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84-624: Repairman Jack is a self-described "fix-it" man, but not in the common workshop sense. He is something of an underground mercenary, hired by everyday people to fix situations that cannot be dealt with through legal means (e.g. by blackmail). He is careful about who he agrees to do fix-its for, preferring innocent, desperate citizens being victimized with no one else to turn to. Jack adamantly refuses to take murder for hire jobs and almost never becomes involved in cases involving domestic issues between couples, kidnappings or missing persons as he believes officialdom, Jack's personal name for society norms such as

168-496: A keep in the Carpathian Mountains by use of the sword's hilt. This imprisonment came to an end during the events of The Keep ; Rasalom was (seemingly) destroyed along with the sword and Glaeken began to age as a human. Glaeken has since been aging normally since the late 1940s and is now an old man. However, Rasalom's demise was purely temporary—he was able to resurrect himself during the events of Reborn in

252-527: A "spirit-hand" was a false limb attached on the end of the medium Daniel Dunglas Home 's arm. Merrifield also claimed to have observed Home use his foot in the séance room. The poet Robert Browning and his wife Elizabeth attended a séance on 23, July 1855 in Ealing with the Rymers. During the séance a spirit face materialized which Home claimed was the son of Browning who had died in infancy. Browning seized

336-436: A 2019 television segment on Last Week Tonight featuring prominent purported mediums including Theresa Caputo , John Edward , Tyler Henry , and Sylvia Browne , John Oliver criticized the media for promoting mediums because this exposure convinces viewers that such powers are real, and so enable neighborhood mediums to prey on grieving families. Oliver said "...when psychic abilities are presented as authentic, it emboldens

420-464: A connecting ledge between two iron balconies. The psychologist and psychical researcher Stanley LeFevre Krebs had exposed the Bangs Sisters as frauds. During a séance he employed a hidden mirror and caught them tampering with a letter in an envelope and writing a reply in it under the table which they would pretend a spirit had written. The British materialization medium Rosina Mary Showers

504-556: A daily routine of rigorous calisthenics; a confident fighter and skilled with guns. Jack has also shown himself to be a capable actor, having successfully portrayed himself in various roles during his fix-it jobs such as an upscale realtor, a reclusive multi-millionaire and a lowlife thug. Jack is prone to fits of righteous anger in which he will dive into situations rashly, though luck, skill and creative improvisation usually serve him well. Jack prefers to handle his fix-its with cunning and finesse with how he fulfils his customer's request as

588-423: A fascinating application of psychology and not the existence of paranormal abilities. In a series of experiments holding fake séances, (Wiseman et al . 2003) paranormal believers and disbelievers were suggested by an actor that a table was levitating when, in fact, it remained stationary. After the seance, approximately one third of the participants incorrectly reported that the table had moved. The results showed

672-477: A greater percentage of believers reporting that the table had moved. In another experiment the believers had also reported that a handbell had moved when it had remained stationary and expressed their belief that the fake séances contained genuine paranormal phenomena. The experiments strongly supported the notion that in the séance room, believers are more suggestible than disbelievers for suggestions that are consistent with their belief in paranormal phenomena. In

756-463: A matter of personal pride. Though he generally keeps to himself, Jack is fiercely loyal to and protective of his loved ones. His need to protect his family is what drives much of his actions later in the series, along with an innate sense of righteousness. He enjoys playing mind games with con artists and criminals, and has a wry and sometimes dark sense of humor. Jack can also be described as vengeful and cold-blooded under certain circumstances; he often

840-503: A medium is doing a "reading" for a particular person, that person is known as the "sitter". In the 1860s and 1870s, trance mediums, also known as trance speakers, were very popular; this allowed female adherents, many who had strong interests in social justice, to speak in public in an era where doing so went against existing social norms. Many trance mediums delivered passionate speeches on abolitionism , temperance , and women's suffrage . Scholars have described Leonora Piper as one of

