RIDERS ON THE STORM
Sex Magnetism – Cris W Wiegand
“Mankind has always stood in awe of Magnetism: the reason is we know so little about it. The loss of life and property by magnetic disturbances is enormous. Slowly but surely humanity is reducing that enormous toll. Strange as it may seem, a (so called) destructive force is our most obedient slave when in control. To control it means to first know it, and for that it is to Nature herself that we must go. Where destruction is almost complete, this is not much to investigate; a long laborious job is before us. However, every little bit of knowledge, added to what we have, brings us a little closer to the solution.”
Thus begins Cris W Wiegand’s curious work on ‘sex magnetism’, following an unfathomable 75 preceding pages of photos, figures, and graphics that illustrate whatever weather sorcery this 1930s Chicago storm-chaser is geeking out about. I bought it on a whim while seeking a book of the same title; it’s just so beautiful with its tan faux-leather cover and ‘global gravitas’ graphic.
Inside, I discovered the author had written a personal felicitation to a Colonel someone. I was still wondering if this was a book about, um, sex-sex magnetism at this point; perhaps this was some sort of Office of Strategic Services sexperiment in, say, synchronised army jerk-offs to blow down a commie’s house using blessed, all-natural, star-spangled Mother Nature™️ – you know, some sort of bizarrely on-brand precursor to the Vintage CIA ‘sexpionagey’ ‘mind-control hypnosis’ that caught the pop-culture imagination from the 1950s/60s onwards.
I scanned the tricolour and black-and-white picture pages, but could see no clues as to how this magnetiser proposed to improve my personal sex life. Magnetism, mesmerism, and ‘mysteries of the mind’ are often a nebulous theme in obscure works such as this. So amongst photos of storm damaged properties and lands – plus complex graphics of invisible clouds and maps to the stars – were shots of, for instance, an abandoned fedora hat, a ghost of a chimney, and a circled face of a demon* in a tree trunk. What did it all mean?
Inside, Wiegand – as he explains in the firmest tones – has spared no effort or expense in the design, production, and writing of this book. “Advertising space, of which there is none, while greatly remunerative, has been used for reading matter. Every page is used to its fullest extent, the margin is as small as permissible, ample type size to ease the eyes. Strong light weight paper, size and price fits the pocket, still it contains more instructive matter than most books several times its weight and price. Colour work in books is expensive, but we used it where needed for better understanding.”
I mean, just look (below left) at how the page numbers retain their dignity despite the leanness of the margins! Ah, it’s beautiful. But it’s practical, too: there is a photo instructional of how to arrange your fingers within the first section so as to refer to the figures. As someone who lives for and by books, I doff my proverbial cap to this author and patent-pending-weather-wizard-of-whatever-it-was. I’m sure Wiegand’s aunts, to whom this unique work of art and ‘Science’ is dedicated, were impressed.
Alas, despite the author’s best efforts, it was challenging at least for me, as a modern reader, to marry up detailed descriptions of weather while grasping whatever ‘positive/negative’, ‘male/female’, ‘this/that’ vital natural forces Wiegand is seeking to connect and harness. A self-published book, there’s a lot of presumed knowledge and jumbling of fingers betwixt text and visuals – references to “OMNIPRESENT Magnetic Forces” span local, national, international, and intergalactic meanings, as well as bodily, sensory, and medical ones. And that’s just in one spread.
There’s a charming mix of ‘Local Tornado Club Leader’ and ‘Illuma-Military Sex Magnetist’ contained in the character and content of Wiegand’s writing. The book ends with the most charming invitation to note down when the reader has has “a strange experience”, followed by a generous number of ‘Historical Data’ blank pages. I wonder if Wiegand was attracting a peculiar mix of ‘seekers’, as can happen in other ‘pre-cult’ esoteric ‘collaborations’ – ie, the technical apparatus and pomp of Wiegand’s ‘sex magnetism’ expeditions could be interchangeable with dowsing rods and a ley line ‘whisperer’ for a gaggle of people seeking, eg, aliens or angels to make sense of nature’s wrath.
Indeed, a key bias in deciphering, developing and deploying these weather wonderments is Wiegand’s belief that most people are colourblind. Most people, just, aren’t… Whether a person can (briefly, temporarily, at their own behest) imagine seeing the world – and its red-blue storm signs – as Wiegand did, is an interesting possibility for phenomenological control... ‘Training’ oneself, as perhaps was the author’s intention, to see/‘see’ physical reality in ‘magical’ sync with a partner, be they Vintage Weather Wizard or, say, a Corporate “Aura Linguist” or “Aroma Jockey” (real modern terms), is, to my mind, a peculiar intersection with phenomenological control, hypnotism, and a sort of ‘folie à deux’…
It would be novel to speak with mental magicians and/or shamanic shut-eyes about topics like ‘aura reading’ without all involved just first thinking about tricks, cons, cults, and hacks… It’s all a bit too ‘Mork and Mindy’ for me – are you pioneers of the deepest, darkest ‘mind melding’ practices… or just tragicomic sex dorks..? It’s a fine line, as any magical partnership will attest. I can see why a person gripped by the passion-fashion for magnetism might prefer to consult with invisible clouds and the vagaries, mysteries, and synchronicities of The Streets.
As the book progresses, divulging magnetism’s wisdoms and geographical coordinates builds to what feels like a nascent storm photography club manifesto-guidebook. The closing pages include Kodak camera choices, the methods and morals of taking photos, and promises of collecting storm souvenirs should one join this cause. It’s such a peculiar find, and a uniquely geeky American perspective on magnetism. Wiegand’s rousing words on Benjamin Franklin – a regular guest-star ghost of Cosmic Pancakes! – indicate the pride in, and importance of, this meteorological mission.
“That greatest of all Americans, Benjamin Franklin, was the first in so many things that he should have been the father of our country. He was the first to use the words Positive and Negative to distinguish lines of force. If he also had in mind sexes I failed to find it in his writings. Franklin never saw a tornado or its destructive force. A friend saw one and wrote to Franklin, describing the tornado and its action, and asking for an explanation. In his answer Franklin was the first to make a comparison of water running out of a basin (a tub, he called it) with an outlet in the center (see Art. 62, Fig. 29).”
I looked up the the Wiegard Publishing Company’s address – West Van Buren Street in Chicago, Illinois, USA – on Google Street View and tried to picture it in the 1930s, sorta Boardwalk Empire style… I imagine Cris, inland of the water, with iron rods and steel bars, plumbs and lines and rules and magnets and funnels and such. Cris consults the compass, furrow-browed, focused on the coming storm – those pesky ‘binary’ mysteries of magnets that never quite prove the ‘thisness’ or ‘thatness’ of Mother Nature playing on their mind. And then, gosh!, um, Aunt Emily’s bonnet is blown off by a magical gust of wind towards a suspicious tree stump and so Aunt Isabel rushes to shoot the photographic evidence!
The spirit of Ben Franklin (1706-1790) whispers via the invisible clouds: “Many victims know the taste of mud.”
And thus the great cosmic work to keep American magnetic disturbances at bay continues…
* It’s actually just damage from a torn-off tin roof.
