12 Oct 1929 – A First Glance At New Books

Add to the horrors of house to house canvassing and the collection of bills and the threat of red-haired psychic woman, who calling upon her control, was seized with a superhuman strength and threw a fresh expressman down the stairs. And if you don’t believe it, there it is in print on page 111 of “A Curious Life” by George Wehner an interesting but doubtful book. Mr. Wehner in the book admits he is possessed of a familiar and so he ought to know whether a red-haired lady in possession of her favourite spirit could throw a big man down stairs like the gander descending upon the man who wouldn’t say his prayers. He says she can. Among Mr. Wehner’s spirits is Frank “who generally opens my séances by whistling very beautifully”.  Leota, rechristened Lolita by Dorothy Benjamin Caruso is a guide frequently difficult to understand. She is a wise-cracker and apparently an Indian. Alestes reveals the hidden meanings of dreams and in no such manner as that of Dr. Sigmund Freud. Dr. Freeman is the guide who helps the author go into a trance, while Rudolph Valentino is breaking his heart trying to become one of Mr. Wehner’s guides. Black Hawk on the other hand has already succeeded and can tell what is ailing people with an uncanny precision not usually associated with a dead Indian Chief  or an eight-cylindered motorcar.It is all very interesting and doubt less Mr. Wehner believes it is all very true. The reader, addicted perhaps in such material and non-occult matters as the march of Eli Yale through Georgia or the slaughter wrought by the Athletic batsmen on the Cubs pitching staff will be more likely to raise an eyebrow to ask how the author gets that way.  It might be recorded however that Valentino told Natacha Rambova he knew she would come to the séance in New York. Which suggests that Mr. Banton, the District Attorney and Mr. LaGuardia, the candidate for Mayor, and Mr. Enright who didn’t solve the Dot King and Elswell murders, might better get into consultation right away with Mr. Wehner. Perhaps Black Hawk or Alestes or Lolita or Rudolph Valentino could tell them who really did shoot Arnold Rothstein.