What do you think?
Rate this book
The strange white doves;: True mysteries of nature
Book by Key, Alexander
- GenresNonfiction
108 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1972
About the author
Alexander Key
74 books97 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
An American science fiction writer, most of whose books were aimed at a juvenile audience. He became a nationally known illustrator before he became an author. After he began writing novels for young people, he moved his family to the North Carolina mountains, and most of his books include that wild and rugged landscape.
His novel Escape to Witch Mountain was made into a popular film in 1975 and again in 1995. His novel The Incredible Tide became a popular anime series, Future Boy Conan.
He is known for his portrayals of alien but human-like people who have psychic powers and a close communion with nature, and who can speak with animals. In The Strange White Doves, he professed his belief that animals are conscious and aware, and have subtle ways of communicating, perhaps via telepathy.
The protagonists of Key's books are often ostracized, feared, or persecuted due to their abilities or alien origin, and Key uses this as a clear metaphor for racism and other prejudice. In several of the books (most notably The Case of the Vanishing Boy,) Key portrays some sort of communal withdrawing from society with a group of like-minded individuals. - Wikipedia -
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
An American science fiction writer, most of whose books were aimed at a juvenile audience. He became a nationally known illustrator before he became an author. After he began writing novels for young people, he moved his family to the North Carolina mountains, and most of his books include that wild and rugged landscape.
His novel Escape to Witch Mountain was made into a popular film in 1975 and again in 1995. His novel The Incredible Tide became a popular anime series, Future Boy Conan.
He is known for his portrayals of alien but human-like people who have psychic powers and a close communion with nature, and who can speak with animals. In The Strange White Doves, he professed his belief that animals are conscious and aware, and have subtle ways of communicating, perhaps via telepathy.
The protagonists of Key's books are often ostracized, feared, or persecuted due to their abilities or alien origin, and Key uses this as a clear metaphor for racism and other prejudice. In several of the books (most notably The Case of the Vanishing Boy,) Key portrays some sort of communal withdrawing from society with a group of like-minded individuals. - Wikipedia -
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 4, 2022
As an individual, every animal is another living being in the same spaceship as ourselves, traveling toward the same unknown destination. Like us, it is equipped with special talents, a means of communication with other life around it, and a complete set of feelings. It knows joy and fear, love and hate, anxiety and grief, pride, yes and even compassion.
The Strange White Doves is a spiritual journey relating the bond between humans and the natural world. The author shares his experiences in an effort to preserve the natural world for future generations.
In reading this non-fiction book, readers can see how Alexander Key's beliefs and ideas about animals are evident in the author's many fictional stories such as: The Preposterous Adventures of Swimmer, Jagger, the Dog from Elsewhere and The Golden Enemy.
Favorite Passages:
Dedication
In all earnestness I dedicate this book to the youth of tomorrow. May you inherit at least a portion of the great thing that was - that incomparable wonder of space and stream and forest and unspoiled wild - which threatens to be no more unless enough of us can feel enough and care enough to restore and preserve it for you.
Introduction
Are some birds and animals able to send messages to each other by telepathy?
Is there a silent language that all wild creatures are able to use?
Can an insect exchange thoughts with a human - can a plant read your mind?
Silly questions? Decide for yourself - but not until you have read the following pages. They may change your way of thinking.
A Personal Power
Could telepathy have had anything to do with it?
______
If not telepathy, what was it that brought the second dove to my studio window?
Instinct?
Something in me rebelled at the word. I have seen too many curious things in nature to have much regard for such an explanation. Instinct is one of the most overworked and misused nouns in our language, and it is always being slipped in somewhere to hide an ocean of ignorance.
Intuition seemed a much better word.
The Twenty-Five Raccoons
Our heads were reeling with bigger mysteries.
______
As I considered that raccoon experience, I felt that I had taken a definite step into the unknown, on the track of something strange.
Wild Dog
My neighbor the beekeeper lives alone down the valley in an old weather-beaten cottage on the mountainside. He is not really alone, for, beside his bees, he has a host of friends in the branches overhead and in the forest behind him. With most of them - the cardinals, the chickadees, assorted songsters, and one trusting doe - he is on close speaking terms.
______
The truth gave everyone something to think about. The goat had formed a partnership with a donkey. By standing on the donkey's back, it could leap the fence with ease.
