Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

  “Spiritual Combat in a Gritty Thriller”: A Review of The Karma Factor by Thomas Lane (2023). ISBN: 978-1-958848-21-0 Beautifully bound in a 7.5 × 9.25 inch hardcover edition, Thomas Lane’s debut novel is a fast-paced thriller with deep, compelling roots in the spiritual realms of Karma, reincarnation, and the Akashic Record. With the popularity of the timeline-jumping, what’s-the-nature-of-reality, can-you-change-the-future programming created by the likes of JJ Abrams, Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, and Steven Moffat, audiences in the 2020s are more knowledgeable about nontraditional storytelling than ever and are eager to take the leap into the dark, churning waters at the nexus of spirituality, philosophy, and advanced technology. Netflix series like Russian Doll , Archive 81 , and the German-language Dark and 1899 rely on this audience education and interest, pulling no punches on the profound implications of our choices, the nature of reality, and the dangers of mani...

  (2022). ISBN: 978-989-53812-2-7 I want to warn you at the onset—Patricia Cori’s Hacking the God Code: The Conspiracy to Steal the Human Soul might very well be a challenging read. Not because of any lack of skill on the part of the writer—Cori is the author of 12 other books and her writing style is passionate, articulate, and clear. However, as you can see by the title and subtitle, Hacking the God Code: The Conspiracy to Steal the Human Soul is provocative and boundary pushing and requires that you have both an open mind and a belief that humanity is not yet doomed. You might also have noticed that thorny word Conspiracy . Before you roll your eyes, I encourage you to consider the meaning of this word outside of its corrupted context. In my lectures on what I call “fringe theories” and nefarious government programs such as MKUltra and Operation Paperclip, I define conspiracy theorists as “a group of people who think something nefarious may secretly have been perpetrated ...

   (Once Upon a Dance 2022). ISBN: 978-1-955555-53-1 As a longtime creative dramatist and youth theatre specialist, I am always on the lookout for books like Frankie’s Wish , which has everything I could ask for—a celebration of imagination, interesting places to explore, adventures to physicalize, and new friends to meet—and best of all, it has the added element of a ballerina called Konora. Konora is featured at the bottom half of every right-hand page (the left-hand pages being devoted to illustrations), offering suggestions for how to physically interact with the story, whether it be a dance move, stretch, or transformation into a dinosaur or gorilla. Frankie’s Wish is the brainchild of Once Upon a Dance. It is described on the copyright page as a “Dance-it-Out Creative Movement Story.” The illustrations are by Emilia Rumińska, and the story is based on one by Eva Stone. This particular book—the latest of 19 in the series—is perfect not only for creative dramatists, bu...

   (Cardiff, CA: Waterside Productions, 2022). ISBN: 978-1-958848-03-6 When I first received this memoir, I wondered at its subject matter. Dr. Saugstad led the fight for decades to replace pure oxygen with air for newborns in need of resuscitation. In all honesty, I was unaware that there ever was such a fight. I certainly was unsure if this was a medical history piece from which my lack of sufficient background and context would keep me at a distance. Would it be accessible to me at all? Having read this heartfelt book with the kind of page-turning interest one would expect from a tale of high adventure, I can state with full assurance that Dr. Saugstad’s story is not only far broader than the fight for which he is internationally known; it’s one of the most inspiring and human memoirs I’ve read in quite some time. This humble Norwegian doctor—the grandson of the president of the University of Oslo during World War II who spent time in a concentration camp—took part i...

   (Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press, 2022). ISBN: 978-1-948803-50-2 A few months ago, I had the opportunity to review Constance Victoria Briggs’s Encyclopedia of Moon Mysteries: Secrets, Conspiracy Theories, Anomalies, Extraterrestrials and More and to have her as a guest on my weekly podcast. The author of several other encyclopedias, Briggs specializes in the mysteries of the Moon, as well as angels and the survival of consciousness after death. Her research is exhaustive and, even when dealing with controversial and fringe subjects and theories, her reporting is largely impartial, especially in her encyclopedias. During this time of the UAP Disclosure debate and launching of the Artemis 1 mission by NASA, which recently took video of the Moon and broke the record for most miles traveled (at least officially) by a human ship, more researchers than ever are considering the origins, composition of, and presence of possible structures on this anomalous satellite or...

   (Cardiff-by-the-Sea, CA: Waterside Productions, 2022). ISBN: 978-1-958848-19-7 Originally published in 1952, The Power of Positive Thinking became not only a New York Times bestseller, but the acorn from which has grown a strong, tall oak we all know as the Spiritual Self-Help genre. Having first read Rev. Dr. Peale’s life-changing masterpiece in 1997, during a time of profound upheaval and transition in my life (while listening to tens of hours of his recorded presentations), my second reading—after twenty-five years of voracious study of similar books and principles—illuminated just how many pillars of the Spiritual Self-Help community he has inspired. From Wayne Dyer to Gay Hendricks, from Caroline Myss to Joe Dispenza, the foundational principles presented by Rev. Dr. Peale are all readily apparent in each of their programs. He was certainly an excellent role model. Peale authored 46 books, was a pastor for more than 50 years, and cofounded the first school for pasto...

