Reviewed by Peter A. McCue
In the introductory section of this 288-page book, the author, Theresa Cheung, explains that she was born into a family of psychics and spiritualists, and that she studied theology and English at King’s College, Cambridge (p. 18). Unburdened with excessive modesty, she notes that she’s written “an endless stream of supernatural books and psychic world encyclopaedias”, and that in recent years she’s become “a go-to TV, radio and podcast expert on matters paranormal” (p. 17). She describes herself as one of the world’s leading “dream decoders” (p. 24). And the author information page of her book (p. 282) tells us that she’s listed “among the 100 most spiritually influential living people” by a mind, body and spirit magazine.
Structure and content
After a short foreword by the parapsychologist Lloyd Auerbach, there are three main parts to the book. Part 1, which is headed “Lights Out!”, is the introduction, which I’ve already alluded to.
Part 2, the main section of the book (pp. 41-263), contains entries pertaining to cases of supposedly paranormal activity from around the world. However, this material isn’t just confined to haunting and poltergeist cases. Within some of the numbered items, more than one case is mentioned. Consequently, the book covers more than the 101 cases suggested by the subtitle.
Reflecting a classification scheme that’s popular with people who call themselves ‘ghost hunters’ or ‘paranormal investigators’, Cheung divides the cases into four categories: residual, poltergeist, inhuman and intelligent.
The adjective ‘residual’ is applied to hauntings in which witnesses appear to pick up on ‘energy’ or impressions left on a place by past events, without there being any indication of active spirit agency. For example, if an apparition is recurrently seen carrying out some stereotyped activity, and if the ghostly figure seems unaware of the witnesses, the case might attract the ‘residual’ tag.
However, some of the cases that Cheung places in the ‘residual’ category feature alleged phenomena that seem to have been more than just sensory impressions. Take, for example, the former luxury ocean liner, the Queen Mary, which is now a floating hotel at Long Beach, California. Cheung mentions various types of reported manifestation, including alarms going off by themselves and the mysterious opening and closing of doors (pp. 53-55).
She also places the case of Borley Rectory, Essex, in the ‘residual’ category (pp. 90-92), although the phenomena there also included alleged poltergeist-type effects, such as falling stones and the breaking of crockery (Adams, Brazil & Underwood, 2009; McCue, 2012, pp. 352-360).
Under the ‘poltergeist’ heading, Cheung mentions several cases from the UK (e.g. the ‘Enfield Poltergeist’ in north London and the ‘Pontefract Poltergeist’), and several cases from North America (e.g. the ‘Amityville Poltergeist’). She also outlines a case from southern Germany, and one from Brazil. She considers both paranormal and non-paranormal theories. In respect of the former, she refers to the popular notion that the phenomena result from psychokinesis manifested by living agents, although she notes that some people argue that the notion of discarnate agency shouldn’t be overlooked. As for non-paranormal explanations, she discusses, among other things, the possibility that trickery may be behind the manifestations. Indeed, regarding the well-known Enfield case, she suggests that maybe the present-day consensus is that the phenomena were faked. However, I’m not sure that that’s an accurate appraisal, and I think we should be wary about dismissing cases in their entirety just because some trickery has been detected or suspected. After all, if there’s a mischievous and tricksterish intelligence behind genuine poltergeist phenomena, it may be that it likes to include a bit of fraud, to sow confusion and doubt about the general status of the manifestations!
The ’inhuman’ category discussed by Cheung entails cases supposedly involving active, non-human agents, such as demons (pp. 181-242). For example, entry no. 74 (pp. 204-206) concerns a family (a grandmother, a mother and three children) who moved into a property in Gary, Indiana, in 2011 and reportedly experienced bizarre phenomena, such as sounds of heavy footsteps coming from the basement, and levitation of the children. The latter was reportedly witnessed by medical staff. In 2012, a priest deemed the house to be infested with demons and haunted by restless spirits. He conducted several exorcisms, and the disturbances ceased.
Cases in the ‘intelligent’ category allegedly entail discarnate human spirits who intentionally make their presence known (pp. 243-263). Cheung relates an instance that was cited by the Roman orator Pliny the Younger in a letter to his patron in about AD 113 (pp. 245-247). The story concerned a villa in Athens that was reportedly haunted by the ghost of an old man. A philosopher called Athenodorus moved into the villa and sat up at night, waiting for the ghost to appear, which duly happened, if we can believe the tale. The apparition led Athenodorus to a spot where it suddenly disappeared. Subsequent digging there revealed the skeleton of a man in chains. The bones were gathered together and publicly buried, which reportedly brought the haunting to an end.
Part 3 of the book consists of a concluding chapter (pp. 265-278), after which there are some short entries (e.g. acknowledgements). Finally, there’s an index.
Comments
Although I noticed a few grammatical errors, I found the book quite readable. However, the last paragraph on p. 277 isn’t well written.
On p. 22, Cheung states that some hauntings occur only once. Arguably, though, a one-off event doesn’t deserve to be called a haunting.
When mentioning places, Cheung sometimes gives only a vague specification of where they’re to be found. For example, on pp. 145-146, she refers to Dalhousie Castle (now a hotel) in Scotland (see photo), but without saying in what part of Scotland it’s located. (It’s in Midlothian and situated between the town of Bonnyrigg and the village of Gorebridge.)
As mentioned above, Cheung discusses the case of the ‘Pontefract Poltergeist’. Pontefract is a town in West Yorkshire, England. Mistakenly, though, she gives the country as Wales. In at least two cases, she gets people’s names wrong: (1) Regarding the Borley Rectory case, she refers to “the Reverend Forster and his wife”, although their surname was, in fact, Foyster. (2) On pp. 170-172, she discusses a poltergeist case from Canada, involving a young woman called Esther Cox. However, Cheung misspells the latter’s surname as “Coz”.
Regarding a poltergeist case in Sauchie, central Scotland, which involved a girl called Virginia Campbell (pp. 174-176), Cheung states that Virginia and her mother moved into a house owned by an elder brother of Virginia’s. That may be correct, although some sources describe him as having been Virginia’s uncle. In respect of this case, Cheung refers to a Reverend Lund “from the Church of England”, for which I think we should read the Church of Scotland.
An anomalous feature of the index is that some of the page numbers or page ranges are out of order. For example, in respect of Borley Rectory, Essex, one sees “268-9, 90-92”.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the book is that there’s no bibliography or list of recommended reading. And hardly any sources are mentioned in the main text. One could see this as a major demerit. However, to be fair to Cheung, I think her book is pitched at general, non-specialist readers, who might actually prefer a quick overview of numerous cases rather than something that’s detailed and fully referenced. Cheung is obviously knowledgeable regarding the paranormal field, and her presentation of case material comes over as balanced. Unfortunately, though, her book lacks any photographs.
References
Adams, P., Brazil, E. & Underwood, P. (2009). The Borley rectory companion. The History Press.
McCue, P. A. (2012). Zones of strangeness: An examination of paranormal and UFO hot spots. AuthorHouse.