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Book Reviews Perceptions Magazine, March 2018





I Have Seen It Tomorrow
by Kris Krst

2017, 294 pages, Paperback, US $16.39
ISBN-13: 978-1981641581
Order: www.amazon.com

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

The author, born in Western Slovakia (formerly Czechoslavakia), speaks 5 languages, has worked as a translator-interpreter, a teacher, lecturer, worked in various government positions such as a foreign relations advisor to ex-Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic and an analyst for the Department of International Relations, and in this book takes a hard look into the world of the paranormal. She describes how she and her husband John have had many personal out-of-body experiences through the years, in addition to apparent interactions with NHI (non-human intellgience), possible extraterrestrials.

The author describes how her husband often sees into the future and accurately describes events before they transpire in our world. She delves into quantum holographic consciousness, non-locality reality, and the reader will enter the author's world where terms like “anti-matter,” “higher dimensions,” “primal scalar blueprint,” “electro-tonal standing wave,” “vibratory oscillation energy,” and more are tossed about. There is, however, a helpful index at the back of the book with a review of various specialized terms and their definitions for readers wishing to get up to speed.

This book contains a great deal of thought-provoking information on the paranormal and the emerging science of quantum physics, along with much perplexing firsthand information about their own high-strangeness experiences.

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Doves Fly in My Heart:
My Love Affair with Peru
by Lisa McClendon Sims

www.SpiritualJourneysPeru.com
2015, 243 pages, Paperback US $19.95
ISBN-13: 978-1514818039
Kendle US $9.95; ISBN-10: 1514818035

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

Back in January, I did a videotaped interview with Lisa (videotaped by my daughter Chandra Harrison) down in Decatur, Alabama, as she was in the states currently taking a vacation from Peru for awhile, an American who has made her home there in Cusco for about seven years now. Thanks to an introduction from a mutual friend, a psychic, paranormal investigator and a woman who was exploring Native American spirituality named Shirley Martin (who sadly has since passed away), Lisa and I became acquainted and I did a long-distance interview with her that was posted in the January 2015 edition (No. 202) of this online magazine. Certainly, it should go without saying what a genuine thrill it was to actually meet face-to-face finally and conduct an in person interview.

During our visit, Lisa gave us a copy of this wonderful book (even autographed it!) and I promised to do a respectful review of it (are there any other kinds?). It's really a wonderful book detailing Lisa's “travel bug” that began back around age 8 or 9 when her father, who was a USAF press officer, used to visit different countries where there was unrest and threat of war – usually Africa or somewhere in the Middle East – and always when he'd return he'd bring back for Lisa and her sister a gift from where he'd been, perhaps a doll in native dress or foreign currency. One day a postcard came and it had the picture of a camel. She looked at the camel in the photo and declared that she was going to go see that camel one day!

Well, it probably wasn't the same camel, but years later, when a few months pregnant, she and her husband ventured to Egypt, where she got on a camel and rode around the pyramids. However, there was a whole lot more between the postcard and the camel ride in Egypt. At age 18, she had what for the vast majority of us would have been the proverbial “trip of a lifetime” - Europe. But that didn't satisfy her wanderlust. At age 20 she moved to London, even though she knew no one there, got a work permit and stayed there for about a year, and then decided to see more of Europe, as well as Russia, Northern Africa, Asia, much of the Caribbean, Central America, and some of South America. Lisa was on the move!

All of this and much more is covered in Lisa's Preface, and it's quite a read. She got married to an Englishman, lived in England again, had two children, but eventually the marriage ended in separation in 2003, after which she again found that itch for travel returning.

Though she admits she never had Peru on her radar before, she long had been interested in spirituality, different faiths and beliefs, though not necessary a regular religious type person per se, and back in her mid-twenties she was drawn to stories and literature of shamanic indigenous cultures, and says she devoured the writings of Carlos Castaneda, Lynne Andrews, and others of a similar ilk. In 2002, she began working in a metaphysical center, an experience that felt good to her – an environment that felt like home she wrote. One day at this center a B&W photocopy of a Peru tour fell into her hands, and she suddenly knew she was going!

