Stalking the Tricksters: Shapeshifters, Skinwalkers, Dark Adepts and 2012 [Paperback]

Christopher O'Brien (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2009

The subject of Trickster-ism has permeated human belief for millennia but today, in the 21st Century, very little is publicly known about "The Trickster." Graced by many names including; fool, sage, coyote, Loki, men-in-black etc., tricksters have inhabited culture for millennia and this casual force has played pivotal roles throughout history. Author/field-investigator Christopher O'Brien redefines this hidden subject of "tricksters" from a new, fresh perspective and he begins a journey down to the enchanted southwest desert to study the many elusive tricksters of North American indigenous myth and lore. He quickly realizes, that for millennia, tricksters have been shrouded world-wide behind many guises such as skinwalkers, shapeshifters jokers, loki, jinn, sorcerers, witches and other dark adepts. And that they have burrowed deep inside human belief into the core of human culture. Cryptids, elementals, werewolves, vanishing hitchhikers, demons and dancing devils have been reported around the world for generations. But why? What are these forces? What is their agenda? O'Brien journeys out into the field to determine whether these phenomenal masks worn by the tricksters can provide us a direct conduit to the unknown today in the 21st Century. Could it be that these denizens of phenomenal events may be attempting to communicate a warning to humanity in this uncertain age of prophesized change? Reporting from places such as the Navaho, Apache and Hopi Reservations of Arizona, the four sacred mountains of the Four Corners, Mexico's bizarre Zone of Silence and the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque in the Chiapan Highlands. O'Brien uncovers intriguing accounts that suggest there are beings walking among us able to utilize fantastic abilities. He realizes that subtle, deeply ingrained beliefs regarding these dark adepts with wild talents have subtly shaped cultural belief around the world for generations and today, these fantastic creatures continue to instill fear and awe. These adepts have been manipulating as he tackles, redefines and examines the mysterious world of the tricksters.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

For thirteen years, Christopher O'Brien investigated and researched the mysterious San Luis Valley (CO/NM), one of America's most anomalous regions, and his Mysterious Valley book series and numerous TV appearances have been appreciated by millions. After his years spent in the field chasing UFOs, Bigfoot, prairie dragons and other fantastic trickster-like phenomena, he wonders, "are these tricksters using knowledge of collective superstition to inhabit and manipulate the modern world?" Recently he was on the UFO Hunters television show.

Product Details

• Paperback: 355 pages
• Publisher: Adventures Unlimited Press (March 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931882924
• ISBN-13: 978-1931882927
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #610,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Since 1992, Christopher O'Brien has investigated over one thousand paranormal events reported in the San Luis Valley--located in South-central Colorado/North Central New Mexico. Working with law enforcement officials, ex-military, ranchers and an extensive network of skywatchers, from 1992 to 2002 he documented one of the most intense waves of unexplained activity ever reported from a single geographic region of North America. His ten-year investigation resulted in the three books of his "mysterious valley" trilogy, The Mysterious Valley, Enter the Valley, and Secrets of the Mysterious Valley. His meticulous field investigation of UFO reports, unexplained livestock deaths, Native American legends, cryptozoology, secret military activity and the folklore, found in the world's largest alpine valley, has produced one of the largest databases of unusual occurrences gathered from a single geographic region. He is currently working with a team of specialists installing a high-tech video surveillance and hard-data monitoring system in and around the San Luis Valley. His latest book Stalking the Tricksters has been released by Adventures Unlimited Press. This controversial book distills his years of field investigation and research into an ingenious unified paranormal theory that is sure to create intense interest and controversy.

