Writing – research – Nazis – psychic-04

For the final glimpse into the book PSYCHIC DISCOVERIES BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN by Sheila Ostrander & Lynn Schroeder (1970) this copy 1976, we’ll look at the Nazis and Hitler.

It’s already been mentioned (in psychic-01 here that Hitler was a believer in the occult. A good number of authors have mined this subject, among them Dennis Wheatley, Daniel Easterman, James Twining, Graham Masterton and James Herbert.

According to this book, Czechs said the Nazi movement was deeply involved with the black arts. Hitler was born in Braunau Inn in Austria, a town long famous for the large number of mediums it produced (including Willy Schneider, who had the same wet nurse as Hitler!)

Apparently, Hitler was trained in mediumship by Prof Haushofer of the University of Munich. (See The Morning of the Magicians).

One man who fought Nazism was Stefan Ossowiecki (1877-1944). He was a telepathist, clairvoyant, and could resort to astral projection. He helped the underground during the war, giving information on lost and imprisoned people. Holding a scrap of clothing, he was able to reveal where victims had been executed, and where they were buried.

Documented accounts speak of him locating specific bodies in mass graves layered with the dead.

On the day of Warsaw Uprising, he was killed by the Nazis; his body was never found, as he predicted.

***

From time to time, Tana Standish crossed paths with Nazis – bearing in mind that she was active in the 1970s and 1980s.

One nasty Nazi was Dr Wolf Schneider, who was born in 1920. He was responsible for torturing Tana in Czechoslovakia in 1975 (The Prague Papers). He didn’t employ black magic, just plain evil shock electric shock treatment. He was later recruited by Spetsnaz officer Aksakov in The Tehran Text mission.

Tana was not versed in astral projection, though she was learning to harness remote viewing - which is another subject worthy of comment in a later blog. Aided by recourse to bio-feedback, she used this in a haunting and poignant scene in The Tehran Text.

Tana Standish can be found in The Prague Papers and TheTehran Text.

Writing – research – hypnotism & predictions – psychic-03

 More snippets gleaned from the 1970 book Psychic Discoveries from behind the Iron curtain by

Sheila Ostrander & Lynn Schroeder (1970) this copy 1976.

At the time of writing the book, Russia had serious concerns about China. Chairman Mao ordered the Chinese scientists to research parapsychology. In response, Russia established psi research bases at Vladivostok and Khabarovsk on the disputed Chinese border. (p142) At one time there were about forty cities within the USSR that contained centres where research was being done on paranormal subjects. One of these was Moscow’s Pavlov Institute where secretive research delved into parapsychology… (p152)

Two so-called pseudoscientific subjects discussed here

are acupuncture and hypnotism. The definition of pseudoscience attached to these subjects is questioned by many adherents and beneficiaries.

Hypnotism

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony was performed in St Petersburg in 1897 and was unanimously panned, one critic having likened it to a depiction of the ten plagues of Egypt, suggesting it would be admired by the "inmates" of a music conservatory in Hell. The symphony was not performed again in his lifetime.

The composer was devastated and decided never to compose again.

For three years music seemed blocked to his mind.

Distressed by this, his friends suggested he go to a hypnotist, Nikolai Dahl, who was also an amateur musician. 

A daily course of hypnotherapy and psychotherapy brought the music and inspiration back.

Rachmaninoff composed his Second Piano Concerto in C Minor, dedicating it to Dr Dahl. It was a success and his self-worth was revived. (p166)

Superstition in old Russia was as concrete and pernicious as the lice infesting most of the populace. Magic spells, amulets, potions, powders, and counter-hexes were widely considered to be necessities of life. (p251)

Acupuncture

The Soviets had a machine that registered energy flow in the body coincidentally using as checkpoints for its electrodes the acupuncture treatment points, the meridians, where the chi force flows. This machine picked up changes in body energy caused by alterations of consciousness and varying emotional states. (p163)

For decades, China has used acupuncture in open heart surgery, with good effect. A report in 2011 confirmed this too.

