Page Content (OCR)
life on the other side? Just fine, the control replies, a little bored, everyone lives in vine-covered cottages, and all is sweetness and light. Where did Mr. Blank hide his valuable gold watch before he died? It’s wrapped in an old sock and buried under some papers in the bottom drawer of the old rolltop desk, the control answers. Sure enough, when Mrs. Blank gets home, she finds the watch exactly where the medium’s alter ego said it would be. Try to convince Mrs. Blank that she didn’t talk with her dead husband! In many cases, the medium even begins to talk in a voice that sounds exactly like the dead Mr. Blank, uses his pet expressions, and even refers to things known only to Mrs. Blank, indulges in their private jokes, and so on. Occasionally, a deceased celebrity will ‘‘break through.”’ Recently the late George Bernard Shaw made a tape recording in England that is now circulating in occult circles. Those who knew Shaw claim that it sounds exactly like him, uses his phraseology and vocal mannerisms, and displays his brilliant and distinctive wit. The trance phenomenon deserves extensive study because so many aspects of it are directly related to the contactee phenomenon. The contactees have been told a hundred different stories of what life is like on other planets. If you review the descriptions of heaven produced at the thousands of possibly genuine seances, you will find the same contradic- tions. The entities will lie transparently at one point in the seance, and a few moments later will come up with astounding information that could not be based upon simple trickery. The mediums themselves have always been aware of their controls’ mischievous sense of humor. They speak of false shades and malevolent spirits who perform outrageous hoaxes. So the mediums and the profes- sional investigators are always wary. The fact that a control can imitate George Bernard Shaw does not necessarily mean that GBS is doing the speaking from the spirit world. The fact that a control knows where Mr. Blank hid his gold watch does not necessarily prove that Mr. Blank is standing at his side “‘on the nthane alan. other plane.” The medium generally remains completely inert while in the trance or ‘‘occupied”’ state but in some instances can become quite animated and make gestures appropriate to whatever is being said. In a very real sense, the medium’s mind has been blanked out, and his or her body has been completely taken over by the control. The medium has become a zombie of sorts, possessed by an alien entity, an entity who lacks a physical form afin 2-2 of his own. The Cosmic Jokers / 217