924-560: A series of different women with nothing in common save strange canine companions and oracular knowledge. The force the Lady and her dog represents is unclear at first, but she dislikes both the Otherness and the Ally. However, as she is openly sympathetic and helpful to Jack, her agenda tends to parallel that of the Ally, though she, like Jack, wishes neither force were present. She can see into

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1008-463: A trial Monck was convicted for his fraudulent mediumship and was sentenced to three months in prison. In 1876, William Eglinton was exposed as a fraud when the psychical researcher Thomas Colley seized a "spirit" materialization in his séance and cut off a portion of its cloak. It was discovered that the cut piece matched a cloth found in Eglinton's suitcase . Colley also pulled the beard off

1092-477: A vast underworld of unscrupulous vultures, more than happy to make money by offering an open line to the afterlife, as well as many other bullshit services." From its earliest beginnings to contemporary times, mediumship practices have had many instances of fraud and trickery. Séances take place in darkness so the poor lighting conditions can become an easy opportunity for fraud. Physical mediumship that has been investigated by scientists has been discovered to be

1176-483: A very serious scientific interest in the work of medium Eusapia Palladino . Other prominent adherents included journalist and pacifist William T. Stead (1849–1912) and physician and author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930). After the exposure of the fraudulent use of stage magic tricks by physical mediums such as the Davenport Brothers and the Bangs Sisters , mediumship fell into disrepute. However,

1260-402: Is "the extralegal prevention, investigation, or punishment of offenses." The definition has three components: Other scholars have defined "collective vigilantism" as "group violence to punish perceived offenses to a community." Les Johnston argues that vigilantism has six necessary components: Vigilantism and the vigilante ethos existed long before the word vigilante was introduced into

1344-490: Is also faced with internal challenges, such as facing the possibility of having to give up his entire adult lifestyle. As the series progresses, the appearance of supernatural beings and situations lead Jack to become entangled in a larger, universal fight. While he protests his involvement, he is dragged deeper with each novel into growing unrest and chaos—the observable effects of a cosmic battle for all existence. The two major forces involved are called (by their earthly agents)

1428-434: Is an arms dealer and information specialist, and his other good friend runs a bar that Jack often uses as a checkpoint to meet with potential customers. Jack is a man who carefully keeps himself outside of what he terms "officialdom", refusing to enter the workforce (and claims to have no U.S. Social Security number). Because of this and the fact that he has earned many enemies over the years, his physical appearance embodies

1512-421: Is associated with spiritualism and spiritism . A similar New Age practice is known as channeling . Belief in psychic ability is widespread despite the absence of empirical evidence for its existence. Scientific researchers have attempted to ascertain the validity of claims of mediumship for more than one hundred years and have consistently failed to confirm them. As late as 2005, an experiment undertaken by

1596-417: Is indifferent to killing those he deems deserving of death. Jack performed his first "fix-it" as a teenager. A vandal continually destroyed his neighbor's lawn with his car, and he offered his services not only in repairing the damage, but ensuring that it would not recur. Upon agreeing payment, Jack hid a series of reinforced metal spikes in a hedge surrounding the yard, which destroyed the tires and engine of

1680-514: Is known as the Heir, because should Glaeken die, Jack will become the Ally's new champion—or leave Earth defenseless. The Nightworld series, parent to the Repairman Jack series, already names Jack as a main fighter in the cosmic war. Several novels in, it is revealed that a third force in the power struggle has been making its presence known through various representatives: The Lady, seemingly

1764-457: Is of greater-than-average value as it is a world containing sentient life. Sentience is rare, making this world more attractive to the Ally—much like a stone with a distinct shape or pattern. The Otherness (and its agents) derive sustenance from destruction and thus finds sentient life useful as it can be guided to destroy its surroundings and itself—like self-slaughtering cattle. This is the reason

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1848-545: Is played by fraud in spiritualistic practices, both in the physical and psychical, or automatic, phenomena, but especially in the former. The frequency with which mediums have been convicted of fraud has, indeed, induced many people to abandon the study of psychical research, judging the whole bulk of the phenomena to be fraudulently produced. In Britain, the Society for Psychical Research has investigated mediumship phenomena. Critical SPR investigations into purported mediums and

