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Mediums Rare

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I bought this book thinking this was fiction. It is, but it isn't. Mediums Rare is a short compendium of famous psychics throughout history, told in a fictitous format. Masterson starts out with the story of King Croesus of Lydia, which took place around five forty-six b.c. Croesus wanted to declare war on a neighboring country. So, he sent out an envoy to seven oracles to ask them the same question. "What is King Croesus doing today? The first six failed, and the seventh passed. King Croesus asked the seventh oracle what would happen if he invaded the neighboring country? The oracle said that a great army will be defeated. King Croesus assumed his army would win and didn't see the need to ask the oracle whether or not this was true. Lydia lost the war. There are other stories, such as the Fox Sisters and Nettie Colburn, who advised Abraham Lincoln visit the Army of the Potomac (which ultimately ended slavery in America). Out of all of them, the story of Edgar Cayce is the most extraordinary. Supposedly, he was visited by an angel, who gave him his special ability when he was thirteen years old. It is said that Cayce gave 14,256 psychic readings. At the end of the book, Masterson summaries each case and talks about the decline of the spiritual craze of the 19th century. Scientists no longer ridule people who claim to be psychic like they did in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but study them. For those of you who enjoy Richard Matheson's stories, or the subject of the paranormal, this does not disappoint.