Report on Communion: An Independent Investigation of and Commentary on Whitley Strieber's Communion [Hardcover]

Ed Conroy (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his popular UFO books, Communion and Transformation , Whitley Strieber noted his uncertainty whether the "visitors" who allegedly abducted him were extraterrestrials, fairies or something else. Conroy, a freelance journalist, argues that we should take seriously Strieber's claim that alien entities are catalysts to a higher consciousness. In this rambling, overwritten yet interesting study, he pokes around in Strieber's childhood to establish credibility, analyzes his horror fiction and assesses Strieber's UFO experiences in terms of the Jungian unconscious, fairy lore and other abduction cases in which symbolic imagery figured prominently. He also examines the mixed reception accorded to Communion both by the mainstream media and within the UFO community. In an epilogue, Conroy relates his own "visitorlike" experiences. Readers who lean toward a nuts-and-bolts explanation of UFOs as extraterrestrial craft will probably feel let down. Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Whitley Strieber's Communion (Morrow, 1987) and its sequel, Transformation (Morrow, 1988), are the most detailed first-person accounts about alien abduction yet written. Conroy, a freelance journalist, provides a thorough examination of the book and its claims. He delves into Strieber's family history and earlier career as a science fiction and horror novelist and discusses how readers and the mass media responded to Communion . The book's acceptance among members of the UFO community is also explored, with commentary from such authorities as Budd Hopkins, Jacques Vallee, and Philip J. Klass. Unfortunately, however, the author's objectivity is called into question by his admission that he had a similar abduction experience. This should find a wide readership in most public and academic libraries.
- Gary D. Barber, SUNY at Fredonia Lib.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 427 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (November 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688088643
• ISBN-13: 978-0688088644
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,654,857 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN INTERESTING "OUTSIDE" PERSPECTIVE ON WHITLEY STRIEBER, January 12, 2010

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Report on Communion : An independent investigation of and commentary on Whitley Strieber's Communion (Paperback)

Whitley Strieber's 1987 book Communion: A True Story was a blockbuster, but was greeted with skepticism (including some from the UFO community, who disliked Strieber's "standoffishness" from them).

Freelance writer Ed Conroy says in this book "I had decided to interview Strieber. My decision to do so was motivated by seeing just too many similarities between qualities Strieber ascribed to the 'visitors' and the characters of his own novels." Conroy provides abundant examples of parallels with Strieber's novels such as Black Magic, The Night Church, The Hunger, and Cat Magic (Apple Paperbacks).

He answers some objections that skeptics have made about Strieber's character, such as, "Strieber has told me in an interview that he was a member of the Gurdjieff Foundation during his early years in New York, a group that has been suspected of being a cult by some anticult activists, but which Strieber has maintained to me is by no means a cult."

Concerning Strieber's conflicting stories about whether or not he was present during the 1966 attack by sniper Charles Whitman, Conroy writes, "From a strict, evidential point of view, the most that can actually be said about the conflicting stories that Strieber has given regarding the incident is that actually retrieving information from memory is a very difficult proposition, even under the best of circumstances. To infer from the record that Strieber's confusion about the incident is a sign of his untrustworthiness seems to imply an extraordinary---if not paranormal---ability to objectively ascertain the man's intentions."

Conroy's ultimate take is, "Am I proposing that we try to analyze Strieber's experiences as though they were a dream or a fairy tale? I am. Yet in doing so, I by no means intend to give the definitive interpretation of Whitley Strieber's visitor experiences before attempting to understand 'the whole net of associations' in which his archetypal images (i.e., the visitors) are enmeshed."

This book has some very helpful analysis of Strieber's books, and will be of interest to those interested in Whitley Strieber, purported alien abductions, or UFOs in general.