New Books and Media

From the publisher's website: Calling the Spirits investigates the eerie history of our conversations with the dead, from necromancy in Homer’s Odyssey to the emergence of Spiritualism – when Victorians were entranced by mediums and the seance was born. Among our cast are the Fox sisters, teenagers surrounded by ‘spirit rappings’; Daniel Dunglas Home, the ‘greatest medium of all time’; Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose unlikely friendship was forged, then riven, by the afterlife; and Helen Duncan, the medium whose trial in 1944 for witchcraft proved more popular to the public than news about the war. The book also considers Ouija boards, modern psychics and paranormal investigations, and is illustrated with engravings, fine art (from beyond) and photographs. Hugely entertaining, it begs the question: is anybody there . . .?

Review by Brian C. Wilson.

From the publisher's website: Outlining the scientific evidence behind psi research, Dark Cognition expertly reveals that such anomalous phenomena clearly exist, highlighting that the prevailing view of consciousness, purely as a phenomenon of the brain, fails to account for the empirical findings.

David Vernon provides essential coverage of information and evidence for a variety of anomalous psi phenomena, calling for a paradigm shift in how we view consciousness: from seeing it as something solely reliant on the brain to something that is enigmatic, fundamental and all pervasive. The book examines the nature of psi research showing that, despite claims to the contrary, it is clearly a scientific endeavour. It explores evidence from telepathy and scopaesthesia, clairvoyance and remote viewing, precognition, psychokinesis, fields of consciousness, energy healing, out of body experiences, near-death experiences and post death phenomena, showing that not only do these phenomena exist, but that they have significant implications for our understanding of consciousness.

Featuring discussion on scientific research methods, reflections on the fields of dark cognition and end-of-chapter questions that encourage critical thinking, this book is an essential text for those interested in parapsychology, consciousness and cognitive psychology.

Further information at the publisher's website: Routledge. 

From the publisher's website: Ghosts and spectres, the eerie and the occult. Why is contemporary culture so preoccupied by the supernatural, so captivated by the revenants of an earlier age, so haunted? The concept of Hauntology has evolved since first emerging in the 1990s, and has now entered the cultural mainstream as a shorthand for our new-found obsession with the recent past. But where does this term come from and what exactly does it mean?

This book seeks to answer these questions by examining the history of our fascination with the uncanny from the golden age of the Victorian ghost story to the present day. From Dickens to Derrida, MR James to Mark Fisher; from the rise of Spiritualism to the folk horror revival, Hauntology traces our continuing engagement with these esoteric ideas. Moving between the literary and the theoretical, the visual and the political, Hauntology explores our nostalgia for the cultural artefacts of a past from which we seem unable to break free.

Further information at the publisher's website: Oldcastle Books.

From the back cover: The Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences is publishing an Advances in Postmaterialist Sciences book series to educate scientists, students, and science-minded readers about postmate-rialist consciousness research and its applications. Our intent is that each volume combines rigor and creativity, expresses first person (inner expe-riences) as well as third person (external observations), and facilitates the betterment of humanity and the planet. Some volumes will address spe-cific topics or themes, others will be wide ranging and diverse collections of research

From the publisher's website: Following on from Things You Can Do When You’re Dead! and More Things You Can Do When You’re Dead! Scottish psychical researcher Tricia Robertson’s latest book delves into psychic phenomena from the unbelievable to the bizarre. In her straightforward and inimitable style Tricia explores topics including Electronic Voice Phenomena, Thoughtography, Psychokinesis, Distant Healing, Xenoglossy, Mediumship and much, much more. 

Tricia’s philosophy is: ‘Let the evidence speak for itself’ and whether you’re a sceptic and yet to be convinced psi exists or an enthusiast wanting to know more, It’s Life And Death, But Not As You Know It! has something for everyone.

Further information at the publisher's website: White Crow Books.

Review by Ashley Knibb.

