She Could Hear the Highway Breathing

A Review of The Mentalist's Handbook by Clint Marsh

One day, as a pre-teen watching an after-school special on TV, I saw a scene in which an adolescent girl, in the throes of a tantrum, sent the contents of her room swirling about, lifting and crashing violently in her own private tornado. I was titillated and electrified. This was my introduction to psychokinesis. If any girl had enough emo to send things flying, I did.

Watch out, house! I willed curtains to flutter, frames to fall, mirrors to crack, and chairs to rock. Was that me, or a breeze? But nothing bended, rolled, or flew into my hand. Maybe my problem was, as my mother always said, that I thought too much. Maybe "mentalism" worked better without the mind.

It did seem true, as I grew older, that my telekinetic talents lay in feeling, not in trying. And with throwing people, not things. And, like Carrie, the presenting subliminal motivation seemed to be Vindication. There was The Unfortunate Face-Plant of the Snarky Dog Woman, the Mean Girl Who Turned into a Skeleton, and the Fatal Hex Sign. Don't worry, Dear Reader, I would never try to hurt anyone. Just be nice to me.

My powers never extended to the teleportation of my own person, however. As a young girl, I'd read "No Flying in the House" by Betty Brock, and been lead to believe that, with a bit of practice, I'd be able to lift off from a kitchen stool and swoop around. This was how it happened in my dreams. It was only a matter of removing the scrim between REM and reality, right? But 30 years is a long time to wait. Imagine my intrigue, then, when I came to share offices at Bonita Hollow with none other than the author of The Mentalist's Handbook, Clint Marsh.

Bearded and droll, this scholar of "practical esoterica" was elusively mysterious with his guidance. Once I cornered him in a mushroom patch, smoking an antique tobacco pipe with a visting wizard. "All is aether," he said, handing me a copy of The Mentalist's Handbook. It was in French.

The English edition, however, is beautifully illustrated by Jeff Hoke, with pictures of lost souls, fish bowls, ascending astral bodies, and aether (looking like a Pokeball) collecting around one's sex organ link. One pen-and-ink of a woman flying above a subdivision, entitled "Tamquam Alter Idem," could be an album cover for the Talking Heads' And She Was.

The Handbook is part encyclopaedia, part instruction manual, and perhaps better bathroom than bedside reading. The Dweller is too spooky! I'd be afraid to dream after looking at the wraiths and the raptured nihilists.

And speaking of dreams, the illustration of Ascension gave me shivers, looking so nearly like the form that hovered over me one dark night of my childhood. As I lay on my back there was no question that it was the Devil himself floating down from the ceiling to annihilate me. Is it still called astral projection if someone else (Satan) astral projects onto you? Can you feel an astral projection smothering your chest? If I'm astral projected into a forest, does a tree know I've been there?

In addition to listing everything you would ever need to know to show off at a Goth party--Secret Masters, Phantoms, Astral Hounds, and Devas--with illustrated costume suggestions, the Handbook provides 23 daily exercises to guide you through the astral planes and help you perform your first feats in mentalism.

For example, Exercise 8 involves bringing a plate of dirt to the dinner table and staring at it. If you can ponder the dirt on your dinner plate for over 5 minutes, your consciousness will come closer to the "submaterial vibration of the elemental kingdom of earth." Oh, wait. Exercise 9 looks more fun. It's called "Inky Flares." It's about the gestalt of consensual reality.

But the exercise I've been looking for is in the Ascension section, number 21, part b, Astral Flight. (I hope I can skip Exercises 1-20.) It's recommended that I practice with scuba diving and peering out airplane windows to get the feel. And before I leap off the astral cliff, I must learn how to make a psychic residue trail, or I'll never find my way back to my body. Kinda like Gretel with crumbs in the forest, that proverbial material plane. Time to go buy some glitter.