The Slenderman Mysteries: An Internet Urban Legend Comes to Life

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A review by Joey Madia

In June 2009, two photo-shopped images of a “made up” entity dubbed “ the Slenderman” were uploaded to the Internet as part of a contest. The creator used as inspiration such well-known horror/paranormal tropes as the Men in Black (MIBs), the tentacled creatures of H.P. Lovecraft’s tales, and the Mothman—all of which have been a part of my life as a paranormal researcher, content creator, and experiencer for the past 10 years.

Within weeks, the Slenderman was jumping its frame as a made up monster and appearing in the woods, bedrooms, and computers of people all over the world, culminating in several high-profile murders and attacks in which Slenderman was professed to be the inspiration. By the time of these events, Slenderman was the subject of hundreds if not thousands of short stories and graphic images on the Internet, at horror websites such as 4chan and Creepypasta Wiki.

This phenomenon is complex, with many strands and theories to follow and parse to make sense of what is happening. Although other authors and journalists have tackled the subject the past nine years, Nick Redfern—author of over 40 books and a frequent guest on television and radio—does a masterful job of pulling together the data, situating it in centuries-old lore and paranormal case files, and interviewing a broad array of researchers and experiencers. Continue reading →

The Healing Journey: How a Poor Chinese Village Girl became an American Healer

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A review by Joey Madia

A spiritual practitioner and healer that I am serving as book editor for emailed me a few days ago after attending a writer’s conference. “I got a literary agent,” she said. “But he says that Eat, Pray, Love memoirs are out. No one wants to hear your story.”

No one wants to hear your story. What a horrible view of things. Plus, it’s a falsehood. No one wants to hear your story. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Telling (and thereby owning) your story, to paraphrase Brené Brown, is one of the bravest things that anyone can do. Stories are the stuff of which we are made, as fundamental to our makeup as atoms and cells. Governments, religions, multinational corporations, and the military are expert storytellers. They have raised it to a high art (in collusion with the media), making it more necessary than ever for those with alternative, holistic, and healing views to tell their stories.

If anyone needs proof about the importance and value of story, they should read Dr. Maisano’s book. Heavily weighted to memoir, with self-help aspects reserved for the end, The Healing Journey is exactly as advertised in both title and subtitle. Continue reading →

Parting the Veil: How to Communicate with the Spirit World

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A review by Joey Madia

More people than ever before (at least in modern times) believe in the existence of ghosts. Popular polling organizations such as the Pew Research Center are reporting that as many as 50% of the population believe in ghosts and some 20% have actually seen one. Just twenty years ago, in the mid-nineties, this number was 9%.

The mid-nineties were also the time of Dionne Warwick hawking the Psychic Friends Network on late-night TV while Miss Cleo—and her fake Jamaican accent—solicited more laughs than legitimate interest in the fields of mediumship and psychic arts.

In the 2000s we had mediumship enter the mainstream consciousness through the TV shows Medium with Patricia Arquette and Ghost Whisperer with Jennifer Love Hewitt. John Edward also had his platform reading non-fiction show on TV and mediums such as James Van Praagh and Theresa Caputo (the “Long Island Medium”) were gaining a considerable following.

As a paranormal investigator and experiencer married to a gifted professional medium and father to a teenager who has seen ghosts at least since she was old enough to talk (which means probably before), I am interested in learning as much as I can about the art of mediumship. I have read several books by John Edward and was called upon to edit my wife’s recent book, Living the Intuitive Life: Cultivating Extraordinary Awareness. My studies and experiences served me well when I was hired to write a screenplay based on the true story of the Berardis, a family of mediums from upstate New York. Continue reading →

Weird Winged Wonders: The Twilight World of Cryptid Creatures

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A review by Joey Madia

Over the past few years, there have been dozens of documented sightings of flying humanoids over the city of Chicago, IL, reigniting interest among the general public in this phenomena, which has been a part of human art and culture since the earliest civilizations up through the well-known Mothman sightings on the Ohio River in the late 1960s.

I am what is referred to among crypto-zoologists and paranormal investigators as an “experiencer,” as is my wife. In August 2009, while exploring outside of Point Pleasant, WV, where the Mothman was first seen, we saw a flying humanoid cross the road in front of us. Since that time, we have also witnessed interdimensionals. All of these experiences are detailed in our upcoming book from Visionary Living.

I grew up at the Jersey Shore, near the fabled Pine Barrens, home of another winged cryptid—the Jersey Devil.

If you consider human fascination with dragons, griffons, gargoyles, angels, demons, and all manner of winged creatures, it is clear that there must be some truth in all of the mythology. Given the considerable number of witnesses—many who are police officers and others who are deemed by researchers as “highly credible”—it is clear that this isn’t all imagination. These can’t all be sandhill cranes, like university professors and other gatekeepers tried to convince the public about the Mothman, or mistake raptors and other birds of prey. There is something legitimate going on here, and some very reputable, seasoned researchers have been amassing data for decades. Continue reading →

Garden Metamorphosis

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“Between Life and Death There is Nature”

A review by Joey Madia

Smoky Zeidel has a way with words. This five-time Pushcart nominee is able to plumb the depths of human experience with a simplicity of language that makes accessible what the philosophers, rhetoricians, and many poets render (at times on purpose) vague and therefore useless.

Garden Metamorphosis is much more than a book of poems (and a bonus short story that rends the heart); it is a meditation made in nature’s Cathedral—the garden. As Voltaire advised in Candide, we each must “tend our own garden.” Gardens have served for centuries as masterful metaphors for the soul, the human condition, and the mystical nature of Nature. Zeidel’s powerful poetry captures this alchemical mixture-in-a-bottle in book form, and the reader is wiser for the journey.

Monarch butterflies figure prominently in the collection, in both poems and the short story. The transformation of the butterfly (caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly) is perhaps the most tried and true metaphor of all of the many nature metaphors that have graced the page from the author–mystic’s pen. It is the three-act model in action, a pattern that happens not once, but many times in a person’s life. It is proof that our lives are a process, a chance to continually move from “I am this” to “I am becoming something new.” Another core theme is the sacredness of the soil, the plant life, the bugs and beasts encountered when one is down in the dirt—rooted and connected, away from the brain-draining, connection-dampening technological construct into which so many of us are patched. Continue reading →