Mandelbaum, W. Adam

views updated

MANDELBAUM, W. Adam

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—10 Audrey Ave., Oyster Bay, NY 11771.

CAREER: Attorney, information security consultant, writing instructor, and author. Stevenson Academy, Oyster Bay, NY, writing instructor. Also worked as a U.S. intelligence agent. Lecturer, including at Suffolk Community College, Nassau Community College, and New York Institute of Technology.

MEMBER: Association of Former Intelligence Officers, Nassau County Bar Association.

WRITINGS:

The Psychic Battlefield: A History of the Military-Occult Complex, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Contributor to publications, including Military History, Shotgun News, Newsday, New Dawn, and AbsoluteWrite.com.

SIDELIGHTS: Author W. Adam Mandelbaum is a former U.S. intelligence officer who has been a practicing attorney in New York since 1981. In addition, he serves as a writing instructor at the Stevenson Academy in Oyster Bay, New York, and writes on an array of subjects ranging from legal topics to poetry.

In The Psychic Battlefield: A History of the Military-Occult Complex, Mandelbaum explores the ways in which governments has attempted to exploit the occult for military purposes over the last five thousand years. Going back to ancient Egypt, he examines King Nectanebus's use of magic and figurines in an attempt to control the outcome of a battle, then continues through history, including remarks on the influence of Rasputin during the reign of Russia's Czar Nicholas II and other topics, both familiar and obscure. He also examines more modern examples of the link between government and the occult, even within the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon, such as "Project Bluebird," which was reportedly a secret plan that included a U.S. government-employed psychic whose job it was to read the mind of Libya's Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly commented that "Mandelbaum's forthright belief in the occult . . . will raise eyebrows and even a few guffaws among skeptics, but his material is both informative and entertaining."

Mandelbaum told CA: "My second-grade poetry assignment first got me interested in writing. Though, I consider the dark side of humanity as the primary influence for my work. I would consider my writing process as 'fast, real fast.' The most surprising thing I have learned as a writer is that so many people can't read. I would say that Psychic Battlefield is my favorite book of mine since it is my first."