A private life known chiefly through his writings
Born in Darlington, Wisconsin, in 1903, Sylvan Joseph Muldoon was the son of Henry and Hattie Muldoon. He later described a first out-of-body experience at twelve while visiting a Spiritualist camp in Iowa with his mother and younger brother. His account connects further episodes with periods of adolescent illness. These are autobiographical reports, including his own interpretation of what happened.
Muldoon contacted the psychical researcher Hereward Carrington after disputing the adequacy of earlier writing on astral projection. Their exchange led to The Projection of the Astral Body in 1929 and, later, The Phenomena of Astral Projection in 1951. Muldoon also published The Case for Astral Projection in 1936 and collections of psychic stories. He died in 1969. The available specialist biography gives little detail about his education, employment or domestic life; those gaps limit a fuller personal history.
Recollection becomes a proposed explanation
In his signed preface to The Projection of the Astral Body, Muldoon recalls initially finding the episodes unremarkable and seldom discussing them, even with his family. He then explains his effort to investigate and control them. The preface also credits his fiancée, Miss Goodrich, with typing the manuscript, a small glimpse of another person’s contribution to the book.
Carrington’s separately headed introduction supplies terminology, earlier literature and an argument for the importance of Muldoon’s testimony. The held Rider printing preserves these distinct voices. Sensations of paralysis, floating and return become the basis of a theory of a subtle body. The movement from remembered sensation to explanatory mechanism gives the book its historical interest, while the writers’ confidence and their proposed interpretation remain parts of their case.
