"Without Consent," newly reissued by Beyond Publications, is a laudable study for readers wishing to understand the alien abduction phenomenon. Plainly presented, "Without Consent" neither indulges in unfettered speculation nor subjective interpretation; the cases it presents stand as representative enigmas from the annals of British ufology. The authors approach the abduction enigma as a challenge to conventional thought, leaving the verdict to the reader. "Without Consent" is a short, sensible primer that shines a much-needed light on the state of UFO research in the UK.

This piece of Witchcrap COULD be better, ever so slightly, if they renamed it "Scottish Witchcrap: The lies and falsehoods of a Liar", and inserted inbettween everyline in bold, red text "Everything in this book is a LIE, dont believe any of it for it is ot of the truth". It would still be pretty bad, but then something in it would be true! If you dont get it I'm saying dont waste your time or money on this book.

After reading quite a few of the other reviews of this book, I thought I should toss in my opinion...

The spirit of this book (as based on Aiden Breac's teachings) follow fairly closely to the tradition that I was raised in by my mother, who grew up in the far north of Scotland. The idea that the Scottish pagan tradition is a solitaire one is very true, and the methods put forward are workable in any solitaire trad.

I will grant, on the other hand, that Buckland went overboard as usual. That I know of, the only pre-roman alphabet ever found in use in Scotland was Ogham, so I have no idea where he came up with his others. Also, the idea of a set formula of spells was never taught to me, so I don't think that this was a part of the trad. But I expected these things from Buckland as his goal is to give the masses what they want.

My point is that there are some jewels of wisdom in ths book that are of great use to any student of pagan traditions, and especially to a student of Scottish traditions.

I love this book!! I have read this book cover to cover countless times. If your looking for a book that teaches very structured rituals that need alot of tools(athame, pentacle disk, boline, broom, chalice, etc.) then I would recomend going else where, But if your looking for a very simple, basic yet beautiful and fulfilling book on the scottish laypersons aspect to the craft than this book is for you. Not alot of hoopla and dogma here just folk magick, natural magick and a some great yet simple sabbat rituals. Awesome book for people who want to practice wicca/witchcraft of the common folk and not the more elaborate ceremonial magick of the rich folk of the day.

The "thoughts" of the most cynical, unprincipled man ever to hold public office in Britain, and who continues to do so only because his opponents are even more despised than he is.

Blair's complete inability to think other than in soundbites is mercilessly exposed in his own words.

"Young country"? Far from it. Britain is a very old country, and therefore far too grown up for this oik, who has absolutely no respect for anything old at all. I was about to say he has no respect in principle, but then he has no principles at all as far as I can see.

The whining, smug, ever-flexible "credo" of a constitutional vandal and sleazy second-hand car salesman.

Dreary, depressing, plodding "essays," speeches, and newspaper articles penned by Britain's latter-day Pilate. I dare you to read this one and not be shocked by the narrowness of his thinking.

I must declare an interest (that in itself shows I'm no Blairite) - I dress to the right, politically speaking. The sight of Tony on the cover, grinning like a wanking jap, made me feel queasy. The book, needless to say, was gobbets of nonsense, though I give it 2 stars as I admire any man who slaughters his own food - "Cherie held the piglet down, careful to lean away from the muzzle of my .38 and I just unloaded a clipful into it, thinking of bacon."

I realize that this book is a companion to an English TV documentary, but in his intro Lapping claims that they can be treated apart from one another. I think it feels half-complete. It has lots of good pictures and diagrams (its best features) but most of the information (the history, logic of argument, etc.) hardly distinguishes it from any history textbook. One of the reasons I bought it was it included several specific areas I was most interested in and had found less information on, but the discussion still mangaged to cover old ground. Its routiness is hardly the most distressing thing, however. Lapping (who obviously did not write the jacket cover -- which gives a different impression) has an anti-colonial bias he allows to color his judgments. No one will argue that colonialism was a untarnished blessing, but Lapping is at pains to point out old cliches about imperial brutality. The British can never be the good guys in his world; even the pluses were accidental or really the natives' ideas. He even manages to suggest criticism when he says that the Europeans could no longer commit massacres to maintain their hold on subject peoples. He seems to think that it is an imperial hypocrisy not to do so, rather than the Europeans living up (finally) to their own ideals. They can't win. The only people who should refer to Churchill as a "villain" are the fascists; the fact WSC opposed Indian independence, for instance, doesn't give him horns and cloven hooves, but makes him a realist about how ready the sub-continent was for freedom. While I'm here, Lapping -- in his not infrequent fits of exaggeration -- makes claims that are simply untrue; before the Mau Mau the British never engaged in wide-scale repression in Kenya, as an example. If you are looking to make your shelf on the British Empire exhaustive, then buy this (used), but there are better books out there.

