So how does it hold up in a market-place for paranormal ‘how-to’ books that has become noticeably busier in the last four years? Pretty well as it happens. Since 2009 the proportion of commercial ‘ghost night’ ventures has grown exponentially, making the small private group set-up described here feel decidedly old school, But the book is more welcome for it, encouraging serious investigations rather than ghost hunting as mass entertainment. While there may be new fads in technology – the K2 variety of EMF Meter springs to mind – the advice on how to conduct an investigation and what to take is still sound.
The section on basic safety could have included a reference to insurance issues, important in this litigious age and especially so for those new to the field. It would also have been nice to have taken the opportunity to add an index and a reading list (I suspect there is rather an assumption that the target audience is the young Most Haunted crowd, and it doesn’t read much), and I do feel that it was a mistake on the part of the cover’s designer to include the hackneyed Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, even though it is discussed in the text. It has nothing to do with modern paranormal investigation techniques and represents a type of photographic hoax that is increasingly rare.
Overall, I would still recommend Rosney et al for early career psychical researchers, in conjunction with SPR Council member John Fraser’s 2010 Ghost Hunting: A Survivor’s Guide, if ghosts are specifically your bag. If you are interested in anomalies more broadly defined, or are searching around for a specialism, then A Beginner’s Guide to Paranormal Investigation is a good place to start.
My original review can be found here.