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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, March 2016




by: Brent Raynes



Real Visitors, Voices from Beyond, and Parallel Dimensions
by Brad Steiger and Sherry Hansen Steiger

Visible Ink Press
43311 Joy Rd., #414
Canton, MI 48187-2075
2016, 448 pages, 7.125” x 9.25” US $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-57859-541-9

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

Prolific and acclaimed authors Brad and Sherry Steiger once again bedazzle us with yet another massive collection of thought-provoking accounts that further illustrate the truly challenging, perplexing and complex world of UFO/alien encounters, the wide range and variety of spirit and apparitional appearances, elementals, Jinn, Bigfoot, and what have you. With the latest perspectives, accounts, and contributions by other serious researchers and experiencers from many different backgrounds and locations the world over, the Steiger's offer their readers genuinely unique and insightful frames of reference that take them to the teetering edge and beyond our mainstream, everyday comprehension of reality.

Loaded with pictures and illustrations, and more than 200 documented accounts of encounters with mysterious entities and inexplicable forces, this book tackles indepth a mind-boggling range of unexplained occurrences and manifestations that fall under the broad umbrella of the paranormal – from angels, demons, ghosts, the Watchers, Jinn, human-alien hybrids, spirit guides, and so very much more.

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Life After Near Death:
Miraculous Stories of Healing and Transformation
in the Extraordinary Lives of People With Newfound Powers
by Debra Diamond

New Page Books
A division of The Career Press, Inc.
12 Parish Drive
Wayne, NJ 07470
2016, 329 pages, 6x9 US $16.99
ISBN: 978-1-63265-024-5

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

The author had a career in investment on Wall Street, did commentary on CNBC, and was a professor at John Hopkins University. She writes that she knew that no part of her career included New Age vocabulary, but she points out that in 2008 she had a spiritual experience that soon opened her up to a journey and experiences that would have previously been unimaginable, and all of which ultimately led her to become increasingly interested and aware of people who described having near death experiences, and how those experiences greatly changed their lives.

This book is a fascinating account detailing this author's research and investigations into the near death experience, with thought-provoking stories of her first person interviews with these experiencers, concentrating on the profound and puzzling after effects of their life-changing brushes with death, and the intriguing insights and understandings that evolved for both her and her interviewees in the process of her explorations into these perplexing, little understood experiences.

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Sacred Geometry of the Earth:
The Ancient Matrix of Monuments and Mountains
by Mark Vidler and Catherine Young
Foreword by Rand Flem-Ath

Inner Traditions
One Park Street
Rochester, Vermont 05767
2016, 288 pages, 6x9 US $18.95
ISBN: 978-1-62055-468-5

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

Authors Mark Vidler and Catherine Young, in a book loaded with photographs and illustrations, detail how ancient and distant man-made sites and mountain peaks across our planet's landscape curiously interconnect across the vast globe into various geometric patterns. From the Giza pyramids, Stonehenge, Machu Pichu, the standing stones of Carnac, Angkor Wat, and numerous other significant locations betweentx and between, the authors illustrate and explain the curious geographical correlations and search for meanings and explanations to try and explain these widespread patterns.

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Awaken Your Divine Intuition:
Receive Wisdom, Blessings, and Love by Connecting With Spirit
by Susan Shumsky, D.D.

New Page Books
A division of The Career Press, Inc.
12 Parish Drive
Wayne, NJ 07470
2016, 223 pages, 6x9 US $15.99
ISBN: 978-1-63265-028-3

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

Dr. Shumsky, the author of the acclaimed Awaken Your Third Eye (2015), which was reviewed not so long ago in this magazine, along with an audio interview of its author, is back with a brand new tome providing an assortment of additional methods for achieving inner guidance, healing and knowledge, with meditative exercises, techniques, and strategies aimed at further improving the reader's own spiritual journey through this life.

In addition to the positive and empowering approaches that Dr. Shumsky presents, she also outlines for the reader potential dangers and warning signs, with a good number of case histories to illustrate such dangers, in a chapter entitled Misadventures in Psychic Delusion, wherein she reveals the dangers of opening yourself up to false psychics, spirits, and false beliefs. In a chapter entitled Testing the Message, the author also delves indepth into the hidden dangers of accepting misleading and blatantly false messages, whether allegedly from “the other side” or “space aliens,” presenting detailed guidelines on how to apply sound and proper discernment to such situations and not be taken in.

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The Children of Roswell:
A Seven-Decade Legacy of Fear, Intimidation, and Cover-ups
by Thomas J. Carey and Donald R. Schmitt

New Page Books
A division of The Career Press, Inc.
12 Parish Drive
Wayne, NJ 07470 2016, 256 pages, 6x9 US $16.99
ISBN: 978-1-63265-019-1


Reviewed by Brent Raynes

This book purports to expose a seldom revealed side to the very well-known Roswell controversy. It presents details on alleged threats made to those involved in this early 1947 incident that mainstream ufology and these authors have depicted as a saucer crash covered up by our very own military.

However, while Roswell has played a central part in the mainstream UFO controversy, many keynote researchers in the field have had serious doubts and reservations on the matter, feeling that the evidence pointed more towards some sort of balloon crash or something man-made at the least, rather than the crash of a malfunctioning extraterrestrial craft. Noted UFO author John Keel was very outspoken in this regard, and others like British researcher and author Andrew Collins have also expressed doubts. Not too long ago, an event that was billed as a huge public exposure, photographs of an alien body from the Roswell saucer crash, turned out to be a mummified human baby body from a museum display.

Nonetheless, despite false leads and wild goose chases, the dedicated and objective, fact-oriented researcher will kick over every stone and attempt to uncover every lead in his/her quest for answers, and so if any of these accounts are true, accurate and not embellished, the persons described are indeed credible, and the authors have accurately presented their information, then we must still ponder why these people were treated in this fashion so many years ago.

Unfortunately, at this late stage of the game Roswell is a real ufological “cold case,” and here of late it feels rather like Roswell authors are beating a dead horse, and I'm not talking about a Snippy from Alamosa.


Friday, March 29, 2024