I’ve been reading a LOT of books lately, many of them oriented toward the paranormal (including Brad Steiger’s new Real Vampires: Night Stalkers, and Creatures from the Dark Side and Nick Redfern’s Science Fiction Secrets). In preparation for tonight’s interview I’ll be conducting with author Christopher O’Brien on Joshua Warren’s radio program, I’ve also managed to hammer out O’Brien’s latest offering: Stalking the Tricksters: Shapeshifters, Skinwalkers, Dark Adepts and 2012 (Adventures Unlimited Press, 2009).
Seldom are all the many and varied aspects of Forteana looked at closely and carefully with hope of drawing new bits of evidence together from areas where strings of thought might occasionally intersect. O’Brien, on the other hand, makes this his sole focus with Stalking the Tricksters. In essence, various strange elements of Forteana are incorporated into a single “unified theory” of the paranormal: O’Brien discusses hoaxes, evoking names like P.T. Barnum and Joseph Smith, in addition to famous romps like the Cardiff Giant and the multitude of religious relics alleged to exist throughout the Middle Ages. He also takes a discerning
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Sounds like a good read.
I’ve been re-watching the old Sagan’s COSMOS tv series. He couldn’t accept the validity of the UFO phenomenon because, for someone like him, the behavior displayed by the UFOnauts in CE reports was totally the opposite of what an extra-terrestrial civilization would conduct a survey of our planet. In a sense, he got that right.
But what people like Sagan or Shostak can even entertain, is that the very trickster nature of the phenomenon has a very definite effect in our society. It pushes our civilization, and the fact that it’s not taken seriously by the status-quo (or at least that’s how they publicly behave!) is the root of their influence.
Like the old saying goes: the best trick the devil ever pulled was convince the world that he doesn’t exist.
Red Pill Junkie