American mystery writer, spiritualist, politician

Edward Longstreet Bodin (August 5, 1894 – August 2, 1983) was a mystery writer and founded the "Spiritual Party" as a platform for a run for President of the United States in the 1952 presidential election. He claimed in his book Scare Me! to be a descendant of Jean Bodin. He was a literary agent and mentor to L. Ron Hubbard.

Prior to authoring books, Bodin wrote for Strange Stories magazine as "Lucifer" and Thrilling Mystery magazine as "Chakra".

He was born in Watchung, New Jersey and died in Erie, Pennsylvania.

His book Scare Me! addressed ghosts, ectoplasm, demons, zombies, werewolves and other similar topics. In it, he thanked sixty-eight people, including Arthur J. Burks, Jack Dempsey, Ruth Lyons, Lowell Thomas, Nathaniel Schachner, Theodore Tinsley, F. Orlin Tremaine, Arthur Leo Zagat, William B. Ziff and L. Ron Hubbard. Upper Purgatory covered such subjects as ESP, flying saucers, the afterlife, and the Shakespeare authorship question.

In 1953, he suggested that if Winston Churchill doublecrossed the United States, the atom bomb should be used to divert the Gulf Stream in order to freeze England. He suggested the same thing two years later in Upper Purgatory, claiming to have received a letter from William E. Bergin, Adjutant General of the United States, treating the idea seriously (pages 17–18).

In 1956, Bodin was the president of the Bernarr MacFadden Foundation, worth about $5,000,000. That year he also provided the foreword to a book by Blanche A. Draper, the pastor of the Church of the Radiant Flame, a woman who worked as a psychic and medium.

Bibliography

• Scare me!: A symposium on ghosts and black magic (1940)
• "These Sensitive Writers" in Author & Journalist (May 1945), reprinted in Pulp Fictioneers: Adventures in the Storytelling Business edited by John Locke.
• Give Me Liberty (1946) (as Ed "Vagabond" Bodin)
• Spirit World magazine (1947-) (editor)
• First Century Faith (Be Thou Healed): For Health and Happy Home of Christian, Jew or Pagan Better Books, New York, (1951)
• Upper Purgatory: A Fascinating Adventure in Extra Sensory Perception College Publishing Co., Daytona Beach, Florida (1955)
• The Radiant Flame by Blanche A. Draper College Publishing Co., Daytona Beach, Florida (1956) (foreword)
• "My Best Friends Are Ghosts" in Orion Magazine (March 1960)
• "Mystics Saint John, Daniel and Nostradamus" in Orion Magazine (February 1961)
• First century healing: (in your own home circle) (1962)
• Mystery History (1964)

References

Democratic Party

• Other 1952 elections: House
• Senate