WHAT COLOUR IS YOUR PARAGRAPH?

V. S. Ramachandran. The Tell-Tale Brain: Unlocking the Mystery of Human Nature. William Heinemann, 2011. 

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Maureen Seaberg. Tasting the Universe; People Who See Colors in Words and Rainbows in Symphonies. New Page, 2011. 

Ramachandran, who is Director of the Center for the Brain at the University of California, San Diego, continues his study of extraordinary cases in neurology which he began in Phantoms in the Brain. In this book he examines additional detail topics such as synesthesia, phantom limbs and the strange effects of various brain injuries caused by both strokes and injuries, as well as studies on autism.
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KNOWING ME, KNOWING WHO?

Elias Aboujaoude. Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality. W. W. Norton, 2011.

An American psychiatrist rehearses the many dangers of the Internet, from compulsive buying, gambling, watching porn, loosing your privacy, and drifting away from the real world into a much more exciting cyber one. It is probably the section on the false and often inflated personalities that people adopt online that comes closest to the sort of topics covered by Magonia.
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PSI OTT?

Barry E Taff. Aliens Above, Ghosts Below: Explorations of the Unknown Cosmic. Pantheon Press, 2010.

Dr Barry Taff, a former graduate associated of the late Thelma Moss at the UCLA's parapsychology laboratory, reports on a wide number of cases of anomalous phenomena that he has investigated.
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ENGLISH WITCHCRAFT AND SURREY GHOSTS

Andrew and David Pickering. Witch-Hunting in England. Amberley, 2010.

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Marq English. Paranormal Surrey; True Ghost Stories. Amberley, 2011.

These two titles might well be used as examples on how to, and how not to compile gazetteer-style guides to paranormal phenomena on a regional basis.
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VISIONS OF THE MULTIVERSE

Steven Manly, Visions of the Multiverse, New Page Books, New Jersey, 2011

There is general agreement among astronomers and cosmologists that about 13.7 billion years ago the universe we live in began with an event generally known as the "big bang" (a term invented by the astronomer Fred Hoyle, who was noted for his scepticism about the theory). It should be understood, though, that this does not mean that the universe expanded into space, but that it was space itself which expanded.

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THE MORALITY OF IMMORTALITY

John Gray. The Immortalization Commission. Allen Lane, 2011.

Charles Darwin's Origin of Species published in 1859 presented a word in which human beings were totally embedded in the general and very mortal biological world, and not a special creation destined for immortality. John Gray explores ways in which human beings have tried to escape that fate and construct a path to immortality founded on science rather than religious revelation.
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A GHOSTLY BRACE OF AC(Y)KROYDS

Peter Ackroyd. The English Ghost. Chatto and Windus, 2010

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Peter H. Aykroyd and Angela Narth. A History of Ghosts: The True Story of Seances, Mediums, Ghosts and Ghostbusters. Rodale, 2009.

Sometime deep in the mists of Brigantian history, somewhere near Halifax, the English novelist and historian Peter Ackroyd and Peter Aykroyd the father of US-Canadian comedian Dan Aykroyd came from the same stock, and it would seem they have both inherited an interest in the paranormal from the their distant common ancestors.

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DISCLOSURE, IT'S HERE!

Ufologists will be interested in a quote from Hansard (the record of Parliamentary proceedings) Written Answers to Questions, for yesterday:

Mike Penning (MP for Hemel Hempstead): "... I have met with the MIB and have visited their headquarters in Milton Keynes".

I think we could probably have guessed their headquarters would be in Milton Keynes, a town that seems to have been designed for habitation by aliens. (Hat-tip to Dizzy)

ABDUCTIONS AND HYBRIDS: STILL A DANGEROUS GAME

Carol Rainey's article below gives insights into more than the activities of Hopkins and Jacobs, for it sheds light on how people become converts to new (to them) religious movements, and the mentality of closed communities which see themselves under siege. We all know of people who have converted to the religion of a new partner, particularly where that religion is a major part of said partner's life.
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'DISCLOSURE' POLL

Time, I think, for another of our totally unscientific liitle polls. Over on Kevin Randle's excellent blog (http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/) he has just concluded a poll on 'Disclosure' - governments coming out and admitting that UFOs are visiting the Earth and they know all about it. The results are interesting, with over 50% believing that disclosure won't happen 'for years'. Just 17% think that it is 'at hand' or will happen 'soon'.
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ABDUCTION RESEARCHER RELATIONSHIPS - CAROL RAINEY

The Nature of Some Abduction Researcher Relationships

by Carol Rainey


Over the past several weeks, something significant may just have happened to the way alien abduction research will proceed (or not) in the future. Within the Internet community of people fascinated by such matters, we’ve all been struck by the strident tones and the smack-down volleys of exchanges on list serves, blogs, and emails.

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FOUR SHORTS

         

Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini. What Darwin Got Wrong. Profile Books, 2011.

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Rosemany Pilkington (Ed.) Esprit: Men and Women of Parapsychology; Personal Reflections. Volume 1. Anomalist Books, 2010.

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Barbara Ehrenreich. Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled American and the World. Granta, 2010

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James Shapiro. Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare. Faber and Faber, 2011.
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ATHEISM & BELIEF

Geoff Crocker, An Enlightened Philosophy: Can an Atheist Believe Anything? O Books, 2010.

The stated purpose of this book is to attempt to suggest how a synthesis can be achieved between religious faith and increasingly aggressive atheism. The author argues that "atheist populism destroys religious belief but offers no philosophy to replace it. It is nihilistic." He wants to combine a "meaningful metaphysics" with a recognition of the "power of myth" in religion.

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