1932-415: Is still rife in the medium or psychic industry, with cases of deception and trickery being discovered to this day. Several different variants of mediumship have been described; arguably the best-known forms involve a spirit purportedly taking control of a medium's voice and using it to relay a message, or where the medium simply "hears" the message and passes it on. Other forms involve materializations of

2016-434: Is the act of preventing, investigating, and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority . A vigilante is a person who practices or partakes in vigilantism, or undertakes public safety and retributive justice without commission. The term is borrowed from Italian vigilante , which means 'sentinel' or 'watcher', from Latin vigilāns . According to political scientist Regina Bateson, vigilantism

2100-523: The British Psychological Society reaffirmed that test subjects who self-identified as mediums demonstrated no mediumistic ability. Mediumship gained popularity during the nineteenth century when ouija boards were used as a source of entertainment. Investigations during this period revealed widespread fraud —with some practitioners employing techniques used by stage magicians —and the practice began to lose credibility. Fraud

2184-404: The "materialization" and discovered it to be the bare foot of Home. To make the deception worse, Browning had never lost a son in infancy. Browning's son Robert in a letter to The Times , December 5, 1902, referred to the incident "Home was detected in a vulgar fraud." The researchers Joseph McCabe and Trevor H. Hall exposed the " levitation " of Home as nothing more than his moving across

2268-638: The "products of the medium's own psychological dynamics." A fraudulent medium may obtain information about their sitters by secretly eavesdropping on sitter's conversations or searching telephone directories, the internet and newspapers before the sittings. A technique called cold reading can also be used to obtain information from the sitter's behavior, clothing, posture, and jewellery. The psychologist Richard Wiseman has written: Cold reading also explains why psychics have consistently failed scientific tests of their powers. By isolating them from their clients, psychics are unable to pick up information from

2352-585: The 1920s, was among the most prominent debunkers of psychic fraud during the mid-20th century. Many 19th century mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud . While advocates of mediumship claim that their experiences are genuine, the Encyclopædia Britannica article on spiritualism notes in reference to a case in the 19th century that "...one by one, the Spiritualist mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud, sometimes employing

2436-400: The Ally and the Otherness. The Ally "collects" worlds as souvenirs , the Otherness "consumes" worlds as a predator . The conflict is thus not so much a matter of " good and evil " as " indifferent and inimical ". It is stressed repeatedly in the novels that though both forces require control over all of existence, the value of individual worlds is negligible—but it is also stated that Earth

2520-658: The Ally's cause—against Rasalom. At some point more than 1000 years ago, Glaeken became estranged from the Yeniçeri and left them to their own devices. The battles between the Adversary and the Sentinel continued—to the point of Glaeken temporarily slaying Rasalom multiple times—finally, Glaeken succeeded in overpowering him approximately a thousand years ago. However, Glaeken had grown to enjoy his agelessness, and knew that it would end with Rasalom's death. He thus sealed him in

2604-535: The Ally. Jack has met him several times, each time barely surviving the experience. The Ally once had a corresponding champion dubbed the Sentinel—a warrior known as Glaeken. Soon after Rasalom was empowered, Glaeken was given a magical sword that strengthened and healed him while weakening and harming agents of the Otherness. Thus empowered, he was directed to lead the Yeniçeri —orphaned children raised to fight in

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2688-428: The Ally. The phrase, "a spear has no branches" is applied to him often, as the Ally attempts to hone him into a lone, hardened warrior by killing those he has emotional attachments to. He later finds out the Ally has specified him as the second in line of the Ally's forces. The Twins have been destroyed by the Otherness and the Ally's original champion Glaeken, nicknamed the Sentinel, is old and failing. At this point, Jack

