control
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control
control
see SOCIAL CONTROL.Control
(religion, spiritualism, and occult)“Control” is the term often used to designate the spirit operator of a séance. A more common name is “guide.” This entity regulates what is happening in terms of which spirits are allowed to come through to the medium, what form of communication is being used (clairvoyance, direct voice, etc.), whether or not such physical phenomena as apports might be apparent, and so on. Some people have more than one guide and the control is the chief one, or the one who is in control of the proceedings at any particular time.
Nandor Fodor said, “The body of the medium is an instrument which requires considerable practice in efficient handling. The control is a communications expert who watches over the fluency of the proceedings, often steps in if he vacated his place to explain confusion and repeats unintelligible expressions. The easygoing, conversational aspect of the séances is largely due to his presence … [the controls] are patient and ready to produce the phenomena to the sitters’ satisfaction. But they do not take orders, expect courteous treatment, appreciation for what they do and have their own caprices.” Controls are not all-knowing. Many times a control will admit to ignorance of a subject, or the answer to a question, and will say that he will ask another who knows.
Not all controls are male, although the majority seems to be. It is not known why this is. Controls often have helpers to assist with such things as the presentation of physical phenomena. These helpers can also aid in the explanation of incoherent messages.
William Stainton Moses recorded some blunders by controls. Once, perfume was supposed to be produced so that the sitters could smell it. Instead, such a terrible odor filled the room that the sitters had to leave. Another time heavy volumes of phosphoric smoke were produced, making the medium believe he was enveloped in fire. Usually when some untoward event such as these takes place, the control immediately orders the end of the session and the medium comes out of trance.
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control
[kən′trōl]control
control
(character)The control key does not generate any character on its own but most modern keyboards and operating systems allow a program to tell whether each of the individual keys on the keyboard (including modifier keys) is pressed at any time.
Control characters mostly have some kind of "non-printing" effect on the output such as ringing the bell (Control-G) or advancing to the next line (Control-J). Most have alternative names suggesting these functions (Bell, Line Feed, etc.).
See ASCII character table.