Review: D.W. Pasulka’s Encounters – Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences (2023)

The follow-up to American Cosmic dives deeper into UFO religiosity with little qualms about the intelligence apparatus that hovers throughout.

D.W. Pasulka (now Diana Heath, but for the purpose of consistency, I will use the name printed on the book) published the much-lauded American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology in 2019. I was among the fans of this book, an important examination of the nascent religious and spiritual movements based around UFOs and future technology that I cited in my own research on how science fiction has been influenced by the Fortean and vice-versa. After its publication, there was some concerning evidence that Pasulka had fallen into the paranoid spiral inherent in the games that intelligence agents and “anonymous UFO sources” play. This culminated in now-deleted Twitter posts railing against Freemasonry, Tom Delonge, and To the Stars Academy. She would later state that she and Stanford professor Garry Nolan were hacked, although no evidence of said hack was discovered through law enforcement inquiries.¹ Even more concerning, Whitley Strieber conducted an interview with her in 2019 which was then “reviewed by ‘security personnel’ and subsequently not cleared for release.”² Pasulka has been consistently surrounded by members of the U.S. military and the intelligence community—their testimony often serves as the sole basis for a vast majority of her claims. She even acknowledges often that such organizations have a vested interest in her research. From Encounters:

I’ve mentioned that among the people who showed up within my research sphere as soon as I focused on the topics of UFOs included some members of intelligence communities. (…) It makes sense that intelligence agents, whose job it is to collect information, would be interested in this research.³

For someone who has conducted research by wading into the mire of UFO belief and intelligence activities, I was alarmed to see that the role of these organizations was distilled into the simple task of “collecting information.” Pasulka is even aware of some of the disinformation campaigns that have rattled the UFO community throughout the decades, mentioning several in her article, “Controlling the Lore”, for the 2023 collection of scholarly essays, Living Folk Traditions. “Due to secrecy surrounding the UFO, it has been difficult and at times impossible to separate the military’s management of the folklore from a people’s UFO narrative,” Pasulka writes. “However, it is possible to identify a consistent tension between the two narratives, especially when one attends to the once stigmatized knowledge about military intervention and propagation of UFO disinformation.”⁴ It is not especially groundbreaking to observe that there is tension between what the government says about UFOs and what the American public believes. Further, Pasulka emphasizes that “the official state version” of UFO lore is not “the most accepted narrative,” an assertion I have qualms with especially in the current era.⁵ There is inherent difficulty in parsing whether the state narrative is more covert, as it is still disseminated through military and intelligence personnel albeit not officially sanctioned. Despite being aware of incidents like the Bennewitz affair, Pasulka grasps odd lessons from such complex psychological operations:

It (…) revealed a new strategy of managing the UFO narrative. Doty, and presumably others who are not known, was at the center of an impenetrable cell of individuals, some of who were unwittingly cultivated as assets such as Howe and Bennewitz, and some of whom were purposely working with Doty. Some of the stories that leaked from this cell were true, such as Howe going on to an Air Force base to view documents, and some were false. Threads of truth mixed with lies formed this cell of disinformation which was The Doty Narrative.⁶

The only truths to be gleaned from the Bennewitz debacle are: 1. An intelligence agency conducted an operation against the American UFO community, driving one man quite literally insane, 2. The operation was a runaway success; facets of “The Doty Narrative” have marked ufology into the present, and 3. Speculatively but realistically, such secret operations to influence the public’s perception of the UFO phenomenon could easily have continued into the present. Separating the fact from fiction in this specific case alone is a nearly futile task, but it leaves me concerned about what pieces of “The Doty Narrative” Pasulka believes were true information. Regardless, if Pasulka not only knows that these operations exist, but that her research is the perfect attractor of intelligence agents and assets, the implications of this knowledge are not sinking in. With Strieber’s claim of “security personnel” not allowing for certain material to be released, we may be witnessing a carefully constructed narrative which Pasulka is relaying, either wittingly or unwittingly. Even within Encounters, she seems to defer to the claims of her interviewees and, in one specific instance, let a subject edit their chapters “more than fifteen times.”⁷ I am given pause by this tendency, along with her refusal to engage with any more critical questioning. I was not immensely shocked to find that she had recently done interviews with the Peter Thiel (defense contractor) adjacent American Alchemy YouTube channel⁸, as well as right-wing Christian nationalist and all around freak, Rod Dreher.⁹ These are both relatively friendly interviewers who have an interest in affirming the authenticity of her work. Her books, subsequent interviews, and even recent tweets have tended to grant legitimacy to the current UFO disclosure push, the defense organizations surrounding it, and any religiosity that might spring forth from these arenas.

