More Scams From The Great Beyond
Peter Huston, Paperback 280 Pgs.
Available From Paladin Press
Review by Kurt Piller 2007

Let me begin this review of Peter Huston's "More Scams of the Great Beyond" by saying I was a big fan of his previous publication "Scams From the Great Beyond".  If you enjoyed the first one, then you can expect more of the same acerbic wit combined with a broader scope of material and a greater sense of spiritual maturity from the author.  His style and tone may also be more polished, but he still doesn't hesitate from using a few well-placed cuss words to make his point.  Refreshing, to say the least.

I have always been interested in the subject matter of "The Great Beyond" and life's seemingly unfathomable mysteries.  Inextricably linked to the unknowable are the belief systems we construct to explain and give meaning to our world and lives.  Now the history of popular delusions, hoaxes, scams, and frauds perpetrated to support people's strange beliefs is fascinating, bizarre, and sometimes downright scary.  Not scary like paranormal scary, scary like what some people can be led or lead themselves to believe.  This book can read just as much as a study of human psychology and why we will continually want to believe in things that may or may not be real.

The author explains how and why one should be a skeptic, and patiently summarizes why scamming people of their money and encouraging false hope or beliefs in the gullible is a bad life choice.  By showing how easily these ridiculous frauds are pulled off, Huston arms the reader with the power of discernment between the credible and the kook.  This is a valuable, entertaining, and informative guide to using skepticism to improve one's life choices and avoid flim, flam, and scams (even those by well-meaning, delusional people whose beliefs are sincere despite a lack of or contrary evidence).

If nothing else, I can recommend this book as a veritable compendium of kook talk, covering just about every paranormal and occult history topic (un)known to mankind.  Like all great reference material, it should reside near a toilet for constant rereading.  Packed with obscure facts and historical frauds, the book also contains lots of enlightening and interesting footnotes, which makes it like reading two good books simultaneously.  Peter Huston is the only author I have ever run across who can seamlessly encompass Genny Cream Ale, Emperor Norton, quantum physics, James Keating, and Nazi UFO's from inside the Hollow Earth.  Hat's off.

More Scams From The Great Beyond is Available From Paladin Press