paraVance

A fight of phantoms.
interior art by Kweskin
(was this Sam Kweskin?)

It is 6 years since Jack Vance died on May 26, 2013. Vance was born in 1916 and his science fiction publishing career stretched from 1945 (The World-Thinker) to 2004 (Lurulu). I was introduced to Vance's writing through books (that was in the late 1970s), but early in his career all his stories were published in magazines. It is fun to go back to those old Sci Fi magazines and see Vance's early stories as they first appeared in print.

Each May or August, I celebrate the writing of Vance with special blog posts. For May 2019, I read a story that Vance published in 1958: "Parapsyche". You can download the August 1958 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories from several places, including this webpage.

Contents for "Parapsyche"

Parapsyche. This story is of interest to me because Vance often hinted at the existence of telepathic or "parapsychic" abilities in his stories. Usually the hints were subtle, but in "Parapsyche", Vance went all-out to explore the idea that there might be some truth to the idea that ghosts exist and after death, we all will "live" on in an after-life, in what I'll call the paraworld.

This story by Vance reminds me of The Discovery, a film from 2017 that explored the idea that people might be able to obtain scientific evidence for life after death.

Fwai-chi

Paraworld
In his novel Marune, Vance depicts a shopkeeper (Skogel) as casually saying, we "swim in a paracosmic fluid, which no one can comprehend". On the planet Marune lives a native alien species called the Fwai-chi. Skogel continues, "I have long speculated that the Fwai-chi interact with the paracosmos somewhat more readily than men".

It is fun to imagine that an alien species might be able to "connect" to a part of the universe that usually exists beyond the reach of human senses. Maybe the Fwai-chi are remnants of a technologically advanced civilization that managed to use their advanced technology to gain access to a part of the physical world that we humans are currently unaware of.

The main characters in "Parapsyche".

Speed of Thought
In Vance's imagined paraworld, souls can move around "at the speed of thought". This is depicted via the experiences of Don Berwick who we first encounter as a 17-year-old boy. He takes the 15-year-old Jean out on Halloween night to visit a "haunted house". They see a "ghost", what looks to be someone who was murdered in the house five years previously. The "ghost" emits some "agonized throat-wrenching sobs" and the kids who see the "ghost" are appropriately awed and excited.

"Ghost" in a haunted house

They go to investigate, and discover that the ghostly image of the past murder scene is a "double-exposure sort of thing" that disappears when they get near.

After that experience, Don devotes his life to investigating paranormal phenomena. Eventually, he goes through a process of cooling his body and stopping his biological functions. At that point, his "soul" moves out of his body. Don's consciousness finds itself existing in a kind of parallel world where he can still see Jean, but it is only through extraordinary effort that he can make Jean notice his presence.

Now both dead, Don is then attacked by the "soul" of Jean's half brother, the Christian Crusader, Hugh. They engage in the "fight of phantoms" that is depicted in the image at the top of this blog post. Vance suggests that the relative powers of Don and Hugh in the paraworld are in some way linked to the number of living people who believe in them and support their cause. Don is devoted to science and rationalism while Hugh is the leader of a religious crusade.

Vance's introduction to "Parapsyche".

As a science fiction story, "Parapsyche" is somewhat unusual. Vance wrote a short introduction (shown to the left) to the story that mentioned Elmer Gantry. "Parapsyche" explores a struggle between two groups:
1) a few scientists who try to investigate paranormal phenomena
and
2) Christians who view the investigative work of Don and Jean as blasphemous.

I wonder if a young Carl Sagan might have been influenced by Jack Vance's writing. Sagan eventually wrote a science fiction novel (Contact) that included an examination of the differences between science and religion as ways of understanding the world we live in.

cover art by Joseph Doolin

Vance grew up reading stories in the magazine Weird Tales. When reminiscing about his youth, the first author he mentioned having read in the pages of Weird Tales was Seabury Quinn. One of Quinn's first stories published in Weird Tales was "The Phantom Farmhouse". The October 1923 edition can be downloaded at websites such as this one. "The Phantom Farmhouse" was republished in the March 1929 edition, when Vance would have been in his own personal golden age.

source

It is easy to imagine how Vance's "Parapsyche" was influenced and shaped by his having read stories such as "The Phantom Farmhouse". Quinn's story "The Phantom Farmhouse" was apparently the inspiration for a "Night Gallery" story that appeared on television in 1971.

in Weird Tales

Marsile No. 1

Jack Vance took a few science classes when he attended college. He often included geological details in his stories. In "Parapsyche", Jean's father (who grows oranges in southern California) hires a dowser to find a source of ground water on a plot of land. The dowser mentions that there is oil under the land. After Jean's father dies, she is able to speak to him indirectly by way of a "medium", Iva. He confirms that the oil is there.