2772-721: The Biblical account of the Witch of Endor . Mediumship became quite popular in the 19th-century United States and the United Kingdom after the rise of Spiritualism as a religious movement. Modern Spiritualism is said to date from practices and lectures of the Fox sisters in New York State in 1848. The trance mediums Paschal Beverly Randolph and Emma Hardinge Britten were among the most celebrated lecturers and authors on

2856-465: The Earth. In Bloodline , Jack discovers he may be more closely linked to the Otherness than he had previously realized—a scion of an ancient and powerful bloodline with a proven potential for violent conflict. It remains to be seen if Jack will have new abilities bestowed upon him at some point to level the playing ground, or if he will continue to remain a character firmly rooted in the "real world". In

2940-567: The English language. There are conceptual parallels between the medieval aristocratic custom of private war or vendetta and the modern vigilante philosophy. Elements of the concept of vigilantism can be found in the biblical account in Genesis 34 of the abduction and rape (or, by some interpretations, seduction) of Dinah , the daughter of Jacob , in the Canaanite city of Shechem by

3024-705: The United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, over 340 Spiritualist churches and centres open their doors to the public and free demonstrations of mediumship are regularly performed. In 1958, American Spiritualist C. Dorreen Phillips wrote of her experiences with a medium at Camp Chesterfield , Indiana : "In Rev. James Laughton's séances there are many Indians . They are very noisy and appear to have great power. [...] The little guides, or doorkeepers, are usually Indian boys and girls [who act] as messengers who help to locate

3108-576: The arts of the séance" by Herne and was repeatedly exposed as a fraudulent medium. The medium Henry Slade was caught in fraud many times throughout his career. In a séance in 1876 in London Ray Lankester and Bryan Donkin snatched his slate before the "spirit" message was supposed to be written, and found the writing already there. Slade also played an accordion with one hand under the table and claimed spirits would play it. The magician Chung Ling Soo revealed how Slade had performed

3192-409: The brain. Physical mediumship is defined as manipulation of energies and energy systems by spirits. This type of mediumship is said to involve perceptible manifestations, such as loud raps and noises, voices, materialized objects, apports, materialized spirit bodies, or body parts such as hands, legs and feet. The medium is used as a source of power for such spirit manifestations. By some accounts, this

3276-537: The bridge and traced back to the bridge. Though he never feels any guilt for his first act as a vigilante , he still felt transformed by it, to the point where he decided that he had no place in his old world. He dropped out and left "officialdom", entering his underground lifestyle in New York where he almost completely severs ties with family and friends, except for very rare telephone calls and even rarer personal visits to his father. Jack lives in what appears to be

3360-458: The character of Jack's "Uncle Gurney," the protagonist of his drug-war satire short story "Lipidleggin'," and the ancestor of far-future economic revolutionary Peter LaNague. F. Paul Wilson , in early 2011, signed a contract to write an additional Repairman Jack trilogy after the completion of the main story arc with The Dark at the End and the heavily revised Nightworld . The new trilogy focuses on

3444-665: The eponymous son of the ruler, and the violent reaction of her brothers Simeon and Levi , who slew all of the males of the city in revenge, rescued their sister and plundered Shechem. When Jacob protested that their actions might bring trouble upon him and his family, the brothers replied "Should he [i.e., Shechem] treat our sister as a harlot?" In the Western literary and cultural tradition, characteristics of vigilantism have often been vested in folkloric heroes and outlaws (e.g., Robin Hood ). During medieval times, punishment of felons

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3528-432: The events of "Ground Zero" but before the events of "Fatal Error." Spiritual medium Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spirit channelling , including séance tables , trance , and ouija . The practice

3612-513: The events of the adult Jack's life, but will perhaps elaborate on hints about his past that Jack has dropped in the novels so far. The first, published in 2008, is titled Secret Histories . The second was published in February 2010 and is titled Secret Circles . The final novel in the trilogy, Secret Vengeance , came out in February 2011. This trilogy finally puts in print Wilson's stated connection between his supernatural and science fiction via

