Post by auntym on Feb 18, 2014 15:52:12 GMT -6
ufodigest.com/article/paranormal-corridors-0218
February 18, 2014
TRAVELING THE PARANORMAL CORRIDORS OF THE WORLD
By Sean Casteel
Although we may seldom give it much thought, there exists a world outside our perhaps limited, claustrophobic perspective on just what truly matters in the study of UFOs and other paranormal subjects. While there has admittedly always been a small core group of UFOlogists and students of the strange who have ventured beyond the borders of their libraries and television-centered environments and actually traveled to exotic locations around the world to visit various monuments or mingle with indigenous peoples and seek the truths to be found among them, most of us are forced by circumstances to only dream of such forays into other realities.
Click here to enlarge top photo. Photo credit and description: (Dirk Vander Ploeg) The Sun Over Machu Picchu.
Given that we are such “armchair tourists” when exploring the weirder parts of the world, we can certainly be consoled by, even irresistibly drawn into, some of the books on these places published by Timothy Green Beckley at Global Communications. The books written along those lines that are available from the venerable publisher – and Amazon.com – include titles like “Lost Worlds and Underground Mysteries of the Far East,” “Secret of the Andes and the Golden Sun Disc of MU,” “The Magic and Mysteries of Mexico,” and “An Occult Guide to South America.”
MYSTERIOUS INDIA AND ITS FASCINATING HOLY MEN
Let’s ramp up with “Lost World and Underground Mysteries of the Far East,” written by M. Paul Dare and first published in the 1930s. The book’s cover enticingly promises to teach us about the “Forbidden Magic and Superstitions of Ancient Societies,” and it does so in the kind of elegant writing style that is rarely found in present day tomes on similar themes.
As Beckley points out in his introduction to the reprint, we are all at least distantly familiar with the legends of Indian holy men who can levitate themselves, as well as household objects, after a quick nap on a bed of nails. Beckley writes of developing a fascination with such stories when he was a child and has fond memories of collecting literature on the subject by perusing the ads found in the back pages of his favorite comic books. Beckley says he was also influenced by his friend, the late John Keel, who traveled throughout the Far East in search of the world’s greatest mysteries, including the quest for the truth about the Abominable Snowman and the legitimacy of the Indian rope trick.
Beckley then tells the reader about discovering a first edition of Dare’s book in the basement of a used bookstore and how he instantly recognized that it was worthy of being reprinted. At the time the book was written, Dare was the News Editor of “The Times of India,” a prestigious daily newspaper in its heyday.
In the opening paragraph of chapter one, Dare begins by asking, “Where do genuine magical power end and the realm of frankly theatrical conjuring begin? This is perhaps the biggest mystery of all to be solved in probing the magical performances of ‘the mysterious East,’ and any consideration of it must inevitably involve a discussion of that perennial source of controversy, the Indian rope trick; and the author of any book on Far Eastern mysteries and beliefs feels that he owes it to his readers to start them off with this subject, since the first question always flung at anyone rash enough to admit having lived in India is: Did you see the rope trick? Can it be done?”
Dare goes on to summarize what the Indian rope trick is usually said to consist of.
“Briefly,” he writes, “the conjuror throws into the air a thin rope, or stout twine, which defies the laws of gravity by staying stiff and upright, its top vanishing out of sight in the open sky. The assistant, a boy aged about twelve, shinnies up the rope and likewise disappears. He refuses to come down, despite repeated commands, so the magician, a knife between his teeth, goes up after him, and then bits of dismembered boy fall to the ground amid piercing shrieks; after which, the conjuror descends to earth, cleans his hands and the knife, and the boy appears, whole and undamaged, from among the crowd. There are variations, but that is the essence of it.”
According to Dare, in the 1930s, the period in which he writes, the truth or falsehood of the Indian rope trick was a raging controversy that garnered lots of space in the news media of the period. Many so-called “experts” claimed that they could prove the feat was a total deception, and a society of magicians in England offered thousands of rupees to any conjurer who could demonstrate, in an unchallengeable way, that the trick was real. There were never any takers for that offer or many similar ones because, Dare is quick to point out, genuine Indian holy men abhorred money and would never accept payment of any kind for what they did. Also, the tiny percentage of such holy men who could actually read English never read the English newspapers anyway.
After presenting both sides of the argument about the Indian rope trick, Dare candidly discusses the fact that he had never seen the trick himself. While he admits that it is an unfortunate fact for an researcher of this kind, he had only heard second and third accounts about the trick from other people.
“The nearest ‘contact,’” he writes, “was a wandering Austrian artist who told me his brother had seen the trick and taken a photograph, in which neither rope nor boy appeared on the plate, though the juggler and the crowd came out clearly. This, one often hears, is the mystifying experience of other people who have tried to photograph it.”
Dare’s book also includes chapters called “Crime and Sorcery,” “Human Sacrifice,” and “Mysteries of the Serpent,” among others, that delve into these arcane subjects with the objectivity of a seasoned newspaper reporter who also happens to have a deep interest in occultism, thus making him the kind of authority worth reading. For such a person, India in the 1930s was obviously a wonderland of paranormal folklore and genuine mystery.
