Monsters: An Investigator's Guide to Magical Beings [Paperback]

John Michael Greer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2001

Of course that monster hiding under your bed when you were little didn't really exist. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, demons—they're simply figments of our imagination, right? After all, their existence has never been scientifically proven. But there is one giant problem with such an easy dismissal of these creepy creatures: people keep encountering them.

Join occult scholar John Michael Greer for a harrowing journey into the reality of the impossible. Combining folklore, Western magical philosophy, and actual field experience, Monsters: An Investigator's Guide to Magical Beings is required reading for both active and armchair monster hunters. Between these covers you'll find a chilling collection of fiendish facts and folklore, including:

—Why true vampires are the least attractive—and most destructive—of all monsters
—The five different kinds of ghosts 
—Magical origins of the werewolf legends 
—How to survive a chimera encounter (Jersey Devil, chupacabra, Mothman)
—The hidden connections between faery lore and UFOs
—Where dragons are found today
—How to investigate a monster sighting 
—Natural and ritual magic techniques for dealing with hostile monsters

This 10th anniversary edition of the quintessential guide to magical beings features a new preface, new chapters on chimeras and zombies, and updates on werewolves, dragons, and the fae.

 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Michael Greer (Western Maryland) has been a student of occult traditions and the unexplained for more than thirty years. A Freemason, a student of geomancy and sacred geometry, and a widely read blogger, he is also the author of numerous books, including Monsters, The New Encyclopedia of the Occult and Secrets of the Lost Symbol, and currently serves as the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), a contemporary school of Druid nature spirituality. Greer has contributed articles to Renaissance Magazine, Golden Dawn Journal, Mezlim, New Moon Rising, Gnosis, and Alexandria.

 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

In the following excerpt, author John Michael Greer explains that monsters have something valuable to teach us about ourselves and our world.

A thousand years ago, vampires and shapeshifters, spirits of the ancestors and spirits that were never human at all, intelligent beings with subtle bodies or none, were as much a matter of everyday life then as electricity is now.

But we know better nowadays, of course.

Don't we?

This book is based on the uncomfortable knowledge that we don't know better-that at least some of these entities had, and still have, a reality that goes beyond the limits of human imagination and human psychology. For most people nowadays, such ideas would be terrifying if they weren't so preposterous. Plenty of modern Americans believe that UFOs are spacecraft from other worlds and psychics can bend silverware with their minds-but the existence of vampires and werewolves? To make things worse, this book explores such beings from the standpoint of an equally discredited system of thought: the traditional lore of Western ceremonial magic, which has been denounced and derided by right-thinking folk ever since the end of the Renaissance.

The word "monster" comes from the Latin monstrum, "that which is shown forth or revealed." The same root also appears in the English word "demonstrate," and several less common words (such as "remonstrance") that share the same sense of revealing, disclosing, or displaying. In the original sense of the word, a monster is a revelation, something shown forth.

This may seem worlds away from the usual modern meaning of the word "monster"-a strange, frightening and supposedly mythical creature-but here, as elsewhere in the realm of monsters, appearances deceive. Certainly, monsters are strange, at least to those raised in modern ways of approaching the world. As we'll see, too, monsters have a great deal to do with the realm of myth, although this latter word (like "monster" itself) has older and deeper meanings that evade our modern habits of thought. The association between monsters and terror, too, has practical relevance, even when the creatures we call "monsters" fear us more than we fear them.

The myth, the terror, and the strangeness all have their roots in the nature of the realm of monsters and the monstrous-a world of revelations, where the hidden and the unknown show furtive glimpses of themselves. If we pay attention to them, monsters do have something to reveal. They show us the reality of the impossible, or of those things we label impossible; they point out that the world we think we live in, and the world we actually inhabit, may not be the same place at all.

