ALSO RECEIVED
WE LEAF THROUGH A SMALL SELECTION OF THE DOZENS OF BOOKS THAT HAVE ARRIVED AT FORTEAN TOWERS IN RECENT MONTHS...
The Lights Upon The Hills
The Burton Dassett UFO Events Of 1923
Richard Rokeby
Flying Disk Press, 2020
Pb, 70pp, £5, ISBN 9798560435875
Two decades before the advent of UFOs, mysterious lights were seen moving about above the Warwickshire hills. This phenomenon was observed by hundreds of locals, but at the time – in the winter of 1923 – they were widely thought to be ‘ghosts’. Local historian Richard Rokeby has gathered accounts from the newspapers of the day of multicoloured lights that illuminated buildings and then sped off at a great height and speed. Rokeby – who had a career in the Army and Police – presents a succinct account in this slender but important study. He also adds to this fascinating enigma by describing other seemingly related events from the area’s history. Every discovery of a relatively little-known mystery such as this is both tantalising and a delight to forteans.
Making the Ordinary Extraordinary
My Seven Years in Occult Los Angeles with Manly Palmer Hall Tamra Lucid
Inner Traditions, 2021
Pb, 160pp, £9.99, ISBN 9781644113752
The teachings of the American esotericist Manly Palmer Hall (1901-1990) – especially his major work The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928) – had a farreaching influence on the development of New Age occultists… perhaps none stranger or more unexpected than Tamra Lucid (our author here) and Ronnie Pontiac, two underground musicians in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. This is Lucid’s account of how they discovered Hall’s Secret Teachings, absorbed its contents and tracked him down in LA. This well-written, frank and often funny account of the friendship between “a twentysomething punk and an 80-yearold metaphysical scholar” is also a fascinating portrait of the collision between two prominent West Coast US subcultures (occultism and music). It sheds some light, too, on the mystery of Hall’s murder. A slender book, but a fascinating story intelligently told that holds the reader’s interest.
The Art of Lucid Dreaming
Over 60 Powerful Practices to Help You Wake Up in Your Dreams
Clare R Johnson
Llewellyn, 2020
Pb, £11.99, 264pp, ISBN 9780738762654
Lucid dreaming is one of those curious subjects that you can test out yourself. Our late colleague Steve Moore claimed he had experimented, with some success, becoming sufficiently conscious while dreaming to actively notice things. This manual by Clare Johnson (who gained a PhD on the topic) sets out a clear and steady regime for personal practice, with an arsenal of tips on how to prepare for sleep, types of sleep, types of dreaming, and most importantly, how to ‘wake up’ within the dream by looking for certain ‘triggers’. She also explains the different kinds of imagery, how to “stabilise your lucidity” and even to assert more control over nightmares. Shorn of most of the New Age supernaturalism associated with the subject, this could prove to be the most practical guide yet to some novel personal exploration of a world that each of us visits at night but of which few of us have any real awareness or control over.
The Complete Energy Body
A Space Age Exploration of Consciousness, Life, and Reality
Kenneth Smith
Independently published, 2022
Pb, 328pp, £14.03, ISBN 9798794667226
FT has noticed an increase lately in books dealing with, or referring to, what Smith here calls “a new breed of quantum wavefield science”. Extending the lines of thought that were pioneered by the likes of Dancing Wu Li Masters (Gary Zukav’s 1979 “overview of the New Physics”), it is being argued by pioneering physicists and philosophers that, at its most fundamental level, the quantum view of ‘reality’ is significantly different from objective Cartesian materialism. In the realm of quantum energy, Smith explains, “there are no material objects, only the appearance of them due to wavefield dynamics”. More importantly, he emphasises a correspondence with the teachings of mystics and shamans through the ages and the need to re-evaluate such “transphysical” phenomena as out-of-body experiences and ESP. Smith ponders whether the wavefield is itself a form of consciousness and sets out precisely why, in language even non-scientists can understand. The Complete Energy Body is an excellent guide to this often surreal and increasingly important discourse. Recommended to all philosophical forteans.
Beasts of Britain
Andy McGrath
Hangar 1 Publishing, 2021
Pb, 352pp, £13.28, ISBN 9781955471169
Readers may be surprised by Andy McGrath’s claim that Britain is “largely underexplored and overlooked” and a place where “nobody ventures into the woods anymore”. Unfortunately, sweeping statements seem typical of McGrath’s treatment of the subject he claims to have studied for nearly three decades. Readers new to the subject might boggle at his hundreds of entries. This does indeed reveal the amazing extent of the subject; but what starts out as a commendable project to catalogue Britain’s unofficial wildlife pretty soon becomes a boring litany of poorly summarised cases, mostly drawn from the Internet. McGrath bemoans the poor reception of sighting reports in the press, but seems happy to cite them anyway. While he employs 17 broad headings, there is little sign of any critical methodology. For example, the vast field of fairies and 13 other types of humanoid entities are lumped under the same heading, represented by a mere four cases, while ‘dog-men’ have a whole category to themselves. And there are no direct links in the text to entries in the 17-page bibliography. There is little of value here for serious cryptozoologists.
The Myths and Legends of Britain’s Pubs
A Thousand Years of History and Trivia
Rodney Simmonds
Book Guild Publishing, 2021
Pb, 205pp, £9.99, ISBN 9781913913236
Simmonds has opted to organise years of historical and social trivia – no doubt collected in pubs around Britain – around an alphabetical listing of pub names instead of a gazetteer. While this makes for easy reading, there is no index to help you find pubs in particular places. It is interesting to note how many pub names relate to fortean topics: you’ll find Black Dog, Green Man, Griffin, Essex Serpent, Unicorn, and Wildman (to name just a few) but many favourites are missing (eg: Eagle and Baby or Dragon Inn). An academic study it is not, but perfect for the little room.
Paranormal Scotland
Gilly Pickup
Amberley Publishing, 2021
Pb, £15.99, 96pp, ISBN 9781445699769
Paranormal Cornwall
David Scanlan
Amberley Publishing, 2021
Pb, £15.99, 96pp, ISBN 9781445694696
Scotland can be said to have it all: monsters in its lochs, ghosts in the castles, and witches and fairies in the hills are only the most famous mysteries. There are haunted highways and battlefields, poltergeists, UFOs, spectral animals and much more. Local expert Gilly Pickup does a good job with this latest survey, as does David Scanlan for Cornwall, the equally ancient land at the other extremity of the British island. Both volumes are slender but packed with the kind of useful data you will need if you are touring, planning a trip, or researching local history.