Word: phenomena
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...hope that their works will be reviewed. As Christmas approaches, the incoming stream becomes a torrent in anticipation of our annual section on gift books, which appears in this issue. The new volumes-on subjects ranging from Peruvian highways to Sumerian icons, from precious plants to psychic phenomena-are delivered to the office of Books Editor Stefan Kanfer. "It's like getting a lot of Christmas cards," he says. "You are suddenly reminded not only of people, but also of subjects that you haven't been in touch with for a long time...
...group made news last month by filing a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission and two congressional subcommittees against the National Broadcasting Co. for misleading the public about psychic phenomena in an October program. Exploring the Unknown. According to the complaint, the show presented "a totally biased point of view in a sensationalistic manner arousing gullibility in countless viewers...
Harris's approach tends to be thematic rather than strictly chronological. Thus chapters focus on such topics as "The Origins of War" or "The Origins of Male Supremacy and the Oedipus Complex," and "The Hydraulic Trap." One cannot help but admire the conviction with which Harris explains these phenomena. It is as if, although aware of the piranhas infesting the river, Harris nevertheless struck out on his own across one of those swaying rope bridges so apt to collapse without warning. Indeed, Harris's writing is refreshingly free of the usual academese infestations of "Perhaps" and "It may well...
...success of Shaffer's work (he also is responsible for the film's screenplay) lies in the fundamental issues of existence raised by Dysart's mental meanderings. In his search to uncover the sources of Strang's obsession, Dysart observes that "a child is born into a world of phenomena all equal in their power to enslave." But the psychiatrist can only throw up his hands with an admission of resigned incomprehension: "Why those moments of experience are particularly magnified no one can say." From one perspective, the psychiatrist's reflections seem a recognition of the paradox that plagues...
...Middle American variant on the kind of man-in-the-middle played by Gary Grant and James Stewart in films like North by Northwest and Vertigo. A power-company worker who lives with his wife (Teri Garr) and three kids in Muncie, Ind., Roy is engulfed one night by phenomena he cannot understand: searing lights burn him from above, a road sign shakes and twists, the contents of his truck move about in violent defiance of gravity, the needles on his dashboard dials spin past go. Roy is sure that he has had an encounter...