ALSO RECEIVED

WE LEAF THROUGH A SMALL SELECTION OF THE DOZENS OF BOOKS THAT HAVE ARRIVED AT FORTEAN TOWERS IN RECENT MONTHS...

Shuker Nature, Vols 1 & 2

Karl PN Shuker

Coachwhip Publications, 2019

Pb, 400+pp each, £16. ISBN 9781616464677 & 9781616464837

By all accounts (even his own) Dr Shuker is a prolific writer, so anyone interested in his cryptozoological articles (more than 600 at last count) might not be able to keep up with the sheer variety of his publishing venues. Here is the remedy; a two volume compilation of self-selected “significant” material from a decade of publishing his ShukerNature blog on the Internet. The range of topics is astonishingly wide and lavishly illustrated, covering recent discoveries, legendary beasts and amusing inventions from the scientific archives and journals of explorers to modern surveys and commercial exploitation. They include Polynesian cats, whip scorpions, giant insects, mysterious hominids, duck beavers, locust dragons, varicoloured tigers, striped seals, sea-monkeys, the Blue Devil, mermen, flying elephants, beached carcases, furry worms, water-horses, chupacabras and too many more than we have space to mention. All articles are impressively researched and clearly written, making the underlying science accessible to anyone. Clearly, this set (with its promise of further volumes) should be in school libraries. It would certainly make a superb gift for any young and inquiring mind whether interested in animal mysteries or not; a pity, then, that they are not indexed.

Homecoming

Crossing the Bridge to the Soul Keith Anthony Blanchard

John Hunt Publishing, 2020

Pb, 221pp, £11.99. ISBN 9781789044119

It is very difficult to know what to make of this slender book. Blanchard declares himself to be a “reincarnated avatar” but goes on to say we all are. In a very affable style, he describes how he turned his unhappy life around, to enter a New Agey spiritual path that borrows from many religions old and new. In 1995, he says, “celestial beings began to appear to me”, leading to both contentment and to a broadcasting mission on US radio. He records here his conversations (question and answer sessions) with ‘God’ about the nature of being and so on. They might have been ‘imagined’ conversations for all we know; Blanchard offers no context, qualifications, or corroborations. In a universe of possibilities, it might even be true! But Peter O’Toole had it more amusingly in The Ruling Class (1972): “When did I realise I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realised I was talking to myself.”

Invoke the Goddess

Connecting to the Hindu, Greek, and Egyptian Deities

Kala Trobe

Llewellyn, 2020

Hb, 205pp, £14.99. ISBN 9780738759623

In many ways this book is the opposite of Blanchard’s (above), as Trobe explains the symbolism associated with the major Hindu, Greek and Egyptian goddesses. Trobe writes knowledgeably, leaving the academic underpinning to her spare bibliography. This is a pleasant read even if you do not take it further. Her purpose, though, is to show how you can adapt them through meditation, visualisation and other daily rituals to the benefit of your own life.

Sacred Geometry

Language of the Angels

Richard Heath

Bear/Inner Traditions, 2021

Hb, 278pp, £18.99. ISBN 9781644111185

Heath’s study of ‘megalithic science’ – lavishly illustrated in colour with diagrams and photographs – is a proof of the pioneering work of the late John Michell, taking the thesis to a greater level of detail. Michell had formulated his own ideas of ‘sacred geometry’ through his study of the prehistoric monuments of Britain, and the work of earlier surveyors – especially their theories of how the units of measurement that they employed – such as the ‘megalithic yard’ and those derived from solar and lunar cycles

– were derived. Careful measurements of ancient megalithic sites across western Europe had revealed significant consistencies in those units relating to applied geometry and astronomy. Richard Heath finds the same consistency of harmony and proportion embedded in the architecture of Europe’s ancient religious and sacred monuments. Referencing sacred literature and systems of institutionalised numerology, Heath calls their basic principles an ‘angelic science’, suggesting that it was ‘revealed’ to the early builders, mathematicians, geometers and philosophers by (as legends tell it) otherworldly entities. Heath, commendably, confines himself to terrestrial and demonstrable examples including Islam’s Kaaba and the Dome of the Rock, Mexican and Egyptian pyramids, the Hagia Sophia, the Parthenon, the megalithic avenues at Carnac, and a Buddhist stupa, and the landscape in which the sacred sites were carefully located and developed. Heath – and those to whom this enticing book will most appeal – sees in this ancient unification of metrology, geometry and numerology nothing less than the spiritual origins of civilisation itself.

Pioneers of Oneness

The science and spirituality of UFOs and the Space Brothers

Gerrard Aartsen

BGA Publications, 2020

Hb, 278pp, £17.99. ISBN 9789083033600

The author of this overview of “alien visitation” asks: “Are they here among us?” He lays waste to ‘nuts-and-bolts’ ufology, supplanting it with “an abundance of evidence” that the ‘truth’ goes “beyond” that simple question. Before you is a “synthesis of mainstream and post-materialist science with the ageless wisdom of the Space Brothers” that the self-important blurb calls “riveting”. Aartsen is an unapologetic apostle of both Adamski’s alien Theosophy and the alien salvation of the late Benjamin Creme. Interesting but unconvincing.