At last it can be revealed: The amazing UFO art of Jim Nichols...assembled in book form for the first time.

Jim Nichols was born a Post-War baby-boomer in 1948 in the flatlands of northwestern Ohio. By the time he had reached his senior year of high school, Jim’s restless creativity fueled in him an abiding ambition to become an artist. Even while serving two years of Army service, he managed to complete a correspondence course in commercial art. Following his discharge, Jim resettled in Tucson, Arizona in 1972.

For a time, cactus, sagebrush, mountains and skies dominated his artistry and he made something of a name for himself as a painter of southwestern landscapes. By the late 1970s, however, he discovered he could not be content to limit his art to just desert scenes. Popular films of the day like Star Wars and Close Encounters rekindled a love of science fiction that he knew as a youngster. Soon alien landscapes and space ships captivated his creativity. Beginning in 1980 and throughout the following decade, Jim painted numerous UFO illustrations that have been published internationally. His notoriety in the field of UFO research earned him a co-host seat on a weekly, public access television program in Tucson, produced by Ted Loman, entitled UFOAZ Talks. This popular award-winning program ran from 1991 through 1997 and was aired on public access channels across the country.

Currently, after so many years of painting fine art and illustration, Jim has expanded his creative talents to include sculpting as well, thus bringing an added dimension to his legacy of artistic skill.

Now, for the first time, noted artist, James Nichols, has compiled a stunning visual portfolio including 40 of his most incredible original UFO illustrations. Nichols’s artwork has been featured in books, periodicals, and video media worldwide. This dramatic illustration collection spans twenty years of in-depth research. Many of his depictions are based on actual eyewitness accounts. More than just a collection of exciting UFO visions, James Nichols shares a detailed account of his own personal odyssey into UFO research as well as the secret story behind each unique image. The final result of this engaging combination of UFO art and commentary is an insightful overview of the unsolved enigma of Unidentified Flying Objects.

Click now at JimNicholsUFOArt.com for more information.

"This book is like nothing I've seen before in the UFO community and I've seen most of them. The story behind each of the paintings kept me wanting more. Jim has captured to perfection what the field of UFOlogy has been buzzing about for the last sixty years as well as the future to come."
Ted Loman UFO researcher and televison producer (creator of UFOAZ TALKS)

For more art by Jim Nichols, which combines crisp and pristinely rendered realism with visions of cosmic grandeur, check out the following links:

http://www.karinya.com/nichols1a.htm

http://pages.prodigy.net/ufoaz/biojim.htm

All artwork (C) James Nichols.

What's coming next...to T.S. Minton Blogs???

Digging a little deeper...into The Secret.

In working on the previous posts I've discovered an extraordinary new intellect...deeply influenced by the transpersonal and integral psychology of Ken Wilber...

"Julian Walker is a respected yoga teacher known for his integrally-informed approach to transformation, healing, bodywork, psychotherapy, and spirituality. He also maintains an active blog on Zaadz.com, and some of his recent posts regarding the pop-spiritual phenomenon known as “The Secret” caught our attention. Although clearly not alone in expressing concerns about The Secret, we found Julian’s views to be remarkably comprehensive, precisely because it's based in large measure on an explicitly integral framework."

21st Century Spirituality: Intention and Depth - Julian Walker



I sincerely hope I am am not stepping over the line in quoting too much of Mr. Walker from his blog at Exploring “The Secret.” Part 1. The Tricky Business of Creating Your Own Reality...if so somebody please nail me and I will quickly take it down...or for God's sake at least visit his blog and hear him out. My extensive quote below is in the spirit of his statement on his recent You Tube posting...click here... that the spiritual community needs nothing more than "good debate, critical thinking, and really getting in there and talking about the issues of the day." Forthwith:

"The Secret, which can be found in both DVD and book form, has managed to hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and maintain a firm grip on the top two spots at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and Borders for weeks. The central tenet of The Secret is “The Law of Attraction,” whereby one’s feelings and thoughts quite literally attract, manifest, and create real events in one’s life—the assumption being that most of us do this unconsciously, and making this process conscious is “The Secret” that “has travelled through centuries to reach you.”As Ken and Julian agree, what can be so tricky when evaluating a new approach such as The Secret, is that at first glance it can appear fairly innocent, even if lacking any kind of critical depth. If it’s helping people feel empowered and positive about their lives, what’s the problem?Well, the problem is that it’s not a basically solid approach with room for improvement, it’s a fundamentally confused way of understanding reality that misunderstands and contorts the genuine truths that it intuits. Some of the central points that Julian and Ken discuss are as follows:

• As with any “you create your own reality” schema, The Secret fails what can be called “the Auschwitz test.” According to The Secret, everyone who was murdered at Auschwitz—or Rwanda, or Darfur—created that reality for themselves, and therefore they are to blame for their fate. For obvious reasons, this position is an unconscionable as it is untenable.

