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The Weiser Book of Occult Detectives: 13 Stories of Supernatural Sleuthing
Edited by Judika Illes
York, Maine: Weiser Books, 2017
Dr. Raymond Stantz: You know what it could be? Past-life experience intruding on present time.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Could be race memory stored in the collective unconscious. I wouldn’t rule out clairvoyance or telepathic contact either.
Dana Barrett: I’m sorry, I don’t believe in any of those things.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, that’s all right. I don’t either.[1].
This is another in the “Book of” series from Weiser, the legendary occult publisher and bookseller.[2] Previous volumes included Lon Milo DuQuette’s 2014 The Weiser Book of Horror and the Occult: Hidden Magic, Occult Truths, and the Stories That Started It All, which I reviewed here, and 2016’s The Weiser Book of the Fantastic and Forgotten: Tales of the Supernatural, Strange, and Bizarre, also edited by Judika Illes. Each follows a similar format, with a guest editor compiling a collection of more or less obscure or forgotten tales from an area of their expertise: DuQuette is the one of the world’s foremost experts on Aleister Crowley, while Illes is “a spell collector, fortuneteller, crisis counselor, and spirit worker who has magicked herself out of many an emergency situation,” as well as the author of Pure Magic: A Complete Guide to Spellcasting and The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells: The Ultimate Referent Book for the Magical Arts.
What she has brought together here are 13 (!) tales, ranging from 1855 to 1922, by authors both famous — Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson, Sax Rohmer, Dion Fortune, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, J. Sheridan Le Fanu and even, no less than arguably one of the most famous authors ever, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – and those, like Spinal Tap, who are “residing in the Where are They Now file”: such as Alice and Claude Askew, Rose Champion de Crspigny or Ellas Scrymsour. L. T. Reade, for example, “published at least 280 books in addition to innumerable short stories and articles. The Irish Times described Meade as “the JK Rowling of her day.” Sic transit and all that.
Our spirit-working editor has magicked herself up an informative introduction. The range of dates is explained by the genre being associated with the occult revival of the turn of the previous century, which may also explain the resurgence of the genre from the turn of our own century, in books (comic and otherwise), TV and movies; she gives us a half-page of examples, from Kolchak: The Night Stalker to The X-Files to the Buffy-verse, from Foucault’s Pendulum to The Dresden Files, from Angel Heart to Hellboy to Constantine.[3]
However otherwise diverse, they all involve occult detectives, aka psychic detectives or even psychic physicians (such as Dana Scully). What makes for an occult detective? “Techniques utilized by the various detectives include palmistry, clairvoyance, psychometry, mesmerism, dreams, and good old deductive reasoning.” The genius of The X-Files was to team up two contrasting sorts: Scully, a rationalist who finds herself investigating what might or might not be supernatural or paranormal crimes and mysteries, and Fox Mulder, a true believer who uses occult knowledge to solve what may or may not be supernatural or paranormal crimes and mysteries. A third sort manifests psychic powers themselves, using them to… you get the idea.[4]
Not only do some occult detectives have (or claim) psychic powers, so do some authors. I was interested to learn here that the British Witchcraft Act of 1604 was not repealed until 1951,[5] making books “advocating” the practice illegal. Hence, many of the authors of occult detective stories used the medium of fiction to convey their teachings; here, for example, Rose Champion de Crespigny and Dion Fortune.[6]
Fortune is indeed best known today as the author of various works of occultism, [7] while another author may surprise you: Helena Blavatsky(a). Skeptics, of course, might suggest that all of her work counts as fiction, but she did dabble in the occasional work of explicit fiction; here, however, she insists that “The Cave of the Echoes” is “a strange but true story,” verified by a relative, “a Russian gentleman, very pious, and fully trustworthy.” Blavatsky’s occult detective is an unnamed “Hungarian traveler” who utilizes an array of techniques: mesmerism, “native magic,” an etheric double and shamanic drumming; in the latter two he is assisted by his equally unnamed companion, an actual Siberian shaman, who plays Cesar to his Caligari. [8] It’s one of the better stories here.
Now about those techniques; there’s actually some authentic and useful information conveyed here, mostly in conversations or asides. I, of course, am happy to see some ideas that would later be promoted in the writings and lectures of the midcentury New Thought guru Neville Goddard (who went by the mononym Neville); for example, his basic concept of the creative power of imagination:
Yet I have thought, though it would take a long lecture on Thought Induction to get you to appreciate my reasons, that Parsket [the bad guy] had produced what I might term a kind of “induced haunting”, a kind of induced [material] simulation of his mental conceptions to his desperate thoughts and broodings. It is impossible to make it clearer in a few words.’ (William Hope Hodgson, “The Horse of the Invisible”)
Well, Neville certainly tried quite successfully to make it clearer. For one thing, he provided a “simple method,” the first stage of which involved taking up a restful position – perhaps during the hypnogogic stages of early sleep or waking – and withdrawing attention from the outside world to the imagination:
IT WAS TAVERNER’S CUSTOM, at certain times and seasons, to do what I should call hypnotize himself; he, however, called it ‘going subconscious,’ and declared that, by means of concentration, he shifted the focus of his attention from the external world to the world of thought. (Dion Fortune, “The Return of the Ritual”)[9]
In such lectures as “Mental Diets,” Neville emphasized the importance of controlling what thoughts and emotions one allows to enter your consciousness: “Be always master of yourself. Use them intelligently but be master of them—not their slave.” [10] (Rose Champion de Crespigny, “The Witness in the Woods”)
As for Algernon Blackwoods’ “Victim of the Higher Space,” he has unknowingly learned how to live as “but an expression—a projection—of my higher four-dimensional body,” which Neville would have prepared him for. [11] And when he becomes lost again, it is John Silence’s “intense thinking about [him]” that returns him to our dimensions.