Don and Jean wonder if Iva is a telepath, reading people's minds and telling them what they want to hear. Eventually, a deep drilling effort eventually reaches the oil, providing the needed ca$h to finance scientific investigation of "life after death".

Don's hunch is that if souls exist, "they're made of some sort of substance. Perhaps not molecules, but something." He posits a "super-normal continuum" beyond the physical world so far known to science, a paraworld that is the natural domain for "mind stuff".

Jung's collective unconscious

Mind Network
After his experience with Iva, Don proposes using multiple "mediums" to send information back and forth to each-other through the "super-normal continuum". After the first experiment, Don proposes a theory of the "after-world", that it is the human collective unconscious. Don and Jean also discuss the idea that it might be possible to make connections to the "after-world" while dreaming.

dream visions

Unknown to the world in the 20th century, Jung himself functioned as a kind of "medium" from about 1913 to the 1930s, as revealed when his Red Book was finally published.

Don proposes that he be placed into a state of unconsciousness, and then a test will be made: will several independent "mediums" detect his presence in the paraworld? Don undergoes general anesthesia and speculates about the possibility of using drugs as a means to push his mind over to the paraworld. The preliminary experiments are unsuccessful, so Don allows himself to be chilled down to the point of stopping his heart.

Lucky Don Berwick.

According to Don's theory of the paraworld, his "power" on the "other side" will depend on what other (living) people think of him. Lucky for Don, during the Korean war he was taken prisoner and when the tale of his escape is published in Life magazine, his fame is assured.

Unfortunately, the Christian Crusader, Hugh, is also quite famous, so they must fight a well-matched battle after they cross over into the paraworld. The ending of "Parapsyche"  reminds me of 50s and 60s television, where the struggle between good and evil always had to end with a fist fight. Vance had done a stint writing for a television show.

source

Synchronicity
Vance never seemed to shy away from unlikely coincidences in his story writing. In "Parapsyche", Art Marsile tries to find water for his orange trees and he finds oil where all the geologists say there is no oil. Don not only survives imprisonment in a Chinese camp where most of the other soldiers die horrible deaths, but his experience as a prisoner of war becomes his ticket to fame and power in the paraworld. Don needs publicity and Kelso, a photographer for Life magazine, promptly appears in the plot of "Parapsyche".

1990

After "dying" and finding himself in the paraworld, Don flies off to the Moon and then Mars, traveling at "the speed of thought". Returning to Earth and willing himself to re-materialize in the physical world, Don saves Jean's life, pulling her out of a burning building. Later, after a boost to his power in the paraworld, Don is able to return to our world ("re-materialize") and live happily ever after with Jean.

"Strange things happen. Almost everyone has had some sort of brush with the paranormal, even the most resistant and skeptical of persons. The range of events is wide and only roughly amenable to classification. In olden times angels and demons were held responsible; to date no one has produced a more reasonable explanation. 

"Don defeats his dead foe"

Phenomena such as telepathy and poltergeists may well be manifestations of different and distinct principles; there may be two, three, four, or more such realms of knowledge, each at least as rich and intricate as physics or astronomy. There is little systematic study. Conventional scientists shy away from the field because they are, in fact, conventional; because they fear to compromise their careers; because the subject is difficult to get a grip on; because scientists are as susceptible to awe and eeriness as anyone else. So: the mysteries persist; the lore accumulates, and we know for sure no more than our remote ancestors, if as much." (source)

Related Reading: Jack Vance's story about telekinesis.
Also: The Blind Spot and The Brains of Earth
Buy the text of "Parapsyche" in ebook format.
Next: old Asimov stories about telepathy

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