True Life Encounters Mysteries (True-Life Encounters Series) Paperback – August 1, 1999
by John Spencer
 
From the Introduction:
If one word were to be used to sum up the contents of this book it would be the word ‘secret’. It is a book about the secrets that people have held through the centuries, about why they kept those secrets and how they kept them. It is also about those who have sought to break the secrecy and discover the information contained therein for themselves.
It is a book about the occult, which means simply ‘that which is hidden’. In modern day usage the term ‘occult’ has come to refer to the supernatural, to magic and even demonic activities. It does indeed encompass all of these things as described in this book, but it also refers to schemes of approaches towards knowledge and ways of living.
It is clear to any observer that ‘the West’ has become deeply fascinated with the paranormal in recent years. There has been a proliferation of magazines and television programmes, even films, based on mysteries of the world such as the debated existence of the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti, and so on. Even more so, such programmes and films have also concentrated on the powers and abilities that are speculated to exist within the mind.
Prominent within such debates is a strong belief that there are those who have access to secrets, and those who are being kept out. Indeed, in some ‘branches’ of the paranormal such thinking has unquestionably become paranoid; there is a strong belief that governments are keeping secrets of the paranormal from their citizens, or that there is a secret ‘world government’ that actually runs the politics, religion and finance of the world while the ‘up front’ governments serve only to detract attention from them.
 
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