On numerous occasions in my life, both professionally and on a casual basis, I’ve had conversations with individuals who claimed to possess psychic abilities. Most often I’ve been unimpressed, but I’ll admit that there have been a few exceptions, albeit those of the rarest variety. Sparing those seldom few, for the most part my experiences have failed to showcase anything I found particularly extraordinary, although in their wackiness they have left me with good fodder for future conversations and storytelling.

One such instance occurred years ago, after I was invited by a researcher and acquaintance of mine to travel out of town with him, hoping to meet with friends of his that he said were under “psychic attack” by some bizarre malevolent forces. Upon our arrival, speaking with the residents in question certainly revealed a curious set of circumstances; rather than anything supernatural or particularly “evil,” what I found was far more interesting in its more mundane aspects… but no-less potentially dangerous.

For these poor folks, lightning had indeed struck twice; several times, to be accurate. The story related to us detailed how electronic devices in the home of these individuals had been repeatedly destroyed by lightning, which had been striking their home with startling frequency. Their home, however, was built mostly around a metallic frame and outer structure, since one of the residents suffered from terrible allergies that made her very susceptible to sickness from mold–particularly the variety that grows on damp or rotting wood. Additionally, they sat at the peak of a very high ridge, mostly bare from the cover of trees and other tall objects, making them an easy target for the forces of nature.

Though the circumstances seemed to indicate to me a fairly clear explanation as to what may be causing this, my fellow researcher offered a different perspective: after consulting with a pair of psychics, he had determined that an ancient evil extraterrestrial presence inhabited the mountain, and it wanted our mutual acquaintances to leave! Startled though I was, shortly after this revelation I managed to excuse myself from the company politely, and on my way to the car, one of the residents walked me out, expressing sadness and concern about what they’d been told.

“If I can offer you any advice,” I told her, “it would be not to believe everything you hear.” With that, I thanked her for her hospitality (and a very nice cup of Earl Grey tea), hopped into my car and made a beeline back to town.

The moral of this story isn’t that all people who profess to have psychic abilities are wackos or liars trying to get attention for various reasons. What it does illustrate for us, however, is that there are certain times when even the most overtly bizarre speculation can harbor potential danger, especially on the most impressionable minds. For instance, in the circumstances above, the inhabitants of the house in question were told they should leave, based on the speculation of a couple of “psychics” whom neither of the residents had ever met. What’s worse, they were told this in the midst of obvious circumstances that should have indicated with uber-clarity that natural causes were to blame. Of course, I was aware of the degree of desperation these individuals had expressed, having suffered so much loss over time, and easily understood how they might have opened their minds to speculation that involved otherworldly forces acting upon them. It’s a shame that those who are the most emotionally susceptible in these sorts of scenarios will almost inevitably place themselves in harm’s way. Though I’m able to vouch for the good intentions of my acquaintance, these individuals still might have even become prey for other less-scrupulous individuals, had the circumstances been different.

A similar instance where good intentions still managed to fall scientifically-askew was detailed recently by Bad Science Columnist Benjamin Radford, in an article he wrote at Space.com. Radford details the story of Courtney Brown, founder of an organization of psychics called the Farsight Institute, which had studied mysterious features they found in a NASA photograph of the Martian landscape. Brown, with the help of a group of remote-viewing psychics, claimed that he had confirmed the presence of a large, metallic channel or pipe that appeared to be spraying some liquid substance over a large area. Radford disagreed, stating, “This is completely unscientific, because there is no verifiable, third-party data to support or refute either Brown’s interpretations or the psychics’ information. Just because Brown sees something that he thinks resembles a spray, a pipeline, or a dome doesn’t mean it’s actually there.”

Perhaps the worst element here is that Brown, just like many other amateur skywatchers who, honestly enough, have found what appeared to be anomalies on the surface of Mars and other celestial bodies, coupled his speculation with “verification” he received from psychics in the absence of verifiable evidence. This wouldn’t be the first time speculation, rather than facts, have been used to prop up odd and outstanding claims: I’ve heard well-known former Air Force pilots and military officials speak with a straight face about trees that grow on the moon, and men of science that will insist that lunar archaeological sites exist that would make 2001: A Space Odyssey look like a fact-based PBS documentary. We’re all entitled to our opinions, but to be honest, sometimes those opinions involve information that is just too far-fetched to even take seriously.

