NAVIGATING NOWHERE

Emma Gee, Mapping the Afterlife: From Homer to Dante, Oxford University Press, 2020

This isn’t a book about the reality or otherwise of the afterlife, or beliefs about life after death in general. It’s a study of how the afterlife is presented in a selection of classical (and one medieval) works, chosen to ‘represent particular stations in the period from Homer to Dante’. Which is fine as far as it goes – but how far is that?

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ROSICRUCIAN AMERICA

Steven Sora. Rosicrucian America - How a Secret Society Influenced the Destiny of a Nation. Destiny Books, 2019.

It is mid-August 2020 as I complete this review. I've been thinking a lot about America in these past few months. Here in the UK we get news from there every day, and it's usually not good. These are strange times, with pandemic lockdowns, rising unemployment, economic hardship, violent crime and social unrest in many places, but nowhere more so than the most prosperous nation on earth, the United States of America.
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A MIRE OF MISERY

Jim Bouck and Robert Long. Foreword by Kathleen Marden. Alien Abduction: The Control Factor. Schiffer Publishing. 2020.

This attempts to be a guide to the abduction phenomena and how to stop the aliens from messing up your life. It opens with this catchy little slogan ‘Don’t be a victim or a pawn; learn the alien ropes and then resist.’ But what the hell are the alien ropes? They are nothing more than the frightening visions of Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs and the rest of the US abduction propaganda merchants.
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THE RULES OF THE GAME

John Greenewald Jr. Secrets From The Black Vault. Rowman and Littlefield. 2020.

This is a sequel to last year's Inside the Black Vault book from the same author and it is in essence more of the same. So, if you liked that one then you will undoubtedly be happy with the second helping on a broader scope. As before it is a retelling of stories accumulated over several decades by the author of a popular US website 'The Black Vault'.

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ELVISH LORE AND LIFE

Linda Raedisch. The Lore of Old Elfland: Secrets from the Bronze Age to Middle Earth. Llewellyn, 2019.

The elves have been among us throughout recorded history. Reports of these elusive beings predate Christianity and have been intertwined with Norse mythology, the magical powers and the capricious behaviour of the gods. As with other liminal beings, elves do not have a scientific, objective existence. 

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