3696-489: The exposure of fake mediums has led to a number of resignations by Spiritualist members. On the subject of fraud in mediumship Paul Kurtz wrote: No doubt a great importance in the paranormal field is the problem of fraud. The field of psychic research and spiritualism has been so notoriously full of charlatans, such as the Fox sisters and Eusapia Palladino –individuals who claim to have special power and gifts but who are actually conjurers who have hoodwinked scientists and

3780-451: The future and command certain superhuman powers. The force she represents appears not to be as powerful as either the Otherness or the Ally: she cannot drive out the Otherness and various forms of hers can be killed by Otherness creatures (though seem immune to any earthly danger), and she cannot over-ride or over-rule the Ally. Rasalom knows her as The Lady, and initially appears to fear her. It

3864-446: The government and does his best to not leave behind traces of his identity when out and about. He advertises his services strictly by word of mouth and via an anonymous website. Jack has two older siblings, and over the course of the novels a complex family history is revealed, along with a larger agenda that involves every member of his family. He has a girlfriend with a young daughter, to whom he gives undying loyalty. Jack's best friend

3948-429: The hypothesis that spirits speak independently of the medium, who facilitates the phenomenon rather than produces it. The role of the medium is to make the connection between the physical and spirit worlds. Trumpets are often utilised to amplify the signal, and directed voice mediums are sometimes known as "trumpet mediums". This form of mediumship also permits the medium to participate in the discourse during séances, since

4032-516: The indifferent force has been dubbed the Ally—but this definition extends to humans only so long as they serve its ends. The Otherness has a powerful champion dubbed the Adversary—an evil magician once known as Rasalom. Ages past, Rasalom made a deal with the Otherness; in exchange for power and eternal life , he would lead the Otherness's minions—malevolent supernatural entities—in its campaign against

4116-408: The late 1960s. Shortly thereafter, a pair of superhuman beings known as "The Twins" (responsible for the worldwide sightings of men in black ) took leadership over the Yeniçeri . Since his rebirth, Rasalom has been keeping a low profile so as not to attract the attention of Glaeken, The Twins or the Yeniçeri. In modern times, Jack has found himself chosen, against his knowledge and will, to represent

4200-460: The materialization and it was revealed to be a fake, the same as another one found in the suitcase of Eglinton. In 1880 in a séance a spirit named "Yohlande" materialized, a sitter grabbed it and was revealed to be the medium Mme. d'Esperance herself. In September 1878 the British medium Charles Williams and his fellow-medium at the time, A. Rita, were detected in trickery at Amsterdam. During

4284-634: The medium and that there was no evidence for the spirit hypothesis. The idea of mediumship being explained by telepathy was later merged into the " super-ESP " hypothesis of mediumship which is currently advocated by some parapsychologists . In their book How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age , authors Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn have noted that the spiritualist and ESP hypothesis of mediumship "has yielded no novel predictions, assumes unknown entities or forces, and conflicts with available scientific evidence." Scientists who study anomalistic psychology consider mediumship to be

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4368-420: The medium's voice is not required by the spirit to communicate. Leslie Flint was one of the best known exponents of this form of mediumship. Senses used by mental mediums are sometimes defined differently from in other paranormal fields. A medium is said to have psychic abilities but not all psychics function as mediums. The term clairvoyance , for instance, may include seeing spirit and visions instilled by

4452-427: The modern form of the old mediumship, where the "channel" (or channeller) purportedly receives messages from "teaching-spirit", an " Ascended master ", from God , or from an angelic entity , but essentially through the filter of his own waking consciousness (or " Higher Self "). Attempts to communicate with the dead and other living human beings, aka spirits, have been documented back to early human history, such as

4536-566: The most famous trance mediums in the history of Spiritualism. Trance speakers believed that entering a trance gave them access to the spirits and, through them, to knowledge inaccessible in the waking world. Sometimes an assistant would write down the medium's words, such as in the early 20th century collaboration between the trance medium Mrs. Cecil M. Cook of the William T. Stead Memorial Center in Chicago (a religious body incorporated under

4620-448: The murder after police dismissed the crime as unsolvable. Jack eventually found the culprit, a vandal who Jack not only witnesses preparing to throw another cinder block off the bridge, but boasts of having performed the act on the same day and in the same location as the murder. The culprit is thus identified to Jack's satisfaction, but Jack is left with a quandary; the crime remains unprosecutable due to lack of reproducible evidence, i.e.

