What is it about? How did he do it? What’s the significance of it? Those questions are answered briefly in three recent reviews of Mark L. Cowden’s new book Spirit Voices: The First Live Conversation Between Worlds. First, from Reviews of the Mysterious Kind, we have Nick Redfern who writes: Spirit Voices is “an utterly absorbing study of how Mark—an audio-visual technician from Oklahoma—found himself in Ireland, in 2010, investigating apparent contact from beyond the grave. And when I say contact, I mean precisely that: the capture and recording of apparent conversations with discarnate entities from beyond…What particularly stands out for me is that Spirit Voices is as much about the potential for something, some essence, maybe—call it what you will—surviving bodily death, as it is about Mark’s very own, and deeply personal, quest to come to terms with the incredible data and experiences that crossed his path during the course of his adventurous trek in search of the truth…” Then we have Tom Ruffles of the Society for Psychical Research describing a bit of the author’s unique methodology: Cowden “is an expert at using audio-visual equipment, and inventive in developing technology to improve Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC). He came up with the idea of the ITC Orchestra, adding a violin and cello to his set-up to act as ‘natural amplifiers’ which extended the range of his audio equipment into the infrasound and ultrasound ranges, beyond that which humans can hear. His approach, in contrast to the one adopted by many groups, is to blend the technology with a spiritual approach…He appears to have achieved promising results with his set-up, and hopefully he will publish more on his work… In the meantime this is a very readable account of one person’s journey in the field of paranormal investigation.” And lastly Micah A. Hanks of The Gralien Report indicates just how important this book may turn out to be: “I would venture to say that while the readers interested in paranormal phenomena and psychic research will find this book interesting and enjoyable, it may very well also be one of the more important books available regarding Electronic Voice Phenomenon and the study of ghosts and the spirit realm. Indeed, if the data represents what Cowden and his associates have claimed it does, then Spirit Voices details what must be considered one of the most remarkable circumstances ever to unfold in the midst of a paranormal investigation, ever.”

David Huggins, who is the subject of Farah Yurdozu’s book Love In An Alien Purgatory: The Life And Fantastic Art of David Huggins, has been interviewed by Corey Armpriester for The Artblog. The interview deals not just with his abduction experiences but with his paintings as art. Perhaps most interesting, however, are the interviewer’s introductory remarks about Huggins: “I’m writing this piece not to give the impression that I know David is telling the truth, because I don’t know; I’m on the fence about all of this. I celebrate the world of ideas no matter how far out some of them may seem. Even if this is a made-up story from the mind of a delusional man, the power of the idea remains the same. Ideas are essential to the curious mind, and we as artists need not fear the ideas of other artists no matter how alien they sound. If David is indeed ‘crazy’ he’s in good company. Unusual ideas are almost always perceived as odd or askew until the common mind can make use of it. And as we all know artists are anything but common …” Read the full Artblog interview here.

The Fall 2011 issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration has brought us a wonderful review of Esprit: Men and Women of Parapsychology, Personal Reflections: Volume 1, edited by Rosemarie Pilkington. In it, Sally Rhine Feather, Executive Director of the Rhine Research Center, writes: “Esprit is a rich biographical resource for historians of the field, but it really is much more. It is the human story behind the scientific reports. It provides an insightful glimpse into what motivated a diverse group of gifted men and women to devote a large part of their lives to the exploration of an elusive and controversial dimension of human consciousness, and with little concern for monetary or societal reward…Esprit offers valuable guidance to the novice, some new “discoveries” of unfinished work and speculations for the more experienced parapsychologist, and possible fodder for the skeptic who just wonders about the makeup of a parapsychologist. But regardless of one’s belief about psi, this collection of essays provides priceless vignettes of a band of dedicated and selfless pioneers.”

Now that our website redesign is complete—thank you Crystal, Jack, and Ansen at Seale Studios!—we have some catching up to do. First up is The Cryptoterrestrials by Mac Tonnies. The book was just reviewed by Living Traditions Magazine out of Australia: “The Cryptoterrestrials is written in a succinct and engaging style condensing an immense amount of research… It is also beautifully illustrated and nicely presented…[The] UFO phenomenon smacks of deception and manipulation but not of a paranoid conspiracy theory type but of something of a totally different order. The question that needs to be asked is whether these beings could actually be another race sharing the planet with us and for some reason need us to perceive them as extra-terrestrial. Tonnies thesis is impressive and challenging…” And Stephen Wagner, the Paranormal Phenomena guide at About.com, selected The Cryptoterrestrials as one of the “Top Paranormal Books of 2010.” Another Anomalist Book that made that list is Jason Offutt’s Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us.

We’ve just published ebook versions of The Lonely Sense: The Autobiography of a Psychic Detective by Robert Cracknell and Spirit Voices: The First Live Conversation Between Worlds by Mark L. Cowden.  The two books are available for the Kindle, the Nook, and the iPad and iPhone.

Here are the direct links for those ebooks on the various platforms:

THE LONELY SENSE

For the Amazon Kindle in the US

From the Apple iBookstore in the US

For the Barnes & Noble Nook in the US

For the Amazon Kindle in the UK

From the Apple iBookstore in the UK

SPIRIT VOICES

For the Amazon Kindle in the US

For the Barnes & Noble Nook in the US

From the Apple iBookstore in the US

For the Amazon Kindle in the UK

From the Apple iBookstore in the UK

You can see all our available ebooks in the US on the three platforms by following these links.  (Our ebooks in Apple’s iBookstore  can also be found by entering “Anomalist Books” in the search bar of the iBooks app.)