______
Simpatico is a Spanish word that means a great deal more than just sympathetic, as it is usually translated. If others find you simpatico, they feel in you an unusual understanding, a sort of closeness and kinship that is far beyond the ordinary.
Insects Have Feelings?
"Well, you've got to approach animals as an equal before you can become acquainted with them or learn much about them. Anyway, we make an awful poor showing when compared to some creatures. You've read about dolphins?"
______
"Then there's the wolf," he said. "Stack him up against us, and he comes out way ahead. He's a better animal all the way around, and a finer gentleman."
I have only met one wolf in my life, but the meeting was memorable. We came upon each other suddenly at the corner of a northern field, and we both stopped short and stared at each other. . .
At the time I did not know how he felt about me. But I'll never forget the look he gave me.
______
The beekeeper's views are shared by many thoughtful people. In fact, it is almost impossible for us to grasp the truth about other creatures as long as we consider ourselves far above them. We must come humbly down to another level and meet them as equals. And we must realize that every one of them, be it a dolphin, wolf, crow, or even a grasshopper, is an individual and actually superior to us in some way.
As an individual, every animal is another living being in the same spaceship as ourselves, traveling toward the same unknown destination. Like us, it is equipped with special talents, a means of communication with other life around it, and a complete set of feelings. It knows joy and fear, love and hate, anxiety and grief, pride, yes and even compassion.
Insects have feelings? Certainly they have! Who has never been stung by an angry wasp or an anxious bee?
______
. . . how completely we have lost contact with the natural world around us.
That is a frightening fact, for it could mean death for all of us.
The Terrible Intent
Have you ever wondered why some people can walk through the woods and see all kinds of wildlife whereas others see nothing?
______
When you enter a wild area, all life around you is very much aware of how you feel about it. The way you feel decides how much of that life you see.
______
Just being a human is bad enough. The experience of centuries has taught wildlife that you cannot be trusted and that you are better avoided. And when you become a killer on the loose, every creature wants to hide.
______
As a rule these people are loners, and when they go forth to see what they can see, the world of nature usually meets them more than halfway. Sometimes it practically snows them under.
A Grieving Snake
The approach is always made by an equal to an equal, and nothing is forced. Following admiration, there is simply that silent appeal for an exchange of love and understanding and friendship. From nature, you always receive what you give.
The highest emotion, surely, is love. If no snake, or even a fly, is a stranger to it, then every living thing on this whirling spaceship is an individual much like ourselves, a kindred being, wondering and aware.
The Invisible Compass
The homing "instinct" of certain pigeons seemed a good place to begin. Was their so-called instinct really a form of ESP? Were they the only birds to have it? What about animals?
______
No scientist I know, or whose work I have read, is quite willing to admit that ESP is found in other creatures, or that it has much to do with homing or any other unusual ability.
Scientists do admit, however, that there is a great deal of animal behavior they cannot explain. Many things, they concede, are incredible and defy all the known laws of science.
______
This invisible compass seems to link them to a great reality far beyond the range of the ordinary senses.
______
Of course the idea of the invisible compass is purely imaginary, but it is entirely possible that all creatures, humans included, have a built-in mechanism that works much the same way.
Foretellers of Danger
Cats are strange creatures. No human has ever actually owned one, for the simple reason that it is cats who own people . . .
The strangest side of a cat is that he sees things we cannot see, hears things we cannot hear, and knows things that are beyond our knowing.
______
Because so many creatures, man included, are able at times to make use of foreknowledge, it must be looked upon as another natural defense that has been given for survival. But how can it be explained? Is time itself quite different from what we have always thought it to be?
The Incredible Journeys
They set out blindly into a strange world, driven by love of their families and guided by intuition alone.
The Barrier of Speech
Black Bear, besides being able to read cards, face down, and reveal the contents of unopened letters, could always tell what a stranger was thinking. Lady Wonder was even more astounding. Her mind-reading ability left people shaken, but of far greater importance was the accuracy with which she could locate lost valuables and solve the fate of vanished children.
Even the Trees
Trees, he wanted people to know, are sensitive and have feelings just as all other living things have. When hurt, they are subject to shock, just as people are. And shock can kill.
Moving a tree, even when it is dormant, or pruning it drastically, is a great shock. Many trees die from such treatment, and all of them suffer for a long time afterward. So, he thought, why not give them an anesthetic to put them to sleep before any sort of operation? Wouldn't they recover more quickly and grow faster?
