From the publisher's website: There are few things more in common across cultures than the belief in ghosts. Ghosts inhabit something of the very essence of what it is to be human. Whether we personally ‘believe’ or not, we are all aware of ghosts and the rich mythologies and rituals surrounding them. They have inspired, fascinated and frightened us for centuries – yet most of us are only familiar with the vengeful apparitions of Shakespeare, or the ghastly spectres haunting the pages of 19th century gothic literature. But their origins are much, much older…
The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies takes us back to the very beginning. A world-renowned authority on cuneiform, the form of writing on clay tablets which dates back to 3400BC, Irving Finkel has embarked upon an ancient ghost hunt, scouring these tablets to unlock the secrets of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians to breathe new life into the first ghost stories ever written. In The First Ghosts, he uncovers an extraordinarily rich seam of ancient spirit wisdom which has remained hidden for nearly 4000 years, covering practical details of how to live with ghosts, how to get rid of them and bring them back, and how to avoid becoming one, as well as exploring more philosophical questions: what are ghosts, why does the idea of them remain so powerful despite the lack of concrete evidence, and what do they tell us about being human?
New Books and Media
Find Books
The First Ghosts: A rich history of ancient ghosts and ghost stories from the British Museum curator, by Irving Finkel
The Wrong Turning: Encounters with Ghosts, introduced and edited by Stephen Johnson
From the publisher's website: Why do people love ghost stories, even when they don’t believe (or say they don’t believe) in ghosts? Is it simply the adrenaline rush that comes from being terrified by a great storyteller? Or is it that such tales give form to our own inner demons?
‘Looking back over nearly a quarter of a century of serious therapeutic work,’ writes Stephen Johnson, ‘I’m struck by how often, in trying to explain my own terrifying mental states to psychotherapists, I’ve resorted to images or turns of phrase in some of my own favourite ghost stories.’
With contributions from Alexander Pushkin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Tove Jansson, Penelope Lively, Flann O’Brien and more, this uniquely curated anthology brings together some of the most chilling – and enigmatic – stories from around the world.
Using Equipment: Guidance Notes for Investigators of Apparitions, Hauntings, Poltergeists and Similar Phenomena, by Steven T. Parsons
These guidance notes are intended to provide helpful information and practical guidance to all those who use equipment to support their investigations. They are also intended to help the investigator to obtain the maximum usefulness from their equipment and from the data they collect whilst using it.
Available through the SPR Book Store.
Apparitions: Tulpas, Ghosts, Fairies, and even Stranger Things, by Malcolm Smith
From the back cover: One in ten people claim to have encountered a ghost, yet science refuses to acknowledge their existence. However, it turns out that ghosts are by no means the only, or most mysterious of apparitions. Now, an author with a background in science has sought to uncover the parameters of this bewildering field. In this, he has adopted three principals: 1. to first seek a mundane explanation 2. not accept anything until it has been confirmed by further data, and 3. not to discard any item, but to file it away in case something similar appears later. In this manner, he documents the little known phenomenon of apparitions which can be shown to result from the mind of a third party. From there he moves to apparitions of the living, then to standard ghosts and hauntings, before delving into far more profound phenomena: elves and fairies, plus a variety of even weirder apparitions, some of which are truly terrifying, and others benevolent. These remarkable phenomena are all fully documented, and by the time you finish this book, you will find it hard to reject the conclusion that there exists a whole parallel world of immaterial entities, which is only on rare occasions perceptible to our senses.
Druze Reincarnation Narratives: Previous Life Memories, Discourses, and the Construction of Identities, edited by Gebhard Fartacek
From the back cover: This book follows the journey of Druze individuals who can remember their former lives and go on search for their previous families. For the Druze, an ethno-religious minority in the Middle East split between different nation-states, such cases and related discourses embody ambivalent bridges between personal, familial, and ethnic identities.
The contributions in this book, presented by Eléonore Armanet, Nour Farra Haddad, Gebhard Fartacek, Tobias Lang, Lorenz Nigst, and Salma Samaha, draw on ethnographic inquiries and illuminate the broad field of Druze conceptions of rebirth and group coherence against the backdrop of everyday challenges and recent conflicts in the Middle East and beyond.
