New Books and Media

Sarah from Living Life In Full Spectrum brings her highly popular series: Stuff Paranormal Investigators Need To Know to paperback and Ebook! Volume 1 : What the eyes see and ears hear the mind believes .... but is everything what it seems? This series takes a rational approach to paranormal investigating, offering natural explanations for common paranormal phenomena while exploring spiritual and other possibilities. What you are left with is a great reference guide for paranormal enthusiasts of all levels to compare against their own experiences. Delve into the psychology behind visual and auditory phenomenon such as pareidolia, optical illusions and how our brain processes information. This leads us to our memory and perception and how the brain interprets our experiences. This often makes us feel we are experiencing something paranormal, as do certain medical conditions and physical responses to our natural surroundings. Knowledge is power, and by educating ourselves with this information, we can eliminate different possibilities and see what we are left with. When you start delving into what we do know about the human mind, it makes us question just what it is really capable of when it comes to paranormal phenomena.

Review by Vladimir Dubaj.

From the publisher's website: From the US to Nepal, author J. Bradley Wigger travels five countries on three continents to hear children describe their invisible friends—one-hundred-year-old robins and blue dogs, dinosaurs and teapots, pretend families and shape-shifting aliens—companions springing from the deep well of childhood imagination. Drawing on these interviews, as well as a new wave of developmental research, he finds a fluid and flexible quality to the imaginative mind that is central to learning, co-operation, and paradoxically, to real-world rationality. Yet Wigger steps beyond psychological territory to explore the religious significance of the kind of mind that develops relationships with invisible beings. Alongside Cinderella the blue dog, Quack-Quack the duck, and Dino the dinosaur are angels, ancestors, spirits, and gods. What he uncovers is a profound capacity in the religious imagination to see through the surface of reality to more than meets the eye. Punctuated throughout by children's colorful drawings of their see-through interlocutors, the book is highly engaging and alternately endearing, moving, and humorous. Not just for parents or for those who work with children, Invisible Companions will appeal to anyone interested in our mind's creative and spiritual possibilities.

Review by David J. Halperin.

From the publisher's website: Single case studies have a long tradition in the field of parapsychology and anomalistics research. Naturally, thorough case studies do not usually provide hard evidence for the existence of paranormal effects. However, they demonstrate the dynamics of occurrence of such extraordinary phenomena and experiences in the living world. This volume is intended to give an overview of the methodological peculiarities of anomalistic field research. On the basis of historical and current case studies, certain specific psychosocial dynamics and problems in this interesting and challenging field of research are presented and discussed.

This book contains 15 chapters written by different authors on the subject of single case studies. Although the focus is on poltergeist cases, other fields of anomalistics are also addressed, such as the UFO topic, cryptozoology, or allegedly photographic anomalies. 

Table of contents

From the publisher's website: Signs of Reincarnation provides the first comprehensive look at the belief in reincarnation and the evidence for past lives from historical records, anthropological studies, and contemporary research. Matlock discusses various ways the evidence may be interpreted and shows that although reincarnation entails a rejection of the materialist notion that consciousness is generated by the brain, it does not require the acceptance of any radically new concepts or the abandonment of well-established findings in mainstream psychology or biology. This book offers students, scholars, and anyone interested in the possibility of reincarnation an essential grounding in beliefs, cases, and theory, while opening doors for future research into the extension of consciousness beyond our present lives. 

Further information on the publisher's website: Rowman & Littlefield.

From the publisher's website: Do not buy this book if you want to read a biased account of the famous Enfield Poltergeist case from 1977 through to 1978. There are many other choices you could make which will either try to convince you of the genuineness of the phenomena produced or its fraudulent origins according to the interpretation of the authors concerned. I do not mind whether you have a wide-open mind or a totally shut one, since I shall not be trying to convince you one way or the other.

Do buy this book if you want to know what really happened! I have listened and transcribed all of the several hundred audio tapes that were made by Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair during their investigation of the alleged poltergeist case that took place in Enfield some 40 years ago and I shall present, in chronological order, what occurred. It will then be your decision as to whether you believe the phenomena came from spirit entities; psychic forces; mistaken interpretations; hallucinations; naughty children or any other source you might wish to present. I shall strive very hard not to be influenced by what I have read, however intelligent it might be, and instead rely on my ears to describe what was happening via the tapes.

