Customer Reviews

Darklore Vol. 1

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Darklore is one of those books that will both challenge and delight you with the quality of its essays, written by some of the most important and respected reasearchers of paranormal events.

Darklore is an anthology compilated and edited by Greg Taylor, the creator of the news website Daily Grail (www.dailygrail.com). In it Greg has asked the contribution of notable figures such as Daniel Pinchbeck, Michael Prescott, Loren Coleman, Nick Redfern, Robert Schoch and others; if you are a person with a deep interest in topics that are considered "heretic" by mainstream science an orthodox Academia, these names are surely familiar to you. This "forbidden" nature of the issues discussed in the essays is the very reason behind the name of the book (if you thought you will find in it magick potions or spells that your "potterian" friends are not familiar with, this is probably NOT the book for you).

Ranging from cryptozoology and the search of unknown hairy hominids, to UFOs and other more complex events, like the astounding simmilarities in the sounds described by the experimenters of different paranormal experiences --such as NDEs, OBEs, Marian apparitions and Close Encounters of the Third Kind-- Darklore will force you to stop viewing all these "weird" cases as isolated and with nothing in common; but in fact you will slowly begin to understand that deep down what we perceive and interpret as our "normal" reality, is nothing but a flimsy exterior layer that, should we dare to peel through it, reveals deeper and astounding levels, all fascinating and interconnected in ways we are just barely capable of glimpsing. Levels that are NOT absent of serious dangers, mind you, as Michael Prescott reminds to the paranormal enthusiast with his article "Hungry Ghosts".

Pick a copy of Darklore... I DARE YOU :-)

PS: And while you're at it, be sure to pay a visit to the Daily Grail website, but be cautious: exposure to its content can cause a severe level of addiction!

The only thing I really have to say is that this book and VOL. II just go from one end of weirdness to the other. BUY IT. No matter what your interests are, this book will at least ENTERTAIN you or whoever happens to pick it up off of your coffee table. I also found a few of the contributions to be informative to say the least.

The essays in this anthology will have you questioning basic assumptions or at least get you thinking a little differently.

The selections are fairly brief but filled to the brim with interesting insights and histories generally ignored by the media.

Kudos to editor Greg Taylor for getting the best of his contributors including Pinchbeck, Tymn and Redfern. The chapter on Terrance McKenna was an eye-opener.

I think this is a promising start to a regular journal or anthology series.

On buying this book, I had no Idea what to expect.
Eventually after the book had travelled over seas that not even I've seen yet it arrived in my mail.
I coulnd't put the book down! After my second day of reading, I finished it in a daze and scrabeled to my computer and ordered in the other three of them.
Darklore Vol. 1 is a casual read if you want it to be casual, but if you want it to be your bible, then so it is!
Darklore sets itself aside from other paranormal book because it challenges you to believe the accounts/encounters rather than persuading you do believe them.

Brilliance!

I really enjoyed the good writing by the various authors in all of the Dark Lore books. The articles were well written and a pleasure to read. I can understand why these books became so popular. I'm looking forward to all the future volumes. Thanks for publishing all this information. They are a great read on any day.

I've always been the sort of person that sought out the books on Bigfoot, UFOs or Terrence McKenna before reading through The Kite Runner or various Grisham novels (you know... the mainstream stuff). Something about the weird and strange, no matter how implausible, has always appealed to me. Partially this interest has developed from personal experiences with UFO sightings and other bizarre things outside normal explanations for reality. But the primary reason for my fascination is that deep inside I feel there is far more to be experienced than most people ever know. Cracks in the official explanations for reality show through on the fringes of society. We dull ourselves down through constant exposure to culture, but several hundred years ago we would have been thankful for visitations from our ancestors or discussions with plants. As the intelligence officer Major Murphy told Dr. Jacques Vallee on p.74 of Messengers of Deception regarding the failure for science to incorporate the price of information , "[In science] Suppose I gave you 95% of the data concerning a phenomenon. You're happy because you know 95% of the data. I know that this is the cheap part of the information. I still need the other 5% but I will have to pay a much higher price to get it!" Dark Lore is about that other 5%.