______
It is also a fact that a much-loved plant or tree often withers and dies when its owner dies. When I first heard this I thought it was just a silly superstition, the sort of thing old mountaineers whisper to each other after a funeral. But I have learned better. I have seen it happen a number of times, and now I know the staggering truth behind it.
______
Some plants and trees apparently also know when they are going to die. When death is on the way, these trees will put forth a great wealth of blossoms, more than they have ever had before. When summer is over and the seeds are mature, they drop their leaves for the last time.
______
If all of us were to vanish suddenly, our battered planet would begin to thrive and bloom as it has not bloomed for a long time. The air would become pure again; soon dirty streams would run clean, and hundreds of creatures that are now nearly extinct would flourish once more.
But suppose all the trees died - and don't think such a catastrophe isn't possible - what would happen then? Everything would die, for trees are the key to life. Without them, the earth would become as barren as the moon.
The Language of the Wild
Pure telepathy is primarily a mental thing. But nature's great language is largely emotional. It is the feeling behind the thought that gives it impact. The two, of course, are used together, for the mental and the emotional are always mixed. But as we sift down to the bottom we find that the basic messages - the ones that all living things can understand - are entirely emotional.
There are not many such messages, but their range is wide. Some of the most common are joy, fear, love, and hate. These are followed by sorrow, anguish, despair, and something akin to joy that we might call contentment. Then there are hunger, pain, and the need for assistance, all of which can become strongly emotional messages, and are easily received . . .
______
I have often watched wild animals - and tame ones too - pause and go through a sort of ritual before proceeding in a certain direction. First, as they stop and look around, there is a twitching of the nose and a turning of the ears as they test scent and sight and sound; then they stand absolutely motionless, as if lost in thought.
I used to think they were trying to make up their minds about what to do next, or perhaps they were listening to something. But now I realize they must be testing the thought waves, and picking up various feelings around them.
The Great Questions
We have come far into a vast strangeness, and left behind us a curious trail of unanswered questions. They are puzzles that have worried serious thinkers for generations.
______
My explanation is that the dove made use of intuition, a form of ESP, or extrasensory perception. ESP is defined simply as the power of quickly knowing a truth without the use of reason or the senses. But behind it is that ever-baffling why and how.
______
The curious truth is that everyone, and every living thing, has such ability to some extent. Too many of us, however, have been taught not to believe in such matters. What happens to a talent we do not believe in and never use? It would be of about as much help to us as an arm that had been tied up for years and never exercised.
Zan's doves, however, had no one to tell them that some things are impossible.
______
Using intuition, you know something instantly, but it is not knowledge you have worked out for yourself at that particular moment. You are in immediate need of an answer, and it comes to you. You receive it. In order to be received, information must come from somewhere. There has to be a source.
______
Think of the center of intelligence as you will, there is still the almost certain reality of it.
______
Call it by any name you wish - the Pool of Knowledge, the Psychic Information Center, the Great Collective Unconscious, or the Fifth Dimension - I am certain of its existence, and I believe that the ability to make use of it is part of the equipment included by the Designer of the Spaceship Earth for the growth and survival of its passengers.
______
Mighty man has dominion over his badly scarred earth and every living thing on it. He has forcibly made it his. But instead of being the wise custodian of a priceless treasure, he has acted like a drunken monarch and squandered the greater part of it. The guardian has abused his trust.
It is long past the time for the guardian to come awake and somehow make amends. His ailing vessel is still green with life, and the task ahead is to keep it so.
To do that, we of the race of man must never again forget our kinship with the realm beyond our doors. Let us go out into the living night and listen and hear the voices and the music of it, and feel the slow eternal drumbeat that marks the pulse of life.
If we can hear it and feel it and know that we are part of it, perhaps some of our lost awareness will return.
The Strange White Doves is a spiritual journey relating the bond between humans and the natural world. The author shares his experiences in an effort to preserve the natural world for future generations.
In reading this non-fiction book, readers can see how Alexander Key's beliefs and ideas about animals are evident in the author's many fictional stories such as: The Preposterous Adventures of Swimmer, Jagger, the Dog from Elsewhere and The Golden Enemy.
Favorite Passages:
Dedication
In all earnestness I dedicate this book to the youth of tomorrow. May you inherit at least a portion of the great thing that was - that incomparable wonder of space and stream and forest and unspoiled wild - which threatens to be no more unless enough of us can feel enough and care enough to restore and preserve it for you.
