A credulity-straining account by a deeply grieved mother of her son's brief and troubled life on earth, his suicide, and his soul's happier existence in another dimension. Puryear, who with her husband runs a holistic center and church in Arizona called the Logos Center, is seriously into interpreting auras and channeling. She asserts that not only did her deceased 15-year-old son, Stephen, ask her to write this book, but he dictated a substantial portion of it. As she tells it, spirit guides conversed with her for years before her son's death; thus, her belief that Stephen carries on lengthy conversations with her is not surprising. As she describes her own unhappy life—she repeatedly married the wrong men, and she ignored the clues Stephen gave her that he was a boy in need of help—a picture emerges of a credulous, guilt-filled woman. The book's message, as expressed by Stephen ``from the other side,'' is that most suicides can be prevented if kids can be reached soon enough, relieved of peer pressure, helped to develop self- esteem, and put on the right diet. For a message from the spirit world, it sounds oddly mundane. An appendix contains excerpts from various sources on suicide prevention; a directory of resources for suicide survivors and those struggling with such problems as alcoholism, drug abuse, and eating disorders; and an extensive reading list on angels, reincarnation, suicide, love, diet, and allergies. The notion of communicating with one's deceased loved ones has long had appeal to many, and some bereaved parents may find this book persuasive and even helpful. Skeptics, however, are more likely to view it as the sad product of a New Age mother's remorse and unresolved grief.
Pub Date: March 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-671-53663-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996
Mack has taken on the prophetic tone of Whitley Strieber in his latest works about alien contact, a tone that can become annoying. Mack created quite a stir when he published his book Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens a few years back. Why, people wanted to know, was this brilliant Harvard psychiatrist supporting the delusions of people who are clearly crazy? But Mack insists they—re not crazy, that, in fact, on all personality and other psychological tests given to them, abductees seem completely normal. After working with hundreds more abductees over the past few years, Mack has concluded that they and aliens together have important lessons for us. For, according to Mack, the aliens come not from another planet, but from an other reality—a kind of parallel universe. They “are forcing us to appreciate that cosmic realities exist beyond the three-dimensional universe that has bounded our earthly existence.” “The cosmos that is revealed by this opening of consciousness . . . appears to be filled with beings, creatures, spirits, intelliigences, gods . . . that have through the millennia been intimately involved with human existence.” In support of this thesis, Mack focuses in depth on several aspects of the abductees” experience: the sense abductees have that their bodies begin to “vibrate” at a “higher frequency” when in contact with the bright light and energy of the aliens; the environmental lessons that the aliens seem to be teaching the abductees, and the intense bonds of love that develop between the abductees and the aliens. The abductees quoted by Mack here believe the aliens are in some sense messengers of God, or Source, as they call this power. Mack quotes at length from a selection of abductees, all of whose testimony echo these themes. Only the most dedicated abduction devotees will be able to read this all the way through without intense skepticism.
Pub Date: Nov. 10, 1999
ISBN: 0-517-70568-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
A comprehensive investigation of encounters with unidentified flying objects, all the more riveting because it is both skeptical and scrupulously objective. What facts do we have regarding UFOs? asks an international team of scientists headed by Sturrock (Physics/Stanford Univ.). What is the physical evidence, and what is it trying to tell us? Taking pains to avoid sounding frivolous, the team reviews the records of UFO encounters. Many can be explained as misinterpretations of such man-made objects as satellites, or as natural phenomena like marsh gas, manifestations of lightning, or wave ducting, which causes radar mirages. Other experiences are characterized here as “suggestive but far from sufficient” in terms of data. Even more intriguing are the “anomalies,” a full 30% of the notable contacts, often sighted by multiple observers without discernible ulterior motives, some with photographic evidence, some with material remains, some tracked on radar screens, all left unexplained after a battery of tests that include such jawbreakers as micro-densitometry scans of photographic film crystals, and the probings of spark mass spectrometry. The scope and detail of these analyses make them tough going for the lay reader, but the narrative sections and interviews are captivating. It’s particularly gratifying to read the investigators— exquisite debunkings of the bureaucratic obfuscation and mumbo jumbo with which government officials have smugly dismissed UFO sightings. This cavalier attitude won—t do, the study argues; we need more systematic data collection and procedures. Given the randomness of UFO events, however, that may be asking for the impossible. The ultimate conclusion here is a rousing Who knows? Nonetheless, —a signal emerges from the noise and that signal is not readily comprehensible in terms of phenomena now well known to science.” In other words, something is out there; it’s just unidentified. (Photos, charts, diagrams)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-446-52565-0
Page Count: 416
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
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