New Books and Media

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.

From the publisher's website: Dangerous Pursuits is a wry allusion to philosopher Stephen Braude’s obstacle-strewn career path over the past several decades—to the vindictive hostility, ridicule, and condescension he’s encountered for his decision to look carefully at the data and theoretical issues of parapsychology. The diverse chapters, which are incisive but not without humor, focus on the topic of mediumship, and in the process address major parapsychological themes, including the evidence for postmortem survival and the unsettling question of the limits of paranormal influence. In the end, it turns out the real danger is the widespread ignorance of how these issues impact our understanding of reality. 

Further information on the publisher's website: Anomalist Books.

From the publisher's website: THEY KNOW YOUR NAME! Voices are calling us—voices without an attached form. Encounters with these disembodied voices warn us, haunt us, confuse us, inspire us . . . and scare us. For good reason . . . Explore spine-chilling, true stories from investigations and real occurrences throughout history that expose disembodied voices. Objectively and thoroughly presented, the evidence and theories shine light on possible reasons and agendas for these voices and where they might originate. Gain insight into what they are and what we may be able to learn from them. Sometimes they inspire great acts; other times they lead us astray. Are they forgotten woodland deities? Is it an ancient evil from the days of Eden? Is there a single intelligence behind them all . . . or perhaps we shouldn’t look too deeply . . . or else . . . Famous reports from history as well as never-before-published reports of disembodied voices from the everyday lives of common people are discussed. But what about you? When the voices call, will you answer? Hair-raising conclusions found here will make you think twice.

Further information at the publisher's website: Schiffer.

RE-INTERPRETING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AWAKE: The Hidden Revelation, a previously unpublished manuscript of Ingo’s, was discovered by Nick Cook in 2016 in a nondescript folder tucked inconspicuously among some of Ingo’s notes. Now, together with Beyond the Gods’ Devices, another undiscovered manuscript, it is published for the first time as Resurrecting The Mysterious, a posthumous compilation that delivers what we (that is Nick and Swann-Ryder Productions, LLC) offer here as Ingo’s’ ‘grand unified theory’ of the human experience (and, in part, of consciousness itself). This asserts that paranormality is part of an ‘expanded reality-set’ rooted in the relationship between quantum theory, us the observer and something infinitely more profound, even, that is fully described in Beyond the Gods’ Devices. The Hidden Revelation is more concerned with us, the immanent experience, the inward journey; Beyond the Gods’ Devices with that world, whatever that world truly is, that binds and connects us to ‘the numinous’ -- that, which, at present, science is unable to describe. For many, it may also make the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness just that little bit easier to comprehend. We certainly hope so.

From the back cover: Ethel Post Parrish led a roller-coaster life, of police raids, undercover journalists, accusations of fraud, court cases over leases, and legacies. Four-times married. Ethel was a perfectionist who expected a high standard, earned respect, and was accepted in the best Spiritualist circles. An enterprising, business-like woman and founder of Camp Silver Belle. The Camp witnessed a Golden Age of American mediumship. Arthur Ford, Frank Decker, Clifford Bias, Maina Tafe, and Lula Taber; Ethel knew and employed them all at Silver Belle.America’s most versatile psychic. Ethel Post Parrish has waited since 1958 for a biography worthy of her stature. America’s leading medium of the 1930/50s. Much admired, envied, and ridiculed in her lifetime, Ethel’s sensational materialization seances featured spirits of different sexes, ages, races, and cultures. With numerous spirits visible in ruby light, Ethel’s famous Indian guide Silver Belle presided over the séances with a “tinkling laugh.” Ethel Post Parrish: Mediumship in America, breaks new ground in 20th Century US Spiritualist studies. The first of a series of books planned in this subject area. American Spiritualism witnessed tremendous expansion between the wars, and this book illustrates and quantifies that growth. The only account of America’s premier influential medium is set in the movement in which lived and shaped. Tough, loving, loyal Ethel had charisma. A uniquely talented medium and above all, a remarkably successful woman.

Review by Brian C. Wilson.

From the back cover: For over fifty years, the Reverend Dorothy Graff Flexer demonstrated the unique gift of Trumpet Mediumship. The voices of the departed and Master Teachers were heard again in the mortal world. Dorothy and her husband, Doctor Russell Flexer, devoted their lives to the spiritual community that they founded and which still flourishes at Sarasota, Florida. Trained by Ethel Post Parrish at Camp Silver Belle, Dorothy became a noted teacher and medium associated with the camp for 28 years. The Flexers had a vision of how the study of mediumship, Christian teaching, and spiritual texts could enrich the life of the individual. Every week the members could experience demonstrations of extraordinary mediumistic phenomena. The vision of Reverend Dorothy and Dr. Russell was of a new religion, “Metaphysical Christianity,” which would appeal to reason and understanding ...

From the publisher's website: There are few factual books written about poltergeist phenomena, John's Fraser's Poltergeist! A New Investigation Into Destructive Haunting fills that void, advancing and updating Colin Wilson's work Poltergeist!, this study's namesake from over 38 years ago. Fraser takes readers on a journey from the Borley Rectory to the Isle of Man, and grounds his readers in an historical overview of 'poltergeist phenomena'. He examines where such events overlap with other paranormal investigations of 'apparitional' ghosts. What do they have in common, what do they differ? To answer this, Fraser looks to new research on paranormal events, never before published in book form. Fraser contends, perhaps controversially, that ghost sightings are and always will be ambiguous and near-impossible to prove, that only poltergeist phenomena can be empirically verified.

Review by Nemo C. Mörck.

From the publisher's website: The field of research on the paranormal has changed enormously in the last 20 years. Examining  experiences of ESP, psychokinesis, precognition, ganzfeld, dissociative states, out-of-the-body experiences, alien abductions and near-death experiences, David Marks appraises the best available evidence to date on scientific claims of the paranormal. Each chapter also provides a description of the psychological processes that are likely to contribute to these experiences, and to the high prevalence of paranormal beliefs.

Importantly, this book does not take a fixed sceptical or ‘disbelieving’ view of the phenomena but, as far as possible, offers a neutral gaze which will equip readers to make up their own minds, as well as providing them with the critical skills to defend their conclusions.

Part of the Preface is available on the author's website. 

Further information at the publisher's website: SAGE Publishing.

From the book cover: In the middle of 21st century England lies an old building that has been scarred by tragedy, suffering, and violent death. Built by prisoners of war more than two centuries ago, Bodmin Jail and the land around it have been the site of more than fifty hangings. Thieves, murderers, highwaymen and rapists all died at the end of the hangman's rope, with many of their bodies being buried within the jail grounds. it is unsurprising, then, that the jail has its ghosts. Even today, the restless spirits of those who breathed their last at Bodmin Jail still roam its hallways, lurk within its cells, and prowl the dank underground chambers. Join author Richard Estep (TV's Haunted Hospitals, Paranormal 911, and Haunted Case Files) as he and a team of fellow paranormal investigators uncover the secrets of this historic, haunted jail...