Noted American writer Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), c. 1885. Twain, Mark (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835–1910)(religion, spiritualism, and occult)Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, the third son and fifth child of John Marshall Clemens and Sarah Lampton. Twain’s hand-picked biographer Albert Bigelow Paine said of Twain, “psychic theories and phenomena have always attracted Mark Twain. Preston Dennett said, “Mark Twain was … profoundly psychic. Sources:Dennett, Preston: The Psychic Adventures of Mark Twain.