That said, in conclusion I’ll leave you with one final boring campfire tale from the Gralien archives: A few years back, I was sitting down for a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale with my pal and prolific conspiracy author Jim Marrs, and we’d been talking about Lunar anomalies, disinformation, and the like. I was aware that Jim knew a lot of folks in positions of power and influence (many of them former military officials) who sometimes recounted bizarre things about space and, in particular, NASA missions. “Jim,” I asked him (loosely paraphrased), “some of that stuff is kinda hard to believe. Do you buy any of the stories these guys are telling?” Jim grinned and thought for a moment, and then replied, “I think they believe it!”

Sometimes, that’s all that really matters, anyway… virtually anything can exist, so long as it’s believable in the eye of the beholder. This makes interesting food for thought, especially if we begin to question what really constitutes reality. After all, how much of what we see around us exists, based almost solely on our perception of the phenomenon alone? Would a person inclined to believe in Bigfoot go through much of their life in fear of gigantic monsters, after a late-night encounter with an unidentifiable creature? What if that creature had actually been a bear? Would that matter to the witness, who went on believing it had been a tremendous manlike beast, especially if they were never told otherwise? Indeed, our perception of reality, at least on a base level, actually dictates to some degree what we believe, and hence, alters how we see the world.

Looking at things from this perspective, far be it from me to ever tell a psychic they’re wrong about their abilities; according to their perception of reality, they may indeed have some ability to transcend the five known senses… but I can’t guarantee my reality will ever be affected by it!

Image by Greg Younger via Flickr.

A rather obscure reference to a psychedelic substance used to evoke such an experience was recently discussed at Daniel Pinchbeck’s site Reality Sandwich, in which author Charles Shaw outlines the way the peculiar drug ibogaine, understood to have remarkable abilities in reversing addiction to drugs like heroin, is also used by African tribes to contact their elders (image, right, by Cliff1066 via Flickr).

Ibogaine is a naturally occurring alkaloid, derived from the Tabernanthe Iboga plant found in West Central Africa. “The iboga root bark contains a powerful psychedelic that has been used as a religious sacrament for centuries,” Shaw explains. Among the Bwiti religion of Gabon, ibogaine is actually a common facet of their rituals, during which Shaw says that “large amounts… are consumed and the initiates are known to enter visionary states where they meet their deceased tribal elders — what they call “the work of the ancestors” — and confront their shadow selves as a means of becoming aware of negative behavior patterns and character traits which cause illness and impede spiritual growth.”

Strangely, in Western society this almost mirrors (no pun intended) the premise behind what is called the psychomanteum, a form of mirror gazing that often evokes similar experiences among those being counseled for grief following the death of a loved one. For those who may not be aware of this process, below is a link to a sample chapter from my book that discusses this in depth:

Labyrinths of the Mind: An Excerpt from Magic, Mysticism and the Molecule

This brings to mind other altered states of consciousness–namely those like sleep paralysis–in which we again find instances that involve contact with what sometimes appear to be spirits of the dead. My good friend Louis Proud’s book Dark Intrusions: An Investigation into the Paranormal Nature of Sleep Paralysis deals with a stammering number of ways in which what many refer to as visits from “the night hag” also seem to relate to ghostly manifestations, and even demonic possession. How are these experiences governed by various circumstances that alter the human mind, and when strange manifestations do occur, are they something that stems from within the subconscious, or are they literally manifestations of disembodies personages?

Of course, the researchers have already probed for potential links between children who report hearing such disembodied voices and those who will later suffer from mental disorders like schizophrenia. Nonetheless, in most cases this sort of activity, at least among young children, has not been found to be a cause for concern, and is considered to be quite normal.

If we choose to look at this from an evolutionary viewpoint, it almost seems that hearing voices would be beneficial to young people, or even mature adults at various times throughout human history. Many people have observed how animals have a sort of “sixth sense” when it comes to navigation and other biological functions (consider the multitude of stories of household pets who, after being separated from their families, manage to travel enormous distances to find their way home). Indeed, if we were to consider whether man could have ever harnessed similar instincts, it might make sense that our early ancestors, often wandering nomads, might have had a psychological development in their brains that created a sort of “knowing” or “guiding force” they could rely on. Indeed, it would be assumed that this would have been entirely a product of how the early mind worked, rather than some supernatural force. To put it simply, before mankind had risen to the dominant species on Earth, they may have relied on senses that instilled a feeling of “being led,” when in essence, they were leading themselves.

