Alien Peace Scrolls

Skydore’s debut New Age offering examines the secret to permanent peace on Earth.

The book opens with a preface stating that, in 2012, the author was contacted by the Cosmic Peace Council, an organization that transmitted the Alien Peace Scrolls to planet Earth in hopes that a select few people would follow its teachings and bring permanent peace to the planet. What follows is a discussion on the ideas of pain, war, and how one’s personal choices can either doom or save the world, divided into a series of essays (“Air Did Not Invent the Flower,” “Meaning Beyond Words and Truth Beyond Meaning,” “Peace on Planet Earth,” two essays titled “No Exceptions,” and others). It also includes two pages of definitions of key terms, including “Pain,” “Work (Reduce Pain),” “Peace,” and “Joy.” This unique, conversational work is part stream-of-consciousness, part question-and-answer session and reads much like a lecture. It seems to blend fiction and nonfiction, and readers may sometimes find it hard to determine when the author is being tongue-in-cheek or positing a serious point. Skydore claims that the style of the book, which includes short, sometimes-incomplete sentences and unusually capitalized words, is part of its power; it’s attention-grabbing, but it’s also confusing. The book is at its best when it keeps things simple. The underlying premise is important and worthy of examination: that everything and everyone is interconnected and that to find lasting peace on Earth, one must work to reduce pain. But Skydore spends an inordinate amount of time trying to convince readers why they should read the book instead of parsing out how peace, in her view, can be achieved. When the book does discuss its central theme, it’s oversimplified: “Be an Angel and Reduce Your Pain always and with No Exceptions.” The book’s definitions also generate more questions than answers. Peace, for example, is defined as “A Third Something in Existence, said Third Something including a First Something in Existence and a Second Something in Existence.”

An innovative, thought-provoking premise unfortunately obscured in a deluge of perplexing metaphors.