All Anomalist Books in the US Amazon’s Kindle store

All Anomalist Books in the US Barnes & Noble’s Nook store

All Anomalist Books in the US  Apple’s iBookstore

Coming next month: True Giants by Mark Hall and Loren Coleman and Investigating the Impossible by Ulrich Magin.

We’ve been putting this off, and the longer we’ve put it off, the longer the list has grown. It began on July 8, 2011, with the death of Bill Corliss. We’ve known Bill for 40 years and have every one of his remarkable Sourcebook Project volumes on our shelves. His collection of scientific anomalies, which represents just a small fraction of what science doesn’t know, has served as an inspiration to us. One day his work will get the recognition it deserves.  Then on July 27, 2011, Hilary Evans passed away.  We not only co-authored a book with Hilary some years ago, but we are proud to have been the publisher of his last two books:  Outbreak! Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior (with Robert Bartholomew) and SLIders: The Enigma of Streetlight Interference (SLI). Hilary’s mind was as sharp as a tack all the way to the end; in fact, he had another book all fleshed out in his mind, a book which unfortunately now we’ll never get to see. Then on August 12, 2011, Bob Girard passed away in Florida. Bob was the owner of a mail order book company called Arcturus Books, and he would badger his clientele into enlightenment by insisting they purchase and read the books he offered on UFOs, cryptozoology, the paranormal, and ancient history. We bought many books from Bob over the years, and he was the primary mail-order seller of Anomalist Books since 2005, when we opened for business. We will miss these three friends, these three great fortean men. Update: We did not want to add to this dark list, but on August 21, our friend Budd Hopkins, whom we have known for more than 30 years, passed away. We are glad to have worked with him and publsihed his brilliant autobiography just two years ago: Art, Life and UFOs: A Memoir.

Though we are still in a New York frame of mind, you should be aware that Anomalist Books has a new address for editorial matters:

Anomalist Books
PO Box 6807
Charlottesville, VA 22906

Our business address remains the same, however.

Since 2005, our books have been available for printing and direct distribution in the United States and the United Kingdom (from which they are also shipped to the continent). And now, as of July 2011, we are also able to print and ship our books directly from Melbourne, Australia, for the Australian, New Zealand, and Asian markets. Do let your friends Down Under know that Anomalist Books are now—or will soon be—available from their favorite online booksellers (without the high markups due to postage costs). Booksellers in Australia can now contact us about our wholesale discounts.

Finally, Australians will be able to pick up Anomalist Books written by their own countrymen:

The Yowie: In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot by Tony Healy and Paul Cropper

Dark Intrusions: An Investigation into the Paranormal Nature of Sleep Paralysis Experiences by Louis Proud

And last but not least, readers in the United Kingdom and Australia can finally now also order Jacques Vallee’s “Alien Contact Trilogy” :

Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact

Confrontations: A Scientist’s Search for Alien Contact

Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception

When Mark L. Cowden first proposed his book to us, we thought, “Okay, here is another guy who thinks the Electronic Voice Phenomena he’s captured is worth a book.” We were skeptical to say the least. But reading his manuscript turned us around—big time. First of all, Mark is not just an expert audio/visual technician, but a very special person. He is “spiritual” in the true sense of the word. And the phenomenon he’s captured is “extraordinary,” also in the true sense of the word. What he did essentially is capture a “live” conversation between this world and the next. And it was all broadcast on television—in Ireland. It didn’t make newspaper headlines around the world—at least not in this world—though it certainly should have. Spirit Voices: The First Live Conversation Between Worlds is Mark L. Cowden’s very personal, quite amazing story. Says Mark: “This book is for everyday people, not just folks interested in the paranormal. It’s for people like me. I was fortunate enough to be someone who was in the right places, at the right times, with the right frame of mind, to witness and record some things that most people say is not possible. I’m not one of those people who has made it a life mission to experience something and then prove to the world that it is possible. The experience happened first. I find it fascinating, I find it inspiring, and I’m constantly trying to find ways to develop myself, remain a decent person, and continue to have more experiences. I believe that it is too amazing to not write about and, if possible, show people on television, but I would never be daft enough to fall into that trap of trying to prove something in a world governed by scientific laws, which, at present, have no way of explaining what this ‘something’ is, or how it works. I’m an observer and will offer my own personal opinion, which I believe is just as relevant on this topic as anybody else’s, scientific minded or not, but I won’t play games with the scientific community.”

Ulrich Magin is one of the world’s most highly respected fortean researchers. He digs and digs for the truth and lays it all out no matter what the result. Sometimes he exposes a well-established “fact” as groundless, and sometimes the facts leave him genuinely puzzled. For Magin, it’s not a matter of blind belief or simple skepticism; it’s a matter of doubt, the kind of doubt that demolishes weak cases and makes strong cases stronger. His new book is a collection of investigations into out-of-place mysteries of the air, earth, fire, and water, which is why the book is called INVESTIGATING THE IMPOSSIBLE: Sea-Serpents in the Air, Volcanoes that Aren’t, and Other Out-of-Place Mysteries. Topics include: surviving plesiosaurs in lakes; petrified ships on mountaintops; and limestone mountains that suddenly erupt as volcanoes but leave no trace of lava flows. All these are certainly impossible things. Yet they happen, again and again, in all parts of the world. And these events are witnessed by scores of people. Join Magin as he attempts to unravel a host of both popular and little known mysteries.