Introduction
Are some birds and animals able to send messages to each other by telepathy?
Is there a silent language that all wild creatures are able to use?
Can an insect exchange thoughts with a human - can a plant read your mind?
Silly questions? Decide for yourself - but not until you have read the following pages. They may change your way of thinking.
A Personal Power
Could telepathy have had anything to do with it?
______
If not telepathy, what was it that brought the second dove to my studio window?
Instinct?
Something in me rebelled at the word. I have seen too many curious things in nature to have much regard for such an explanation. Instinct is one of the most overworked and misused nouns in our language, and it is always being slipped in somewhere to hide an ocean of ignorance.
Intuition seemed a much better word.
The Twenty-Five Raccoons
Our heads were reeling with bigger mysteries.
______
As I considered that raccoon experience, I felt that I had taken a definite step into the unknown, on the track of something strange.
Wild Dog
My neighbor the beekeeper lives alone down the valley in an old weather-beaten cottage on the mountainside. He is not really alone, for, beside his bees, he has a host of friends in the branches overhead and in the forest behind him. With most of them - the cardinals, the chickadees, assorted songsters, and one trusting doe - he is on close speaking terms.
______
The truth gave everyone something to think about. The goat had formed a partnership with a donkey. By standing on the donkey's back, it could leap the fence with ease.
______
Simpatico is a Spanish word that means a great deal more than just sympathetic, as it is usually translated. If others find you simpatico, they feel in you an unusual understanding, a sort of closeness and kinship that is far beyond the ordinary.
Insects Have Feelings?
"Well, you've got to approach animals as an equal before you can become acquainted with them or learn much about them. Anyway, we make an awful poor showing when compared to some creatures. You've read about dolphins?"
______
"Then there's the wolf," he said. "Stack him up against us, and he comes out way ahead. He's a better animal all the way around, and a finer gentleman."
I have only met one wolf in my life, but the meeting was memorable. We came upon each other suddenly at the corner of a northern field, and we both stopped short and stared at each other. . .
At the time I did not know how he felt about me. But I'll never forget the look he gave me.
______
The beekeeper's views are shared by many thoughtful people. In fact, it is almost impossible for us to grasp the truth about other creatures as long as we consider ourselves far above them. We must come humbly down to another level and meet them as equals. And we must realize that every one of them, be it a dolphin, wolf, crow, or even a grasshopper, is an individual and actually superior to us in some way.
As an individual, every animal is another living being in the same spaceship as ourselves, traveling toward the same unknown destination. Like us, it is equipped with special talents, a means of communication with other life around it, and a complete set of feelings. It knows joy and fear, love and hate, anxiety and grief, pride, yes and even compassion.
Insects have feelings? Certainly they have! Who has never been stung by an angry wasp or an anxious bee?
______
. . . how completely we have lost contact with the natural world around us.
That is a frightening fact, for it could mean death for all of us.
The Terrible Intent
Have you ever wondered why some people can walk through the woods and see all kinds of wildlife whereas others see nothing?
______
When you enter a wild area, all life around you is very much aware of how you feel about it. The way you feel decides how much of that life you see.
______
Just being a human is bad enough. The experience of centuries has taught wildlife that you cannot be trusted and that you are better avoided. And when you become a killer on the loose, every creature wants to hide.
______
As a rule these people are loners, and when they go forth to see what they can see, the world of nature usually meets them more than halfway. Sometimes it practically snows them under.
A Grieving Snake
The approach is always made by an equal to an equal, and nothing is forced. Following admiration, there is simply that silent appeal for an exchange of love and understanding and friendship. From nature, you always receive what you give.
The highest emotion, surely, is love. If no snake, or even a fly, is a stranger to it, then every living thing on this whirling spaceship is an individual much like ourselves, a kindred being, wondering and aware.
The Invisible Compass
The homing "instinct" of certain pigeons seemed a good place to begin. Was their so-called instinct really a form of ESP? Were they the only birds to have it? What about animals?
______
No scientist I know, or whose work I have read, is quite willing to admit that ESP is found in other creatures, or that it has much to do with homing or any other unusual ability.
Scientists do admit, however, that there is a great deal of animal behavior they cannot explain. Many things, they concede, are incredible and defy all the known laws of science.
______
This invisible compass seems to link them to a great reality far beyond the range of the ordinary senses.
______
Of course the idea of the invisible compass is purely imaginary, but it is entirely possible that all creatures, humans included, have a built-in mechanism that works much the same way.