Both Moris Klaw (Sax Romer, “The Case of the Veil of Isis”) and Conan Doyle’s Lionel Dacre (“The Leather Funnel”) are “dream detectives” who solve mysteries through their dreams, which makes them ancestors of David Lynch’s Agent Cooper; and here’s some occult wisdom that Stephen King might have found inspiring: “Any supreme paroxysm of human emotion, whether it be joy or pain, will retain a certain atmosphere or association which it is capable of communicating to a sensitive mind.” (“The Leather Funnel”)
And Champion de Crespigny adds in a bit of Neville as well:
Every action, every vivid thought leaves its mark behind it in the ether—its special vibration, and some of us are quicker to respond to them than others…These vibrations left on the ether…attract entities good or evil, as the case may be, who have attuned themselves on this plane to that particular rate, and who add the urge of their own desires to the vibrating ether, resulting in a strong wake of influence either for good or evil to those among us who are sensitive enough to be aware of them. (“The Witness in the Woods”)[12]
The latter story also provides an interesting variation on the occult expert vs. skeptic trope. Our detective perhaps reflects the author’s over-optimism about the duration and lasting effect of the occult revival:
He was accustomed to ridicule, but met it with a quiet smile that seemed to transmute it into something very cheap and negligible. He had been called ‘swindler’ by more than a few…But in a world at last realizing its own limitations, Vyse was steadily coming into his own, the shaft of the old type of hidebound scoffer was falling short of the mark, and there was a growing tendency among people of intellect and standing, when confronted by any of the mysterious problems outside the range of ordinary dealings, problems which have arisen from time immemorial, to call for Norton Vyse.
While his client is one of those “people of intellect and standing,” her daughter is not:
…being of the placid, complacent type that is quite content with the limited range of vision that is its heritage…Vyse knew the type, unimaginative and without a suspicion that at times her own opinion might be wrong.
Apparently, this is one of those “modern” young ladies who has taken on the traditionally male role of hard-nosed skeptic, and after she herself becomes the target of occult dangers, one expects her to join that supposedly swelling mass of believers. But Vyse contrives to rescue her without her being any the wiser, and seems content to just tip his hat to her and walk off with another of those quiet smiles.
The Reader will have noticed that there are a lot of unusual names here. The whole world knows of Sherlock Holmes, but in this volume, you’ll make the acquaintance of the likes of Flaxman Low, Moris Klaw [13], Dr. Hesselius, Dr. Taverner, Thomas Carnacki, John Silence, Norton Vyse, and Shiela Crerar.
Remember Dana Scully and Fox Mulder from earlier? Granted, funny names have been a feature of the detective genre (Sherlock Holmes, indeed, who was at first christened Sherrinford Holmes), and not just the occult subspecies: Bulldog Drummond, Sam Spade, Philo Vance, Charlie Chan, etc.; even Mike Hammer. It’s both genre convention and a nice way to make a character “memorable.”
Here, however, this extends to the authors themselves. Where else can you find a collection of such names as Sax Romer, Alice and Claude Askew, Rose Champion de Crspigny or Ellas Scrymsour? [14] L. T. Reade was the pseudonym of Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith. And of course, Dion Fortune, who “adapted her family’s motto, ‘Deo, non Fortuna’ (‘God, not Fortune) to serve as her magical name and her pen name.”
Then we have the case of another pseudonym, “E. and H. Heron,” who on investigation are revealed as the “mother-and-son writing team, Kate and Hesketh Pritchard.” That’s a new one on me. But wait, there’s even more “onomastic” fun (to use Thomas Mann’s word for it) to be had:
Major Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard (1876–1922)—called Hex by his friends—was born in Jhansi, India, where his father, an officer in the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, had died from typhoid six weeks before his son’s birth. Kate O’Brien Ryall Prichard (1851–1935) soon returned to Britain with her infant son. They would remain close for the rest of Hesketh’s life. The Flaxman Low stories were not their only literary collaboration, and Hesketh also had an extensive independent literary career. Hesketh-Prichard was a larger-than-life character—in addition to being an author, athlete, scholar, and soldier, he was an adventurer, a lauded marksman, and a big game hunter, who, like Teddy Roosevelt, was simultaneously a conservationist. By contrast, little is known of Kate, beyond her role as Hesketh’s mother and collaborator.
I think that might be the most damned British paragraph I’ve ever read.