Tana learned to use acupuncture needles while on a mission during her first mission (The Singapore Signal, 1965, as yet unreported). Since then she has carried these needles in a pouch on her belt when penetrating enemy territory, and used them in The Prague Papers, 1975 (Crooked Cat Publishing (2014).

Predictions

Baba Vanga (Vanga Dimitrova) was a blind Bulgarian who was actually paid for by the state. She received thousands of callers asking for predictions – and apparently some 80% of these were proved correct…

She died in 1996. Some of her predictions that have yet to happen include (Wikipedia):

1) The 44th President of the United States will be the last US president. As Barak Obama is the 44^th, this is unlikely, though perhaps Trump will somehow make the prophecy happen!

2) Europe will be transformed into an Islamic caliphate and the transformation will be complete in the year 2043. ..

3) Communism will return to Europe and the rest of the world in 2076.

4) There will be a war on Mars in 3005.

 ***

Tana Standish doesn’t go in for predictions, happily. Yet from time to time she experiences flash images that are later perceived to be slicing of future events; no dates, no specific time, just the image, sometimes featuring her, sometimes not. Each adventure tends to feature at least one ‘flash-forward’ image from a mission yet to be transcribed.

Tana Standish can be found in The Prague Papers and TheTehran Text.

Feel the heat but it's no holiday!

Pleased to find a new (the 10th) favourable review of Blood of the Dragon Trees.

The reviewer, Margaret R, says:

It's Tenerife, you can feel the heat - but it's no holiday!

I’ve never been to Tenerife, but after reading this book I felt that I’d been there, the descriptions were so vivid. However, this isn’t a glorified travel book but a romantic thriller with lots of excitement. It had me hooked from the admittedly gory beginning to the exciting end. There are suspenseful moments when the heroine is placed in jeopardy with a number of chapters ending in a cliff-hanging scene.
 
Romantically, I could sympathise with the heroine Laura and enjoyed her predicament in having to choose between the enigmatic Andrew and the exotic Felipe. The background details about trading in endangered species and human trafficking proved enlightening and of course sadly are still very topical. The author clearly knows his stuff.
 
Maybe it's a rather well-worn turn of phrase but I really did find the book hard to put down

*** 

So, thank you, Margaret R!

Blood of the Dragon Trees can be found here 

Tigers slaughtered to cure pimples!

Laura Reid likes her new job on Tenerife, teaching the Spanish twins Maria and Ricardo Chávez. She certainly doesn’t want to get involved with Andrew Kirby and his pal, Jalbala Emcheta, who work for CITES, tracking down illegal traders in endangered species. Yet she’s undeniably drawn to Andrew, which is complicated, as she’s also attracted to Felipe, the brother of her widower host, Don Alonso.

Felipe’s girlfriend Lola is jealous and Laura is forced to take sides – risking her own life – as she and Andrew uncover the criminal network that not only deals in the products from endangered species, but also thrives on people trafficking. The pair are aided by two Spanish lawmen, Lieutenant Vargas of the Guardia Civil and Ruben Salazar, Inspector Jefe del Grupo de Homicidios de las Canarias.

Very soon betrayal and mortal danger lurk in the shadows, along with the dark deeds of kidnapping and clandestine scuba diving…

Book review - The Electric Crocodile

D.G. Compton’s science fiction novel The Electric Crocodile (1970) depicts a near-future Britain that’s subsumed within the Federal European government, the centre being Switzerland, with the flags of the member nations fluttering (p37). The currency is in marks. We don’t know when this future is, though there’s a hint: ‘Pavlov found out how to interfere with its (the brain’s) function over seventy years ago.’(p153) As Pavlov received his Nobel Prize in 1904 (he died in 1936), the story probably takes place in a ‘future 1970s/1980s.’

As with any near-future novel, some inventions are not going to happen in the real world and of course some inventions won’t have been thought of by the author. This doesn’t matter; it’s fiction, an alternate reality.

Matthew Oliver is married to Abigail. It’s significant that they both have Biblical names. Abigail is a devoted Catholic, Matthew pays lip service. Churches are virtually social clubs. Yet there’s an underlying current of God vs machine in the subtext.

At one point, Matthew drives past ‘a shopping complex and a self-service battery station. A hundred or so batteries were on charge in open-fronted racks’. (p37) Matthew’s car had been on charge all night and had a good thirty hours of life in it. So predictions of electric cars were viable then, anyway; they’ve just taken longer to evolve into practical use. Other things in this ‘future’ include laser pistols (Matthew has a license for one) and access passes that are checked in a scanner. Smoking is not frowned upon, since ‘the health risk has been beaten.’ (p51) And cancer was controlled (p93). Now, London is a Limited Traffic Zone… The big Italian manufacturers’ lobby had forced through safety legislation in Geneva that made 80% of not-new cars illegal. (p52) The television is shortened to ‘the tell’. And, perhaps surprisingly, people still write and sign cheques. And they use landline telephones, which are capable of producing ‘phonoprints’. Now, the Nevershave hormone treatment was available, which promised that – you’d never need to shave again!

Matthew has been recruited to join the Colindale Institute, which is guarded by a force field fence, which could withstand the onslaught from a two-metre laser. All workers there and their families must accept the presence of microphones in their homes and anyone leaving the grounds is to be accompanied by a so-called tail, in Abigail’s case, Mrs Foster.

The Colindale project, non-political, belonging to the European Federation, financed by central government, collects scientific information, catalogues and freely disseminates it, aimed solely at improving the welfare of humanity… (p47) That’s the official version, anyway. There have been two suspicious unsolved deaths; Matthew is replacing one of the deceased.

The computer Matthew and the team work on is called the Bohn. It still uses tapes and its output is via teleprinters. Their work is secret, involving intelligent imaginative extrapolation. As the Director of the project, Professor Billon states, ‘People in a democracy dislike being told what is good for them.’

Apparently,’ the social balance is precarious, sustained by oblique oppression. Democracy is eroded almost beyond recognition… We’re leaderless…’ Billon believes that the Bohn can supply that leadership, and can meet the need of the people. (p151)

Middle-aged alienees were demanding the vote back, with placards ALIENATION NO CRIME, and PENSIONERS NOT OUTCASTS.  ‘People in general had little sympathy with alienees and their conditional pensions – being alienated was no more than an excuse for being bone idle. The idea that work was a good thing in itself lingered tenaciously, no matter how much the experts told people it was out of date… Usually alienees demonstrated against compulsory education for their children or in favour of better housing.’ (p92)

The title is gleaned from this: ‘In 1933 a laboratory was built for the physicist Pyotr Kapitza. For its façade he ordered the head of a crocodile in steel. “The crocodile of science cannot turn its head. Like science it must always go forward with all-devouring jaws…’ (p96) A more prosaic explanation can be found here

And perhaps the Bohn can manipulate scientific discovery, change the future even?

So, an interesting socio-political science fiction novel that deals with commitment, love, betrayal, hubris, paranoia and the soul-crushing homogenous federal state.

***

Compton’s most successful novel is probably The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, a highly affecting piece (which was made into the film Death Watch); it was one of my favourite science fiction novels (though I have many favourites!)

D.G. Compton was born in 1930 and his last published work was in 1996.

Style: Straight-forward. Certain sections switch viewpoint and we snatch the occasional comment twice, but perceived from a different listener; like echoes; it’s a neat little touch and isn’t overdone.

Cover (1976): I’m not a great fan of psychedelic covers. The title perhaps suggests something like this, but I don’t find it appealing.

Writing – research – psychic-02

More psychic tales gleaned from the book Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, some of which may prove useful when writing about Tana in Afghanistan (The Khyber Chronicle).

Nelya Mikhailova was fourteen when the Germans invaded Russia. She was then caught up in the siege of Leningrad from September 1941 until Jan 1944]. (p82)

She became a soldier, with her brother, father, and sister in the Red Army. The conditions were very severe in the city: the bread ration per day was about four ounces; hunger in Leningrad lasted almost 900 days; the winter temperature sometimes -40; and the water and electricity were cut off frequently. As time passed the city was razed by bombs and artillery fire.

Nelya served in Tank T-34 as a radio operator. Still in her early teens, she became a Red Army sergeant of the 226^th tank regiment. Later Nelya and some of her family served in an armoured train which helped bring desperately needed provisions to the stricken city.

She was seriously injured by artillery fire, but survived to marry an engineer, have a son in the army and become a grandmother. She also discovered she had PK (psychokinesis) ability. [In the late 19^th century Alexander Aksakov, a councillor to the Tsar became the first psychic researcher in Russia. He later became a spiritualist and studied mediums. He is believed to have coined the term ‘telekinesis’. He died 1903, aged 70.]

During her PK experiments, strain etched the dimples deep in Nelya’s cheeks, and her pulse beat up to 250 per minute. Apparently, her powers diminished in stormy weather, this being later attributed to the magnetic field around her body being affected (this attested by the Leningrad Institute of Metrology). Afterwards, she looked drained, and had lost over three lbs in weight. [To date, in the real world we inhabit, controlled experiments have found no proof of telekinesis.]

She died in 1990.

***

I’ve used Aksakov’s name for my Spetsnaz assassin, Lidiya, who first appears in The Tehran Text. She reappears in The Khyber Chronicle.

Tana Standish, my psychic spy, cannot move objects with her mental faculties. This, I felt, was a step too far. She can detect danger (bad vibes, if you will), being a sensitive, and when in close proximity can snatch the thoughts of others – if those people are in a heightened emotional state, for example. Again, it is not a parlour trick she can invoke at will every time. Some of her tests at headquarters have proved failures. But Dr James Fisk, the psychologist at Fenner House is encouraging, for he’s seen how she can exceed expectations at other times of high stress.

Tana Standish can be found in The Prague Papers and TheTehran Text.

'An added twist...'

Today, I found a fine birthday surprise - a review of my book Coffin for Cash, so thought I'd share it here:

"I know you aren't a 'Westerns' fan but give this one a try” said a friend with whom I occasionally exchange books. The Westerns genre has never been a favourite of mine; I find the storylines a little predictable but I suppose most genres are formulaic to some degree.

Well, here's a Western that I truly enjoyed. Apparently the book is from a series that features ongoing players, here it's Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles. Continuing readers will already 'know' their characters; I didn't but soon felt able to identify with them.

The title of the book and the contents of the blurb may lead you to think you can guess the plot. I think not. When did you last read a book involving such a gamut of characters as Chinese workers and miners plus a dodgy bank manager, even dodgier lawyer and a slot machine salesman. Oh, and of course the feminine side is also represented. You could rightly begin to think 'Ahh, this is a bit different'.

If that isn't enough, there is an added twist but not in the tale itself which I found pretty innovative. I guess that author Nik Morton may be an admirer of Edgar Allan Poe. The tale is sprinkled with nods and references to the famous writer's works and characters. However, whether or not you notice them won't affect your reading pleasure at all.

Maybe the good guys win in the end - who knows? Well I do, but I'm not telling! I will say that this is a well written tale that moves smoothly along at a good pace using colourful but believable characters and as a self-admitted Outlander to the genre, I vote this a very good Western.

***

Thank you, Mr Robson - particularly as you're not a fan of westerns. Your review, like all others, is greatly appreciated!

Coffin for Cash can be obtained from Amazon here

 It's also a reasonably priced paperback!