John A. Keel. The Eighth Tower. Saturday Review Press, 1975 .🔻
John A Keel's artistic vision grows darker with each new work, becoming almost unbearable. Keel here analyses the whole "superspectrum" of contemporary mythology, which he sees as an opiate, blinding men's eyes to the essential helplessness ot the human condition. Faced with this appalling reality, there is a restless search tor scapegoats, for the enemy who got us into this mess. The Eighth Tower of the title is the ultimate scapegoat, identifiable with anything and everything.
Keel identifies this "ultimate scapegoat" with man's imprisonment by his own cultural symbols - we are always prisoners of our dreams, and the only freedom which matters is the freedom to accept our imprisonment . For many UFO researchers, the idea of their sacred subject being manipulated by an artist to make his own personal , statement about the human condition - especially a statment as uncompromising and nihilistic as Keel's, is tantamount to blasphemy. Clearly, what Liam Hudson calls "the cult ot the fact" still hsas great sway. Less literally minded readers, howeve , should still find Keel's new book something of a disturbing influence. -- Peter Rogerson. Magonia New Series 5, Winter 1976/7.
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