Despite the busy press tour, there are ways in which Encounters is a step away from Pasulka’s academic standing. I am not one to hierarchize publisher legitimacy in general, but I nevertheless find it interesting that Encounters was published through St. Martin’s Essentials, a self-described “lifestyle” publisher and far cry from the legitimacy Oxford University Press granted American Cosmic. A suitable comparison would be Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal having to take their less-verified Grusch story to The Debrief as opposed to The New York Times which had published their earlier cultural phenomenon article on AATIP—though this earlier article too would eventually raise some red flags. Such a move would be a good way to avoid more strenuous peer review or fact-checking and instead reach an audience of spiritual seekers. Indeed, Encounters reads more like a pop non-fiction spirituality publication than the serious survey of cultural and religious shifts seen in American Cosmic.

To the book’s benefit, this makes it an easy read, though in many ways a retread of the ideas explored in Cosmic without the thrust of its novelty. Whereas the previous book was somewhat the first of its kind, a semi-comprehensive study of burgeoning UFO religions, there are hints that Pasulka has lost some of the critical distance that made the early work so enticing. Outright belief is never stated, but many of the testimonials covered in Encounters are more outlandish than those in Cosmic while being treated with the same assumed veracity. I will not deny the claims of the experiencers—I am aware of how the phenomena is real to them—but any serious study of the paranormal must contend with the fact that its reality is contentious at best and intentionally manipulated by the American intelligence apparatus at worst. Throughout the book, Pasulka does not address the question of how UFO spirituality could benefit the defense community beyond an eventual techno-optimistic paradigm shift. How this spirituality could be used in a malignant manner is not touched upon, even though the religious offerings often entail subjugating oneself to the United States military in addition to purported non-human intelligences.

It is an important mode of inquiry: Pasulka’s primary source throughout many of her explorations into this field is a man who explicitly believes that humans are below certain individuals in the DoD. Mentioned previously in State of the U(fo)nion, Pasulka writes about the so-called “hierarchy of beings,” Tim “Tyler D.” Taylor’s belief that “factions on the intelligence community” are at a higher level of spiritual evolution than normal humans.¹⁰ Pasulka depicts the intelligence community in astoundingly spiritual terms, noting that they appear to have the “oral traditions” that are seen within Aboriginal Australians and other cultures. “There is an oral tradition of UFO history that can never be known or can only be known by those in the right place at the right time,” she writes. “The oral tradition of UFOs is more important than what is written about them.”¹¹ In my view, this illustrates a perspective on ufology that prioritizes the contributions of state-connected individuals—a perspective that Pasulka seems to hold that does a disservice to the whole of the field, a subculture that has a storied written history from private, civilian individuals. Focusing on those within the hallowed communities of aerospace, intelligence, and technology are key pieces in the larger picture, but relying on their versions of the UFO mythology alone results in a warped vision—a wilderness of mirrors, one might say. This is the biggest drawback of Pasulka’s accepting, hands-off approach to speaking with these individuals and relaying their assertions and beliefs without pushback.

In a rather interesting exchange with UFO luminary Jacques Vallee, (whose journals are covered often in Getting Spooked’s Forbidden Science Dispatches,) Pasulka asks his advice on a potential new source of stories and information. She writes:

Jacques looked back at me. His answer was no. He wouldn’t meet him. He gave me a brief explanation. He told me that people in intelligence communities are generally very charming. They meet you. Then they meet your friends. Then they meet your family and they become friendly with your children. Jacques said no more than that. As usual, I trusted Jacques, and this was precisely the information I needed.¹²