November 2005, she and eight other American women found themselves in Peru. In a pre-Incan cave called The Temple of the Moon, that was said to have been used in ceremonial ways for thousands of years, Lisa had a transformative, life-changing, and very empowering experience that released her from the cloud of dark despair and anxiety that had been hanging over her for several years. The healing energies of the sacred land, its ancient people and their heart-centered rituals and ceremonies had a powerful life-renewing affect on Lisa. Later, on this same trip, she was touring Machu Picchu walking through this city of ancient stone, through what she was told were “energetic vortexes,” when she was surprised and puzzled to hear a voice behind her say “Pick me up.” She turned, but there was no one there, except for a small stone on the ground. “I didn't know stones could speak, and I had clearly heard this,” Lisa wrote, “it wasn't in my head, it was actually audible!”

This story and much more is covered in Lisa's first chapter, which had the title “Love at First Sight,” appropriately enough. Much, much more was to follow, to say the least, and the way this story continues to evolve at its current and rapid pace, Lisa is soon going to have to churn out yet another book to bring us all up-to-date.

Lisa bears her soul in this memorable book, with frank and candid openness about her life, and her deepest feelings, thoughts and emotions. She shares the ancient and sacred dimensions of Peruvian life that the tourists and spiritual seekers are drawn to, while describing the day-to-day lifestyle, joys and struggles, of the real-life Peruvian resident. Lisa gives you the inside track on the plusses and the minuses of the Peruvian experience and lifestyle, from foods, destinations, things to do, things to see and things to avoid.

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Spirits of the Earth:
A Guide to Native American Symbols, Stories, and Ceremonies
by Bobby Lake-Thom

PLUME, published by the Penguin Group, Inc.
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
1997, 210 pages, US $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-452-27650-5

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

Though not a new book, Bobby Lake-Thom's Spirits of the Earth continues to be as informative, powerful, and relevant a volume as it was when it was first published slightly over two decades ago. Known by many as Medicine Grizzly Bear, Bobby is a highly respected Native healer and spiritual teacher. This book contains a rare and authentic glimpse into Native American insights and wisdom. In this book, the author introduces us to the traditional and spiritual perspective of the Native American view of the natural world as possessing an inbuilt interactive communications system – a complex interspecies biosystem that, for those who live close to Nature and learn its language, opens doors to a deeper knowledge, appreciation, and connection with the life empowering, holistic psychic healing forces of this world. Carl Jung attempted to touch upon it and give it a more modern definition and understanding for Westerners with his complex and controversial theories of what he called archetypes of the collective unconscious, along with his concept of synchronicity, while to the majority, if not dismissed out-of-hand as simple and utter nonsense, it might be seen as bordering on something supernatural. “I was taught not only to use my five senses in trying to identify and learn about my different 'relations' in Nature, but I was also taught how to use my 'sixth' sense in trying to communicate with them,” the author wrote.

The author gives the reader detailed descriptions and knowledge that illuminated his own Native American and shamanistic path, sharing vital and ancient esoteric knowledge and insights, as well as tried and true methods and ceremonies that can work for each of us as well, from creating our own medicine shield, medicine wheel, doing creative and symbolic dreaming, how to do an earth-healing ceremony, a list of animal, bird, and insect signs and omens to be aware of, how to access the mind-brain complex to develop and tap into symbolic and spiritual ways of thinking, how to use visualizaton exercises, and much, much more. Easy to read and follow, unless a bad case of cognitive dissonance blocks your way, Spirits of the Earth is a beautiful and plainly written instructional guidebook for anyone wishing to explore and exercise their own “sixth” sense and embrace a more holistic, balanced and caring road less traveled through this journey we call life.


Friday, March 29, 2024