Another example of this might be a child who, in a moment of distress (getting lost in the forest, for example), manages to find their way back to safety. Rather than saying they followed landmarks they recognized or other visual cues, they might say that an imaginary friend “led them home,” or kept them company so they wouldn’t feel alone on the way home. Again, it is evident that such a psychological manifestation might be helpful in creating the impression of comfort and security when a child might otherwise succumb to fear of the dark, or of merely being alone in such traumatic circumstances.

Although the circumstances above are intended for use as an analogy, similar phenomenon is occasionally reported by adult victims of trauma, as well as UFO abductees. One abductee, while on a family picnic in France in the 1950s, had wandered into the nearby woods, where she was later found unconscious and bleeding from the nose. Her only immediate recollection upon being revived was witnessing a group of rabbits hopping about in the clearing where she had been found. Later, hypnosis suggested that she had encountered a group of “strange little men” in the area, rather than the harmless rabbits she had remembered. Another famous example is Whitley Strieber, author of the Communion series, whose early abduction accounts were filled with memories of a large owl lighting on his windowsill and staring at him with its dark eyes. Later in Communion, Strieber also recollects a trip he made with his father by train, in which he experienced another abduction sequence. His only memory of the event had been looking out one of the windows as the train passed a hill, on top of which sat a large wolf howling.

In his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, psychologist Julian Jaynes looks at the notion of bicameralism, which is a psychological hypothesis that argues how the human brain may have once assumed a state where cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be “speaking”, and a second part which listens and obeys. Throughout history, prophets and seers long claimed to have been able to hear the voices of God and angels, and Jaynes made the argument that there was a similar period during which a variety of religious texts illustrated the complaints that their authors “could no longer hear the gods,” or that “God no longer speaks to me.” If Jaynes’ theory that early man was directed by auditory hallucinations, often interpreted as being some external source or “higher power,”again the notion that a child might do this in their developmental years leading to age ten doesn’t seem so strange, but in fact may be a hold-over from a time when all people’s minds acted in this way.

So perhaps the “gods”, or even something archetypical within ourselves, does still speak… to a few of us, at least.

As the story goes, owner Robert Eugene Otto had shared an unsettling affinity with the stuffed toy, given to him by a maid who lived with the family. It became part of the legend that the maid had actually been a practitioner of voodoo, thus leading to the negative energies which seemed to accompany the doll. Though Robert (the boy) was known to be very fond of the toy, keeping it with him as he honed his craft as a painter, he would often blame mishaps that occurred on the property on Robert (the toy). Upon his owner’s leaving to attend college, the doll was eventually banished to the attic of the Otto home to live alone in solitude (and extreme summertime stuffiness).

This wouldn’t end the “devil doll’s” strange activity, however. Many school children claimed to have witnessed the strange apparition of a small, featureless “man” dodging from window to window in the upstairs of the Otto family home, peering at them menacingly as they walked to school. Eventually, Robert’s hi-jinks became so legendary that he was donated to the East Martello Museum, where he still resides. Even night watchmen there claim that he will occasionally change positions in his glass display while no one is looking.

Below is a video segment that probes the mystery a bit further, with some uber-creepy video closeups of the puppet from hell:

This story was brought to mind by Gralien Report correspondent Chris McCullom, who today sent along yet another strange story pertaining to a haunted doll. In an article appearing at the CNN website (originally from Oprah.com), the strange story of “Jessica Lynn Cohen” is recounted, better known by her familial moniker “the Christmas Zombie Doll.” The author tells the story of how his daughter received the doll as a gift on Christmas day. Removing the wrapping, he says she “immediately and inexplicably christen(ed) the doll Jessica Lynn Cohen. Why that oddly specific appellation, with its country-western triple cadence, we’ll never know. It was Christmas, and it was her doll, and it stuck.” Was this a peculiar instance of telemetry, where the young girl somehow “read” information off the doll, or perhaps even a lingering spirit which lay at hand, hovering in the astral?

The actual source for the title is less enigmatic, as this was also the name of an actress who appeared in George Balanchine’s “The Nutcracker” film starring actor Macaulay Culkin. The film was first released in 1993, and the author in the CNN piece mentions that the three-foot-tall Beelzebub Barbie was purchased about a decade ago (around 1999). Though this still presents a reasonable gap, it seems likely that the film would have been present and popular enough for his young daughter to have made the obvious Christmas-time association with the actress. Though unconventional, “Jessica Lynn Cohen” is actually a very fitting name for the demonic death doll.

