Scared Sheetless Book Review: Beyond the Veil by Chad Stambaugh

Chad Stambaugh, who is a regular contributor here at Scared Sheetless, presented me with the opportunity to be a beta reader for his next non-fictional novel, "Beyond the Veil." Before sending it to me, he warned me that the book is religious heavy. He narrates a lot about religion and Chad knows my beliefs on that sort of thing. I'm glad he kept that in mind before sending it. I told him that I will read it regardless of my beliefs and quite honestly from what he told me about the book, I was intrigued.

In a nutshell, this book is all about proving the religious zealots wrong about the paranormal, that all ghosts are not demons, and the people who investigate paranormal claims are not those who worship Satan. In the past I have received emails by those of religious ideals that tell me to get out of the ghost hunting "business" and find Christ, because we're opening the doors to the devil. Or some nutcase claim like that. Naturally, dealing with that in the past, when Chad told me what the whole idea behind the book was about, I really wanted to dive in.

Keep in mind (and with apologies to Chad), I am not finished with the book yet, but I've gotten far enough to have an opinion, I think. For one, I'm a very slow reader. For two, I can't sit for too long and by the time I get back, I'm doing something else. 3. Life in general throws distractions. 4. My attention span sucks, even if I do like the book. For those who want to send me their books to read ... keep that in mind. Eventually I will finish it and if I need to put more on here, I will do as such. But I told Chad that I'd have this up on the 23rd and I'm keeping my word.

I remember telling Chad once I got enough pages into this to have a first thought, that this was going to piss off a lot of people. Mainly Christians. Also, scientists or those who have a scientific way of thinking; or atheists will never touch this book. Or if they do, they will only do it to write something objective about it. Which technically isn't a bad thing, because objective thought should be welcomed in the paranormal, as well as/especially religion. It's a risk I know Chad is willing to take, because he's had some haters in the past and he handles himself well enough to keep his composure in check. Religion is a touchy subject, even if more people are coming out of the woodwork as atheists or agnostic. Chad holds no punches back though.

Even though as the years have gone by and my thoughts on religion and spirits are gearing more towards science rather than what I think/what I really want to believe, I would be lying if I said I didn't find certain religious backgrounds interesting. Even with Chad going into the background story of how Jesus Christ came to be, I found it interesting in a story point-of-view. I also found it interesting on how Chad makes the claim that Christ would/should have been considered a Wiccan.
Also, I have to admit, I really enjoyed his bit on witches. For those who love witches and witchcraft, there is a large bit of information on it throughout this book.

Chad's secondary mission is to show everyone who is interested that all religions come from the same principle, but something went horribly wrong when they intersected. I won't go into great detail, but within the first few chapters you will realize it yourself and it's actually pretty brilliant in an eye opener way.

I was real worried that I would have to tell Chad that I did not like this book due to it's heavy religious overtone. But thankfully Chad kept it interesting enough that there were only very few moments where I felt like wandering off. But that's just me, because of my thoughts on religion. I think those who are religious will eat up every word of this book. Some will commend Chad, others will condemn him, because there is no such thing as thinking outside of the box with religious zealots.

In closing, this book taught me my old lesson that religion can be a very bad thing and sometimes it's just best to stay the hell out of it. Also, all these bibles were not created as a prophecy, but as a way to keep people in check by using fear. Not for me. If it works for you, great. More power to you or as you would say, "God bless you." But it doesn't work for everybody. But also it taught me that there are a lot of secrets, some dirty, some bloody, some surprising in the stone-solid, temple of religion.

I hate how this world likes to categorize people. To me it causes people to hate even more. I've always believed in individuality being the best thing for humanity. But, if you were to put me in a category, I guess I'd be considered an Atheist. Now, coming from that mind frame, I still enjoyed reading this book. But like I said, I read it as a biography, if you will, on religion as a whole. I'm proving that even those who come from my point-of-view that you can still read this book and enjoy it. You may not believe everything or anything it says, but it's still a good book, if you will.

Chad plans on releasing Beyond the Veil either in March or April. Check it out.