Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

(Outskirts Press, 2025). ISBN: 978-1-9772-7562-2 A tried and true adage for first-time novelists is write what you know. Writing novels is a difficult endeavor (as W. Somerset Maugham famously quipped, “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are”) and the seasoned author controls everything they can. According to George Yuhasz’s back-cover bio, he is a “former US Government special agent, intelligence officer, and contractor. He has also worked in the private sector as an investigator and security consultant.” It is clear he wrote about what he knows in Righteous Allegiance , which takes far-right White Christian Nationalism, especially among former members of the military, as its central subject. Written with the technical expertise of an insider (I mentored a novelist for many years who was a former lieutenant colonel in Army intelligence, and I recognize the signs), Righteous Allegiance is topical and frightening. Yuhasz’s extremists ar...

  “Secrets in the Sky”: A Review of Imagine That: The Magic of the Mysterious Lights by George Yuhasz. Illustrated by Egle Bartolini (Outskirts Press, 2019). ISBN: 978-1-9772-0267-3 Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world .—Albert Einstein Human beings have always been Starwatchers. Skygazers. From stone calendars like Stonehenge to elaborate cosmologies and creation mythologies involving the Moon and Sun to the personification of the constellations as humans and animals, humankind has been fascinated with the Sky from the very start of our journey here on Earth. Pictographs in ancient caves are the first Sky Stories. The procession of the constellations marked the cycles of both agriculture and religion, giving birth to countless rituals and traditions. There is also a fascination with the Sky at work in the lives of Dreamers and Visionaries. A child who is labeled one or the other is also referred to as a Skylarke...