But all name games aside, it’s what occurred after the toy’s titling that made it infamous; as time went on, the author’s daughter gets older, and the “cooling off” period occurs. “I’d go downstairs to attend to a blown fuse and there’d be Jessica Lynn Cohen in the boiler room,” he says. “We’d find her in the pantry with her arms outstretched in a sort of pious Joan of Arc gesture of supplication or in the bathroom with one leg raised high over her head like a Folies Bergère dancer. Coming upon her this way could be frightening. She had taken on the stricken phantasmal look of a ghost from a shipwreck.”

If this weren’t creepy enough, upon trying to rid themselves of the doll they began to succumb to bad luck, including health and financial problems. “We eventually had to reach an accommodation with Jessica Lynn Cohen and accept her as a permanent member of our family.”

Is there indeed some strange psychic property that affixes itself to inanimate objects, especially those with more anthropomorphic features? It’s a strange notion indeed, almost like the ancient Kabbalistic traditions that involve the creations of “golems” or non-human “robots.” It also brings to mind “noisy spirits” and poltergeist activity.

My, it’s strange the way that some humans haunt themselves!

Special thanks to Christopher McCollum for contributing to this report.

But what of “real” remote viewing and use of the mind in ways that may help law enforcement, national security, and a host of other wholesome patriotic endeavors? In the video below, Mike Webster, one of Britain’s leading professional remote viewers, describes his job as “perceiving people, places or events that are separated from the viewer by distance or time”, for investigations funded by agencies including police forces and private businesses in Britain and America:

The reality of Remote Viewing may be somewhat less glamorous than the movies depict, but nonetheless fascinating.

True, this isn’t exactly “new” technology (for instance, DARPA ihas planned to use this sort of technology to aid in developing prosthetic limbs that are movable in response to to neural commands). However, in this next step in utilizing mechanical benefits from the technology’s practical application, Dr. Christopher James at the University of Southampton has used BCI (brain-computer interface) to illustrate how people can communicate with what he dubs “true brain-to-brain interfacing.”

By hooking up two individuals to EEG amplifiers that monitor specific brain activity, one person initiates “contact” by generating a series of zeros and ones by merely imagining they are moving their left or right arm for zeros or ones respectively. Recognizing the thoughts in this binary code system, the person’s computer then transmits the series of ones and zeros being generated to a second participant’s computer, which causes an LED light to blink at two different frequencies similarly corresponding to one and zero.

Similar to the recognition used in the binary function, the second person’s EEG uses information “recorded” by the subject’s visual cortex as it perceives the flashing LED, translating it back into binary code. “Brain-to-brain communication” is achieved without the use of language or direct active communication such as typing, etc.

Although this process certainly can be qualified a “hands free,” will humans ever master the art of brain-to-brain communication without the aid of machines? I guess many of us awaiting the release of the upcoming film Men Who Stare At Goats, based on the military work of Colonel John Alexander, might suppose that serious attention as been given to such studies in the past, and that covert government remote-viewing programs have in the past existed–and may still be in operation to this day. Still, it seems that the notion of breeding “psychic super-warriors” eludes us in totality, and no “quick fixes” for this particular brain function yet exist. In the meantime, we are relegated to playing hop-skip-and-jump with binary code and brainwaves, but nonetheless, greater things have stemmed from things so seemingly basic–or in the case of this specific coding language–binary.

Chalked up by psychologists to be a mass-hallucination stemming from social unrest in the affected regions of Zanzibar and Tanzania, locals who have encountered the horrific Popobawa—described as being a humanoid entity with wings and large male genitalia—would argue otherwise. Terrifying reports, often made buy male members of the community, detail sexual assaults where the creature warns them that it will return if they don’t share their the details of their encounter with others.

Having studied the Popobawa literature profusely, today I was shocked to read about recent reports stemming from Kuala Lumpur of what is being described as a “horny ghost”, which in local Malay culture is called an orang minyak (similar in spelling to the cryptid animal Orang Pendak, a Sumatran Bigfoot-like creature). The entity has spent the last week accosting close to 300 families in the Sungai Petani area, and unlike Popobawa’s preference for male victims, Orang Minyak is alleged to be picking homes where there are young women.

