Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

  (New Milford, CT: Visionary Living Publishing, 2021). ISBN: 978-1-942157-54-0 Having just read and reviewed Karl Petry’s first book, Absent Witness , and learning that he is very much the “real deal,” I immediately noticed the title of his second book— Somewhere the Dead Are Singing— and felt instantly compelled to read it. It was during the Mothman Festival in 2019, after cohosting a memorial event for Rosemary Ellen Guiley after her passing several months earlier, that I first experienced the accuracy of Petry’s title. While walking near the igloos in the fabled Point Pleasant TNT Area with a dozen colleagues—many of whom had been close with Rosemary—my PSB11 spirit box (Ro’s personal choice) spontaneously switched on. I placed my voice-activated digital recorder over the speaker as a communication began to emerge. Back in the hotel a few hours later, I played the tape and distinctly heard a mix of ethereal and a single human voice singing: “We’re here with you.” The four...

  (Cardiff, CA: Waterside Productions, 2021). ISBN: 978-1-954968-12-7 I don’t know if it is the same for all veteran book reviewers, but I have learned to either not take too much stock in the endorsements that sometimes fill up to ten pages at the front of a book (!) or to just ignore them completely. But, in the case of Dr. Terry Gordon’s No Beginning… No End , several important names caught my eye. When the likes of Don Miguel Ruiz, Bruce Lipton, Caroline Myss, John Edward, and Patch Adams are saying this is a book worth reading, one ought to pay attention. I also want to mention the expectations that I had because of the subtitle. Having studied the survival of consciousness after death for many years as an author, researcher, podcast host, and field investigator, as well as communicating with dozens who have died and still engage with the living, I expected this to be a book securely in the camp of Science versus Spirituality. So few doctors are crossing that thick, black ...

    (Self-Published, 2021). ISBN: 9798570006294 Originally published in 2012, this collection of eight spooky tales combines the author’s considerable skills as a storyteller specializing in ghost walks with the intimate knowledge he has of Hawaii’s legends, myths, language, and lore. Having been the creative director of a ghost walk on the Crystal Coast of North Carolina for several years, I deeply appreciate the amount of work that goes into researching, memorizing, and performing sometimes as much as ninety minutes’ worth of material on a walk or tour. True storytellers also have much more than that in their heads, waiting for the opportune moment to share a particular story that is perfect for that moment in time. Kapanui’s writing holds the energy of the master storyteller that he is. I had the pleasure of seeing him on a podcast several months ago, where he shared several Hawaiian legends and I was quick to book him on my own weekly show for June 2021. Mysteries of...

    (Santa Barbara, CA: Beyond Ever After Press, 2019). ISBN: 978-1-7331727-3-8 Once upon a time, and to a horrific and violent degree, anyone who was able to mediate between a Higher Power (God, the Source, etc.) that was not sanctioned to do so by one of the established, patriarchal religions was subject to exile, imprisonment, or even execution. The witch trials and purges of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries went a long way toward weakening the remnants of the matriarchal society and strengthening the patriarchal system of medicine and religion that keeps personal experience of healing and understanding at arm’s length, regulated by Big Pharma and the fear of some eternal punishment in Hell. Thankfully, we are living in a time when those with the ability to tap into the Source, the Superspectrum, the Field, God/Christ Consciousness, the Holographic Universe, or however you wish to term it, are no longer vilified to such a degree. On the contrary—they are sought o...

  (Cardiff, CA: Waterside Productions, 2021). ISBN: 978-1-951805-66-1. Let’s begin with a buyer beware, spoiler alert, and disclaimer. First, this isn’t a book written from the onset by a true believer, filled with anecdotes involving inspiring messages from the deceased. If you are looking for that type of book on the afterlife, they are abundant. So abundant, that is what I thought I was reviewing when I picked this one up. Instead, it details the author’s six-year journey from near cynicism to a scientific skepticism where he spent a good deal of time and money, created or adapted protocols, and did all he could to debunk psychic mediumship, all while receiving what seemed to be messages from his recently deceased father. Now, the spoiler alert: At the end of the six-year journey (on p. 286 of 305), the author writes: “[O]nce you have come to see this truth for yourself, and your personal universe expands, it is no longer so important to you that everyone else sees it.” ...

(Psychic Book Press, 2018). ISBN: 9781728753348 A disclaimer to start. I am a paranormal researcher who is married to a psychic medium. My daughter is also a psychic medium. Given the sad fact that, in this day and age, a war is still being waged by many in the scientific community and other gatekeepers and cynics against giving any legitimacy to mediumship and investigative study of the paranormal, it may be easy for someone to simply say, as many do when I try to explain these things, that “You already believe, so you cannot be objective.” That statement makes no sense. I do, however, believe that there is life in some form after death. I also believe there are portals and multiple dimensions and sentient beings that vibrate at a higher level than living human beings and so do not behave according to traditional scientific laws. And I believe that an understanding of mediumship and what we call the paranormal is vital to the progression of the human race beyond its current and...

A Review of In the Oneness of Time: The Education of a Diviner, by William Douglas Horden (Burdett, NY: Larson Publicans, 2015). ISBN: 978-1-936012-76-3 (paperback) By Joey Madia It is said that, when you are “following your bliss,” as Joseph Campbell would say, or walking the Good Red Road of Native American spirituality, the teachings you most need in the moment will find you. Six and a half years ago, this maxim was made manifest in a book co-authored by William Douglas Horden titled The Toltec I-Ching (also from Larson Publications). When it arrived in the mail with a request for review, I was in the midst of opening an arts education center that would house the social justice theatre company of which I am the founding artistic director. As with any big endeavor, there were endless meetings with political and community leaders, business groups, educators, potential donors, and prospective teachers and it seemed that everyone had a different idea of what the arts education ce...