New Books and Media

From the publisher’s website: Beer and Spirits offers a fascinating insight into the stories behind some of Central England’s most haunted pubs.

With over 50,000 public houses in the United Kingdom, the local pub has become an essential part of British culture. Samuel Pepys described the inn as the heart of England. Pubs have been an integral part of British culture since Roman times. The lives and dramas, intrigues and mysteries of the people who visited them form the rich tapestry of any local pub. As a result there are often many stories and histories that are inherently part of the place, and naturally ghost stories and haunted reputations form a dynamic feature of many local pubs. From spectral monks and phantom coaches, to ghostly highwaymen and supernatural hounds, the authors examine some well known and not so well known aspects of Black Country pub history and folklore.

While the stories and accounts in this book are not meant to offer any proof or conclusive evidence of ghosts, they do offer a fresh look at new and more traditional accounts of haunted pubs in the Black Country and the surrounding area. 

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the publisher’s website: ESPRIT: Men and Women of Parapsychology, Personal Reflections: Volume 1, is a collection of autobiographical essays by a group of esteemed 20th century psi researchers, giving us a glimpse of why these gifted, astute individuals devoted much, if not most, of their life's work to this fascinating but monetarily unrewarding field. In the process, Jule Eisenbud, Eileen Coly, Gertrude Schmeidler, Karlis Osis, and eight others advise a younger generation on what pitfalls to expect and what they felt were the most important areas of investigation. This is the first of a planned three-volume series.

Contents: Editor’s Note; Preface; Foreword (by Stanley Krippner); Jule Eisenbud : My Life with the Paranormal; Montague Ullman: The World of Psychic Phenomena as I Came to Know It; Jan Ehrenwald: An Autobiographic Fragment; Eileen Coly: Interview with Eileen Coly; Joseph H. Rush: Parapsychology: Some Personal Observations; Gertrude R. Schmeidler: Questions and Attempts at Answers; Emilio Servadio: Interview with Emilio Servadio; Renée Haynes: Aspects of Psychical Research; Hans Bender: A Positive Critic of Superstition; Karlis Osis: The Paranormal: My Window to Something More; George Zorab: Eight Decades in Parapsychology; Bernard Grad: Experiences and Opinions of an Unconventional Scientist; References; Index.

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the publisher’s website: Glimpses of Eternity, a new book by acclaimed doctor and bestselling author Raymond Moody confirms life after death and shows that our relationships with those we love live forever.  Dr. Raymond Moody revolutionized the way we think about heaven with his first book, Life After Life—which became one of the bestselling books of all time. Now Dr. Moody uncovers another common thread to what happens when we die. Glimpses of Eternity tells us that family and friends are often swept into the first moments of their loved one's journey from this life to the next. Dr. Moody calls these "shared death experiences." Glimpses of Eternity is the first book to talk about this beautiful aspect of our spiritual connections with one another.

Review by Tom Ruffles 

From the publisher’s website: Following several personal sightings of ghosts, including that of a First World War pilot, Alan Wood has spent sixty years researching the occult.  Military Ghosts is the result and is designed as a gazetteer of locations where military ghosts have been reported. It includes not only such well-known stories as that of Sir Francis Drake’s Drum but a wide variety of stories, ranging from a patrol of ghostly Roman legionnaires to a fully-fledged re-enactment of the Battle of Edgehill, and from benevolent spirits to one so terrifying that witnesses have committed suicide rather than face it, through the spirits of seventeenth-century cavaliers to the more modern ghosts of fighter pilots from the First and Second World Wars. This book covers soldiers, sailors, and airmen, and a wide range of locations not only in the U.K. but also overseas. 
 
Alan C. Wood has spent time in the RAF both on active service at home and overseas, and as a reservist, winning the USAF medal for Humane Action. On being demobilised from the RAF, he joined the police service and won the Queen Elizabeth II Police Service Medal and various other awards.  He has been a published non-fiction author since September 1957, writing about the First and Second World Wars.

