ALSO RECEIVED
WE LEAF THROUGH A SMALL SELECTION OF THE DOZENS OF BOOKS THAT HAVE ARRIVED AT FORTEAN TOWERS IN RECENT MONTHS...
The Road to Pascagoula
A Research Trip – 1981
Stephanos Panagiotakis Flying Disk Press, 2018 Pb, £8.50, pp125, illus, bib. ISBN 9781728817569
In June 1981, Panagiotakis – a young Greek UFO researcher – travelled to Florida to interview Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, the two key witnesses of the famous event in October 1973 when both men went fishing near an old shipyard at Pascagoula, on the southern coast of Mississippi. Their lengthy encounter with strange alien entities became one of the most talked-about cases of the time, but the psychological and social stress it inflicted affected both men differently. Parker withdrew, but Hickson was happy to share his account with investigators. Panagiotakis presents an extensive first-hand account of an intimate transformative experience. His engaging narrative will not impress die-hard ‘skeptics’.
Cosmic Womb
The Seeding of Planet Earth
Chandra Wickramasinghe & Robert Bauval Inner Traditions, Bear Co, 2018 Pb, £16.99, 408pp, illus, colour plates, notes, bib, index. ISBN 9781591433071
The deeply ancient notion of the cosmic origin of Earthly life is here discussed by the venerable professor of astronomy and the experienced Egyptologist. Each provides for the other a celestial or terrestrial prism through which to view and interpret each other’s expertise. They join to show how the ancient temple builders of Egypt and India may have deduced and incorporated into their art and culture the idea of transfer of genetic material through stellar space and thence to triggering life on a new world.
The Final Choice
Death or Transcendance?
Michael Grosso White Crow Books, 2017 Pb, £11.99, 208pp, gloss, refs. ISBN 9781786770295
A book from Michael Grosso is always worth waiting for; this one being a revision and exansion of the 1985 edition that declared his belief that “we are not just irreducible mental beings but participants in the life of one great mind”. Over that period there has been a huge expansion of data in the field of near-death experiences and related phenomena, much of which Grosso surveys and incorporates into his view. The result is well worth reading – or re-reading – for his analysis and the myriad connections across many times and cultures that he makes. His conclusion is more spiritual than philosophical, discussing the eponymous final choice that divides humanity’s two great tribes: those for whom death is the end and those who see the possibility of transcendence.
Portal
A Lifetime Of Paranormal Experiences
Adele Casales Rocha Flying Disk Press, 2017 Pb, £12, 193pp. ISBN 9781791526023
On the face of it this is yet another personal account of someone’s ideas about UFOs, hauntings and other paranormal phenomena, seasoned with a few of their impromptu investigations and the experiences of friends or clients. The author in this case is a Filipina (now residing in the USA) and it is her accounts of cases in the Philippines – where its unique Spanish-Japanese heritage influenced its native lore – that lifts this book out of the ordinary. Sadly, there is little here that can be used satisfactorily in evidence of anything ‘paranormal’.
Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods
Early humans and the Origins of Religion
E. Fuller Torrey Columbia University Press, 2017. Pb, £20, 312pp, illus, notes, index. ISBN 9780231183376
Torrey – a neuroscientist and director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute – takes on the human need for religious and mythological ideas about deities creating mankind and the world. Basing his argument on current neuroscience, primatology, and child development studies, he finds the answer within the human brain. As a by-product of evolution, our autobiographical memory has developed the ability to project ourselves backward and forward in time, giving rise to the notions of externalised deities. Those already sceptical of materialistic rationalisation will not be amused...
Flash Time
The Discovery and Meaning of Cyclic Time
Jules Boles British Gemmological Institute, 2018 Pb, £19.95, 239pp, illus, colour plates, gloss, bib. ISBN 9781999712099
Boles presents his far-reaching theory of ‘cyclical time’, threatening to “overturn theories” and “change the work of Einstein, Hawking, Darwin and others”. With self-assured “ease”, some humour and “a tornado of facts”, he asks some suitably impudent questions – such as why have only 653 dinosaur specimens been found when there should be “trillions”? Regardless of how you feel about theory-mongering by ‘upstarts’, this is a well-written tirade, bound to get narrowminded scientists fuming.
Behold: Shocking True Tales of Terror
And Some Other Spooky Stuff
Rick Hale BeulAithris Publishing, 2018 Pb, £6.99, 233pp. ISBN 9781728829548
Hale, a self-proclaimed “seasoned paranormal investigator”, offers 13 chapters of him “battling dark entities” on locations around Chicago. His accounts are rambling and shallow, with remembered conversations ‘novelised’. There are no references and nothing in the way of corroborative evidence, so nothing can be cited in any useful way. The poorly typeset and poorly proofed contents (half the book’s page numbers are missing) are further disadvantaged by a shockingly amateurish cover.
King Arthur
The Making of the Legend
Nicholas J Higham Yale University Press, 2018 Hb, £25, 392pp, colour plates, maps, notes, bib, index. ISBN 9780300210927
Quite possibly the definitive book on the man, the myth, and the brand. Professor Higham provides a thoroughly detailed analysis of all the facts on the ‘real’ Arthur that you are ever likely to need; documents all the historical narratives; deconstructs the king’s life, character and acts as portrayed in many arts and entertainments; and searches for the origins of the archetypal legend in ancient Asia Minor. Yet he manages to present all this in a style described as “riveting”.
Donovan Mu
Essays About Ancient and Alien Methods Crerating Cartography
Tomas Londan Self published, 2018 Pb, £4.99, pp147, illus, ISBN 9781723811098
This must be one of the oddest books to come our way. Subtitled ‘Essays about ancient and alien methods creating cartography’ it oscillates between antiquarian and New Age historiographies, freely experiments with fiction and theories of ancient civilisations, both terrestrial and alien and from the past and far future. It also draws upon exobiology, space science, lost continents, ufology and Theosophy. The author is obviously intelligent, erudite and invested in his disparate ideas but his streamof-consciousness presentation, in racing ahead, will leave many readers behind.
Apostle to Mary Magdalene
Julie de Vere Hunt Self published, 2018 Pb, £9.99, 101pp, bib. ISBN 9781782814610
An ‘Aquarian’ meditation on the importance of Mary Magdalene interpreted through Theosophical and Gnostic philosophies, presented in the form of an alphabet. Despite being well written, this slender book has very little detail.