17-year-old Kosmo Nurshahirah of Taman Keladi says she was awakened just before six AM on September 14, feeling “a warm sensation on her left ear.” She opened her eyes and found an apparitional form bearing “curly hair and thick moustache” standing by her bed. To her amazement, the ghost allegedly “took off his kain pelikat (a large robe-like lower garment) and started to fondle himself.” The fiend then began groping her body, at which time Nurshahirah became paralyzed as though “charmed” and unable to move.

Similarly, a 42-year-old housewife in the area revealed that her two daughters, ages 14 and 15, were heard crying out at around the same late hour as Nurshahirah’s encounter, claiming a dark apparition had molested them. “My 14-year-old daughter said she managed to kick the ghost, who wore a kain pelikat and black singlet when she felt her body being touched. She screamed and the ghost ran out of her room.”

Indeed, “demon rapists” exist in other cultures around the world as well. Gralien Report correspondent Christopher McCollum describes his learning of what is called a Curupi in Paraguay. Resembling a small caveman-like hominid, the Curupi bears a long phallus, which it often wraps around its waist like a belt. The striking similarities between entities in various cultures around the world that bear long phalluses wrapped around their waists like Curupi—or in the case of the Assyrian Pazuzu, around one of its legs—are worthy of notice. Do such manifestations indeed stem from people’s collective fears of invasion and threat? Or are there actually “demon rapists” that haunt the outskirts of civilization, assaulting the innocent for sheer folly?

Special thanks to Gralien Report correspondent Chris McCollum for contributing to this report.

Could the net become self-aware?

Consciousness and artificial intelligence have long been an area of fascination for Francis Heylighen, who studies at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) in Belgium. Heylighen speculates how the internet may be capable, in some way or another, of becoming “a self-aware network that constantly strives to become better at what it does, re-organizing itself and filling gaps in its own knowledge and abilities.” This, essentially, suggests a pattern of organization similar to our understanding of what consciousness is.

Especially in film, extensions of people’s fears of machines becoming self-aware has been showcased in such futuristic thrillers as the Terminator series. In these films, a computer system called Skynet activates legions of robotic militants hell-bent on exterminating the human race. Similarly, mechanical jellyfish captors are the fiends who have enslaved mankind in pink bubbles of slime in the popular Matrix trilogy. And let us not forget Arthur C. Clark’s visionary work; going back a little further we see HAL from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, getting his feelings hurt after exhibiting his lip-reading prowess, only to try and kill protagonist Dave and the other astronauts in a manned Jupiter mission.

In spite of their superhuman abilities, one thing that these apocalyptic robotic villains did seem to lack was precognition; and yet it seems hardly surprising that scientists and economists alike are already tapping the Internet’s apparent abilities to “see the future” in an effort to predict trends in the global economy.

Google has demonstrated before that search data can predict flu outbreaks like the present swine flu on everyone’s mind, and as recently as last month World Bank economist Erik Feyen said he could cut errors in a model that forecasts lending to the private sector by 15% using Google search data alone (for the complete story, click here. The way it works has to do with cutting-edge utilization of keywords, frequently used search terms and their results, “memes”, and other popular items of interest to the millions of individuals scouring the web each day. This trend toward toward “crowdsourcing” the interests, hopes, fears, concerns, fetishes, and desires of humankind has even prompted the Google company’s interest in purchasing the popular social-networking application Twitter.

Another company who practices this new art of prediction is Web Bot, who have already put forth their own list of “predictions” for the remainder of 2009, which includes what they refer to as a “Global Coast Event likely in early to mid 2009,” which they say could result in “permanent loss of low lying territory globally,” warning that one continent in particular may receive the brunt of this event.

Could it indeed be the case that sourcing web “intelligence” in ways like this could lead to consciousness on a broader, more human-like level? What would it take for the web to become self-aware, and if possible, how soon might we expect it?

Doctors who have examined the patient call this “the first case known to doctors of a person being able to feel, see and deliberately move a limb that doesn’t exist.” But how are they sure that, at least to the patient, the limb does indeed exist?  Apparently so… and the results of this experiment thus-far are astounding.