Foretellers of Danger
Cats are strange creatures. No human has ever actually owned one, for the simple reason that it is cats who own people . . .
The strangest side of a cat is that he sees things we cannot see, hears things we cannot hear, and knows things that are beyond our knowing.
______
Because so many creatures, man included, are able at times to make use of foreknowledge, it must be looked upon as another natural defense that has been given for survival. But how can it be explained? Is time itself quite different from what we have always thought it to be?
The Incredible Journeys
They set out blindly into a strange world, driven by love of their families and guided by intuition alone.
The Barrier of Speech
Black Bear, besides being able to read cards, face down, and reveal the contents of unopened letters, could always tell what a stranger was thinking. Lady Wonder was even more astounding. Her mind-reading ability left people shaken, but of far greater importance was the accuracy with which she could locate lost valuables and solve the fate of vanished children.
Even the Trees
Trees, he wanted people to know, are sensitive and have feelings just as all other living things have. When hurt, they are subject to shock, just as people are. And shock can kill.
Moving a tree, even when it is dormant, or pruning it drastically, is a great shock. Many trees die from such treatment, and all of them suffer for a long time afterward. So, he thought, why not give them an anesthetic to put them to sleep before any sort of operation? Wouldn't they recover more quickly and grow faster?
______
It is also a fact that a much-loved plant or tree often withers and dies when its owner dies. When I first heard this I thought it was just a silly superstition, the sort of thing old mountaineers whisper to each other after a funeral. But I have learned better. I have seen it happen a number of times, and now I know the staggering truth behind it.
______
Some plants and trees apparently also know when they are going to die. When death is on the way, these trees will put forth a great wealth of blossoms, more than they have ever had before. When summer is over and the seeds are mature, they drop their leaves for the last time.
______
If all of us were to vanish suddenly, our battered planet would begin to thrive and bloom as it has not bloomed for a long time. The air would become pure again; soon dirty streams would run clean, and hundreds of creatures that are now nearly extinct would flourish once more.
But suppose all the trees died - and don't think such a catastrophe isn't possible - what would happen then? Everything would die, for trees are the key to life. Without them, the earth would become as barren as the moon.
The Language of the Wild
Pure telepathy is primarily a mental thing. But nature's great language is largely emotional. It is the feeling behind the thought that gives it impact. The two, of course, are used together, for the mental and the emotional are always mixed. But as we sift down to the bottom we find that the basic messages - the ones that all living things can understand - are entirely emotional.
There are not many such messages, but their range is wide. Some of the most common are joy, fear, love, and hate. These are followed by sorrow, anguish, despair, and something akin to joy that we might call contentment. Then there are hunger, pain, and the need for assistance, all of which can become strongly emotional messages, and are easily received . . .
______
I have often watched wild animals - and tame ones too - pause and go through a sort of ritual before proceeding in a certain direction. First, as they stop and look around, there is a twitching of the nose and a turning of the ears as they test scent and sight and sound; then they stand absolutely motionless, as if lost in thought.
I used to think they were trying to make up their minds about what to do next, or perhaps they were listening to something. But now I realize they must be testing the thought waves, and picking up various feelings around them.
The Great Questions
We have come far into a vast strangeness, and left behind us a curious trail of unanswered questions. They are puzzles that have worried serious thinkers for generations.
______
My explanation is that the dove made use of intuition, a form of ESP, or extrasensory perception. ESP is defined simply as the power of quickly knowing a truth without the use of reason or the senses. But behind it is that ever-baffling why and how.
______
The curious truth is that everyone, and every living thing, has such ability to some extent. Too many of us, however, have been taught not to believe in such matters. What happens to a talent we do not believe in and never use? It would be of about as much help to us as an arm that had been tied up for years and never exercised.
Zan's doves, however, had no one to tell them that some things are impossible.
______
Using intuition, you know something instantly, but it is not knowledge you have worked out for yourself at that particular moment. You are in immediate need of an answer, and it comes to you. You receive it. In order to be received, information must come from somewhere. There has to be a source.
______
Think of the center of intelligence as you will, there is still the almost certain reality of it.
______
Call it by any name you wish - the Pool of Knowledge, the Psychic Information Center, the Great Collective Unconscious, or the Fifth Dimension - I am certain of its existence, and I believe that the ability to make use of it is part of the equipment included by the Designer of the Spaceship Earth for the growth and survival of its passengers.