• By teaching that the world quite literally revolves around you, The Secret encourages and entrenches narcissism. In developmental psychology, narcissism doesn’t mean an unhealthy obsession with thinking only about yourself, it means you can’t think about yourself. The capacity for self-reflexive awareness just isn’t there. The entire world and everyone in it is simply an extension of your-self, and you are literally unable to take the perspective of another human being. This is not mystical union; this is pre-rational fusion, and without the ability to take the perspectives of other sentient beings, the entire foundation for ethics evaporates.

• Actually, you are creating the universe moment-to-moment, but it’s not the “you” that you think. According to the great contemplative traditions, every person has at least two “selves”: the finite, temporal, egoic self-sense, and the infinite, transcendental, unqualifiable Self, or I-AMness. Your Self, your I-AMness, is indeed giving rise to the entire radiant Kosmos in this and every moment, but The Secret teaches that your separate self has the power to personally manifest a new car, win the lottery, or cure cancer… and this simply isn’t how things work.

• “The Law of Attraction” is true—as far as it goes. The problem is that The Secret takes this one relatively small piece of the puzzle and makes it the entire puzzle. A positive outlook will change your life and your intentions will co-create your reality, but so will brain chemistry, interior level of development, family relationships, natural disasters, cultural trends, language structure, environmental toxins, and, basically, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

• Developmentally, if one uses a scale ranging from archaic to magic to mythic to rational to pluralistic to integral to super-integral, The Secret teaches the magical thought structures that were humanity’s leading edge several hundred thousand years ago. As Ken explains, The Secret encourages childlike “primary process thinking,” which can be in the form of “the law of attraction” (e.g., if one black thing is bad, then all black things are bad) and “the law of contagion” (e.g., if this particular man was powerful, then a lock of his hair must be powerful too).

• The importance of understanding how unconscious psychological shadow elements color and affect one’s experience, and how The Secret can agitate, alienate, repress, or—perhaps even more worrisome—act on these disowned elements of consciousness.

• The genesis of the pre/trans or pre/post fallacy, and how The Secret is a perfect example of elevating pre-rational childish impulses to trans-rational spiritual glory. Simply because both categories of experience are non-rational, they can easily be confused, and often are.

The extraordinary thing about this dialogue is that, for all the critiques Ken and Julian have of The Secret, it’s not meant as a put-down or a mean-spirited attack. As evidenced by its incredible popularity, there are millions of people who are starving for something other than traditional religion or modern science in their search for meaning. By using an Integral Approach, one is able to look at what new offerings like The Secret have to bring to the table, and assess in good faith what their strengths and weaknesses really are, for the health and nourishment of every soul who dare grasp for “something more”—and for what we consider to be the real Secret of transformation and human happiness, we recommend an Integral Life Practice and an Integral Spirituality, bringing together Body, Mind, and Spirit, in Self, Culture, and Nature. "

(C) Julian Walker, www.julianwalkeryoga.zaadz.com

A dirty little secret about "The Secret"...and "The Secret Behind The Secret."

While we like positive thinking here at Interfusion Publishing (as long as it's tied to positive "do-ing")...and there's no doubt that the more one focuses on something and acts upon that focus with positive and emotionally driven belief, the more that thing will tend to manifest in one's life...even so, I'm a bit disturbed by the more cultish aspects of the overly zealous adherents of "the law of attraction" and a certain film and book now selling like hot cakes and touted by Oprah Winfrey. Their demonization of "negative thinking" reminds me of Christian fundamentalists who harp too much on "sin" and label anything they disagree with or don't fathom as "the work of the devil." When I consider the logical contortions required to justify this belief system in the face of explaining, say: slavery, the Holocaust, or 9-11 ("They must have attracted it into their lives by their beliefs") , I'm also ironically reminded of die-hard skeptics who, in the face of any corroborating evidence for the paranormal, twist their minds into logical pretzels and cry "irrational" or "poppycock." Any such adherents of "The Secret" who are too uptight to take in a little dead-on parody best leave now, or else darkness will overtake them. Those with stronger wills and more resilient critical thinking skills -- and senses of humor -- are invited to watch the following video, courtesy of You Tube:


"The Secret on Oprah" Parody by Saturday Night Live





A few links, pro and con:

'The Secret': Does Self-Help Book Really Help? - From MSNBC.com and Newsweek

Discovering The Secret: Rhonda Byrne Uncovers The Secret - From Oprah.com

From Biblicalsprituality.org - by Donald S. Whitley, Associate Professor of Biblical Spirituality and Director of Applied Ministry at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, founder and president of the Center for Biblical Spirituality.