Review by Tom Ruffles 

From the publisher’s website: The Ghost Club is the oldest society in the world dedicated to the exploration of the unknown and there can be no better guide to the history of this pioneering organisation than writer and broadcaster Peter Underwood, President from 1960 - 1993. Here his unique archives and knowledge have combined to produce a definitive compendium of this remarkable club covering the many and varied incarnations, pioneers, members and leading lights as well as its many and diverse lectures and investigations. Peter Underwood is the recognised elder statesman of psychical research and author of over 40 books on ghosts and the paranormal including the pioneering Gazetteer of British Ghosts, The Encyclopaedia of the Supernatural, The Ghost Hunters' Guide and Haunted Gardens.

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the publisher’s website: The Jacobites and the Supernatural offers a whole new perspective on the well-known Jacobite period and also allows the reader to explore the battlefields and other sites of the period in a completely new way. Here are tales of witchcraft, spirits, psychic powers, portents, prodigies, magical talismans and potent curses. Bonnie Prince Charlie practices the healing magic of ‘touching’ for the King’s Evil and ‘impresses’ his good looks onto an unborn child. A queen attributes her pregnancy to a saint. Rocks split at the moment Culloden is lost. We meet angels, demons, fairies, guardian Black Dogs and other otherworldly beings. The cast of human characters includes John Graham of Claverhouse, ‘Bonnie Dundee’, said to have sold his soul to the Devil and then been killed by a silver bullet; the ‘Galloping Earl’ of Dilston whose phantom is said to still ride through his Northumbrian estate; and the gentle Lord President Forbes, who had a vision of the slaughter at Culloden months before the Jacobite dream was extinguished on that terrible day.
 
As well as setting the occult beliefs in the religious, political and military contexts of the Jacobite Risings of 1689, 1715, 1719 and 1745, this book gives a site-by-site guide to all the battlefields and buildings associated with the Jacobites and the supernatural. The battles of Culloden, Sheriffmuir, Killiecrankie, Dunkeld, Glenshiel, Falkirk and Prestonpans are well represented, but there are also allegedly haunted castles and hotels, plus everything from an English vicarage (home to a Jacobite poltergeist) to a Highland loch and a Hebridean beach. Sites across Scotland and England are comprehensively described, with a full history of their ‘supernatural’ events and descriptions of on-site access and facilities.

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the filmmakers’ website: Jonas Elrod was leading an ordinary life until he woke up one day to a totally new reality. He suddenly could see and hear angels, demons, auras and ghosts.

The documentary movie WAKE UP follows this fascinating story of an average guy who inexplicably developed the ability to access other dimensions. Physicians gave him a clean bill of health and were unable to provide an explanation. What was it? Why was it happening to him? One thing was certain for this 36-year old man – life as he had known it would never be the same.

With his loving but skeptical girlfriend by his side, Jonas crisscrosses the country as he searches for answers and delves deeper into this thrilling world of the phenomenal and spiritual. Along the way, he encounters an amazing group of religious teachers, scientists, mystics and spiritual healers who help him piece together this intricate puzzle.

The film shows how all of us can search inward for our own peace and happiness while contributing towards a positive shift in global consciousness. WAKE UP is a call to consciousness to everyone who sees it; an invitation to accept that there is more to this life than meets the eye.

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the publisher’s website: Cambridge University is the most haunted university in the world: ghosts have been reported here and in the surrounding countryside from the 13th century up to the present day. Cambridge Ghosts is a comprehensive guide to the phantoms and paranormal phenomena that have been witnessed and experienced in the colleges of the university, the ancient houses of the city, the streets and open spaces, and some surprisingly modern buildings. It also introduces the reader to writers of classic ghost stories who have been inspired by the historic university. Fully researched by the authors, Cambridge Ghosts is the most detailed work ever published on the city's spectral population and is guaranteed to fascinate the reader.

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the publisher’s website: Despite ongoing and repeated attempts to prove or disprove the existence of parapsychological events, there are still no conclusive findings—and certainly no consensus across the worldwide community of scholars, scientists, and proponents of psychic phenomena. Still, there is no shortage of information about this fascinating topic to allow everyone to draw their own conclusions.