During examination the woman’s brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (essentially, an MRI), doctors tending to the woman’s claims hoped to pinpoint where (and if) the phantom limb might be stimulating the patient’s brain while active. According to the research of doctor Asaid Khateb of the hospital’s experimental neurophysiology laboratory, the results showed conclusively that his patient did actually experience what she was describing.

During the MRI, the patient was asked to move her right hand, as well as to simply imagine doing so, the latter of which resulted in very similar activity (though to a lesser degree) as to what occurred in her brain when actually moving her hand. Interestingly, her left hand is paralyzed (which causes one to consider whether this might have some how instigated the appearance of the phantom limb in the first place), and the same effect was achieved when she thought of moving the immobile hand. Finally, when asked to move the translucent phantom appendage, not only didher brain respond just as it did when her right arm had actually moved, her visual cortex was stimulated as she “watched” the limb move about, according to doctors.

At present, only nine cases of Supernatural Phantom Limbs are known to exist to medical science. Existing research suggests that the phenomenon is caused by a “mismatch between the subject’s well-established sensorimotor representations and a suddenly aberrant pattern of communication between the brain and (a) paralysed limb.” But what other angles could be applied to the phenomenon? Gralien Report correspondent Mobius comments that “if indeed this is true this maybe the best example ever seen of the illusionary universe/mind over matter,” along the same lines as Michael Talbot’s The Holographic Universe. What other implications could this strange phenomenon have, or what other possibilities could it merit?

What is collectively less well-known about Twain is his involvement with the mystical things that sometimes reach from beyond, touching those of us who, perhaps by way of magic… or more likely mere circumstance, tend to play against the fates and influence our lives.

Twain was born only two weeks after the closest approach of Haley’s Comet in 1835, and perhaps it was a sprinkling of the cosmic dust of the comet’s tail that peppered the youth with such seeds of an unconventional life. He would go on to befriend many of the world’s most famous people of the day, including oil tycoon Henry H. Rogers, Hellen Kellar, Booker T. Washington, and famed inventor Nikola Tesla. In fact, Tesla once credited Twain with saving his life; having fallen ill at an early age, Tesla claimed that it was the joy he took from reading Twain’s works that helped him through his sickness. Indeed, Twain’s influence may have saved Tesla, but conversely one must take into account that perhaps Twain was also influenced by the great inventor just as well, since the writer is also credited with the invention of a variety of things ranging from bed clamps for infants to steam engines.

In spite of his interesting lifestyle and variety of colorful colleagues, Twain was no stranger to encounters with the mystical. In the late 1850s, Twain is said to have experienced “an unusually vivid dream” where the body of his brother, Henry, was seen lying dead. Specific details of the dream included a large metal coffin in which Henry rested, positioned in the center of their sister’s sitting room. The coffin sat upon two chairs, and a bouquet of flowers with one red rose in its center lay across Henry’s chest. To Twain’s shock and surprise, Henry died only weeks later due to injuries sustained in a boat accident. Twain attended the wake, and just as it had appeared in the prophetic dream, he found Henry lying in a metal coffin supported by two chairs. Only one item was missing… and just as Twain entered the room, a woman close behind him appeared with a large bouquet of flowers, placing them on Henry’s chest. A single red rose rested in its center.

Twain not only was able to predict the death of his brother, but also accurately foresaw his own last days. “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835,” he once said. “It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together’.” Not surprisingly, Twain’s prediction was accurate. He died of a heart attack on April 21 in Redding, Connecticut, just a day after the comet’s closest approach to Earth in 1910.

In spite of the time and circumstances of his death, is it possible that Twain’s overwhelming presence and character might have lived on? Between 1915 and 1917, struggling novelist and newspaper writer Emily Grant Hutchings, along with Spiritualist medium Lola V. Hays, claimed to have authored several stories that were “dictated” to them by Twain from beyond the grave using a Ouija board. Similarly, in the 1960s Missouri residents John and Mildred Swanson also claimed to have used a similar apparatus (they called it a “Nona board”) to conjure the deceased novelist. Was it their imaginations that created the semblance of one of America’s greatest writers, speaking to them from beyond the veil of death? Or, could it be that the strong-willed Missourian did indeed reach through to these individuals, perhaps just to “stir the pot” as he so often did with his own writing while he lived? It’s hard to say, but Sam Clemens couldn’t be a likelier candidate for such spooky activity, and remnants of his life and work, whether or not they’ve been dictated through occult means, will continue to meander in our minds for as long as the Mississippi is wide.