Media Projects
O'Brien, an entertaining, thought-provoking speaker, is the co-host for the popular radio program, The Paracast and he has been a guest on Coast-to-Coast and hundreds of other radio shows. He has also been seen on recently broadcast TV programs such as: Ancient Aliens, Weird or What, Conspiracy Theory and UFO Hunters. Starting in the early '90s, Chris developed, supplied footage, field-produced and appeared in four segments of the Paramount television program Sightings and was featured on Inside Edition, Extra, Showtime's Sci-Friday Chronicles, the TBS documentary "UFO: The Search; the BBC2 program Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends, Nippon TV's Special Research 2000, the Discovery Channel's two-hour documentary, Billion $ Secret (with Jane's Defence Weekly's Nick Cook,) the TV series UFO Files, Exploring the Unknown, The Unexplained, Secrets of:, Profiles in Ufology, Unexplained Mysteries and in the English documentary film Mutilation Files. At home in front or behind the camera, O'Brien has field-produced and directed television segments for the nationally syndicated paranormal news-magazine Strange Universe. For five years he was a consulting producer and writer/researcher for Stage 3 [Television] Productions where he also wrote and produced History, Mystery and Greed: the Story of Snippy the Horse, and co-produced the documentaries Dead Whisper and the just-released Disclosure Dialogues. Inspired by his field-research, Chris co-wrote an action/adventure film screenplay, Deadly Waters, that was judged Honorable Mention in the 1998 Southwest Screenwriter's Guild Contest.

Since 1993, he has written articles that have appeared in Open Minds, Fate, UFO Universe, Leading Edge, CyberWest, Western Spirit, World Exploror's Club Magazine, Crestone Eagle, Phenomena, Zeitgeist and UFO Encounters. His investigation and research have been featured in the Associated Press, Denver Post, Pueblo Chieftain, the New Mexican, the Rocky Mountain News, the Albuquerque Journal, the Deseret News, The Red Rock News, UFO Magazine, Phenomenon, (France) OVNI (Spain), Borderline (Japan). An entertaining and thought-provoking speaker for seven years he was a perennial guest lecturer at Adam's State College and he has captivated conference and seminar audiences around the USA with his unique insight into some of our culture's last remaining mysteries. He also hosted his own regional Colorado/New Mexico radio show, Mysterious Valley Report (1996-1999), and published the bi-monthly Mysterious Valley Report (1993-2000).

A keyboard player/music-producer, he markets reproductions of classic Maya art for his brother's company Tierra Maya at his home near Sedona, AZ.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An internet website dressed up like a book, November 3, 2009

By 

Richard J. Kirby "just another dick" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Stalking the Tricksters: Shapeshifters, Skinwalkers, Dark Adepts and 2012 (Paperback)

First, I should mention that I loved Chris's first two books. Having said that, I find this book, like every Adventures Unlimited book I've read, to be nothing less than infuriating. Clunky phraseology & typos galore make this as difficult to get through as the New Agey web-site it seems to model itself after. Really guys, for $[...] bucks a book, you folk really need to hire some qualified editors and proofreaders. Also, there are far too many web-sites used a source material. In case you haven't noticed Chris, the Internet is filled to overflow with badly written, badly researched cowflop, spewed out by legions of half-baked shaman wanna-bes. I realize it's a neat little research short cut, but save the short cuts for your web-site. One more thing Chris, when middle aged guys like us use phrases like "back in the day" and "kickin' it" we just sound silly. Take a bit of advice(or "advise" as one of your photo captions states) and save the pseudo MTV generation hipster spunk for your e-mails. When dealing with this subject, folk find enough to laugh at without you providing easy targets.
I'm giving this 3 stars solely because there are some real gems hidden amongst all the dross, but seriously, Adventures Unlimited should either shape up and turn out product worth the price tag, or they should stop wasting all those trees.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Fails in every way, December 8, 2009

By 

T. Jørgensen (Copehagen, DK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stalking the Tricksters: Shapeshifters, Skinwalkers, Dark Adepts and 2012 (Paperback)

Ok I felt I had to put this review out there, to make people who thought of buying this book think again. I know that isn't an expensive purchase, but I want to spare people who have enjoyed listening to Chris on various radio shows throughout the years ,the huge disappointment that this book is. Chris is no doubt a great communicator of stories and thoughts in spoken form, but in way of writing it's a whole other story. And it's really sad, cause since you've heard him talk so eagerly about "stalking the tricksters" you are left with the impression that this must be a real gem of a book. Well, unfortunately it isn't. Let me just list you the main problems.