This somewhat cryptic answer feels like a warning, Vallee noting that those in intelligence often have murky motivations and can present a danger to one’s friends and family. While Pasulka reports that she “needed” this information, she then chooses to not follow this good advice. She meets with the contact Vallee refused to interact with, despite being fully aware that her “research into UFOs brought (her) into contact with people whose agendas are hidden or are not entirely transparent.”¹³ Perhaps her lack of caution was because she had already allowed Tim (Tyler) Taylor, who has “affiliations with (…) NASA, the aerospace industry, SpaceX, the Department of Defense, and the US Air Force, among others,” to interact directly with her family.¹⁴ Pasulka remarks at one point that her children “like Mr. Tyler and his stories.”¹⁵ Vallee, who has worked with personalities in intelligence and defense contracting throughout his career, encouraged caution when it came to allowing these individuals to get too close, but Pasulka seems willing to go headlong into the depths of the UFO mire.

Aside from the uncritical relaying of UFO spirituality from military scientists and members of the intelligence community, Encounters runs into problems with the experiencers of a more civilian variety (although we never truly stray very far from the Department of Defense). There is a techno-optimism pervading the book, for a technology that does not yet exist, which feels largely out of place in an era where technology has been used primarily for profit, defense, and surveillance. Chapter 7’s main experiencer, Simone, is an AI scientist who believes that humans can interact with a natural, AI-like superintelligence that exists in the cosmic ether. She references numerous transhumanist thinkers such as Ray Kurzweil and believes that Elon Musk is correct when he says we must become a multi-planet society and “that humanity is the ‘boot-loader’ for digital superintelligence.”¹⁶ Simone contends that Musk (along with Kurzweil and Jesuit priest Pierre Tielhard de Chardin) “are all signaling to us in different stories, nonfiction narratives, of the possibilities of the human mind. The mind has been the center of the world war over the past few centuries. It has been a war over the mind.”¹⁷ With Musk’s current existence as a “red-pilled” reactionary who has been bringing figures like Alex Jones back to Twitter, I question Simone’s invocation of him when asserting that humans “are vessels which happen to receive information that is consciousness or intelligence (call it God or super-intelligence).”¹⁸

Iya Whiteley, the “space psychologist” explored in Encounters’ first two chapters, is another character looking to make vast technological paradigm shifts that account for the anomalous. She was a recipient of a U.S. Air Force award for research hoping to integrate pilot perspectives when building aircraft. Whiteley also has a marked interest in pilots sighting “abnormalities,” telling Pasulka:

There are brave men and women who set the precedent in terms of reporting UFOs, yet if there are no further additional measures of positive reinforcement introduced, it would take another professional generation, approximately twenty-five years of professional life, to change the current climate and culture to one of openness and acceptance.¹⁹

While I do not have any issues with anyone, pilots included, being treated respectfully in the wake of an anomalous encounter, Whiteley is another individual—military-connected—who sees spiritual, techno-optimistic solutions to glaring societal problems. “I’ve designed sophisticated modern digital aircraft displays specifically fitted for the rapid cognitive processes of pilots,” Whiteley relays. These aircraft displays were used by both the Air Force and NASA and won the scientist awards and recognition. “Surely, I can follow the same design process for newborn babies,” she concludes.²⁰ Whiteley’s stated goal is to create an “earth language” that can be taught to newborns and allows them to interpret “ancient Earth sounds and patterns” in order to push human beings into a closer connection with their environment.²¹ Pasulka correctly notes that this is a panpsychic viewpoint, the belief that “the environment, including the animals, plants, and insects that populate it, is sentient.”²² To say the least, this view of the world is contentious. However, what strikes me is that Pasulka accepts the whole system as entirely plausible, a unique spiritual viewpoint worth consideration. Whiteley’s ideas are more likely an overly optimistic implementation of military technology and psychology—a worldview that contends human evolution and world peace will be achieved through a universal language and the ensuing spiritual awareness.