______
Mighty man has dominion over his badly scarred earth and every living thing on it. He has forcibly made it his. But instead of being the wise custodian of a priceless treasure, he has acted like a drunken monarch and squandered the greater part of it. The guardian has abused his trust.
It is long past the time for the guardian to come awake and somehow make amends. His ailing vessel is still green with life, and the task ahead is to keep it so.
To do that, we of the race of man must never again forget our kinship with the realm beyond our doors. Let us go out into the living night and listen and hear the voices and the music of it, and feel the slow eternal drumbeat that marks the pulse of life.
If we can hear it and feel it and know that we are part of it, perhaps some of our lost awareness will return.
October 13, 2016
What a fascinating ebook of how not only humans but any living things has feelings too!
I sure had no idea that so many different living things kikecinsects,animals and yes even any plants all have feelings and are much more intelligent than our human race has ever given them credit for it. I wish to recommend this for five stars and to anyone interested enough to learn about how much we as humans have strayed away from giving any other living ITEMS CREDIT FOR USING ESPN in their lives to protect their own whether it be theirvyiung, master (s) or even come to us humans when we cry a silent prayer for help,etc . Also to give this ebook five stars. I received this ebook for free and in return. here is my honest review. Super work Alexander! By Angela L.
P.s. I had a very intelligent Amazon , Blue-fronted one besides that would s definitely agree with your thinking as well as I .
I sure had no idea that so many different living things kikecinsects,animals and yes even any plants all have feelings and are much more intelligent than our human race has ever given them credit for it. I wish to recommend this for five stars and to anyone interested enough to learn about how much we as humans have strayed away from giving any other living ITEMS CREDIT FOR USING ESPN in their lives to protect their own whether it be theirvyiung, master (s) or even come to us humans when we cry a silent prayer for help,etc . Also to give this ebook five stars. I received this ebook for free and in return. here is my honest review. Super work Alexander! By Angela L.
P.s. I had a very intelligent Amazon , Blue-fronted one besides that would s definitely agree with your thinking as well as I .
Read
March 8, 2014I liked it, and Alexander Key's opinion was very interesting in this book/essay.
January 12, 2020
Rather than another work of fiction, this is an exploration of Key's belief that animals, insects, and even plants have the ability to communicate, to feel, and in some cases to anticipate the future. He explores both his own history and a broad set of reports of supporting evidence reported in books and newspapers to make his case.
It is not as smooth as his story telling, but it has its compelling moments and tempts me to go digging at his sources, especially as I read in scientific journals about how trees communicate with each other and as we see increasing numbers of stories of animals crossing species to help one another in violation of the "it's all instinct" claims I grew up with.
It's more than 40 years old. I imagine there is some research since then to put to rest the ESP notions that Key held, or at least to try to! Some ideas are hard to kill. (And I know *I* would love to believe it. Wouldn't you?) It's not for everybody, but it has some intriguing notions and interesting tales to tell.
It is not as smooth as his story telling, but it has its compelling moments and tempts me to go digging at his sources, especially as I read in scientific journals about how trees communicate with each other and as we see increasing numbers of stories of animals crossing species to help one another in violation of the "it's all instinct" claims I grew up with.
It's more than 40 years old. I imagine there is some research since then to put to rest the ESP notions that Key held, or at least to try to! Some ideas are hard to kill. (And I know *I* would love to believe it. Wouldn't you?) It's not for everybody, but it has some intriguing notions and interesting tales to tell.
August 19, 2024
This is a thought-provoking book about humankind's connection to nature and possible consequences to living in a society that is not as close to nature as it once was. Some of the things in this book have been disproven. There's a chapter about trees and plants possibly having emotion that where the tests that were done were on Mythbusters, and the myth was considered "busted". Other "studies" he cites have not been able to be duplicated. But some of the basic ideas behind this book are still thought provoking. There are some things that have happened that have no explanation, including the event behind the title of the book.
January 24, 2015
I read this after reading The Forgotten Door. Key rambles about speculative spiritual things involving animals. I had to stop after he suggested a dog could perform mathematical calculations faster than DuPont scientists (and could predict the weather . . . and his own death within a day) and that a plant could read a person's mind. I think humans can have deep connections with other life forms, but this was woo-woo.
November 6, 2013
It is a collection of wandering musings on various tales that he had heard. He doesn't ever get to a point.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews