The Young Man with the Rag Doll: Experiments in Mentalism: Paranormal Parlor, A Weiser Books Collection

By A. Alpheus and Varla A. Ventura

Varla Ventura, Coast to Coast favorite, Weird News blogger on Huffington Post, and author of The Book of the Bizarre and Beyond Bizarre, introduces Weiser Books’ new Collection of forgotten occult classics. Paranormal Parlor is an eerie assemblage of affordable digital editions, curated with Varla’s sixth sense for tales of the weird and unusual.

Leading mentalist of the early 1900s, A. Alpheus instructs readers on how to turn grown men into rag dolls and use the power of the mind to overcome any obstacle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
• Release date: Apr 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781619400658

A. Alpheus

A. Alpheus is the non de plume for a famous author who had an extensive secret career as a pioneer in the field of hypnosis.

Book preview

Step Right Up

You feel very sleepy . . . With these words the stage hypnotist has been casting a spell over people for more than a century, setting his subjects on one of the most spectacular journeys anyone can take.

When we allow ourselves to fall into the hypnotist's trance, we hand over all our inhibitions, everything which normally holds us back. It is not a voyage for the faint of heart. But with trust in our guide and in ourselves, one tiny step across the imaginary boundary we've drawn can take us into a marvelous undiscovered country.

My first encounter with a hypnotist was in high school, at an assembly identical in practically every way to the amusing experiments A. Alpheus writes about in this story. Volunteers were called for and ushered onstage. Being too full of teenage self-consciousness, I had no wish to join them, and I watched with a strong sense of skepticism as, one by one, my friends and classmates entered into hypnotic trance and began acting out the most ridiculous and far-fetched pantomimes. It didn't take a grand leap of faith for me to believe that the student council and drama club members, none of them a stranger to attention and applause, would willingly dance the Twist in front of the whole school, or play air guitar to some canned rock and roll played over the packed auditorium's loudspeaker.

But my doubt evaporated when, near the end of the assembly, the hypnotist brought my friend Richie to the front of the stage. Richie was large, awkward, and sometimes the butt of jokes due to his tendency to speak with a stutter whenever he was able to raise his voice above a quiet murmur—not the greatest candidate for the limelight. Everyone knew this, and those of us charitable enough not to jeer were cheering him on as he stood in front of us. I for one had my fingers crossed for him beneath my folding seat.

The hundreds of assembled