Like legendary sorcerers, the master storyteller can wield great power. Master the power of words and you will make your reader smile with amusement, laugh, cry, cringe in terror, feel a tingle up their spine, be compelled to share your story with others, or blurt out a resounding Yes! as your protagonist survives to live another day. To become a talented and accomplished writer is a worthy goal. The fact that you are holding this book in your hands or reading it on a screen indicates that you would seek to improve your ability to use words effectively. When your words evoke far more than just their defined meanings, you will have mastered their power. It is a quest worth pursuing, and the ultimate test of any writer. The wonderful experience of creativity does not come from without, but from within your prepared mind, the mind of a writer. Master these arts and you may discover that you are filled with stories that yearn to be told. There are many ways to craft powerful writing, writing that entertains, engages, informs and excites the reader. In the end, you must find your own voice as a writer. This book can start you on that quest, or help lead you further along the way. Words are exciting things, fun things. You can spend a lifetime playing with them; you will find few more rewarding companions.
Word Power is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle digital editions. Prime members can read it free.
Introduction, By Stephen Proskauer, M.D.
David Brown is a very unusual journalist, photographer, novelist, and student of life. What makes this book special, perhaps unique, flows out of his powerful combination of courage, honesty, humility and all-consuming curiosity. In writing this book, David has produced a thought-provoking exploration of paranormal experiences, both his own and those of others. The chapters cover telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance, near-death experiences, encounters with spirits of the dead, UFO abductions, shamanism and much more. Unlike most authors about the paranormal, who are either true believers or debunkers, he objectively documents his struggles to accept and make sense of these experiences because they challenged his limited view of reality. Decades ago a research team investigated the efficacy of intercessory prayer across time. They gathered hospital records of 5,000 patients who had been treated for blood infections ten years before and divided them into two equal groups. The patients in the first group received intercessory prayers for healing and recovery, while those in the second group did not. Both the researchers and those who performed the prayers were unaware of the clinical course of these patients. After all the prayers were finished, the team compared the hospital records of the two groups and discovered that patients who had received prayers ten years after their illness had significantly faster rates of recovery and fewer complications than those who did not receive intercessory prayer. These results suggest that not only is intercessory prayer a significant healing factor but that healing can operate retroactively, indicating that spiritual healing may be independent of space and time. Only in certain interpretations of quantum theory can we find a way to explain such a baffling phenomenon. In this book, David Brown addresses anecdotal findings that are equally mysterious. He delves into the implications of these experiences and dares to inquire about the nature of memory, of time, even of consciousness itself. He touches on shamanism and the role of story-telling in creating our reality. In an effort to envision an expanded view of our experience that can encompass the paranormal, David goes into some principles of quantum mechanics, the most successful and most mystifying theory in the history of science. He postulates an intelligent universe with a pervasive energetic field that exists outside the spatial and temporal realm of the physical universe yet somehow underlies it and interacts with it. David wonders if our minds might be able to influence this field and thereby our reality. Could this be none other than the quantum field itself? It takes a huge amount of energy to make a small amount of matter. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN required very high energies to create the tiny long-sought Higgs boson, termed the God Particle because the Higgs quantum field associated with this boson is what is thought to impart mass to all matter, allowing the universe to exist. David Brown implies our minds might be capable of interacting with quantum fields, thereby participating in the creation of the world we perceive. I encourage you to embark on this fascinating journey into the unknown with him. – Stephen Proskauer, October, 2023, Moab, Utah
Stephen Proskauer is a psychiatrist and spiritual teacher who obtained his BA and MD degrees from Harvard University. In his professional practice he has used not only the tools of standard drug-based psychiatry but also integrative psychotherapy as well as teachings from Buddhism and Shamanism. He has helped patients discover their past lives in order to address traumas that have their roots in previous existences, as he describes in his book Karmic Therapy.
The Psi Connection is available as a trade paperback wherever books are sold, and as an eBook for Kindle on Amazon.com.
The body is displayed on the desert sand like an offering to the gods. It lies on its back, head to the east, feet pointed west. It is the corpse of a man in executive suit, coat buttoned, hands crossed on chest, sightless eyes staring into the blue New Mexico sky. Except for the neat little bullet hole low in the center of the forehead, Bernalillo County sheriff’s detective Luis Flores can imagine the victim is taking a quick nap between meetings, that the man is about to stretch, yawn and tuck back a light blue French-cuffed sleeve to glance at the gold Rolex that glitters there. But this is no longer a man, not a thing that walks and talks and breathes. This is mere meat, gristle and bone, the empty remnants of something that was once alive, the primary evidence in a most puzzling crime of murder. Flores stands about 20 feet away watching the crime scene team at work. A forensic photographer is circling the body, taking advantage of the West-sinking sun to capture everything with stills and videos. His flashgun winks again and again to bring out details of each image. Flores steps closer to examine the corpse. It’s carefully arranged, “displayed” as the experts at the FBI call it, a sure sign that a psychopath has been at work here and is sending a message. The legs are straight, shoes aligned side-by-side and clean, almost as if the killer has run over them with a polishing cloth. The back is straight, shoulders squared, nothing out of place. The tie is knotted in a proper Windsor, not too tight, just right. By God, the fucker even combed the victim’s hair, Flores realizes.