Similar panpsychic, semi-utopian spiritual beliefs saturated the research of Dr. John C. Lilly, who saw the key to interaction with nonhuman intelligences in theoretical communication with dolphins. AI scientist Simone’s belief in humanity being able to program themselves to communicate with a superintelligence also has definite resonances with Lilly’s work, specifically his 1968 book Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer. Indeed, Pasulka references The Order of the Dolphin—the precursor group to SETI, made up of scientist devotees of Lilly’s ideas on communication with nonhumans—in the chapters about Whiteley but does not mention Lilly himself. Instead, the author opts to only name Carl Sagan among their members.²³ This decision seems informed by the expectations of the likely intended audience of Encounters: Those interested in cosmic religion and communication with extraterrestrials. The similarities of Whiteley and Simone’s interests to those of Lilly is also mildly concerning given that his “out there” research into human consciousness and the paranormal aimed to continue “the work of ARTICHOKE’s Maitland Baldwin”—ARTICHOKE being the precursor to MKULTRA.²⁴ With this context, Whiteley, along with other personalities in Encounters, may be indicative of a shift within the military-industrial complex—a return to the weaponized woo that was wrung out of the utopian counterculture of the 1960s and 70s.

An odd contradiction to the techno-optimism of “Simone” and Whiteley is seen in the cosmological viewpoint of Jose, a former Marine who is the focus Encounters’ fifth and sixth chapters. Jose, who Pasulka writes has taken “the red pill of philosophy and religious studies,” believes he has a connection the “noosphere” and has used the abilities this grants him both on the battlefield and throughout his rough childhood.²⁵ He learned how to “tether to the organic network” in his US Marines training where the military organization emphasized “enhanc(ing) his precognition as a survival skill.”²⁶ These esoteric skills, which even Jose admits cannot be reproduced in a lab, are nevertheless taught to teenagers as a means to combat the mental health crisis. “Jose works with high school students,” Pasulka writes. “He disrupts the operations of tech warfare by teaching kids how to work out, how to be alone, how to unplug from social media for just a little while, and to feel their bodies and their feelings.”²⁷ The program specifically “teaches (how) to hook into the organic network, the one that predates the internet.”²⁸ In a book that’s interested in UFOs, future technology, and AI, the nature of this alternate network is still rendered in technological and biological terms—the “organic network” is a technology beyond our comprehension that can be tapped into as one taps into the phenomena at large.

Jose’s story is one of a former soldier who recognizes at some level that military technology is at the root of human suffering, at home and abroad. “The weapons of the big players are more insidious than they were in the former wars because they don’t look like weapons,” he tells Pasulka. “We hold them in our hands and in our pockets. They contain our social media, our weather reports, and they are addictive. They are a direct connection to the battlefield, yet we view them as toys.”²⁹ Jose is correct, much of the ubiquitous technology that modern humans interact with were military tech, often used for horrific purposes at one time or another. One of her most trusted sources, Jacques Vallee, even worked on a project of this kind: ARPANET, the precursor to the internet, which has been utilized by the military to hell and back.³⁰ And yet, the thrust of Pasulka’s narrative is that military scientists and intelligence agents are the initiates in a metaphorical paranormal church. Their motivations are never truly questioned. Neither is their interest in talking to her. Overall, there is an unwillingness to grapple with much of what the military and intelligence sphere actually does with the results of secret projects or will do with theoretical advanced technology. In a book obsessed with occult knowledge and cloak and dagger activities, there is very little understanding or exploration of why these maneuvers are made in the first place.

In the case of her subject in Chapter 8, philosophy professor Patricia Turrisi, there is again an intentional reluctance to dig into the history of terms and concepts that are quite fraught and loaded. Turrisi, who teaches at the same university as Pasulka, claims to have been part of a military-run gifted school and had a father who was in the “secret space program.”³¹ The “secret space program” has become a term far beyond the scope of the secret NASA/military projects that Turrisi seems to describe. Weird Reads with Emily Louise’s documentary on the pseudo-factual Alternative 3 explains the roots and current status of the supposed “secret space program” which has encouraged “super soldiers” to come out of the woodwork to this day. It is a realm of outlandish and unverified claims from fraudsters and the mentally ill. For Pasulka to use the term “secret space program” without addressing how it exists in the current vernacular of the paranormal/conspiracy sphere is a questionable move—though it appears at least one secret space program alumni is a fan of her work. Granted, Turrisi’s claims of her father working in the supposed secret space program are much more grounded than those who would appear on James Rink’s Super Soldier Talk. Nevertheless, there is the repeated issue of Pasulka taking the claims of her interviewees at face value. What Turrisi describes sounds like a secret military project, albeit nothing that really warrants an inclusion in Encounters were it not for her “recruit(ment) into a program targeted toward young smart kids (…) that was related to space.”³² Pasulka had been predisposed to seeing “cosmic” significance to Turrisi’s case because Tim Taylor had “warned her about the recruitment plan” for young children into the current secret space program.³³ Even Turrisi admits that “the corroborating evidence” for her father being part of the so-called secret space program “is sketchy and mostly from (her) own inference.”³⁴ To me, the account reads like a normal secret military program—as “normal” as that could be—and experiences in a military-run gifted program. As different intelligence agencies have historically recruited from both gifted schools and academic institutions, Turrisi being recruited by the NSA is not as out of the ordinary as Pasulka seems to imply.³⁵