Apart from historical value, what is the literary value here; would anyone read these tales unless they were working on a dissertation? Here I must say that the verdict of history seems reasonable: the tales by the most famous writers – Conan Doyle, Blackwood, Sheridan Le Fanu and Fitz-James O’Brien – are by far the best here, in both theme and language, while the offerings of Kate Pritchard or L. T. Meade are a bit of a slog.
The minor writers share both somewhat inane subjects – invisible horses, for example – and a very 19th-century habit of overwriting.[15] I was reminded of Edmund White’s distinction between Modernist writers, for whom every word is important, and writers like Dickens or Dumas, where if you didn’t skip through a lot of it you’d go mad.[16] I found myself doing a lot of skimming ahead, although I could see how these tales fulfilled their function, helping to pass the time on long train journeys. By contrast, well, Conan-Doyle needs no introduction, and you can see how Blackwood would become one of Lovecraft’s masters of cosmic horror, while Fitz-James O’Brien and Le Fanu would be on his various lists of favorites as well.
All in all, highly recommended for those looking for some seasonal reading of a decidedly old school – yet contemporary – genre, with plenty of obscure finds.
Notes
[1] Ghostbusters (1984)
[2] For more on Samuel Weiser and his various occult enterprises, see here.
[3] For some reason she does not mention True Detective, see a discussion here. And she does not mention Twin Peaks – although I will soon – although the book starts with an epigraph from Mark Frost’s The Secret History of Twin Peaks.
[4] The last two abut the more recent “profiler” character, such as Will Graham or Clarice Starling, which is not discussed by Illes, although she does allude to the supernatural aura of such rationalist detectives as Poe’s August Dupin and of course Sherlock Holmes. Graham is on the occult side, somehow able to enter the minds of serial killers, while Starling is more of a Scully, if not even a Watson (aka Muggles). She says she is “here to learn” from Lecter, and at least one narrator here is also seeking to learn from the detective. Lecter might be called an evil occult detective; he is purely rational, like Holmes and Dupin, but so intelligent that, like them, his deductions seem supernatural. (He can also cause you to swallow your own tongue by whispering to you, which is sort of a paranormal power). This might provide a small justification for Jonathan Demme’s otherwise absurd presentation of Lecter as a kind of Dracula lurking in the darkness. “What is he?” “Oh, he’s a monster.”
[5] “How does that coincide with your postwar commie conspiracy, huh?” – Dr. Strangelove.
[6] As she says in The Weiser Book of the Fantastic and Forgotten: “Paradoxically, because stories intended to serve as popular entertainment have historically garnered so little respect, they have served as repositories for otherwise hidden wisdom.” The same notion motivates my studies of “bad” or “B” films; see my Passing the Buck: Coleman Francis & Other Cinematic Metaphysicians (Melbourne, Australia: Manticore Press, 2021).
[7] I recall that William Burroughs would recommend her Psychic Self-Defense (another Weiser publication) but I am unable to verify this at the moment.
[8] Illes speculates that the traveler is Hungarian because Blavatsky was aware of similarities between Hungarian and some Siberian languages; they are really one character, and once more, we have the trope of the double, not only in the story, but in the narrative (as in Holmes and Watson, Scully and Mulder, etc.)
[9] John Silence also seeks to help the titular “Victim of Higher Space” with a little red book containing “certain simple instructions, composed, as I see you divine, entirely from my own personal experiences.”
[10] “Them” refers to the vibrations left in the ether by thoughts or acts, as will be mentioned below.
[11] See Chapter One, “Thinking Fourth Dimensionally,” in Out of This World (1949 and innumerable later editions).
[12] As Neville said over and over, “Feeling is the secret.” “Somebody fed him honey and nightshade. Somebody loved him.” (Silence of the Lambs) Evola also emphasized pouring warmth and love on an image in his early, magical writings (collected in Introduction to Magic [Rochester, Vt: Inner Traditions, 2001], as well as the previously mentioned need to exercise control over ones thoughts and emotions; all this is discussed in the essay “Magick for Housewives” and elsewhere in my collection Mysticism After Modernism: Crowley, Evola, Neville, Watts, Colin Wilson, & Other Populist Gurus (Melbourne, Australia: Manticore Press, 2020).
[13] Whose name puts me in mind of Jewish pornography magnate Irving Klaw; at least that’s the only other Klaw I’ve ever heard of. Moris has a more interestingly named daughter, Isis Klaw, but although mentioned here, she only appears in later stories.
[14] A name redolent of the weird fiction of Lovecraft’s scion, Thomas Ligotti, author of Grimscribe: His Lives and Works.
[15] Hodgson’s story has both flaws; it’s interesting that Lovecraft lauded both The House on the Borderlands and The Night Land but found the latter to be sabotaged by his bizarre idea of writing it in a fake 18th century idiom. “One of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written…there is a sense of cosmic alienage, breathless mystery, and terrified expectancy that is unrivalled in the whole range of literature [despite] painful verboseness, repetitiousness (and) artificial and nauseously sticky romantic sentimentality.”
[16] Is this the secret of such books as the Necronomicon, or The King in Yellow, the reading of which drives one mad?