John A. Keel: The Man, The Myths, and the Ongoing Mysteries Paperback – 14 July 2019

A very fascinating book on the work and tought of the great fortean reasercher and author John Keel. Not a book for the flesh and blood and nuts and bolts "cultists" . In the first chapters of the book the authors interviews researcher who meet and knew Keel. In the later chapters there chapters on various topics like paranormal bigfoot, aliens eyes and hypnotic therapy. A must have books for John Keel fans.

The title of this book gives the impression that it’s a biography of John Keel (1930-2009), an American journalist who investigated and wrote about UFOs and other anomalous phenomena. But that’s not really the case. Although there’s much mention of Keel, the main focus is on the types of ‘high strangeness’ phenomena that Keel investigated, and the speculations that he and others have made about them. Indeed, many of the cases and investigations mentioned didn’t involve Keel himself.John Keel was born as Alva John Kiehle. He’s probably best known for his book ‘The Mothman Prophecies’, which was first published in 1975. It deals with a series of strange events, involving multiple witnesses, in the Point Pleasant area of West Virginia between November 1966 and December 1967. They culminated in the collapse of the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River on 15th December 1967. The bridge was busy with traffic at the time and 46 people lost their lives. The tragedy may have been coincidental. But were the aforementioned phenomena, which included sightings of a strange man-like flying creature (‘Mothman’), portents of the disaster? Prior to the collapse of the bridge, Keel conducted extensive enquiries in the area. During them, he personally experienced strange things. In 2002, the film ‘The Mothman Prophecies’ was released. It featured Richard Gere and was loosely based on Keel’s book.Raynes (pp. 20-2) relates a bizarre event that supposedly befell Keel on the very day that the Silver Bridge collapsed in December 1967, although Keel chose not to mention it in ‘The Mothman Prophecies’. An old friend of his, Joe Woodvine, turned up unexpectedly at the door of Keel’s apartment in New York City. They spent some hours together, during which they attended a UFO meeting at a hotel. Other people, including the person who informed Raynes of the incident, also reportedly saw Joe (or his lookalike) on that fateful day. However, Keel subsequently encountered Joe’s wife, who explained that her husband had died of a heart attack in July 1965! Another very strange experience is mentioned, albeit very briefly, on p. 251: Keel claimed that he’d once visited a house in Ohio, but it wasn’t there the next day.Sceptics might wonder whether Keel was prone to invention or exaggeration. This matter is touched on briefly in the book. For example, on p. 77, Raynes quotes an unnamed “respected ufologist”, whose impression was that Keel “would stretch things to make a point”, perhaps without realizing that he was doing so. Raynes relates (pp. 74-5) that he wrote to Keel in 1970 about errors in his (Keel’s) material. Keel explained that many of them had been typographical errors over which he’d had no control. For example, in a sentence in his book ‘UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse’, the word ‘invisible’ mistakenly appeared as ‘visible’, reversing the intended meaning.Keel disputed the popular notion that UFOs are extraterrestrial spaceships. He noted that there’s a considerable overlap between UFO phenomena and paranormal manifestations (interesting examples of this are given in the book), and he suggested that they had a common source, an omnipotent intelligence that resides in an energy field that he called the “superspectrum” (pp. 268-9). On pp. 257-8, Raynes discusses the case of Victor Goddard, an RAF officer who eventually reached the rank of Air Marshall. He reportedly had a precognitive experience while flying a biplane in Scotland in the mid-1930s. It supposedly entailed his seeing a disused airfield as it would be a few years later, after being brought back into use by the RAF. However, writing in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (January 2019 and January 2020 editions), Robert Charman has identified serious problems with Goddard’s story, and he concludes that the case shouldn’t be cited as an example of a confirmed precognition.The book contains photographs, but there’s no index. Despite the interesting content, there are significant presentational problems. For example, there are numerous lengthy quotations that would have stood out better if they’d been indented and rendered in a smaller font than the main text. Instead, Raynes uses quotation marks; but they’re not always applied in accordance with accepted practice. Worse still, there are passages – both in Raynes’ own material and that which he quotes – that lack clarity. For instance, there’s a passage on pp. 306-7 that makes limited sense, because words are obviously missing. In places, the book’s punctuation is faulty. At points, Raynes misuses ‘principle’ for ‘principal’. Many of the subheadings within the chapters appear without being highlighted or underlined. As is normal, book titles are italicized, but in some cases, and for no discernible reason, they are also underlined, which looks odd. In short, this isn't a well-produced book.

The title of this book is a little misleading as it is not an actual biography of John Keel, being stories of experiencers' ufological and associated paranormal phenomena. However, it does offer an insight into Keel's pioneering understanding of these mysteries as being related to the electromagnetic spectrum and his 'ultraterrestrial', or other dimensional, theory of the origin of such experiences, as distinct from the more mainstream 'nuts-and-bolts' belief by ufologists as ufos being extraterrestrial space craft. In this respect he is much nearer to, say, that other pioneer Jacques Vallee's views and nearer to the current view that there is something more to these phenomena, which seem interconnected with other mysterious forces - and the role of human consciousness in it all.Unfortunately, as seems more and more common these days, the layout is untidy and there seems no indication of proof reading having been done. There are numerous spelling errors, gaps in the text and other easily visible matters which needed attention. A sloppy production doesn't help to get these subjects taken more seriously, as they should be.

Un livre très original qui aborde de multiples aspects des phénomènes ufologiques et paranormaux : dans le désordre le plus complet ; les témoins (les natifs Américains entre autres), les chercheurs (vraiment très nombreux), les apparitions martiales (comme Zeitoun), les poltergeists, les shamans, Nazca, les prophéties des indiens Hopis, les chupacabras, les petits greys, les élémentaux, Uri Geller, et quantité d'autres sujets impossibles à citer tous tant ils sont nombreux : un livre qui ne décevra personne, tant il est original.

Anyone interested in the paranormal and the connections between various paranormal and anomalous phenomena should read this book. I was pleasantly surprised as I read this that it was not just an account of John Keel and his life and work, there is that, but also an exploration of his views and how they moved the research forward in new and sometimes surprising ways. Brent interwove some of the known about Keel with personal stories and anecdotes of Brent’s relationship with Keel and many others who knew and worked with him. This personal touch makes the book a great read while informing us more in depth about Keel’s belief that many anomalous phenomena are connected. In many ways, John Keel was ahead of his time. He inspired generations of researchers, including the author, to continue researching and looking at these phenomena in new ways, finding the connections and commonalities that may exist. I highly recommend this book as a must have for any Keel fans, but also for those seriously studying the phenomena.

Having read a few of Keel's books, I had an interest in the person, the man behind the books. This book provides at least a few glimpses into Keel's rather interesting personality, and provides a bit of background into his investigations. Fascinating. I got the idea that he was rather private, so, clearly, it would be difficult to extract more information. This is probably as good as it's going to get.

I have to admit, I was "Keel-challenged" before I read Rayne's enlightening book. I knew little about this incredibly influential man. This book is jam-packed with information. Yet, it is so personally written, I feel I now know Keel personally. Very few books are written in such an engaging, conversational manner. I highly recommended John A. Keel: The Man, The Myths, and the Ongoing Mysteries.

I am a big fan of John Keel and like to read everything by or about him...