At this point in the over year-long run of Getting Spooked, I undoubtedly sound like a broken record: You can’t trust the military or intelligence when it comes to the UFO topic, their motivations for cultivating belief are powerful and diverse. Encounters trusts these organizations implicitly or, at the very least, does so for the purposes of unhindered expression. Pasulka’s writing has been praised for its “hovering judgement” and melding of the spiritual with the technological.³⁶ However, Pasulka’s beliefs have never been “hovering,” a more apt description would be obscured. She is self-admittedly a believer in some remarkably fringe ideas while describing herself as agnostic (e.g. she believes in the existence on the Akashic records, an idea taken directly from Theosophy). In many respects, Encounters (likely American Cosmic too if I were to re-read) is held together by “structuring absences” to borrow an academic term. It is the questions that are not asked, the modes of inquiry that are not used that make the inherent viewpoint of her research clear. In a positive review of American Cosmic, Agrama, Bishop, and Metcalfe write that Pasulka’s research is not solely about the people who get wrapped up in UFO belief, but also “about the transformations that” UFO-oriented “knowledge elicits.” The reviewers suspect that “how we pursue and relate to that learning, and the ways it may be changing us (…) may be more important than having comprehensive facts on UFOs.”³⁷ While this is undoubtedly a prime factor in why Pasulka’s work has struck a chord with those interested in the UFO topic and has legitimate value as an anthropological survey, the “comprehensive facts on UFOs” nevertheless remain an element of foremost importance for the phenomenon and its import on culture and society. As laid out in Manifest(uf)o and State of the U(fo)nion, UFOs have been manipulated, warped, and misrepresented by many people within military or intelligence sphere. It is through the aforementioned “comprehensive facts” that one will get closer to the truth, not the “oral traditions” of agencies that have continually monitored, disrupted, and deceived the American public.  To see a book skate so close to these communities, pick up a slew of (albeit interesting) paranormal experiences, and relay them without asking deeper questions was an exercise in frustration for me.

The general response to Encounters has been largely positive—even with readers and thinkers I respect and/or usually agree with—which has made me reticent to speak my mind on the book. Jacques Vallee wrote a blurb for the book in which he declares that Pasulka “transcend(s) the rough political and military turmoil that has long disfigured the research.”³⁸ The only way in which the author transcends this turmoil is by ignoring it or minimizing the impact of different governmental individuals reinforcing UFO belief. In fact, I think Encounters is quite literally disfigured by the very entities that Vallee thinks it rises above. However, D.W. Pasulka has the opportunity to be an important voice in the fields of religious studies, ufology, and the paranormal—the religious studies professor already has a widespread appeal within the broader fringe community. My disappointment in Encounters is primarily due to the conspicuous absences in the analysis, absences that could theoretically be rectified in future research. These are important topics that have been covered poorly in the past. Pasulka has the capability to put out thought-provoking research—explorations that more clearly question the motivations of the state and military employees telling her that UFOs are real or that they talk to nonhuman intelligences. As it stands, the book is akin to granting the military industrial complex the divine right of kings. The critical distance utilized in American Cosmic and Encounters has already served its purpose: The subjects of these works have been open about their beliefs and even explain why they developed their unique spiritualities. As these sources come from authoritative positions in the military, science, and industry, it is worth asking how these beliefs (or widespread acceptance of these religious views) would benefit them in the long term—or benefit the state more broadly. I can tell you, without an ounce of hesitation, that a religious movement based on the spiritual enlightenment of U.S. government officials, military representatives, or defense contractors would be an unmitigated disaster.

