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    An alternative way to explore and explain the mysteries of our world. "Published since 1985, online since 2001."

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Book Reviews Perceptions Magazine, May 2015




by: Brent Raynes



Awaken Your Third Eye:
How Accessing Your Sixth Sense Can Help
You Find Knowledge, Illumination, and Intuition
By Susan Shumsky, D.D.

New Page Books
A division of The Career Press, Inc.
220 West Parkway, Unit 12
Pompton Plains, NJ 07444
www.careerpress.com
2015, 287 pages, US $16.99
ISBN: 978-1-60163-363-7


Reviewed by Brent Raynes

Awaken Your Third Eye is a thoroughly fascinating and comprehensive exploration of historical, metaphysical and modern medical and scientific discoveries, theories and age old human experiences centering around the tiny pea-sized, roughly 1/3 inch long pineal gland (named pineal because of its pinecone shape), formerly and erroneously regarded by medical authorities a few mere decades ago as the “appendix of the brain.” Today we recognize its tremendous and valuable health related contributions in our lives for the neurohormone melatonin (created from serotonin) that it produces and that regulate our daily sleep/wake cycles, that it is an antioxidant, helps with immune system health and disorders, chronic illnesses, neurodegeneration, reduces blood pressure, cholesterol, regulates certain reproductive hormones, as some of us further yet even are coming to recognize its potential spiritual and extra sensory contributions as well.

The author, Susan Shumsky, whose mentor for 22 years was India’s acclaimed spiritual master Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the guru of the Beatles and of Deepak Chopra, as well as the founder himself of Transcendental Meditation, devoted herself seven of those 22 years as part of Maharishi’s personal staff in such places as Spain, Mallorea, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland, plus immersed herself deeply in studying the ancient Vedic and Tantric scriptures of India. In this most thought-provoking book, the author reveals tantalizing evidence that our modern discoveries are actually rediscoveries of what ancient mystics and wise men of the East long ago already knew. In addition, drawing upon her deep and thorough familiarity and background knowledge from her years of studying, practicing and teaching others the physical exercises, mental techniques and methods to “awaken your third eye,” as well as the usages of what’s called the prana breath, activation of the chakra energy centers and the circulation of what’s called the powerful kundalini energy, much meditational and instructional information is detailed in this comprehensive and illustrated book.



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Grim Shadows Falling:
Haunting Tales From Terrifying Places
By Benjamin S. Jeffries

Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.
4880 Lower Valley Road
Atglen, PA 19310
2014, 192 pages, US $24.99
ISBN: 978-0-7643-4708-5


Reviewed by Brent Raynes

From across the globe, this book presents thirty-one (31) of the most frightening, gosh awful, blood-curdling paranormal case histories, from Tennessee’s notorious Bell Witch, Iowa’s Villisca Axe Murder House, the Lizzie Borden House, Ohio’s very haunted Poasttown Elementary School, Alabama’s Sloss Furnace, the unbelievably horrific massacres of World War II at the Japanese operated Unit 731 in Nanking province, China, and so many other very dark and tragic tales and locations of supernatural occurrences.

The author, Benjamin S. Jeffries, describes himself as a team researcher and documentarian for a group called 765 Paranormal out of Lafayette, Indiana. Perhaps best not to be read just before bedtime, Jeffries takes the reader on a riveting and scary journey across a truly haunting landscape with some of the best and most mesmerizing accounts ever chronicled, complete with a great assortment of on-site pictures that further set the mood.



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Secret History: Conspiracies From Ancient Aliens
to the New World Order
By Nick Redfern

Visible Ink Press
43311 Joy Rd., #414
Canton, MI 48187-2075
2015, 438 pages, US $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-57859-479-5

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

That ever popular British born, prolific book writing author Nick Redfern has a new and provocative tome now coming out with a dazzling range of coverage from ancient aliens, to conspiracies, to all of the talk, tales and evidence alleging the potential emergence of a New World Order. A thick and heavily illustrated volume, the reader is provided the detailed scoop on everything pertinent and known, and that most certainly takes in a very comprehensive global and historical landscape.

From the most ancient evidence to the latest newsworthy events and controversies, this author consistently delivers the goods and never disappoints me. In this book, as I frequently find in other of Redfern’s writings, I come upon quite a variety of details and literary gemstones, as I like to call them, that I had not recalled reading previously in the hundreds of other similar books I’ve waded through before. Redfern seems to have a real knack for uncovering buried, forgotten or previously classified information that many others have missed. For example, from now declassified FBI files, back in 1951, we learn that L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the controversial Scientology movement, that very early one February morning someone had, he claimed, entered his apartment, thrust a needle into his heart and gave him an electric shock. He passed out and didn’t know what had been done to him, but afterwards did develop an obsession with extraterrestrial aliens. The next year, a Karl Hunrath of Wisconsin would claim a similar nocturnal visitation wherein an ordinary human looking someone induced an altered state in him by injecting chemicals in one of his arms, claiming, “I am Bosco. You have been chosen to enter our brotherhood of galaxies.” Hunrath also became obsessed with UFOs afterwards. The FBI was also keenly interested in another Wisconsin resident named Kenneth Goff, who admitted having been a past member of the Communist Party and who the FBI still suspected had ties with that party. Interestingly, Goff was an evangelist type who also lectured on UFOs; except instead of interplanetary UFOs his focus was on how governments could utilize the subject for manipulation and control. Only four months before Hunrath and a friend named Wilbur Wilkinson disappeared without a trace after flying out of a small airport near LA in a two-seater plane, Hunrath returned to Wisconsin from Los Angeles to meet with Mr. Goff.

Redfern presents many such intriguing accounts. Many also are gripping stories that have been recent headliners, like a riveting chapter on Edward Snowden, as well as the disappearance of Malaysia Airline’s Flight MH370, questions surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden, a mysterious rash of deaths of scientists in the field of microbiology, suspicions surrounding the events of 9/11, as well as less known past stories like two worried physicists with a top secret Department of Defense program that initially thought they were engaged in psychic communications with extraterrestrial beings, but as the investigations continued many disturbing and negative events began to happen, forcing the team to conclude that they were dealing with literal demons instead! Then too Redfern takes us all the way back into the earliest reaches of recorded history in a search of proof for Atlantis, the mysterious forces associated with the Ark of the Covenant, speculations on Ezekiel’s Wheel, and so very much more from ancient to modern times. The book is peppered also with lots of great photographs and illustrations.


Friday, March 29, 2024