Featured Book
Dead, but Still Kicking
Do you believe in spirits?
Paul Sochaczewski travels to Indonesia, Myanmar, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland to speak with mediums, shamans, and, yes, spirits of dead folks. In this innovative work of personal journalism, Sochaczewski—a self-described Agnostic Spiritualist—creates the Three Tenets of Spiritualism. He gets a personal mandate from Moses, speaks with Alfred Russel Wallace about his relationship with Charles Darwin, gets frustrated by conflicting messages given by Wallace’s assistant Ali, encounters a female vampire ghost who wants to follow him home (it’s his own fault), converses with nature spirits, and is invited on a date with the Mermaid Queen of Java.
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Featured Articles
Laos White Elephant Settles in After Long March
BAN SAMING, Laos
Capturing a rare white elephant usually brings luck and fame, and it did for Boun Somsy, at least for a while.
Then, as sometimes happens, a couple of wannabe-royals stepped in and rained on his parade.
This is a tale of prophetic (and sensual) dreams, an unexpected windfall, how an areligious communist government usurped a potent Buddhist religious symbol, and, as is so often the case, nature conservation.
News & Events
10 November — Opening of COP 30 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Ah, yet another international gathering to discuss progress in addressing the problem of climate change. This year it will be held in Belém, Brazil, and the participants will also focus on nature conservation in the country, including the vast Amazon region. I’ve been following Victorian naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace for some 50 years, including a […]
Intro to a speculative biography of Ali
My speculative biography of Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace’s assistant, was honored as the Best Historical Book of 2024 by the United States Peace Corps Writers. Here’s an excerpt from the book’s introduction. Look Here, Sir, What a Curious Bird Intro to a speculative biography of Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace’s assistant in the Malay Archipelago […]
Alfred Russel Wallace and Things That Go Bump in the Night
Alfred Russel Wallace is best known for his scientific achievements — collecting and documenting hundreds of new species of “natural productions,” major insights into biogeography, island endemism, and cultural anthropology, and notably, his development of a theory of evolution by natural selection independently of and prior to that of Charles Darwin. But Wallace was also […]