Thank you for reading Getting Spooked. If you have enjoyed what you’ve read, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Doing the latter grants you access to over a dozen archived articles and directly helps this publication continue. I also started a referral program that rewards archive access to those who share the newsletter with others, so be sure to tell any friends who might find this work interesting. Email me at gettingspooked@protonmail.com with any questions, comments, recommendations, leads, or paranormal stories. You can find me on Twitter at @TannerFBoyle1, on Bluesky at @tannerfboyle.bsky.social, or on Instagram at @gettingspooked. Special thanks to Bill Murphy at The Anomalist for linking to the newsletter so often and for being a rock solid paranormal news editor. I wanted to mention once again my conversation with Erica Lukes of Expanding Frontiers Research, a fun discussion with an organization that is an important critical voice in the field of fringe communities and UFO studies. Until next time, stay spooked.

1. Brewer, Jack. “Police: No Records of Walsh Pasulka January Hack.” The UFO Trail. 6 February 2020. https://ufotrail.blogspot.com/2020/02/police-no-records-of-walsh-pasulka.html.

2. Brewer, Jack. “Walsh Pasulka, Nolan Decline Comment on Alleged Security Personnel.” The UFO Trail. 25 February 2019. https://ufotrail.blogspot.com/2019/02/walsh-pasulka-nolan-decline-comment-on.html.

3. Pasulka, Diana Walsh. Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences. New York: St. Martin’s Essentials, 2023. Page 14-15. Available here.

4. Pasulka, Diana Walsh. “Controlling the Lore: A Survey of UFO Folklore in the United States.” Living Folk Religions, edited by Sravana Borkataky-Varma and Aaron Michael Ullrey. London: Routledge, 2023. Page 287. Available here.

5. Ibid., page 276.

6. Ibid., page 284.

7. Pasulka, Diana Walsh. Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences. New York: St. Martin’s Essentials, 2023. Page 62.

8. NASJAQ. “Jesse Michels: Thiel Cap, American Alchemy, and the World of the Esoteric | Nasjaq Ep:18.” YouTube, uploaded by NASJAQ, 24 March 2022. Available here.

9. Dreher, Rod. “UFOs and Aliens Are (Probably) Not What You Think: An Interview with Diana Walsh Pasulka.” The European Conservative. 7 November 2023. https://europeanconservative.com/articles/dreher/ufos-and-aliens-are-probably-not-what-you-think-an-interview-with-diana-walsh-pasulka/.

10. Pasulka, Diana Walsh. Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences. New York: St. Martin’s Essentials, 2023. Page 180.

11. Ibid., page 178-179.

12. Ibid., page 176.

13. Ibid., page 177.

14. Ibid., page 20.

15. Ibid., page 22.

16. Ibid., page 153.

17. Ibid., page 156.

18. Ibid., page 169.

19. Ibid., page 44.

20. Ibid., page 50.

21. Ibid., page 53.

22. Ibid., page 54.

23. Ibid., page 48.

24. Cannon, Martin. The Controllers: A New Hypothesis of Alien Abduction. Self-published, 1992. Page 9. https://archive.org/details/pdf_martincannon_thecontrollers.

25. Pasulka, Diana Walsh. Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences. New York: St. Martin’s Essentials, 2023. Page 107.

26. Ibid., page 134.

27. Ibid., page 138.

28. Ibid., page 138-139.

29. Ibid., page 120.

30. Tattoli, Chantel. “Jacques Vallée Still Doesn’t Know What UFOs Are.” Wired. 18 February 2022. https://www.wired.com/story/jacques-vallee-still-doesnt-know-what-ufos-are/.

31. Pasulka, Diana Walsh. Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences. New York: St. Martin’s Essentials, 2023. Page 182.

32. Ibid., page 189.

33. Ibid., page 20-21.

34. Ibid., page 186.

35. Ibid., page 181.

36. Agrama, Hussein Ali, Greg Bishop, and David Metcalfe. “Knowing Others: The New UFO Esotericism of D. W. Pasulka’s American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology.” Correspondences: Journal for the Study of Esotericism vol. 10, no. 2.  2022. Page 386. Available here.

37. Ibid., page 400-401.

38. Pasulka, Diana Walsh. Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences. New York: St. Martin’s Essentials, 2023. Page iii.