This book is on a fascinating subject, but the author seems to have written it to make an anti-Western political statement. At the end, he argues that the British possession of the Falkland Islands is just like the British rule over India or Egypt. This falls flat. The Falkands are inhabited by British people who want to be part of Britain. The islands were never part of Argentina. Why does he argue against British imperialism only to argue for Argentine imperialism?

Hall tries his best to debunk the famed 19th century medium Daniel Home. Unfortunately, much of the book is concerned with tedious and irrelevant minutiae. Hall spends many pages trying to prove that Home invented his middle name (Dunglas) in order to fake a connection with Scottish nobility that allowed him to advance in European high society. Even if true, this says little about Home's purported mediumistic abilities. A later discussion of the publication date of an obscure book brought out by Home in 1869 or 1870 goes on for multiple chapters and succeeds in establishing that 1869, not 1870, may be the correct date. So what? Hall makes no attempt to deal with the bulk of Home's alleged phenomena, ascribing the hundreds of eyewitness reports to group hallucination or collective hypnosis. He does not discuss Sir William Crookes' controlled experiments with Home, carried out in good light and in the presence of various witnesses. He does expend a great deal of energy on Home's purported levitation in front of three young friends, under non-controlled conditions, in the dark. This is one of the weakest cases, and serves as a straw man by which Hall can profess to have discredited all the stronger cases without actually addressing them. He does, however, succeed in casting great doubt on the alleged levitation, for what that is worth. A much more complete analysis of Home is found in Stephen E. Braude's "The Limits of Influence," now out of print but worth tracking down. Braude's detailed and careful approach makes Hall seem sloppy and disingenuous by comparison.

The author is a sensitive who writes about her own experiences and those that have been told to her by others. There is nothing compelling about the photographs and very little proof, research or data to back up her claims. This is a very light piece of work at best.

This book on Ralph Miliband, one of the key figures of the New Left, gives us useful insights into why that movement failed.

Newman (like Miliband a Professor of Politics) tells us that Miliband was happy 'to speak, debate and write political statements' but 'found meetings and organisational work very tiresome' and found 'organisation and discipline unacceptable'. Newman reveals the earth-shaking insignificance of the New Left's disputes at dinner-parties and seminars.

Not surprisingly, a New Left composed of egos like Miliband, E. P. Thompson and Tony Benn (who wrote in his 1985 Diary, "I'm always thrusting myself forward for publicity") could never work together. These 'critical' intellectuals only agreed in seeing themselves as superior to the 'ignorant' workers.

Newman tells us that by the mid-1960s Miliband had 'come to the belief that a new Socialist Party would eventually need to be established ..." And he did as much as helping in 'preparing the ground for the coming into being of a new party'! But did the New Left ever manage to found this new party?

In fact the New Left, just like the old left, adopted the tried and failed Fabian tactic of permeating the Labour party. The famed 'independent Marxism' ended up as a marginal colony of social democracy.

At history's turning points, the New Left always supported the US government: it was for the CIA-backed counter-revolution in Hungary in 1956, against Vietnam's liberation of Cambodia from Pol Pot, and against the Soviet assistance to Afghanistan's only progressive government ever, which gave women equal rights and land to the peasants. At these crucial times, the New Left took the enemy's side, then moaned that the 'left' was divided. It was always divorced from the working class, from the trade unions, from reality.

The New Left constantly whinged about the 'left's disarray'. But what did its fragments all have in common? They rejected Leninist democratic centralism, by dishonestly caricaturing it as oppressive! In democratic centralist parties, the minority carries out the decisions of the majority, whereas the New Left always wanted minority rights, its rights, to trump the majority. Marxism without Leninism is playing without winning.

The New Left's endless projects for renewal, unification, realignment, and saving the Labour party, are all part of the confusion of thought that alone has held back the British working class for so long.

I have a hard time believing a PHD and Department Head wrote this book. I got the book out of curiosity after hearing Dr. Gibran on TV. The book was unlike any other academic book I've ever read, it would have been a joke at any other college with a real International Relations Department. The poor guy is constantly billing himself as a International Relations expert, a History Expert, a Terrorism Expert, anything he can do to get his face on TV as an "expert" commentator. Save your money, buy Dr. Seuss.

Don't buy this book. Half (160 of 320 pages) is devoted to material on behavior and general characteristics, that is too simplified for a biologist (or veteran birder) and too detailed for some one seeking identification of new species. The identification sections show 7 birds per page, without size or habitat perspective. The illustrations are accurate to the extent of my observations, and range maps are shown on the ID pages. The print is about 6 point, and I simply could not read it in the field. The authors are obviously expert and anxious to please, but this book will not please anyone.