This book has been expressly written to make each chapter and topic accessible to a general audience, despite containing a vast amount of theoretical material. The book is organized into two parts: in the first section, proponents of the validity of parapsychological data and critics who reject that validity state their respective positions. In the second part, each group responds to each others' statements in the form of a debate. Other experts from the United States as well as from Great Britain and Australia provide overviews and conclusions. Features includes contributions from 14 scholars weighing in as advocates, counteradvocates, or contributors; 20 examples of original artwork by Dierdre Luzwick, a world-class surrealistic artist; the bibliography contains a reference list at the end of each contributor's section; a glossary of key terms used in the book is supplied.

From the publisher’s website: This is the story of a normal woman who experienced the impossible: objective contacts with another dimension through loud and clear voices received by electronic means during Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC) experiments.

Dr Cardoso, a senior diplomat, describes the astounding experiences that transformed her life since she started ITC research in 1997. She presents extracts of conversations with her deceased loved ones and other personalities who insisted that they live in another world.

The level of agreement between communications received by the author and concepts, even words, recorded by other experimenters from Jurgenson and Raudive to contemporary operators, constitutes compelling evidence of the reality of the next world that awaits us all. As communicators from Timestream told Dr Cardoso: The dead pass through here, you pass through here!.

Electronic Voices breaks new ground in the literature providing details of audio contacts, recorded under controlled conditions, with beings in an evolved dimension, which they describe as another space, beyond time. This evolved dimension of life corresponds to an evolved state of consciousness in the cosmic evolutionary sequence.

From the publisher’s website: In this candid, thought-provoking autobiography the gifted and world-renowned medium Ronald Hearn gives a moving account of his extraordinary life. Beginning with his childhood in a working-class family in wartime London, he traces his development through National Service in India to a mundane job in a town hall and on to the startling, life-changing discovery of his psychic abilities and his decision to launch himself as a full-time psychic. Hearn’s mediumship has taken him all over the world and has brought him into contact with a wide array of people – from ‘ordinary’ men and women who have lost loved ones to colourful celebrities, like Margaret Rutherford, with a penchant for spiritualism. Hearn’s astonishing gifts – most notably seen in his innovative practice of taped messages – have won him many admirers in the psychic community and his sensitive, subtle readings have given comfort and hope to many, as well as providing invaluable evidence of survival after death. What shines through above all, however, is Hearn’s indomitable and humane spirit, his passion for life and his unquenchable desire to reach out to another world.

Review by Guy Lyon Playfair.

From the publisher’s website: Science and the Near-Death Experience explains why near-death experiences (NDEs) offer evidence of an afterlife and discredits the psychological and physiological explanations for them; challenges materialist arguments against consciousness surviving death; examines ancient and modern accounts of NDEs from around the world, including China, India, and many from tribal societies such as the Native American and the Maori

Predating all organized religion, the belief in an afterlife is fundamental to the human experience and dates back at least to the Neanderthals. By the mid-19th century, however, spurred by the progress of science, many people began to question the existence of an afterlife, and the doctrine of materialism--which believes that consciousness is a creation of the brain--began to spread. Now, armed with scientific evidence, Chris Carter challenges materialist arguments against consciousness surviving death and shows how near-death experiences (NDEs) may truly provide a glimpse of an awaiting afterlife.

Using evidence from scientific studies, quantum mechanics, and consciousness research, Carter reveals how consciousness does not depend on the brain and may, in fact, survive the death of our bodies. Examining ancient and modern accounts of NDEs from around the world, including China, India, and tribal societies such as the Native American and the Maori, he explains how NDEs provide evidence of consciousness surviving the death of our bodies. He looks at the many psychological and physiological explanations for NDEs raised by skeptics--such as stress, birth memories, or oxygen starvation--and clearly shows why each of them fails to truly explain the NDE. Exploring the similarities between NDEs and visions experienced during actual death and the intersection of physics and consciousness, Carter uncovers the truth about mind, matter, and life after death.