Monsters: An Investigator’s Guide to Magical Beings

by John Michael Greer

Llewellyn Publications • P.O. Box 64383, Dept. 0-7387-0050-9 • St. Paul, MN 55164-0383

2001, $19.95 US; $29.95 CAN; 282 pg., ISBN: 0-7387-0050-9

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

Cryptozoology is the study of biological looking creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster which, generally speaking, fall into two distinct and separate schools of thought. One of these consists of researchers like Loren Coleman who are trying to obtain evidence for their physical and biological reality, and then, on the other hand, there are researchers like John Keel who envision such “creatures” more as shape-shifting, temporary energy forms (Keel says the process was called “transmogrification” by occultists of yesteryear) from more of a “parallel world” manifestation than our own everyday physical environment. But now we have a book written by a man who has been initiated as a Druid into the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids (OBOD), is active in “two magical lodges,” and is a student of geomancy and sacred geometry. The author, John Michael Greer, reviews modern reports and the ancient folklore covering all sorts of “monsters,” ranging from vampires and werewolves, to fairies, mermaids, dragons, ghosts, angels, and demons.

Greer goes into the comparisons of fairies/fays with our modern alien “greys” and even the “Nordics,” their similar powers over the human mind (called “glamour” in traditional fairy lore), how both have had “flying craft,” both allegedly abducted humans and conducted breeding experiments with them. Furthermore, he discussed the work of F. W. Holiday, one of the top researchers on Lock Ness, who concluded that the Loch Ness beastie actually had more in common with classical “dragon” lore than the existence of a literal breathing and living creature lurking in the depths of the loch. Greer describes how an Anglican exorcist conducted an exorcism at the loch in 1973, and many strange paranormal events happened for several days afterwards (including an MIB-type encounter by Holiday, although it’s not mentioned here). Also another bit of interesting background is added. It is reported that the noted (notorious?) occult magician Aleister Crowley had rented a house on the shores of Loch Ness just a few years before several well-known Nessie sightings in 1933, which kicked off the modern era of this phenomenon. While living there Crowley was said to have conducted an “intense series of magical rituals.”

Folklore and modern accounts of strange beings are a part of diverse cultures throughout the world. There is also a phenomenon that crops up in different places that has become known as hagging. In this event a person awakens to find an evil entity (often an “old hag”) sitting upon their chest. Often there is described difficulty with breathing, and there is frequently an expressed fear of suffocation. A dramatic and well-documented account that Greer offers is of a Vietnamese people known as the Hmong. After the Vietnam War many found themselves in refugee camps and later were relocated to apartments here in America. Suddenly dozens of young and presumably healthy men began to die in their sleep. Medical doctors were mystified and unable to do anything. Eventually it was discovered that in their country there was practiced a shamanic intervention that protected these people from Dab Tsog, an evil spirit that sits upon people as they sleep, and it suffocates them!

This problem persisted for years (had been virtually unknown back in their own country), but when many were able to move out to rural areas and reunite with extended families and traditional clans and got back to their shamanic practices, the incidents of these unexplained sleeping deaths began decreasing.  

In addition, some sound advice is given in this book on researching and investigating “monster” allegations. Meanwhile, on the other hand, “magical” strategies of protection are also offered (i.e., mixing holy water, burning incense, making talismans and amulets, etc.), which the reader may or may not wish or feel inclined to delve into. Either way, in my judgment, this book is an important contribution and I certainly do recommend it.

New Daughters of the Oracle: The Return of Female Prophetic Power in Our Time

by Virginia Adair

New Paradigm Books • 22783 South State Rd. 7, Suite 97 • Boca Raton, FL 33428

2001, $16.95 US; $25.00 CAN, 230 pg., ISBN: 1-892138-03-4

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

From all across America and around the world, the author, Virginia Adair, takes the reader along on her personal journey as she seeks out and interviews women psychics and healers from many different countries and cultures about their “paranormal” and spiritual experiences, and of their personal beliefs and values. Join her as she strives to incorporate all of this fascinating testimony and insight into a worldview that may help to bridge the proverbial gap that exists between science and religion. Thoughtfully she examines the roles that may be played by personality traits, pondering too such phenomena as multiple personalities, hypnotism, brainwave frequencies of psychics and healers, as well as the claims of extraordinary phenomena like the Hindu “kundalini” experience, out-of-body excursions, healings, psychokinesis, and a whole host of unexplained “paranormal” manifestations.

The Golden Ones: From Atlantis to a New World

by Carole A.P. Chapman

CPS • Adult Imprint of Mystic Children’s Studio • P.O. Box 527 • Mystic, CT 06355

2001, $14.95 US, 166 pg., ISBN: 1-879997-15-0

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

She was a respected photojournalist working under contract with NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Her articles and photographs had been widely published. Then she literally met the man of her dreams - a man she met at work, a physicist, whom she had dreamed about just the night before!

