Mason Winfield

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 RICK REYNARD, Continued


"Was there communication between the Elders and the Masons?"


"On some level," said Rick. "I was always told that there were quite a few respectful whites. They just didn't always happen to be the land-grabbers, the developers, the people who had something to gain by depriving the Native people of their territory."


"It's the same now," I said. "Fracking. Urban sprawl. Development. Same thing. All money, just different targets. But what do you think? Is it a world-conspiracy?"


"It's the only thing that makes sense," Rick said. He launched into a five-minute spiel that included Wall Street, the Trilaterals, George Soros, Bohemian Grove, the New World Order, and a lot else. I was surprised. It was as if his sources were all TV shows. Rick can seem so far out of the majority-culture that that gets to be your impression of him. Then something you would never expect him to buy takes root.


Chapter 123: The Hound of Heaven, Part 123