HILARY EVANS. 1929 - 2011

I can’t remember exactly when I first met Hilary Evans, I imagine it was at a BUFORA event. I do know that it was sometime in the 1970s that I received a cheque from him for a subscription to what was then MUFOB magazine. I was intrigued that it was a company cheque from something called ‘Saturday Ventures’ which gave the impression of someone working hard through the week, who on Saturdays would have all sorts of intriguing and exciting projects to occupy themselves. Which was actually pretty close to the truth.

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CLEANING UP THE OIL SLICK

Chris Edwards. Spiritual Snake Oil: Fads and Fallacies in Pop Culture. See Sharp Press, 2011.

In many ways this book follows on from Stephen Law's Believing Bullshit, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago, only Edwards takes on specific targets. These are the New Age writers Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance; James Redfield, the author of the Celesetine Prophecy; Rhoda Byrnes, author of The Secret and Depack Chopra (in particular his book Afterlife), a couple of Christian apologists, Francis Collins and Dinesh D'Souza; and two representatives of what might call scientistic religion Ray Kurzweil and Simon Young.
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PARANORMAL CASEBOOKS

        

Lee Prosser. UFOs in Missouri: True Tales of Extraterrestrials and Related Phenomena. Schiffer Books, 2011.

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Malcolm Robinson. Paranormal Case Files of Great Britain, Volume One. Healings of Atlantis. 2011

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Janet Bord. The 100 Greatest Photographs of the Paranormal from the Fortean Picture Library. Jazz Publishing/Paranormal Magazine, 2010. 
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STUDYING SALEM

Richard Godbeer. The Salem Witch Hunt: A Brief History With Documents. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 (The Bedford Series in History and Culture).

This book is part of a series aimed at introducing (American) undergradute history students to working with primary documents and learning to interpret them as professional historians do.

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STILL A DANGEROUS BUSINESS

It's been a while since I last commented on American ufology, and its most public face, the MUFON organisation, and after I posted those notes it did seem that MUFON's monthly magazine was showing a more rational and critical attitude, in keeping with its stated aims of "analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO phenomenon" and published several quite interesting pieces. However any pretence of scientific objectivity seems to be jettisoned with the July 2011 number. Six and a half pages are given over to a feature called 'Big Questions in Ufology'.
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AMERICAN CONSPIRACIES

Martha F Lee. Conspiracy Rising: Conspiracy Thinking in American Public Life. Praeger, 2011.

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Paul Schrag and Xavier Haze. The Suppressed History of America: The Murder of Meriwether Lewis and the Mysteries Discoveries of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Bear and Company, 2011

Martha Lee, who teaches political science and religion and conflict at the University of Windsor and Assumption University, in Ontario, traces the history of conspiracy theories and their rise in the United States in this short but scholarly book. She situates the start of these theories in the turbulent times of the French Revolution when traditional élites found their world falling away beneath them and began searching for reasons. One set of targets were secret societies, real or imaginary.
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THE MILL AND THE GHOST

Michael J Hallowell and Darren W. Ritson. The Haunting of Willington Mill: The Truth About England's Most Enigmatic Ghost Story. The History Press, 2011.

This is an account of a fascinating early nineteenth century ghost story, one which gives us an excellent insight into what ghost stories looked like in the days before the Society for Psychical Research. It is also provides a warning as to the pitfalls which can occur to those new to historical research.
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CLEARING UP THE BOVINE EXCREMENT

Stephen Law. Believing Bullshit: How to Not Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole. Prometheus, 2011.

Stephen Law is a philosopher at Heythrop College, University of London, an institution which began life as a Jesuit training college in the 17th century, and provost of the Centre for Inquiry UK which is the sort of grown up version of Centre for Scientific Inquiry, taking on the big boys of organised religion rather than bigfoot and fairground fakers. 🔻

THE EAST IS RED

Andrei Znamenski. Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia. Quest Books/Theosophical Publishing House, 2011.

This is a book which overturns many common perceptions about the world and politics, it is a revelation of a topsy-turvey world in which Tibetan Buddhist jihadists meet mystical Communists and Russo-American mystics in the pursuit of the dream of a perfect society peopled by new model human beings.
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ME TARZAN, YOU ABDUCTEE!

It's good to hear from David Sivier, a long-time Magonia reader and contributor who has provided many fine articles for the print version of the magazine. You can find them here:

http://magonia.haaan.com/category/author/david-sivier/
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UFOS AND ALIENS: A MIXED BUNCH

Michael Pye and Kirsten Dalley (editors), UFOs and Aliens: Is there anybody out there? New Page Books, 2011

This is a collection of original essays by writers proclaimed by the publisher's blurb to be "the world's leading experts on modern ufology". Two of the essays are by Stanton T. Friedman, who - leading expert or not - needs no introduction.
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MAN-BEASTS AND MONSTERS

Joe Nickell. Tracking the Man-Beasts: Sasquatch, Vampires, Zombies and More. Prometheus, 2011

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Bart M. Nunnelly. The Inhumanoids: Real Encounters With Beings That Can't Exist. CFZ Press, 2011

Human beings have always been fascinated by stories about those beings which seem to exist in the liminal zone between human and animal. These two books cover a wide range of such creatures from very different perspectives.
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