  “A Firsthand Account of Ancient Aliens”: A Review of Thiaoouba Prophecy (first published as Abduction to the 9th Planet ), by Michel Desmarquet. Trans. from French manuscript (now lost) by Kay Smith. Edited and corrected by Dr. Tom Chalko, Louise Ovcar, and Manninder Sekhon (Arafura Publishing, 2004). ISBN: 0 9577882 3 1 Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence . —Carl Sagan (1980) Although the opening epigraph is primarily attributed to the famous host of Cosmos , it was also similarly stated by Thomas Jefferson (1808), Pierre-Simon Laplace (1814), Théodore Flournoy (1899), and Marcello Truzzi (1978). Then again, the famed UFOlogist, author, and lecturer, Stanton Friedman, might have countered that “an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” As an experiencer and longtime investigator of high strangeness, UFOlogy, and the survival of consciousness after death, it is always a challenge to review and assess the veracity of books such as this one. First...

   (2020). ISBN: 9798615149856 What if I were to tell you that much of what we thought we knew about physics was either inaccurate or only the partial truth? Or that the speed of light was not a constant? That there is ample evidence that the U.S. government has reverse-engineered UFOs/UAPs and has at least a working understanding of anti-gravity propulsion systems? Still not feeling intrigued? What if the physics and technologies that are part of Mark Fiorentino’s Super Relativity Theory could make possible interstellar time-travel? Too big of an idea? Perhaps being anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes, or protecting the planet from destruction by asteroids, climate change, or other impending disasters? Interested yet? At 490 pages, Master of Reality is a big book, full of big ideas and bigger possibilities. Fiorentino is taking a page out of Dr. John Mack’s philosophy and “subverting the dominant paradigm.” This is a difficult road to travel—Mack, an eminent, ...

   (Chicago: Bird Mountain Books, 2022). ISBN: 9798848732122 It is not a stretch to say that Mothman is presently the most popular cryptid—bigger than Nessie, Bigfoot, and Dogman. It would also not be a stretch to posit that the collapse of the Silver Bridge, connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia to Gallipolis, Ohio, until it fell within minutes on December 15, 1967 (killing 46 people), is the most tragic in U.S. history. It spurred President Johnson to form a highway commission and change the frequency and process by which bridges are inspected. Consider for a moment that these disparate events (despite persistent lore) happened in the course of almost exactly 13 months (starting with the first Mothman sightings around November 15, 1966) in the same tiny town of 6,000. No wonder Point Pleasant is almost mythical and certainly magical in bringing tens of thousands of visitors each year to its stuck-in-time Main Street and nearby McClintic Wildlife Management Area (aka t...

  (Toronto: Prometea Press, 2021). ISBN: 9781777135133 Several weeks ago I reviewed Wes Roberts’s first book, Intersections , cowritten with Lesley Mitchell-Clarke, a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist who helped the author retrieve memories from numerous abductee/contactee experiences he has had over the course of his life. Written three years later, An Experiencer’s Garden is a different type of book, and my focus here will therefore be different as well. While Intersections details Roberts’s experiences (both remembered on his own and through a series of hypnotic regression sessions), the follow-up is even more personal and intimate. At its core are Roberts’s theories and realizations about what has been happening to him since childhood and possible reasons why. In a time of dangerous, misleading “disclosure” by the military–industrial–intelligence complex (most likely to fatten the budget of the “new” Space Force and private defense contractors not answerable to Congress...

(Deltrona, FL: Thomas-Jacob Publishing, 2022). ISBN: 978-1-950750-46-7 Five years ago this month, I was introduced to a literary character that I have come to truly love. It is a familial, fatherly love, as I have enthusiastically expressed in my reviews for the each of the books in the Fleur Trilogy: The History of My Body (2016), Tizita (2017), and Return of the Butterfly (2018). Fleur Robins is the offspring of an ultra-conservative US Senator from Pennsylvania and an alcoholic mother who gave birth to Fleur when she was a teenager. In the past, I have likened Fleur to Holden Caulfield in JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Sheila Tubman in Judy Blume’s Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great . But much has changed for Fleur. In the intervening years since Return of the Butterfly , she has become a wife and mother. Her Nobel Prize–winning work (she is a genius with considerable quirks) in Complexity and Chaos Theory in the midst of the increasing chaos on Earth has led her liter...

   (Prometea Press, 2018). ISBN: 9781073391103 Longtime followers of my book reviews might be noticing an emerging pattern: in the past three years I have reviewed nearly a dozen books exploring the abduction/contactee/experiencer phenomena. I have endeavored to review works from a wide range of perspectives, from firsthand accounts to case studies written by authors with advanced degrees, to books that center on the scientific. During this time I have also reviewed another half a dozen books (and read many more) that explore near death experiences, psi ability, out of body experiences, and contact from those beyond the veil. During this time I have also undergone hypnotic regression to retrieve memories from missing time during an experience with an interdimensional being in 2009 and learned a great deal from my wife, a gifted psychic medium who holds certifications in hypnosis, past life regression, and soul contact. I have also interviewed dozens of experiencers for m...

  (2022). ISBN: 9798799180546 I don’t believe that anyone will argue with the statement that we live in deeply troubled and wildly complex times. No matter where you reside on the politico-economic–sociospiritual spectrum, you are probably facing an unprecedented diversity of challenges. As a 53-year-old, I can say that I lived a good part of my life in far simpler times, with far reduced stakes and far less daily stressors. So… say what you will about the thousands of self-help and spiritual books on the market—there are substantial benefits to engaging with the best works of the acknowledged luminaries in this genre in these Interesting Times. If you have read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic , Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements , and the works of Wayne Dyer, Brene Brown, Carolin Myss, and Gay Hendricks, then I am sure you have found considerable treasures tucked within their pages. Concepts such as Awareness, Intention, Authenticity, Grace, and Listening to Source and Your Highe...