Conference hydra::dejavu

1320.0. "The Romeo Error by Lyall Watson" by LESCOM::KALLIS (Pumpkins -- Nature's greatest gift.) Wed Jul 25 1990 17:56

                         -< Book review, and then some >-

Lyall Watson is a trained scientist.  He also is author is a somewhat
unorthodox book, _Supernature_, wherein he makes a fairly scholarly attempt to
connect seemingly supernatural events/mechanisms with a kind of "naturalistic"
world view.  (Sincere occultists, metaphysicians, and parapsychologists tend to
believe that there is no such thing as "the supernatural"; rather, the effects
are the result of natural laws we just don't understand yet.  That's why the
term "paranormal" [outside/beyond the ordinary] is preferred to "supernatural.")
 
_The Romeo Error_, published in 1977, is a complementary/companion book.
It starts out discussing death and goes on to something approaching a quanti-
fication of what defines life and death.  From there, it goes on to discuss
aspects of what might be afterlife, with a heavy leaning towards the idea of
reincarnation.

Dr. Watson is well read.  His opinions are frequently novel.  The resulting
book can be a jumping-off point for discussions.  Things discussed include
various psi phenomena (e.g., telepathy, psychokinetics, clairaudience), some
"ghostly" ones (e.g. hauntings), multiple personalities, past-life regressions,
acupuncture, psychic surgery, and the chakras.  It's a mixed bag, as are his
citations, which can go from a serious journal to a(n admittedly good) science
fiction novel. 

One cannot do justice to such a book with a short review, but it's worth hitting
a few points.  He adds to the dilemma of determining when death is by citing 
cases of "dead" folk who have "come back"; he presents a case that in some cases
death is reversible (i.e., that rather than a "near-death experience" some have
had a "short death experience"), and that there's an intermediate area between
life and death (which he dubs "goth," with slight apologies to the memory of a
now-defunct European culture of that name) where "life" doesn't exist even 
though some or most of the individual parts are still "alive."  Through some
aspects of Kirlian photography and allied studies he proposes that there is
strong evidence for the existence of (the equivalent of) an etheric double, and
that that _aspect_ of a being's life survives the physical structure.  He cites
cases where the evidence suggests either very comprehensive telepathy or of
reincarnation.  He concludes by bringing this together somewhat through an 
agency similar to creating one's own reality.

Towards the end of the book, Watson takes a viewpoint that is very heavy in 
metaphysical philosophy, with a suggestion that when contemplating First Causes
and underlying mechanisms, the Universe isn't user-friendly.  This naturally
appears to bother him. 
 
I could quibble with details of the book; however, it is fertile in ideas.
Certainly worth a read.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

    	He also has a book out called Beyond Supernature which I
    recommend. Fun read.

    	Craig

    this book sounds very interesting, 
    
    who publishes the book please?????
    my mother is looking for it and cannot find it
    much thanks,
    suzie