But this book isn’t just about strange paranormal twists of fate that have taken place in Carole Chapman’s life. Her life took a really strange twist when she went to a hypnotherapist for help with being overweight. The therapist, also known to do past-life regressions, explored Carole’s “past life” background as there is sometimes said to be a reason for being overweight that is tied to such previous life times. What emerged from those hypnotic sessions caught Carole totally off guard and by complete surprise. From these hypnotic sessions emerged startling details of how she first met the man of her dreams, back when he was an ape man and she was a light being from the star system of Arcturus! As the sessions progressed further incredible descriptions and revelations emerged of previous life forms and an Atlantean civilization that once existed upon earth. Carole even traveled to the Yucatan searching for evidence of things she had seen in her hypnotic journeys, and as a result became even more convinced that she was on the right track!

Psychic Vampires: Protection from Energy Predators & Parasites

by Joe H. Slate, Ph.D.

Llewellyn Publications • P.O. Box 64383, Dept. 0-7387-0191-2 • St. Paul, MN 55164-0383

2002, $14.95 US; $23.95 CAN; 243 pg. , ISBN: 0-7387-0191-2

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

A very detailed, yet easy to read book by a noted psychologist, a college professor, and the founder of the International Parapsychology Research Foundation. Psychic Vampires explores the folklore, science fiction, and the true history of vampirism, and concludes that vampirism, once you remove its dark macabre background and mystique, is more about psychic energy depletions (usually done unconsciously by regular people) than blood sucking creatures of the night who are empowered with supernatural strength, can levitate, and can read and control minds. Dr. Slate’s book is a tour de force of introductory terms, explanations, definitions, and methodologies that were created to provide psychic empowerment, psychic energy replacement, and protective countermeasures. And who could be better qualified than himself, a parapsychologist who worked under contract with the U.S. Army Missile Research and Development Command to study the human energy system, and used the science of Kirlian photography to try and gain greater insight and knowledge into this complex and elusive subject matter in scientific studies conducted at Athens State College (now University) in Alabama. In the book, you’ll get to examine actual Kirlian pictures showing specific characteristics of psychic vampire effects. You and your friends can fill out questionnaires to see how you rate and compare, see if you are under vampire attack, are in good shape, or perhaps possess certain vampire tendencies yourself. Furthermore, this book explains how to “see” the human aura, how to strengthen it, and a very wide variety of other empowering and protective techniques from meditations, hypnosis, dream analysis, astral projection, the use of quartz crystals, pyramid power, concluding with a comprehensive Seven-Day Psychic Protection Plan.

Dr. Slate breaks it all down in a plain, simple, everyday layman’s language, not complex scientific terms and definitions or metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. It’s straight-forward and in to-the-point factual language, and he drops the tools you’ll need for psychic empowerment and protection right into your lap. You won’t need to graduate from some metaphysical school. You can start applying the knowledge and the techniques all in the same day that you begin reading the book, if you wish.

Mound Builders: Edgar Cayce’s Forgotten Record of Ancient America

by Gregory L. Little, Ed.D, John Van Auken, and Lora Little, Ed.D.

Eagle Wing Books, Inc. • P.O. Box 9972 • Memphis, TN 38190

2001, $16.95, 293 pg., ISBN: 0-940829-36-3

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

For those of you who got to go on the ARE sponsored Ohio Mounds Tour back in October and got to listen to and meet Greg, John, and Lora, and travel to all of those powerful and ancient sites (like Serpent Mound, Newark’s huge circles and octagon, Fort Hill, and Chillicothe’s Mound City), which are a few of the significant sites covered in Mound Builders, then you got to participate in an incredible journey into America’s mysterious past, and you got an incredible glimpse into what the author’s are striving to communicate in this book.

The controversial Sleeping Prophet from Kentucky, the late Edgar Cayce, channeled a massive amount of information. Though best known for his health readings for people and messages on Atlantis, less known is the information he communicated regarding early colonizations and civilizations of the Americas. In recent years, new research findings have, incredibly enough, verified a number of the things that Cayce had channeled, as well as made probable a number of others. In addition, Cayce had described (back in 1943) how some ancient Indian Mounds were a “replication or representation” of Atlantis. Near Portsmouth, Ohio, there was an ancient earthen complex (it’s gone now) that bore an “uncanny resemblance to Plato’s description of Atlantis”, down to the three concentric water rings, temple site in the center, and four “canals” radiating out from the center. Circleville, Ohio, used to have a very similar design to it. A drawing reproduced in the book from 1836 shows how it used to look back then, when the early settlers tried to incorporate the design into the lay out of their town, though now it has all too been obliterated.

If you like to read about genuine ancient mysteries, and yet are open to those that have a New Age twist to them, as with the Edgar Cayce readings, then this book is highly recommend for you. In addition, it is written by authors who use good science instead of vague generalizations and sensationalistic book-selling ploys. It also is filled with a wide variety of amazing photographs and illustrations.

The evidence has never been better and more persuasive than it is in Mound Builders.