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

SHORT STORY of WARD COURIER: "My Vengeance Lurks"


From the story collection "A Ghosthunter's Journal" (1999) by Ward Courier under the pen name Mason Winfield


[By refusing to admit their existence, the world gives a very long start to those who practice the occult arts.


- Dion Fortune, "The Secrets of Dr. Taverner"]


For most writers, the writing is the easy part. The time and effort of chasing work is the problem; but authors of a successful book will often find work of all related types starting to chase them back. The October 1997 publication of my first book Shadows of the Western Door caused a bit of a stir which was a boost not only to the research effort for its eventual sequel, but also to other areas of my income: lectures, tours, and other writing projects. As an unlooked-for consequence, several amateur research groups formed, sending teams of eager beavers into the field after spooklore.


Chapter 137: The New Atlantis, Part 137