First of all, what strikes you right away (besides the horrific cover art) is the extreme amount of typos starting on page 1. Sometimes there are up to 3 different ways of spelling the same words, which just makes it even more painful. Its fine that you can spell `wendigo' in several ways, but just stick to one instead of shifting between `windigo', windego' and `wendego' throughout your description. These problems do get resolved further on in the book though, but it really makes you think about how much time the editing process has been given, and thereby the level of professional work behind it. I know that in the end it should be the information that is important, and of course it is, but on top of everything else wrong with the book it's just a real mess to digest.

Secondly, there are huge amount of embarrassing sources in the book, and an even worse way of applying these. Many times when a web page source is used, a long passage of text is just directly copy pasted from the site. This just screams laziness and makes your toes crumble after a while...and it doesn't help that Chris consistently introduces these in the way of "as research on the esteemed webpage dogdoodle.com reveals:". And this is even when referencing a site such as Wikipedia. I mean, how can you refer to as well known, dubious (and largely frowned upon) a source as Wikipedia in the way of "according to the online site Wikipedia", and then just copy paste several lines of text from there? You wouldn't even be able to get away with that the first semester as an undergrad at college. Couldn't you at least just use the source that Wikipedia used for that particular article instead? Overall, I don't see why most of the information couldn't have been gathered from books instead of using websites. It all just makes it seem like some really bad high school assignment.

Thirdly, something that just sticks out like a sore eye and annoyed me to no end, was the whole "discussion" of religion, 2012 and the way-off feminist, political hippie-jargon loaded remarks suddenly appearing in the middle of nowhere during certain chapters. Most of the times the comments just make no valid points at all, and are written in the most superficial terms you can imagine. It makes absolutely no sense for the overall topic to put these topics in there, at least not in the way that he does. Also, I could have lived without the sporadic `humoristic' inputs that pops up here and there and as comments to the various pictures - that by the way are on almost every friggin' page of the book. Why most of these pictures are there I really got no idea, it all just adds to the overall image of a very immature book. What exactly is the point of having a picture of Dracula and then a text underneath saying something like "Vampires exist in various cultures throughout the world"? Makes you really wonder what Chris thinks of the age group this is intended for...

All these things are huge flaws for what Chris is trying to communicate, and the strength of his message/thesis of the role of the trickster in the paranormal is ultimately lost because of this. In the end the book doesn't really amount to much else besides being a poorly communicated, shabby reference book of various mythical creatures that have to more or less degree tricksterish elements, or something in common with a trickster figure. It takes you through a whole range of entities, most of which you could find just as good or even better descriptions of in basic books about the paranormal. It does not really leave you with anything new to think about either, since most of the time the trickster element is not even discussed properly and it becomes up to the reader to focus real hard on what the point of bringing in this or that mythical creature really is. I really can't imagine what people who haven't already heard Chris speak on this subject would get out of reading the book.

I'm just gonna end it there, but I could seriously go on and on. I have a very hard time believing that this book took all the hard work that is mentioned in the introduction, and if it did then that's even the more reason not to try and do something like it again. Chris O'Brien is no doubt an intelligent and interesting man to listen to, and sure there are points of light that also shine through the book. But he should seriously think twice about putting out material such as this in the future, cause it will, and should be, judged for what it is. In an area that is already very damaged by cultists and gullible people, it just makes it worse when a guy who actually otherwise is a solid character to have in the field, comes out with something like this.

