Ralph Blumenthal. The Believer: Alien Encounters, Hard Science, and the Passion of John Mack. High Road Books, 2021. (For the first part of this post, click here.) "It is also possible that some of the affective energy which is displaced onto the UFO controversy derives from the … [Read more...]
Immanuel Velikovsky – “Worlds in Collision,” 68 Years Later
An ancient visit by an alien star, runs the headline in the Health & Science section of The Week magazine (April 13, 2018); and the story begins: "A wandering binary star sideswiped the solar system some 70,000 years ago, knocking dozens of far-flung comets and asteroids into unusual orbits. … [Read more...]
From Judaism to Islam – Margaret Marcus, Maryam Jameelah (Part 3)
(Continued from last week's post.) Here's what Deborah Baker writes in the afterword to her book The Convert, on Maryam Jameelah who was once Margaret Marcus--the Jewish girl from New York who converted to Islam, moved to Pakistan, and became an eloquent spokesperson for traditional Islam's case … [Read more...]
From Judaism to Islam – Margaret Marcus, Maryam Jameelah (Part 2)
(Continued from last week's post.) "Now that I have settled myself here, I would like to explain how I came to be a part of the Mawlana Mawdudi's family. It seems I have spent my entire life trying to get to this moment, to explain myself in terms that make sense to you. I'm not sure I ever … [Read more...]
From Judaism to Islam – Margaret Marcus, Maryam Jameelah (Part 1)
Deborah Baker. The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2011. How many years has it been since I first heard of Maryam Jameelah, the former Margaret (“Peggy”) Marcus? At least 15 or 20, I think. Sometime in the 90s, I was in a library paging through an issue of … [Read more...]
