Volume 9, Issue 4, page 7
OftïTakeo Victim Indicts Psychic Frailds
"Black Sheep" Looks Back Angrily on His
Findings After 30-Year Pursuit of "Myths"
By JACOB ISAAC APSEL
HERE is one thing worse than lying to
others, and that is lying to yourself. The penalty for this is subconscious insecurity. Subconscious
insecurity manifests itself outwardly by building up a belligerent
but fearful nature. A liar cannot
defend his contentions with proof,
therefore he resorts to attack and
villification. He also blunts his
conscience to moral values, but it is not
inwardly effectual.
The above is a description of countless practicing mediums, psychics, prognosticators, clairvoyants, yogis, Scientologists, astrologers, and numerous others. I have practiced all of them, but
never for money.
These people who claim to have supernatural and supernormal abilities set
themselves up in business, promising answers and demonstrations for a fee. The
longer they operate, the more they become
aware they have to resort to subterfuge
and fabrication to cover up the failure
of their powers, which are like shifting
sands.
Expiation for their sins begins with
their first failure to solve their own
problems. A crisis arises in their own
affairs, their hearts sink when they find
their source of power and omniscience unreliable. Frantically, they use all the
formulas they had been selling for money,
but it produces no results.
An Alabama "Reverend " sold lessons on
how to multiply coins by placing them on
a plate overnight, but to pay up his
mounting debts he kept appealing frantically for donations from a large mailing
list of potential donors. He sold lessons
on how to develop a slender figure, but
his wife was almost too wide to pass thru
the doorway. He snorted and just about
spit fire when I told him to quit being a
ballyhoo artist and go back to photography, at which he was expert.
My firsthand experience with people
who advertise they will answer questions
for a dollar or two, or a love offering,
is that not one appeared to be a solid
citizen to his/her neighbor; also, they
always seemed to be in need of money.
Professional mediums constantly scheme
how to dress up whatever messages they
can bring forth. When I took some of them
to task in the New York Spiritualist Camp
I lived in, one quickly spoke up, "Your
vegetable merchant polishes his fruit to
(ED. NOTE -- Without defending the frauds
Jacob seeks to expose, we would like to inject
a bit of doubt into his conclusions regarding
"Heaven world entities". Mrs. Apsel, whbm Jacob calls "Little One", is one of the best
mediums we've ever known. However, Jacob is an
accomplished hypnotist, and we suspect that
instead of "seeing" and "hearing" such entities, she was merely reacting to her husband's
hypnotic suggestions. When his "belief"/support of these entities was withdrawn, "con --
tact" also collapsed. Which, in itself, may be
& clue to what is mediumship.
(Despite Mr. Apsel's experience and conclusions, we are no more convinced that he has
DISPROVED intelligent life after death, or re --
incarnation, than we accepted wholly his previous "proofs" of a Heaven World "42 miles
across, with seven layers, or planes", with
"contactable existence" for all, including God
"Our Sweet Father, Your Creator and Mine". We
found it interesting, but other than that, it
merely helped us to reach a personal certainty
that NO ONE knows exactly what happens to the
"1 am I" after the body quits breathing, and
it is impossible for anyone to PROVE something
is or is not so.
(One point we don't understand is why people get so emotional on the subject of "Life
after death", or the atheistic viewpoint of
"Death after life". Tell them "Grass is red",
and they'll thoroly disagree with you, but will
waste no time in argument; they KNOW better.
But dispute some pet theory of theirs concerning "the future" -- a subject about which they
have no absolute certainty -- and you provoke a
bitter discussion. And we admit our disagreement with Jacob's conclusions stems not from
conscious KNOWINGness -- because we can neither
prove he is right nor wrong. Nor can he -- or he
wouldn't admit he's now "searching new lanes").
make them look more palatable." A healer
who could not heal halitosis said, "So
what! Doctors give sugar pills."
Following are a few choice failures I
have noted in the past 30 years:
A medium who claimed she got 100% in Dr.
Rhine's Duke University test could not
perceive that her purse with $50 would
be snatched on her triumphal return.
A psychic who, blindfolded, could read
the numbers on a dollar bill in a man's
wallet, could not locate his own wallet
with $200 in it that was to be a payment on his mortgage.
A bankteller who gave lectures on mental
telepathy could not read the minds of
the men who entered his bank and held
it up.
A clairvoyant who boasted of knowing in
advance the people who were to visit
him, could not see the, three teen-age
thugs who slugged him and left him ly