A New Book on Apparitions

      I started this blog with the aim of collecting reports which were in danger of being forgotten, in the hope that, in the aggregate, they might form a pattern. Well, I have now managed to see some sort of pattern - one of which I wasn't aware initially - so I have now collected it into a book. It is called Apparitions: tulpas, ghosts, fairies, and even stranger things, and it is available from Amazon in both paperback and Kindle e-book form. Much of it has already been published, but a whole lot more is new: collated from both nineteenth and twentieth century sources. With 213 endnotes, it is fully documented.

On Tulpas, Guardian Angels, and Figments of the Imagination

     Of the 83 countries I have visited, one of the most memorable, and certainly the one closest in appearance to another planet, was the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. Although it has spent most of its history fighting to prevent itself being incorporated into Tibet, it is essentially Tibetan in culture. It was there that I witnessed the external face of Tantric Buddhism.
     The first stop on our tour of the capital, Thimpu was the Memorial Chörten. It was with a sense of awe that we beheld the beauty of the sanctuary, clean and brightly painted, surrounded by beautifully clipped shrubs. This was a holy place, we were told. No photography was permitted inside. Carefully and respectfully, we removed our shoes and stepped up onto the icy cold floor of this holy of holies.
     Inside stood an unspeakable abomination.