From the publisher's website: London, 1938. Alma Fielding, an ordinary young woman, begins to experience supernatural events in her suburban home. Nandor Fodor – a Jewish-Hungarian refugee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical research – begins to investigate. In doing so he discovers a different and darker type of haunting: trauma, alienation, loss – and the foreshadowing of a nation's worst fears. As the spectre of Fascism lengthens over Europe, and as Fodor's obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed. With rigour, daring and insight, the award-winning pioneer of historical narrative non-fiction Kate Summerscale shadows Fodor's enquiry, delving into long-hidden archives to find the human story behind a very modern haunting.

Further information at the publisher's website: Bloomsbury.

From the publisher's website: One of the most significant cases in the last fifty years, the South Shields poltergeist is a true and terrifying account detailing a family’s brave fight against an invisible intruder. This intense, protracted and well-documented encounter spanning 2005–06 is said to be one of the best cases of its kind, and is certain to go down in the annals of psychical research. Objects moved on their own, carving knives were thrown around, coins appeared in mid-air before being thrown to the floor, sinister text messages were sent by the poltergeist, apparitions were seen, and a number of physical assaults took place on one unfortunate householder. Now, fifteen years on, this new and updated edition includes the original case review, which was first published in the ‘Journal of the Society for Psychical Research’ in 2010. It contains a preface by Alan Murdie, and a new chapter that was originally omitted from previous editions. Based on the testimonies of those who experienced it first hand, the South Shields poltergeist is a chilling reminder that reality is not what we think it is.

From the back cover: This book is about the nature of extrasensory perception, and is based on a 25-year investigation into the physical and biological principles underlying its occurrence. Jon Taylor has carried out a careful examination of the case histories and laboratory research. He concludes that precognition is the fundamental phenomenon of ESP, and that it occurs when people connect with their future experience of an event. The precognition is due to a transfer of information from the brain in the future to the brain in the present, just as telepathy is due to a transfer between different brains. Taylor rejects the clairvoyance interpretation—direct connection with the event—and suggests that acceptance of this interpretation by a majority of parapsychologists has led to an important misunderstanding about the nature of ESP.

Review by Nemo C. Mörck.

From the publisher's website: This volume addresses controversies connected to the testing of the capacities and potentials of mediums. Today we commonly associate the term "medium" with the technical communication between transmitters and receivers. Yet this term likewise applies to those who cooperate with agencies that exceed the presumed domain of the material world. Insofar as one presumes a division between distinctly opposed categories of religion and the secular, technical media tend to be associated with the secular and human (trance) mediums tend to be associated with religion after 1900. This volume concerns the ways in which the term medium still marks an overlapping of – and thus problematizes – the aforementioned division between religion and the secular, the personal and the technological.

Further information at the publisher's website: De Gruyter.

From the publisher's website: In this exploration of the role of emotion in non-ordinary states and abilities, Michael Jawer shows how the flow of our emotions greatly influences the development of personality, exceptional capacities, and sensitivities. He also reveals the significant role of emotion in PTSD, autism, savantism, synesthesia, déjà vu, phantom pain, migraines, and extreme empathy.

Further information the publisher's website: Park Street Press.

From the publisher's website: Charting the evolution of afterlife beliefs in both pagan and medieval Christian times, Claude Lecouteux offers an extensive look at the cartography and folklore of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven as seen by our ancestors. He also explores tales of near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, dream journeys, and travels made by a double or fetch.

Further information at the publisher's website: Inner Traditions.

From the publisher's website: Séances, clairvoyance, and telepathy captivated public imagination in the United States from the 1850s well into the twentieth century. Though skeptics dismissed these experiences as delusions, a new kind of investigator emerged to seek the science behind such phenomena. With new technologies like the telegraph collapsing the boundaries of time and space, an explanation seemed within reach. As Americans took up psychical experiments in their homes, the boundaries of the mind began to waver. Common Phantoms brings these experiments back to life while modeling a new approach to the history of psychology and the mind sciences.

Drawing on previously untapped archives of participant-reported data, Alicia Puglionesi recounts how an eclectic group of investigators tried to capture the most elusive dimensions of human consciousness. A vast though flawed experiment in democratic science, psychical research gave participants valuable tools with which to study their experiences on their own terms. Academic psychology would ultimately disown this effort as both a scientific failure and a remnant of magical thinking, but its challenge to the limits of science, the mind, and the soul still reverberates today.

Further information at the publisher's website: Stanford University Press.