Next time you glance at your watch and find a few minutes missing, better rush to your local hypnotist—you, too, might have been unwittingly kidnapped by a UFO. So Jacobs seems to suggest, estimating that over a million Americans have been abducted in recent years. ``We have been invaded,'' he proclaims, warning that ``the aliens have powers and technology greatly in advance of ours.'' Odd words, coming from a professor of history at Temple Univ., and a sign of the extreme oddity of the phenomenon, which Jacobs explores through extensive structural analysis. Each stage of a typical abduction, including the most sensational—the sexual encounters and reproductive experiments found in nearly all cases—are scrutinized through firsthand transcripts of hypnotic-regression interviews with more than 60 victims. The conclusion? That aliens are impregnating earth women in order to create quasi-human ``hybrids'' for some unknown purpose. The mind reels, but the sober, obviously terrified abductees make a strong case for the veracity of their experience. Jacobs's own presentation is a mixed blessing: His scholarship is punctilious, but he reveals the zeal of the converted in his debunking, after slight analysis, of all earth-bound explanations for UFO abductions (hysterical contagion, psychogenic fugue states, temporal-lobe dysfunction, and the like). By bringing solid scholarship to the pioneering efforts of Bud Hopkins and the hot prose of Whitley Strieber, this marks the next stage in UFO abduction research—and is just as likely to fly off the supermarket bookracks.
Pub Date: March 12, 1992
ISBN: 0-671-74857-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This Christian-themed handbook offers insight and comfort, though falls short of sharing three-dimensional stories.
An oncologist and his cancer-surviving co-author present the stories of 12 cancer patients and analyze each person’s spiritual growth following the diagnosis.
The idea of cancer as the best gift a person could receive is an obviously controversial suggestion. For the most part, the authors do a fine job of clarifying this inflammatory statement by examining how the personal and spiritual growth of the cancer patents profiled here led to enriched relationships, stronger faith and other positive impacts. However, by presenting each patient’s story as a first-person narrative, the authors are hampered by each person’s individual limits as a storyteller. Few of the patients use rich, descriptive language or set a vivid scene, relying instead on clichéd language or pat testimonies regarding their belief in God. A notable exception is a moving account that describes how a man’s relationship with a close friend’s daughter helped him fight cancer and, later, helped the girl’s mother cope with the sudden death of her daughter. A well-researched narrative and perhaps accompanying photographs would help the case studies resonate more deeply. Additionally, the majority of the stories involve those who survived cancer, further implying a positive attitude and strong, Christian faith result in recovery. The analysis following each anecdote takes an increasingly strong, evangelical tone that may alienate those who do not share such beliefs. Such proselytizing distracts from otherwise generally thoughtful discussions and guidance regarding strategies for living in the moment, reducing worry and addressing negative feelings in order to focus on positive ones. Analytical sections also are careful to explain such coping strategies may not cure cancer but may provide comfort and improve quality of life. Footnotes throughout the text often follow vague references to other literature, material generally unnecessary and distracting.
This Christian-themed handbook offers insight and comfort, though falls short of sharing three-dimensional stories.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2010
ISBN: 978-1440187698
Page Count: 167
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Historical fiction detailing the formation of, and competition between, different Christian sects.
One of the weaknesses of the popular religious thriller The Da Vinci Code is the book’s introductory list of “facts” that many scholars find dubious. The story may be engaging, but the scholarship on which it sits is shaky. Durrett’s work has a similar flaw; however, with a flat narrative and a cast of two-dimensional characters, Gnostics doesn’t overcome the simplistic research on which it is based to become a compelling tale. The book begins nearly 2,000 years ago in Palestine: Jesus is dead and his followers are bereft. When all seems lost, the risen Christ appears to his lover and dearest disciple, Mary Magdalene, and tells her to found a new church in France based on his secret teachings. Meanwhile, Jesus’ male disciples are to stay behind and begin what will one day become Roman Catholicism, though Mary’s church—made up of members called, by turns, Gnostics, Cathars or Perfecti—will someday eclipse theirs and become the universal world religion. Then fastforward 12 centuries, to a time when Catholic overreach threatens to destroy Cathar spirituality forever through a series of violent purges. Durrett’s plotline—most of which focuses on a trio of 13th-century Cathar women—shows promise but his overt spiritual concerns often overwhelm the story. In the book’s introduction, the author argues that world Catholicism is nearly extinct and that the re-establishment of Cathar Gnosticism is imminent. These claims are unbelievable but, more damaging, they drag down the tale of Mary Magdalene and her spiritual heiresses. Further, the author’s understanding of first-century Christianity is simplistic and sometimes misleading. A world conspiracy against Cathar religion is a fun idea, but lacks historical support. Also, Durrett’s detailed explanation of Cathar spirituality is always distractingly close to the surface. A potentially engaging tale undercut by its basis in specious history and its unsatisfying occupation of a gray area between novel and creed.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4276-5005-4
Page Count: 220
Publisher: ECKO House
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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