4704-571: The normal modern city of New York ; he gets involved in many "mundane" fix-its where he deals with gangsters, criminals, cults, con artists and kidnappers, but he also runs into supernatural creatures and beings that are often tied to the illegal dealings. Typically, Jack gets involved in multiple fix-its in each novel, usually one of those turning into a large issue that leads him to use his skills to battle supernatural forces. Jack also begins to find his loved ones threatened by these forces, and while he struggles to maintain some control over his life, he

4788-515: The novel, By The Sword , the cycle is nearing completion as the early events of Nightworld are re-introduced; Jack meets Glaeken for the first time, and the confrontation with The Adversary is drawing near. There has been tentative news of a Repairman Jack movie based on the first novel ( The Tomb , or Rakoshi ). Plot setting and elements of the original plot most likely will be altered due to filming location. A trilogy of young adult novels about Jack's teenage years has come out. They do not change

4872-897: The police, is the best option in those situations given their superior resources. These fix-its usually begin simply, but grow into complex problems that begin to involve more and more science-fiction and supernatural elements as the novels continue. The second novel, Legacies , is the only one that is completely free of any overtly supernatural elements. All of Jack's fix-its are immediately relevant problems in today's world, covering topics such as conspiracy groups, grassroots movements, designer drugs, public shootings, terrorists, legal dealings, and scientific and biological experiments. Jack relies on his brain, wits, experience, and real-life weapons and techniques to do battle, and though he makes increasing use of supernatural sources of information (a spiritual medium ), he has so far not used supernatural weapons or abilities in battle. Jack hides his identity from

4956-405: The precepts of Prophecy and Healing are Divine attributes proven through Mediumship." "Mental mediumship" is communication of spirits with a medium by telepathy . The medium mentally "hears" (clairaudience), "sees" (clairvoyance), and/or feels (clairsentience) messages from spirits. Directly or with the help of a spirit guide, the medium passes the information on to the message's recipient(s). When

5040-423: The public as well–that we have to be especially cautious about claims made on their behalf. Magicians have a long history of exposing the fraudulent methods of mediumship. Early debunkers included Chung Ling Soo , Henry Evans and Julien Proskauer . Later magicians to reveal fraud were Joseph Dunninger , Harry Houdini and Joseph Rinn . Rose Mackenberg , a private investigator who worked with Houdini during

5124-560: The religion and its beliefs continue in spite of this, with physical mediumship and seances falling out of practice and platform mediumship coming to the fore. In the late 1920s and early 1930s there were around one quarter of a million practising Spiritualists and some two thousand Spiritualist societies in the UK in addition to flourishing microcultures of platform mediumship and 'home circles'. Spiritualism continues to be practised, primarily through various denominational Spiritualist churches in

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5208-451: The result of deception and trickery. Ectoplasm, a supposed paranormal substance, was revealed to have been made from cheesecloth, butter, muslin, and cloth. Mediums would also stick cut-out faces from magazines and newspapers onto cloth or on other props and use plastic dolls in their séances to pretend to their audiences spirits were contacting them. Lewis Spence in his book An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1960) wrote: A very large part

5292-486: The result of fraud and psychological factors. Research from psychology for over a hundred years suggests that where there is not fraud, mediumship and Spiritualist practices can be explained by hypnotism , magical thinking and suggestion . Trance mediumship, which according to Spiritualists is caused by discarnate spirits speaking through the medium, can be explained by dissociative identity disorder . Illusionists, such as Joseph Rinn have staged fake séances in which