Stick to doing fieldwork and giving radio appearances Chris. Sorry, but we are a lot who like what you're doing in that area, but everyone has to acknowledge their limits.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Light reading with scant original research, December 6, 2009

By 

hanyi ishtouk (Budapest, Hungary) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Stalking the Tricksters: Shapeshifters, Skinwalkers, Dark Adepts and 2012 (Paperback)

and even that is restricted to Mr. O'Brien's collaboration with the Dead Whisper/EVP Project and the Indiana Ghost Trackers (pp. 214-36), and to an account concerning 'little people' sighted somewhere in New Mexico and a mention of odd structures known as 'bee hives' in Baca Grande, Colorado (pp. 248-54). In the author's words, "my main motivation...is to expand our definition of the trickster into the realms most academics have not ventured. This is why I have included near-tricksters like devils, demons, jinni, ghosts, spirits and human hoaxers in this work (pp. 342-3);" in addition to vampires, werewolves, wendigos, various mythical figures, cattle mutilation, and sundry.

To my dismay, much of the material, cherry-picked largely from the Internet, is too general and superficial or irrelevant, if not downright tedious when presented in the fashion of thesaurus entries (see pp. 25-36, 83-91, 258-64), to be of great use for seasoned researchers, though for neophytes it may serve as an introduction to Forteana -- the book is dedicated to the memory of the venerable John Keel, who passed away in July this year: RIP. Another thing that bugs me is that the writer resorts quite often to direct quotations from his previous tomes -- altogether around 19 pages. Also, there's no dearth of erroneous grammar, typos: "EVP recording occured...in eastern Russian" (instead of 'Russia', p. 215), "and there was no one was there" (p. 224), "we went ahead to our hotel to checked into" (p. 231), "some of their presentation was fabricated" (p. 288), "there are about were about 90 people" (p. 306), "what Shalizi fails to mention that the Trickster" (p. 310), "to write a write a book" (p. 311), so forth; and misspellings like 'reptilianss' (p. 67), 'they clamed' (p. 241), 'thes amalgams' (p. 245), 'Terrence McKenna' (p. 255), 'Rosicrucionism', 'Freemasonory' (p. 288), 'Tibetian' (p. 294), etc.

Some corrections and/or suggestions:

+ "...Prét are the spirits of unlucky humans who experience untimely deaths. These entitites can supposedly animate dead bodies at night" (p. 86). To the best of my knowledge, the existential (or even an ontological realm on the 'wheel of existence' [Tibetan: srid-'khor] in Buddhist - Hindu Weltanschauung) reality the preta-s (Sanskrit) or 'hungry ghosts' inhabit is the manifestation (or karmic result) of addiction to 'earthly pleasures' gained from booze, grub, narcotics, and the like.
+ The moniker 'Dracula' attached to the name of the Valachian governor Vlad Tepes (= Impaler; 1430/31-76) is falsely interpreted as "son of the Devil" (p. 103). It should rather be "son of the Dragon" ('Draculea' in Romanian), as his father was a member of the knightly Order/Society of (the) Dragon(ry) (Ordo/Societas Draconum/Draconistratum in Latin or 'Sárkány[os] Rend/Társaság' in Hungarian) that had been founded (1408) by the then-King of Hungary (not much later Holy Roman Emperor, then King of Bohemia) Zsigmond (Sigismund) of Luxembourg after a victorious military campaign in Bosnia against the rising power of Ottoman Turks.
+ As for the alleged 14-inch humanoid mummy, found in the San Pedro Mountains of Wyoming, once being a 65-year-old specimen of the legendary little people: The mummy went missing after 1951; the features of the said pygmy can be described in scientific terms as those of a still born, anencephalic infant. That is "the 'absence of cerebrum and cerebellum with absence of the flat bones of the skull.' It occurs during the third or fourth week of pregnancy, when...the head end of the fetus' neural tube...fails to close and the brain, scalp, and spinal cord do not develop properly...His prominent eyes can also be explained because 'the optic globes may protrude due to inadequately-formed bony orbits.' The cause of anencephaly...may be due to a lack of folic acid, vitamin B9, in the mother's diet." (pp. 86-7 of chapter 5 titled 'One Little Indian' in Robert Damon Schneck's "The President's Vampire. Strange-but-True Tales of the United States of America," 2005)

Recommended reading: George P. Hansen's scholarly treatise, "The Trickster and the Paranormal," 2001.