29 September 2009

BRAIN AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Alva Noe. Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain and Other Lessons From the Biology of Consciousness. Hill and Wang, 2009

If paranormalists, seeing the title of this book, think the author, a professor of Philosophy and member of the Institute of Cognitive and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, is going to support their belief that consciousness is some kind of etheric stuff which can float around operating tables, they are going to be disappointed.
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27 September 2009

UFOs IN THE ARCHIVES

David Clarke. The UFO Files: The Inside Story of Real-life Sightings. The National Archives, 2009.

If someone had said say 20 years ago, that a UK 'government agency' would publish a book on UFOs, or at least one that did not dismiss the subject with a laugh and a sneer, they would have been thought crazy. Well how times change. 

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LIFE AFTER DEATH

Anthony Peake. Is There Life After Death? The Extraordinary Science of What Happens When We Die. Arcturus Publishing, 2006.

Anthony Peake. The Daemon: A Guide to Your Extraordinary Secret Self. Arcturus Publishing, 2008.

To cut to the chase, you know all those odd Fortean mysteries? Well Peake can explain them all. You see what happens when you die is that you live your life all over again, and again and again ad nauseum, in the last few moments of your life.
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26 September 2009

SKEPTICS V. BELIEVERS: NO-SCORE DRAW

Chris Carter. Parapsychology and the Skeptics: a Scientific Argument for the Existence of ESP. SterlingHouse, 2007.

Henri Broch. Exposed! Ouija, Firewalking and other Gibberish. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.

One of the main features of the debates surrounding a range of anomalous claims, is the quasi religious divide into rival ideological camps marked 'believer' and 'sceptic' which is rarely encountered elsewhere in science, however rancorous these disputes can become. Perhaps the only other examples which come to immediate mind are the debates surrounding human induced global warming, or some of debates surrounding AIDS.
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12 September 2009

BUDD HOPKINS - AN ARTIST'S LIFE

Budd Hopkins. Art, Life and UFOs: A Memoir. Anomalist Books, 2009.

Time and again there arise charismatic figures who claim a special gnosis into the human condition, to possess the master key which tells us why it is no go, the cause of the world's heartache and suffering. One such is Budd Hopkins, but in one crucial respect Budd Hopkins and his side kick David Jacobs differ from almost all the rest.
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8 September 2009

NURSE, THE SCREENS!

From the August 2009 edition of MUFON UFO Journal, in an article about Bruce Maccabee receiving their "highest award for Excellence in Ufology":

"The only funny thing I can say about Bruce is that he is the only guy I know who cut his organ in half so he could get it in the back seat of his car ..."

Truly eye-watering!

6 September 2009

SATANIC PANIC

Magonia readers may have hoped that the horrific 'Satanic Ritual Abuse' panic, which we helped to expose nearly twenty years ago, was by now totally discredited. As a glance at recent headlines will show there are plenty of horrors for over-worked social workers to deal with, without introducing an entirely mythical element to confuse the issue, and perhaps distract from the real abuse which is taking place every day.
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