5376-560: The sitters have claimed to have observed genuine supernatural phenomena. Albert Moll studied the psychology of séance sitters. According to (Wolffram, 2012) "[Moll] argued that the hypnotic atmosphere of the darkened séance room and the suggestive effect of the experimenters' social and scientific prestige could be used to explain why seemingly rational people vouchsafed occult phenomena." The psychologists Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones in their book Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking (1989) wrote that spirits controls are

5460-458: The spirit friends who wish to speak with you." A spirit who uses a medium to manipulate psychic "energy" or "energy systems." In old-line Spiritualism, a portion of the services, generally toward the end, is given over to demonstrations of mediumship through purported contact with the spirits of the dead. A typical example of this way of describing a mediumistic church service is found in the 1958 autobiography of C. Dorreen Phillips. She writes of

5544-656: The spirit or the presence of a voice, and telekinetic activity. In Spiritism and Spiritualism the medium has the role of an intermediary between the world of the living and the world of spirit. Mediums say that they can listen to and relay messages from spirits, or that they can allow a spirit to control their body and speak through it directly or by using automatic writing or drawing . Spiritualists classify types of mediumship into two main categories: "mental" and "physical": During seances, mediums are said to go into trances , varying from light to deep, that permit spirits to control their minds. Channeling can be seen as

5628-586: The spirit world. The Parapsychological Association defines "clairvoyance" as information derived directly from an external physical source. Spiritualists believe that phenomena produced by mediums (both mental and physical mediumship) are the result of external spirit agencies. The psychical researcher Thomson Jay Hudson in The Law of Psychic Phenomena (1892) and Théodore Flournoy in his book Spiritism and Psychology (1911) wrote that all kinds of mediumship could be explained by suggestion and telepathy from

5712-417: The spoken confession. Jack thus chooses to disable the vandal, reveal himself as the son of the woman he murdered with the cinder block, then suspend him from the underside of the bridge in a position where he will not be visible, at a height where his body will be repeatedly struck by passing semi trailers but not their cabs. The vandal's body is not found until smears of blood are found on the trailers far from

5796-550: The statutes of the State of Illinois) and the journalist Lloyd Kenyon Jones . The latter was a non-medium Spiritualist who transcribed Cook's messages in shorthand . He edited them for publication in book and pamphlet form. Castillo (1995) states, Trance phenomena result from the behavior of intense focusing of attention, which is the key psychological mechanism of trance induction. Adaptive responses, including institutionalized forms of trance, are 'tuned' into neural networks in

5880-526: The subject in the mid-19th century. Allan Kardec coined the term Spiritism around 1860. Kardec wrote that conversations with spirits by selected mediums were the basis of his The Spirits' Book and later, his five-book collection, Spiritist Codification . Some scientists of the period who investigated Spiritualism also became converts. They included chemist Robert Hare , physicist William Crookes (1832–1919) and evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913). Nobel laureate Pierre Curie took

5964-460: The séance a materialized spirit was seized and found to be Rita and a bottle of phosphorus oil, muslin and a false beard were found amongst the two mediums. In 1882 C. E. Wood was exposed in a séance in Peterborough. Her Indian spirit control "Pocka" was found to be the medium on her knees, covered in muslin. Vigilante Vigilantism ( / v ɪ dʒ ɪ ˈ l æ n t ɪ z əm / )

6048-528: The techniques of stage magicians in their attempts to convince people of their clairvoyant powers." The article also notes that "the exposure of widespread fraud within the spiritualist movement severely damaged its reputation and pushed it to the fringes of society in the United States." At a séance in the house of the solicitor John Snaith Rymer in Ealing in July 1855, a sitter Frederick Merrifield observed that

6132-522: The time period immediately following Jack's relocation to New York City. The first book, entitled Cold City , was published in November 2012. The second novel, entitled Dark City , came out in October 2013. The third entry in this last trilogy, entitled Fear City , was released in November 2014. In 2019, Wilson published another Repairman Jack novel entitled "The Last Christmas" which takes place after