Dark Lore Volume 1 is the first of a now four volume series containing articles from the leading writers of fringe science. Edited by Greg Taylor, creator of the alternative news site The Daily Grail. In Dark Lore Volume 1, Greg has enlisted some of my favorite authors: Paul Devereux, Mitch Horowitz, John Higgs, Nick Redfern, Adam Gorightly Daniel Pinchbeck, Michael Prescott and Loren Coleman. If you follow the fields of heretical thought you'll be familiar with these names. I would recommend this book as an antidote to someone that has been exposed to mostly bland explanations of reality.

I enjoyed all the essays in the book but I'll provide a quick summary of the ones that really stood out, denoting my absolute favorites.

Michael Prescott analyzed how an obsession with the paranormal can drive people insane citing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, one of the most notable examples of a man driven mad by the etheric. Greg Taylor's essay on the common audible experiences across various border phenomena was truly fascinating. Why do people reporting alien abductions, near death experiences, psychedelic experiences, OBEs, etc... all report similar sounds triggering the altered state of consciousness? Robert M. Schoch's description of being a rogue Egyptologist was disheartening, why do academics reject so much quantitative and archeological evidence towards an alternative approach to Egyptian history? Daniel Pinchbeck's piece provided a fantastic history of Terrence and Dennis McKenna's ingestion of psychedelic mushrooms and their contribution to the Timewave Zero phenomena and the 2012 hype. Susan B. Martinez challenged typical explanations of literary inspiration by relaying paranormal experiences from authors like Wilde, Poe, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Woolf, Tennison and more. Loren Coleman provided a coherent look at how any information about Bigfoot gets blown out of proportion by the mainstream media. John Higgs provided one of my favorite essays from the book, looking at similarities between Aliester Crowley and Dr. Timothy Leary. Michael E. Tymn recounted the fascinating encounters of linguist professor Neville Whymant with a medium that channeled ancient Chinese claiming to be the spirit of Confucius. Mitch Horowitz penned an entertaining history of Ouija in America. The Emperor laid out evidence that connects many Bigfoot experiences with UFOs (much more convincing than you might think). Mike Jay discussed the ritual use of psychedelic substances in ancient Peru using archeological evidence. My favorite essay was from Michael Grosso who provided some fascinating studies and personal accounts of how the moment of death points towards an afterlife (this one is worth the price of the book alone). To close out the collection, Adam Gorightly discussed the ritual magicians of the late 1800s/early 1900s and how their experiences parallel the beings contacted in UFO experiences... did they let something in?

Overall, the entire collection was incredible strong. If you want to be bombarded with a world you never knew existed... or if you want to expand your knowledge of the unknown I would highly recommend this collection. I'll look forward to the time when I can pick up Dark Lore Volume 2.

Having contributed one of the 18 stories in this anthology of the paranormal, I admit to be being a bit biased in giving it five stars, but I believe I can honestly say that I would give it five stars even if I had not contributed to it.

The book touches upon many aspects of the paranoral, including spirit communication and influence,deathbed visions, apparations of the dead, templar revelations, UFO's, near-death experiences, the Great Sphinx, and even "Big Foot." Each story is by a different author, nearly all of them well known in the field. They include Michael Grosso, Paul Devereux, Michael Prescott, and Mitch Horowitz.

The various stories are just the right length for a good bedside book. Before seeing this book, I was wondering what to give several friends for Christmas. Now I have the perfect gift for them.

I didn't know what it was going to be about when i bought it. I found out about from the tool(band) website, because of the guy who runs the site wrote an essay in the book. If your into ThInGs the Daily News does not report about, im sure you will dig it....

Very interesting read. Backed up by hundreds of sources. I have already finished the second volume and plan on the purchase of the next 3 volumes.

This is a collection of essays editorializing about various anomalies concerning paranormal phenomena, cryptozoology, historical enigmas, and the like. Not articles recounting such events per se, but various authors expounding on other points of view regarding same. I would recommend going to more "source materials" if these type of subjects interest you. I got this volume intending to go through each volume in sequence if Volume I was worth the further effort. It wasn't.