CONTINUE READING: ufodigest.com/article/paranormal-corridors-0218
February 18, 2014
TRAVELING THE PARANORMAL CORRIDORS OF THE WORLD
By Sean Casteel
Although we may seldom give it much thought, there exists a world outside our perhaps limited, claustrophobic perspective on just what truly matters in the study of UFOs and other paranormal subjects. While there has admittedly always been a small core group of UFOlogists and students of the strange who have ventured beyond the borders of their libraries and television-centered environments and actually traveled to exotic locations around the world to visit various monuments or mingle with indigenous peoples and seek the truths to be found among them, most of us are forced by circumstances to only dream of such forays into other realities.
Click here to enlarge top photo. Photo credit and description: (Dirk Vander Ploeg) The Sun Over Machu Picchu.
Given that we are such “armchair tourists” when exploring the weirder parts of the world, we can certainly be consoled by, even irresistibly drawn into, some of the books on these places published by Timothy Green Beckley at Global Communications. The books written along those lines that are available from the venerable publisher – and Amazon.com – include titles like “Lost Worlds and Underground Mysteries of the Far East,” “Secret of the Andes and the Golden Sun Disc of MU,” “The Magic and Mysteries of Mexico,” and “An Occult Guide to South America.”
MYSTERIOUS INDIA AND ITS FASCINATING HOLY MEN
Let’s ramp up with “Lost World and Underground Mysteries of the Far East,” written by M. Paul Dare and first published in the 1930s. The book’s cover enticingly promises to teach us about the “Forbidden Magic and Superstitions of Ancient Societies,” and it does so in the kind of elegant writing style that is rarely found in present day tomes on similar themes.
As Beckley points out in his introduction to the reprint, we are all at least distantly familiar with the legends of Indian holy men who can levitate themselves, as well as household objects, after a quick nap on a bed of nails. Beckley writes of developing a fascination with such stories when he was a child and has fond memories of collecting literature on the subject by perusing the ads found in the back pages of his favorite comic books. Beckley says he was also influenced by his friend, the late John Keel, who traveled throughout the Far East in search of the world’s greatest mysteries, including the quest for the truth about the Abominable Snowman and the legitimacy of the Indian rope trick.
Beckley then tells the reader about discovering a first edition of Dare’s book in the basement of a used bookstore and how he instantly recognized that it was worthy of being reprinted. At the time the book was written, Dare was the News Editor of “The Times of India,” a prestigious daily newspaper in its heyday.
In the opening paragraph of chapter one, Dare begins by asking, “Where do genuine magical power end and the realm of frankly theatrical conjuring begin? This is perhaps the biggest mystery of all to be solved in probing the magical performances of ‘the mysterious East,’ and any consideration of it must inevitably involve a discussion of that perennial source of controversy, the Indian rope trick; and the author of any book on Far Eastern mysteries and beliefs feels that he owes it to his readers to start them off with this subject, since the first question always flung at anyone rash enough to admit having lived in India is: Did you see the rope trick? Can it be done?”
Dare goes on to summarize what the Indian rope trick is usually said to consist of.
“Briefly,” he writes, “the conjuror throws into the air a thin rope, or stout twine, which defies the laws of gravity by staying stiff and upright, its top vanishing out of sight in the open sky. The assistant, a boy aged about twelve, shinnies up the rope and likewise disappears. He refuses to come down, despite repeated commands, so the magician, a knife between his teeth, goes up after him, and then bits of dismembered boy fall to the ground amid piercing shrieks; after which, the conjuror descends to earth, cleans his hands and the knife, and the boy appears, whole and undamaged, from among the crowd. There are variations, but that is the essence of it.”
According to Dare, in the 1930s, the period in which he writes, the truth or falsehood of the Indian rope trick was a raging controversy that garnered lots of space in the news media of the period. Many so-called “experts” claimed that they could prove the feat was a total deception, and a society of magicians in England offered thousands of rupees to any conjurer who could demonstrate, in an unchallengeable way, that the trick was real. There were never any takers for that offer or many similar ones because, Dare is quick to point out, genuine Indian holy men abhorred money and would never accept payment of any kind for what they did. Also, the tiny percentage of such holy men who could actually read English never read the English newspapers anyway.
After presenting both sides of the argument about the Indian rope trick, Dare candidly discusses the fact that he had never seen the trick himself. While he admits that it is an unfortunate fact for an researcher of this kind, he had only heard second and third accounts about the trick from other people.
“The nearest ‘contact,’” he writes, “was a wandering Austrian artist who told me his brother had seen the trick and taken a photograph, in which neither rope nor boy appeared on the plate, though the juggler and the crowd came out clearly. This, one often hears, is the mystifying experience of other people who have tried to photograph it.”
Dare’s book also includes chapters called “Crime and Sorcery,” “Human Sacrifice,” and “Mysteries of the Serpent,” among others, that delve into these arcane subjects with the objectivity of a seasoned newspaper reporter who also happens to have a deep interest in occultism, thus making him the kind of authority worth reading. For such a person, India in the 1930s was obviously a wonderland of paranormal folklore and genuine mystery.
CONTINUE READING: ufodigest.com/article/paranormal-corridors-0218