6216-429: The trick. The British medium Francis Ward Monck was investigated by psychical researchers and discovered to be a fraud. On November 3, 1876, during the séance a sitter demanded that Monck be searched. Monck ran from the room, locked himself in another room and escaped out of a window. A pair of stuffed gloves was found in his room, as well as cheesecloth, reaching rods and other fraudulent devices in his luggage. After

6300-471: The tricks she had used. Frank Herne a British medium who formed a partnership with the medium Charles Williams was repeatedly exposed in fraudulent materialization séances. In 1875, he was caught pretending to be a spirit during a séance in Liverpool and was found "clothed in about two yards of stiffened muslin, wound round his head and hanging down as far as his thigh." Florence Cook had been "trained in

6384-441: The vandal's car when he again attempted to destroy the lawn. This would describe most of Jack's "fix-its"—simple yet elegant plans that turned the destructive actions of others upon themselves. When he was in college, Jack's mother was murdered in front of him and his father when a cinder block was thrown off of a bridge through the front window of their car. This compelled Jack to perform his first self-employed fix-it; investigating

6468-408: The way those clients dress or behave. By presenting all of the volunteers involved in the test with all of the readings, they are prevented from attributing meaning to their own reading, and therefore can't identify it from readings made for others. As a result, the type of highly successful hit rate that psychics enjoy on a daily basis comes crashing down and the truth emerges – their success depends on

6552-425: The word "average": he is of average height, average build, with brown hair and eyes. Jack's entire outward appearance is cultivated so that he does not draw attention to himself as he's often described as not being the least bit memorable or someone who would not be looked at twice, which is invaluable to him in most of his various fix-it jobs. He is physically fit but not obviously so as his exercise routine consists of

6636-781: The worship services at the Spiritualist Camp Chesterfield in Chesterfield, Indiana : "Services are held each afternoon, consisting of hymns, a lecture on philosophy, and demonstrations of mediumship." Today "demonstration of mediumship" is part of the church service at all churches affiliated with the National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC) and the Spiritualists' National Union (SNU). Demonstration links to NSAC's Declaration of Principal #9. "We affirm that

6720-467: Was achieved by using the energy or ectoplasm released by a medium, see spirit photography . The last physical medium to be tested by a committee from Scientific American was Mina Crandon in 1924. Most physical mediumship is presented in a darkened or dimly lit room. Most physical mediums make use of a traditional array of tools and appurtenances, including spirit trumpets, spirit cabinets, and levitation tables. Direct voice communication refers to

6804-515: Was caught in many fraudulent séances throughout her career. In 1874 during a séance with Edward William Cox a sitter looked into the cabinet and seized the spirit, the headdress fell off and was revealed to be Showers. In a series of experiments in London at the house of William Crookes in February 1875, the medium Anna Eva Fay managed to fool Crookes into believing she had genuine psychic powers. Fay later confessed to her fraud and revealed

6888-408: Was first speculated that The Lady is a representation of " Mother Earth ", because she repeatedly calls herself Jack's and other people's "Mother". Also, when an agent of the Otherness was burying supernaturally dark artifacts across the globe, all her forms simultaneously showed a pattern of scarring that mapped the artifacts' locations. Another clue was that her yard, in the midst of a ban on watering,

6972-427: Was incredibly lush and verdant. A final clue was that she at one point called herself Herta, an anagram for Earth. In Ground Zero , however, she reveals that this was misleading, and she is in fact the physical manifestation of the noosphere : the emergence of sentience. She, and her dog, are a living (and semi-immortal) beacon proclaiming that Earth is sentient. Should she be extinguished, the Ally will lose interest in

7056-837: Was sometimes exercised by such secret societies as the courts of the Vehm ( cf. the medieval Sardinian Gamurra later become Barracelli , the Sicilian Vendicatori and the Beati Paoli ), a type of early vigilante organization, which became extremely powerful in Westphalian Germany during the 15th century. In some regions of Mexico, mainly in the state of Michoacan , people affected by criminal groups like Los Zetas and La Familia Michoacana , created vigilante groups called Grupos de autodefensa comunitaria in 2013. Their most notorious leader Hipólito Mora ,

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