Retirement Man is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle digital editions. Prime members can read it free.
Open your mind and look around …and you will see a world in distress. Each day seems to bring news of fresh disasters. The media spill out an endless stream of stories about growing threats to the environment, troubled economies, and dangers to the climate. We are overwhelmed by reports of failing nations, crime, intolerance, disease, terrorism, piracy, war, natural disasters, drought and spreading famine. What’s happening to bring so much misery into the world? The subject may seem complex and multi-faceted, but there’s a single culprit responsible for most of the troubles we face — an “unusual suspect” that is the root cause of nearly everything that’s wrong on Planet Earth. Aha, you may be thinking: If there’s a single cause for most of our troubles it should be easy to solve them, simply by eliminating that cause. But you would have to think again when I reveal that the culprit is agriculture, and in particular the aggressive style of industrial farming that has replaced traditional methods in developed countries and is being spread across the world by multi-national corporations through the process of globalization. But…isn’t agriculture a force for good? It puts food on all our tables. Its bounty makes possible the comfortable lifestyles most Westerners enjoy. It feeds the less fortunate. It allowed our species to thrive and build great civilizations. Agriculture lies at the heart of humanity’s finest achievements. Doesn’t it?
Dead End Path is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle digital editions. Prime members can read it free.
Tommy Dawson leaned back from the keyboard and raised his arms above his head to stretch tired muscles. The extra-large Aeron chair creaked under his considerable weight. Gazing at the ceiling he emitted an expansive yawn. He and his team had been at work for several hours. “Hey! Need some coffee here!” he yelled to no one in particular. Although several heads turned briefly in his direction, no one responded. Dawson grunted, acknowledging the usual indifference to his demands. “Get it myself!” he announced to his computer screen. Grumbling he rose and wandered toward the coffee machine in a far corner. Tommy Dawson, Ph.D., Nobel Laureate and senior fellow of the New Mexico Institute, was deeply respected by all—but this spacious research center held enough accomplished physicists and engineers to staff a first-class university and none were prepared to become Dawson’s personal errand boy or girl. He was a round man. Round head, round body, round like the Michelin Man. His face was round, too, with sagging jowls and at least two double chins, the result of too many sugar-laden drinks and donuts. His cheeks were colored by rosacea and although he shunned alcohol his nose was cherry red. Dawson’s dark hair was shaggy and striped with gray. He wore a custom-made baseball cap featuring a stylized atom and the words “Quantum Cowboy.” The greasy hair on the back of his head had been threaded over the adjustment strap of the cap to create a sad approximation of a ponytail. Dawson wore a stained T-shirt imprinted with a picture of a cat. There were actually two images of the cat, superimposed. In one the cat was sitting up attentively, in the other it was lying with its legs sticking up in the air, apparently dead. A legend in old-style Germanic script read: “Schrödinger’s Cat.” There was a large coffee stain on the front of the shirt. His casual appearance was completed with a pair of faded jeans and suede roper boots.
Quantum Cowboy is available on Amazon as a Kindle digital edition. Prime members can read it free.
Sarah freezes in place as the horror appears. The monster had been lying in the machine like a cadaver in a coffin. Now it sits up, rising silently from its hips like an automaton. Slowly it turns its head, fixing her with eerily piercing eyes, large, golden eyes almost like saucers yet lit with intelligence. A mouth that would give pause to a tiger opens slightly revealing dagger-like teeth. Once again Sarah’s heart flutters with apprehension. Her mind demands that she turn and run but her body refuses. She hears someone screaming and several long seconds pass before she knows the screams are her own. Then something uncanny happens. A calming voice appears in her brain. The words are not sound. They come into her consciousness like sudden vivid memories, yet clearly the product of another mind. The mind of the monster! Words seem to float in her head, as if written in neon. “Don’t be afraid,” they seem to say and with them come feelings of calm reassurance. The effect is immediate. The words are stilted, somehow archaic, yet they have power, like the speech of a master orator. The feeling of safety rushes back. The screams die in her throat. She stands easily, staring at the apparition sitting up in the box. Sarah’s first impression is of a thing out of nightmare, a creature so different from anything she’s ever witnessed that it hardly seems possible. Intrigued, she gazes back at its steady, intelligent eyes. As horrible as it appears, this creature has spoken inside her head with a gentle, calming voice.
Sarah and the Dragon is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle digital editions. Prime members can read it free.