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

Review by Nemo C. Mörck.

The publication documents the survey exhibition Susan MacWilliam: Modern Experiments which toured four venues in Ireland in 2016–17. Published by F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Studio. Designed by Peter Maybury. Edited by Riann Coulter and Susan MacWilliam with essays and texts by Riann Coulter, Alice Corriea, Val Connor and Susan MacWilliam. 

Further information at: Susan MacWilliam.

Review by Shannon Taggart.

From the publisher's website: North Carolina is considered one of the US headquarters for ghost lights—that is, for spooky and unexplained luminous phenomenon. Nearly half of all reported ghost lights shine, blink, burn, dance, or float somewhere in the state. These ghost lights are well known in their localities. There are scary and fascinating stories associated with them, and they attract many visitors, each hoping to see a ball of fire floating over a cemetery or a jack-o’-lantern illuminating a corner of the Great Dismal Swamp or a long-dead railroad man swinging his lantern in search of his severed head.

Author Charles “Fritz” Gritzner has been chasing ghost lights for many years. A geography professor and luminous phenomenon buff, he has visited the sites, researched possible scientific explanations for the lights, and recorded the legends surrounding them. In this charming and fascinating book, he does not seek to debunk these phenomena, but to illuminate them as a part of the folk culture of North Carolina.

From the publisher's website: Is prophecy possible? Can some people really see the future? Strange feelings of foreboding are often cited by people as evidence that they "foresaw" a disaster. Too vague, argues Gary Williams in this elegantly written collection about lapses in time and space. Williams covers such topics as prevision and romance, foreknowledge and gambling, and the mysterious links between aviation and seeing into the future.

Review by Robert A. Charman.

From the publisher's website: During the Cold War, the U.S. government began testing paranormal claims under laboratory conditions in hopes of realizing intelligence applications for psychic phenomena. Thus began the project known as Star Gate––the largest in the history of parapsychological research, it received more than $20 million in funding and continued into the mid–1990s. This project archive includes all available documents generated by research contractor SRI International, and those provided by government officials.

From the publisher's website: Claims of Reincarnation is one of the foremost works to have been published in India during the latter part of the twentieth century. Dr. Satwant Pasricha has investigated hundreds of cases in her native land and is considered to be one of the leading authorities in the field of empirical investigations into past-life claims. First published in 1990, this book is as relevant today as it was when it made its debut and is a valuable addition for scholars and anyone interested in the subject.

Review by KM Wehrstein.

Can mediums communicate with the dead? Do people really believe they’ve been abducted by aliens? Why do some people make life decisions based on their horoscope?

The Psychology of the Paranormal explores some commonly held beliefs regarding experiences so strange they can defy an obvious scientific explanation. The book explains how psychologists have conducted experiments to provide insight into phenomena such as clairvoyance, astrology, and alien abduction, as well as teaching us fundamental truths about human belief systems.

From debunking myths about Extra Sensory Perception, to considering whether our lives can truly be fated by the stars, The Psychology of the Paranormal shows us that however unlikely, belief in the paranormal will continue to be widespread.

Review by Nemo C. Mörck.

From the publisher's website: When Paul Marshall began to pay attention to his dreams, he could not have anticipated the transformative experience that would follow. A tremendous expansion of consciousness exposed the insignificance of his everyday self but also revealed unsuspected depths of mind and hinted at a deeper self that holds the universe within. In The Shape of the Soul, Marshall—now a mysticism scholar—draws on personal experiences, along with a wealth of religious, philosophical, and scientific ideas, to explore this deeper self, sometimes experienced in mystical and near-death states as spherical in form. Drawing inspiration from the philosophers Plotinus and Leibniz, Marshall takes mind to be more fundamental than matter and views the basic units of nature as perceptual beings. We ourselves are such beings, striving for fulfilment in a long evolutionary journey of soul-making. Bringing together mysticism, philosophy, biology, and even some physics, The Shape of the Soul offers a deeply integrated vision of the self and the universe. Addressing the mind–body problem, the origin of the world, evolution, reincarnation, suffering, and the nature of God, Marshall delivers what will surely prove an intellectual classic.