This revised edition contains all the main paranormal topics, ranging from apparitions and zoological mysteries, to ball lightning, crop circles, ESP, poltergeists, premonitions and UFOs, as well as new information on conspiracy theories, ancient wisdom and electronic pollution. The author gives details of the main cases in each area plus up-to-the-minute events, thinking, research and experiments. It also offers a comprehensive reading list of books and publications available within each topic, and addresses of recommended research organisations around the world.
This collection of critical essays and investigative reports examines virtually every area of fringe science and the paranormal from a refreshingly scientific and clear-minded viewpoint. All bring to the task a determination to sift sense from nonsense and fact from fiction in an area notorious for misinformation, misperception, self-delusion, and wishful thinking.
The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal contains over 90 articles by more than 50 experts on topics including the strictly paranormal (psychokinesis, channeling, levitation, astrology, phrenology, palmistry); the historical (mediums, psychic research, alchemy, Houdini); the philosophical (miracles, survival of death, reincarnation); and work on investigatory photography, statistics, the media and the Bermuda Triangle. In his foreword, Carl Sagan says, "I wish [this book] were on the shelves of every newspaper editorial desk and every television newsroom, to encourage more skeptical backbone in reporting . . . . [I]n school libraries so that children would have some counterbalance to the many paranormal and mystical claims in our society."
Television, the movies, and computer games fill the minds of their viewers with a daily staple of fantasy, from tales of UFO landings, haunted houses, and communication with the dead to claims of miraculous cures by gifted healers or breakthrough treatments by means of fringe medicine. The paranormal is so ubiquitous in one form of entertainment or another that many people easily lose sight of the distinction between the real and the imaginary, or they never learn to make the distinction in the first place. In this thorough review of pseudoscience and the paranormal in contemporary life, psychologist Terence Hines teaches readers how to carefully evaluate all such claims in terms of scientific evidence.Hines devotes separate chapters to psychics; life after death; parapsychology; astrology; UFOs; ancient astronauts, cosmic collisions, and the Bermuda Triangle; faith healing; and more. New to this second edition are extended sections on psychoanalysis and pseudopsychologies, especially recovered memory therapy, satanic ritual abuse, facilitated communication, and other questionable psychotherapies. There are also new chapters on alternative medicine, which is now marketed in our drug stores, and on environmental pseudoscience, with special emphasis on the evidence that certain technologies like cell phones or environmental agents like asbestos cause cancer.Finally, Hines discusses the psychological causes for belief in the paranormal despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This valuable, highly interesting, and completely accessible analysis critiques the whole range of current paranormal claims.
"Based on extensive research and their own unique personal experiences, the authors reveal that a significant number of Americans hold these beliefs, and that for better or worse, we undoubtedly live in a paranormal America. Readers will join the authors as they participate in psychic and palm readings, and have their auras photographed, join a Bigfoot hunt, follow a group of celebrity ghost hunters as they investigate claims of a haunted classroom, and visit a support group for alien abductees."--Provided by publisher.
From exploring the Tower of London to investigating a haunted Colorado firehouse, paranormal researcher Richard Estep takes you behind the scenes for an up-close-and-personal encounter with a fascinating legion of hauntings. This collection reveals some of the most chilling, captivating, and weird cases that Richard has investigated over the past twenty years, in England and in the United States. In Search of the Paranormal is filled with rich historical detail, present-day research, and compelling eyewitness accounts. You are there with the team at each haunted location: walking through a desecrated graveyard, shivering in a dark basement, getting thrown into The Clink, watching a "ghost-lit" stage in an old theater. Employing a variety of investigative methods—from high-tech gadgets to old-fashioned practices such as dowsing, table tipping, and Ouija boards—Richard Estep and his team uncover the dark mysteries of the paranormal realm. Praise: "This book is written from the heart. Believe in the paranormal or not, Richard Estep's words ring out with sincerity and integrity."—Patrick Burns, star of Haunting Evidence "Within these pages, you can join Richard on his ghostly adventures, from the UK to the US and experience with him what it's like to be a Paranormal Investigator."—Paul Bradford, star of Ghost Hunters International
Interest in preternatural and supernatural themes has revitalized the Gothic tale, renewed explorations of psychic powers and given rise to a host of social and religious movements based upon claims of the fantastical. And yet, in spite of this widespread enthusiasm, the academic world has been slow to study this development. This volume rectifies this gap in current scholarship by serving as an interdisciplinary overview of the relationship of the paranormal to the artefacts of mass media (e.g. novels, comic books, and films) as well as the cultural practices they inspire. After an introduction analyzing the paranormal’s relationship to religion and entertainment, the book presents essays exploring its spiritual significance in a postmodern society; its (post)modern representation in literature and film; and its embodiment in a number of contemporary cultural practices. Contributors from a number of discplines and cultural contexts address issues such as the shamanistic aspects of Batman and lesbianism in vampire mythology. Covering many aspects of the paranormal and its effect on popular culture, this book is an important statement in the field. As such, it will be of utmost interest to scholars of religious studies as well as media, communication, and cultural studies.
Guaranteed to liven up any dinner party, this delightful, highly readable book offers color photos and scientific case-by-case explanations for 27 phenomena that appear to defy known science, including ghosts and poltergeists, the predictions of Nostradamus, and yogic levitation.
