The daughter of Judge Edmunds, president of the Senate in the 1850s, gave incredible performances while in a trance, speaking fluently in Greek, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Portuguese, Hungarian and several Indian lan- guages. Because the sitters—and the mediums—assume that they are dealing with residents of heaven, they ask mostly spiritual questions. Customar- ily, the ‘control’ will announce that Mr. Blank is standing next to him and wishes to speak to Mrs. Blank, who is attending the seance. Mrs. Blank excitedly begins to question her dead husband, Mr. Blank. How is 216 / Operation Trojan Horse Trance Mediums and Possession