Author:
Author, teacher, storyteller, and supernatural historian Mason Winfield studied English and Classics at Denison University, earned a master’s degree in British literature at Boston College, and studied poetry and fiction at SUNY Buffalo with professor emeritus and MacArthur grant recipient Irving Feldman. He has written or edited fourteen books, including the regional sensation “Shadows of the Western Door” (1997) and “Iroquois Supernatural,” co-authored with Michael Bastine, on the traditions of the Six Longhouse Nations (Inner Traditions International/Bear & Company, 2011). Several of his surveys of upstate folklore and paranormal tradition may be found at the website of Western New York Wares: www.buffalobooks.com. He may be reached at www.masonwinfield.com.

An anatomically perfect human jaw fashioned of diamond-hard quartz crystal is uncovered at an Ohio burial mound and sold on the underground antiquities market. Shortly after, three pothunters are found dead.

A mysterious new drug suspected of South American origin surfaces in Buffalo, NY. Its unprecedented psycho-tropic effects include the momentary activation of ESP. 

Blind, speechless, emaciated street people start appearing in many parts of the world. An urban legend-cycle forms around them, and the name of a murderous old cult, “the Whistlers” attaches to them.

An archaeological team at a Mayan site reports finding a bizarre artifact and vanishes. 

An upstate schoolteacher’s book of New York legends and folklore foreshadows these developments and more. 

   These are the threads – plus his affair with a maddening woman – that draw narrator Ward Courier into the international adventure of occultism, terror, Native American tradition and onrushing prophecy that is Mason Winfield’s anticipated new novel THE WHISTLERS. By the time the picture of THE WHISTLERS becomes clear, we are ready to believe in a sinister conspiracy that could predate Atlantis and even hail from another world.

The Whistlers

NARRATIVE of WARD COURIER/CONFERENCE with TED BENNETT and EVAN DAVIS, Continued


"Whoa," I said, thrown off. "Well, almost anything open to the human imagination exists somewhere in literature. Japanese tradition is full of tales and legends of martial arts masters overcoming injuries and disabilities to become powerful, even... almost superhuman. The Ninja were thought to be able to move and fight effectively with almost any kind of disability. Some famous ones could actually make a drawback into an advantage."


"Have you ever heard of blind assassins in reality?" said Bennett.


"Legends," I said. "Individuals. Check Japanese tradition. I know there's a lot there. There's an excellent Japanese anime series called "Basilisk" that features a number of blind characters involved in a ninja clan duel."


"Have you ever heard of an order like that?" said Davis.


"Not an order of them. Not blind ones. Not outside the interview that led to the story I wrote."


Chapter 76: The Society of Unknown Philosophers, Part 76