"In the final analysis, The Secret is nothing more than Name It-Claim It, Positive-Confession, Prosperity Theology (without God and the Bible), built on a foundation of New Age self-deification. In other words, the book is just another version of what some TV preachers have taught for decades, namely, if you will sustain the right thoughts, words, and feelings, you will receive whatever you want. But The Secret adds this important twist: your thoughts can bring anything into your life because you are god."

'The Secret' - Spiritual Cinema? - From Rense.com, by Julian Walker. " Julian Walker is a contemporary integrator of Eastern and Western traditions of self-inquiry. He is a yoga, meditation and ecstatic dance teacher, a body worker, a DJ and a philosopher who writes on the relationships between spirituality, psychology and reality. Julian's central premise is that in a post-911 world neither old world religion nor naive New Age spirituality are sufficient or appropriate to the human condition."

The Secret Cashes in as Debate Rises by Julian Walker

"Two months ago I finally got around to watching The Secret and I had a secret - I was appalled. How could it be that this piece of work that was lighting up the eyes and kindling the knowing smiles of half the people I knew, was so incredibly bad? Bad philosophy, bad psychology, bad spirituality, bad relationship to reality, bad principles to tout as the secret to happiness - so i wrote a review and put it out there to the small community of people who surf the small community of zaadz blogs. I thought I might take a little heat, might offend a few people, but that would be OK, I like to invite people into critical thinking and debate - it's what is lacking most in the spiritual community. "

And a final word of wisdom from my old correspondent Dr. Mark Woodhouse, retired professor of philosophy and author of the intellectual tour-de-force...
Paradigm Wars: Worldviews for a New Age


"It would help the cause of growth, if New Age folks who constantly remind us how we "create our own realities" would distinguish between allowing, manifesting, projecting, and attracting -- all at both conscious and unconscious levels. "
MarkWoodhouse.com

Comments From The Peanut Gallery...
(Letters to the Editor)

Mon petit blog en francais, bien sur...

Mary Alice Bennett forwards the delightful news from her friend Christian Macé in San-Tropez [a famous beach resort near the Cannes Film Festival, on the Mediterranean, southeast coast of France. - ed.] that Mr. Mace has posted a link to T.S. Minton Blogs on his blog, Ovis Paranormal: "La Vérité est ici… Le blog de Christian Macé." What's doubly cool is that Mr. Mace's link...is en francais! Click here to check it now!

"Super...productions, very nice ! I had put it on my blog ! The best...."
Christian Macé
San Tropez

"Charla really captured their jewel-like quality. I always buy the hummingbird calendars, but her pics are better! "
Mary Alice Bennett
www.mjastudio.com

Say "Hello" to Hummingbirds...
Photographs by Charla Gene

Photographs (C) Charla Gene, charlak@comcast.net

Hooked on Hummingbirds DVD available now at Amazon.com!

"Hummingbirds are small birds in the family Trochilidae, native only to the Americas. They are known for their ability to hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings, 15 to 80 times per second (depending on the species).The Giant Hummingbird’s wings beat 8-10 beats per second, the wings of medium sized hummingbirds beat about 20-25 beats per second and the smallest beat 70 beats per second. Capable of sustained hovering, the hummingbird has the ability to fly deliberately backwards or vertically, and to maintain position while drinking from flower blossoms. They are named for the characteristic hum made by their wings."
Hummingbird entry, Wikipedia

More from Mary...
(Artwork by T.S. Minton Blogs regular Mary Alice Bennett...)

"Collage of a UFO Dream"

Paintings shown at The International UFO Congress in Laughlin, Nevada (co-founded by our distinguished associate Col. Wendelle Stevens, see UFO Photo Archives).

(C) Mary Alice Bennett, mjastudio77@hotmail.com

www.myspace.com/mjastudio
www.mjastudio.com

The UTIA Field Report: Wendelle Stevens

Fast Walkers - Brand New UFO and Alien Disclosure DVD with the World's Leading Experts and Stunning New Footage ! (DVD)