 

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications; ZZZ edition (September 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738700509
• ISBN-13: 978-0738700502
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #395,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in the gritty Navy town of Bremerton, Washington and raised in the south Seattle suburbs, I began writing about as soon as I could hold a pencil. SF editor George Scithers' dictum that all would-be writers have a million words of so of bad prose in them, and have to write it out, pretty much sums up the couple of decades between my first serious attempt to write a book and my first published book, "Paths of Wisdom", which appeared in 1996. These days I live in Cumberland, Maryland with my spouse Sara; serve as presiding officer -- Grand Archdruid is the official title -- of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), a Druid order founded in 1912; and write in half a dozen nonfiction fields, nearly all of them focused on the revival of forgotten ideas, insights, and traditions of practice from the rubbish heap of history.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing, April 6, 2005

By 

Todd Hawley (San Francisco CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monsters: An Investigator's Guide to Magical Beings (Paperback)

The book's author takes a kind of "scientific" approach to the subject matter. This book is intended for the novice and does include some creatures not necessarily thought of monsters, like angels and mermaids. Nine different types of "monsters" are described here, starting with vampires, ghosts and werewolves, and finishing off with demons. Things that go bum pin the night, indeed.

Greer takes great pains to debunk a number of "facts" about each of these creatures. For example, vampires who in most lore are thought of to be almost "glamorous," are portrayed here as something completely different. He also talks briefly about "psychic vampires," which in some cases can be just as nasty as a "real" vampire.

He also devotes chapters to "monster investigations," what to look for, what to watch out for, the "tools of the trade," and cautions the reader to never go alone when "looking" for one of these creatures, and the book's final chapters are devoted to defending yourself by the use of magic.

While this is not the definite guide to "monsters," it is a good overall book on the subject and there's a long bibliography of related books listed at the book's end for those who wish to learn more.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not intended for those already knowledgeable on the subject., January 24, 2005

By 

James Yanni (Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monsters: An Investigator's Guide to Magical Beings (Paperback)

This book is clearly a primer, intended for beginners and disbelievers. As such, it does what it sets out to quite well; if it is a disappointment to those who expect advanced tracts from Mr. Greer, as some of the other reviews suggest, the problem is with their expectations, not with the material at hand. One wouldn't rate a first-year calculus book poorly simply because it fails to increase one's understanding of differential equations.

For those inclined to learn a bit about the lore of occult creatures, whether or not they actually believe in the reality of said creatures, this is a very good book. Even if one doesn't believe, and is somewhat put off by Greer's unapologetic stance that magic and occult monsters are real, nonetheless, one must concede that he is very practical in his approach; he repeatedly reminds the reader to consider all other explanations before assuming true occult activity, including hoaxes and simple misunderstanding of "normal" happenings. He states repeatedly that true paranormal activity is much rarer than such other happenings, and is clearly attempting to discourage people attempting to live out their Fantasy Role Playing Games in the real world, a phenomenon that he is obviously all too familiar with.

For those who ARE inclined to believe in the possibility of the occult, this is a very good beginning text on the subject.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On Things That Go Bump In The Dark, September 5, 2002

By 

Brad Smith (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monsters: An Investigator's Guide to Magical Beings (Paperback)

This is one of the most fantastic books I've read in ages. Note that this has very little to do with cryptozoology; most of the creatures discussed are not always material.

In this surprisingly readable book, we have a discussion of various common preternatural and supernatural monsters. Not all of these would ordinarily be considered monsters (such as mermaids and angels), but are classified as such for ease of use.

Mr. Greer covers a lot of very useful ground, such as investigative techniques for the amateur monster hunter, a detailed explanation of the different levels of reality that is the most internally consistent I've ever seen, and one of the best bibliographies in print today. He freely admits that many so-called monster sightings are, in fact, possibly something much more mundane.

The meat of this, though, is the section on actual monster descriptions. Here, we learn the nature of real vampires, what Nessie *really* is, and what demons might have to do with mental illness (and no, it's not necessarily a cause-effect relationship, either...). Information is given on the history of said monsters, various sightings, and what to do if one encounters said monster...realistically, most are treated as any other rare creature (i.e. be quiet, look, take notes and pictures if you can). Finally, he also discusses vulnerabilities and has a section on quick ritual magic if one does, in fact, have to go all Buffy on that vampire.

In summation, this is one of the best New Age/magical book I've read in years. He writes very well, and very entertainingly, and keeps a very level head. If you're at all interested in supernatural creatures, this is one of the best books for you.