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Published in 1976, this book is subtitled "Doorway to Another Dimension" and it is a fascinating snapshot of metaphysical culture in the Windy City.
When I found the book, the author's name rang a bell, but I couldn't quite place him. Turns out that Brad Steiger has written more than 170 books, many of which are of a similar bent, so I'm quite certain I have read his work before. (Aside: Wikipedia's entry for him is lazily incomplete. It only lists five books, but admits he wrote many more. Tell me again how great Wikipedia is?)
The book primarily focuses on the people and characters who support Steiger's assertion that Chicago is "the psychic center of the nation." The profiles he offers bolster his argument as they cover many different areas of psi research and ability. In addition to the characters featured and interviewed, Steiger includes a categorized appendix of fortune tellers, healers, and — to my interest and surprise — a rather lengthy list of spiritualist churches in the city and surrounding areas. (And for nearly everyone in the appendix, he includes an address, and often, a phone number!)
However, as a historian, my interest was at a less granular level. I wanted to get a sense of the city's subcultural composition at such a pivotal point in the nation's history. The book delivers that in spades, and it was difficult not to feel a bit of sadness for the optimism it expresses throughout.
Quoting a local member of an alternative religious order, Steiger offers:
"I personally feel more comfortable in Chicago than anywhere else because the North Magnetic Pole passes right through the city. This, by the way, is a peculiarity of zero degrees, which also passes through Cairo. . . . From the symbolical, archetypal point of view, Chicago is visited by all four winds and all four seasons. I did not think there was any place like this in the world. These peculiar things of nature and topography have a great deal to do with the magnetic influence that is here. . . . Although Chicago is a city of churches and a center for many orthodox church bodies, even the conventional members of organized congregations seem to be tolerant and concerned with learning. There are not the neuroses of New York, the lethargies of Florida, and the theatrics of California. Chicago seems to be somehow more centered and balanced."
Steiger pulls a lot of information from Fate magazine, a publication that I've read off-and-on, and even subscribed to for a while. Back in 1974, Fate was published in the Chicagoland area, and his discussion with the people behind it made me want to revisit the issues that I have.
They described the magazine thusly:
"I think I regard Fate as a mystery magazine. Not in the sense of a detective magazine, but that the whole world is full of mysteries, and we are here to report them."
Today, Fate is headquartered in Michigan, and seems to be still publishing, now in its 80th year.
I discovered Psychic Chicago at A Few Books More, in Billings, Montana. It's a great shop and I recommend it. The clerk, seeing this book among my stack of purchases, declared "I wondered who was going to buy that!" He excitedly retrieved a book from behind the counter, declaring "If you like weird books, here's another." What he handed me appeared to be a diary or journal covering all sorts of esoterica. I explained that it was the Chicago angle that caught my eye, and declined to purchase the one he proffered. But I appreciated the effort and the uncannily accurate cold read.
If you're looking for a copy of Psychic Chicago for yourself, Amazon currently offers a few copies.
I've been enjoying my Schlage Plymouth Electronic Keypad Deadbolt Locks (Model BE365). You can read about why I like them here: A reliable keypad door lock from Schlage
In fact, they've been so enjoyable, that I recently ordered another. Sadly, the joy is gone. This model of the lock has a convenient feature called "Lock & Leave." It allows you to lock the door without entering a passcode. After installing the new lock from Amazon, I discovered that this feature was not operational. I assumed it needed to be programmed, so after consulting the user manual, I tried to turn it on.
No joy. While the lock acknowledged the activation code, the feature remained turned off.
After a 30-minute phone call with tech support, Schlage sent me a replacement lock. (They sent the wrong finish color, but I can begrudgingly live with that.)
After installation, I found that the new lock had the same problem!
I can only conclude that Schlage has removed this feature, and that they have not updated the manual, nor told their tech support team.
Both of these locks were recently manufactured (in July and August 2026). I suppose it's also possible they have updated their firmware and accidentally broken this feature.
Either way, for me, the Schlage Electronic Keypad Deadbolt BE363 now sucks. Buyer beware.
Writing students once learned that putting the most important information first in an article was the preferred, humane way of reporting on a situation. This allowed readers to quickly decide if a story interested them without having to read further.
My second college degree is in Radio and Television Broadcasting. As part of the curriculum, I had classes in print journalism, which taught me that good news stories begin with an "inverted pyramid" of information. In this structure, the lede paragraph succinctly conveys the crucial information first, then the reader can learn more details by reading the rest of the article.
Wikipedia has an acceptable summary of the technique, but they naively suggest that the format is used in online news. Perhaps that was true several years ago, but not anymore.
Sadly, with the advent of click-tracking and monetization based on dwell-time, scrolling, and inter-article advertisements, it's rare to encounter a properly inverted pyramid. Today, you're likely to see a clickbait headline along the lines of "This vegetable can kill you!", which leads to an initial paragraph that restates the headline with even more hyperbole. The fact that rhubarb leaves are toxic is buried in the eighth or ninth paragraph, separated by numerous ad-farm inserts, each of which the publication is paid to display.
The unintended consequence of this created the "saved you a click" practice where, in social media, helpful people will post a single line comment such as "it's rhubarb leaves" to give others the one useful piece of information from the article. I find this heartwarming, but it doesn't ameliorate my sadness about the overall situation.
I'm a tall guy. Always have been. (One of my favorite performance reviews described me as "defiantly tall.") I chalk it up to my Dutch genes.
Therefore, once I was able to afford to do so, I began shopping at "big and tall" men's clothing shops. I've shopped at many, but as is typical of our time, the market has mostly consolidated around DXL, and the often ghetto-like "Big Man" sections at Kohl's and Macy's.
I recently needed a new pair of dressy-ish pants to wear to Chicago's fantastic restaurant The Hand and The Eye. I mistakenly thought DXL would have a good selection with my slightly-above-average waist, and apparently gigantic inseam.
Big mistake. The salesperson informed me that they only carry pants finished to a 32-inch inseam. (I wear at least a 34, and occasionally a 36, depending on the rise.)
Frankly, I thought she was pulling my leg. (Yes, that's right, I said it.) She was dead serious. The only way to get a longer inseam was to have the pants altered by a tailor. Since they don't have an in-house tailor, I was told it would take about three days to get that done.
Not only did I not have that kind of time (my reservation was two days in the future), I was flabbergasted that a store catering to tall men would have only average-height pants in stock. (And it's not that they didn't have my waist-inseam combo — we never got around to discussing waist size — they simply don't offer pants in longer lengths.)
I left the store, feeling both indignant and disappointed, and walked three doors down the street to Nordstrom Rack. Where I found several acceptable dress pants in my waist size with 34-inch and 36-inch inseams.
Care to guess if I'll ever bother shopping at DXL again?