FIRST READ - JACQUES VALLEE

Jacques Vallee. Anatomy of a Phenomenon: Unidentified Objects in Space - A Scientific Appraisal. Neville Spearman, London, 1966. By John Harney

When I first read this book nearly fifty years ago I, along with many other ufologists, thought it was a valuable contribution to the serious study of the subject, in contrast to some of the wild speculation and nonsensical contact stories available at that time (and ever since).
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FUTURE MINDS

Michio Kaku. The Future of Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance and Empower the Mind. Allen Lane, 2014.

Having explored the outer limits of physics, Michio Kaku now turns to examining the cutting edges of neuroscience. The areas with the most immediate applicability are the various projects to transform the lives of people with quadriplegia and locked-in syndrome, by constructing systems directly linking the brain to computers and hence to a variety of equipment, including cyborg arms.
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TWO UFOLOGICAL CRASHES

Timothy Good. Earth, An Alien Enterprise: The Shocking Truth Behind the Greatest Cover-up in Human History. Pegasus Books, 2013.

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John Hanson and Dawn Holloway. Haunted Skies Volume Nine, 1981 - 1986. Haunted Skies Publishing, 2013.

Give him his due, Timothy Good is able to assemble a vast mound of UFO related folklore, urban legends, “things I learned in the services” stories, rumour, fringe beliefs and the like, much of it stuff that 'sensible' ufologists wouldn’t touch with a bargepole. His books are among the last refuges of the old fashioned contactee stories that were the staple diet of British gutter-roots ufology 50 years ago.
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FADING FORTEANA

The ability we now have to search back issues of local newspapers on-line is allowing researchers to unearth intriguing little nuggets of forteana. Here are two items which Peter Rogerson has uncovered in his latest trawl through the haunted wing of the newspaper archives.

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Dundee Courier, September 22, 1926.

VISITORS FROM MARS

In a short time the planet Mars and the earth will be in opposition. This will be the inevitable signal for a revival of the time-worn question: Is communication between two worlds possible? Scientist and layman alike demand.  Can man visit Mars?" Is Mars inhabited " Can the Martians visit us?"

SHEFFIELD SHUDDERS

David Clarke. Scared to Death and Other Ghost Stories from Victorian Sheffield. ACM Retro, 2013.

Many books of local ghost stories consist of either vague rumours of the “it is said” variety, or tales of “vigils” held by organisations with strange sounding names, usually accompanied by a tame psychic or two. Not so this book. 

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OCCULT INTERNATIONAL

Henrik Bogdan and Gordan Djurdjevic (editors). Occultism in a Global Perspective. Acumen Publishing, 2013.

Plenty has been written about occultism in modern Britain and America, but less about it in other parts of the world. Here is a collection of essays, mostly by professors of religious studies, looking at particular countries, including Italy, Turkey, and Colombia. There is also the phenomenon of ‘esoteric Hitlerism’, the promoters of which were generally not German.

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FIRST READ - SUSY SMITH

Susy Smith. World of the Strange. Pyramid Books, 1963.

 In and of itself there is nothing special about this popular introduction to the paranormal, covering, as its cover blurb says - ghosts, witchcraft, ESP, hypnotism, magic, astrology, mediums, not to say predictions and poltergeists, which I bought at a newsagents and sweetshop in Urmston in the week between Christmas and New Year 1963.

ESSENTIAL CROWLEY

Henrik Bogdan and Martin P. Starr (editors). Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism. Oxford University Press, 2012.

Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism bills itself as ‘The first collection devoted to critical studies of Aleister Crowley.’ It consists of fourteen essays that examine Crowley’s thought, work and influence from different scholarly perspectives, with an introduction by the editors and a context-setting foreword by Wouter J. Hanegraaff (one of the best concise introductions to the Western esoteric tradition I’ve read).
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