The book is freely available on the publisher's website: Peter Lang.
Enlightenment: Memories of a Spiritual Circle, by Diana Morton
This book focuses on an intimate view of a small Physical Mediumship home-circle based on 10 years of transcriptions and audio tapes involved in a unique and special project. The ultimate goal was to fully materialise spirit forms in the light, using a new energy technique with which the Spirit world was excitedly experimenting. Very regrettably, the desired event never transpired completely. Apart from the new highly original format that this book well outlines, a direct line to Spirit was always maintained with advanced souls, predictions were given on the tenuous state of planet Earth and their purpose and wonderful expectations of their project are also skilfully presented in this dialogue.
Parapsychology and Religion, by Everton de Oliveira Maraldi
From the publisher's website: “Parapsychology and Religion” is perhaps the most controversial research area in the psychology of religion. However, in recent decades, psychology of religion has witnessed a growing literature bearing on ontological issues including parapsychological topics such as distant healing and near-death experiences. This book argues that despite the methodological and theoretical controversies that still surround the field of parapsychology, the findings of research on alleged anomalous processes can inform the study of religious/spiritual experiences. Psychological literature on the paranormal is critically reviewed and it is argued that it became less a scientific endeavor and more an ideological program devised to denigrate paranormal believers and experiencers. This volume explores how an open-minded dialogue between parapsychology and psychology of religion might help us move beyond the present ideological disputes and reviewes the complex relations between parapsychology and religion over time as well as their implications for interdisciplinary research on religion and spirituality.
Further information at the publisher's website: Brill.
Glimpses of Another World: Impressions and Reflections of an EVP Operator, by Anabela Cardoso
From the publisher's website: Glimpses of Another World: Impressions and Reflections of an EVP Operator is Anabela Cardoso’s third work.
Following on from Electronic Voices: Contact with Another Dimension? and Electronic Contact with the Dead: What do the Voices Tell Us? in this book the author shares her thoughts and ruminations on Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC), the phenomena whereby allegedly deceased communicators relay messages and images to the living via radio equipment, televisions, computers, phones and other electronic devices. It’s a subject Anabela has devoted her life to in recent decades.
The communication is both fascinating and mysterious and the wisdom meted out by higher dimension human and nonhuman intelligences is profound. Glimpses of Another World is a memoir and a how-to-do ITC manual rolled into one and essential reading for those pondering the possibility of an afterlife.
Further information at the publisher's website: White Crow Books.
A Quest for Wisdom: Inspiring Purpose on the Path of Life, by David Lorimer
From the publisher's website: A Quest for Wisdom is a wide-ranging volume which brings together 25 of David Lorimer’s highly acclaimed essays. Among the significant thinkers featured here are many who have shone their light on his path, and which can provide enriching nourishment for readers on their own life journeys. The essays explore philosophy, meaning and spirituality; consciousness, death and transformation; and responsibility, ethics and society. Perceptive and illuminating, they examine the nature of life and death, questions of meaning and purpose, and the challenge of how we can live more harmoniously together. David hopes that readers will be inspired, as Dr Albert Schweitzer put it, in our common task ‘to become more finely and deeply human.’
Clairvoyage: Stories from a highly-sensitive life, by Stephanie Milanowski
A collection of stories from my life as a highly-sensitive, unwitting clairvoyant, clairaudient, clairsentient, and claircognizant. Can you hear what other people are thinking? How about using telepathy to communicate with others? Or have you ever been visited by a deceased relative? CLAIRVOYAGE is about artist and graphic designer Stephanie Milanowski experiencing all these things and more.
J.B. Rhine. Letters 1923–1939: ESP and the Foundations of Parapsychology, edited by Barbara Ensrud and Sally Rhine Feather
From the publisher's website: During the 1930s a new approach to exploring human consciousness began at Duke University with Professor J. B. Rhine’s experimental research on extra-sensory perception, or ESP. His findings on telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis challenged conventional disbelief. Rhine’s findings and his first popular book, New Frontiers of the Mind, ignited excitement and controversy—among not only scientists but the public at large.
Rhine’s letters chronicle his efforts to find reliable evidence of psychic ability, from the séance room to psychic animals and finally to a university research laboratory. Covering the years 1923–1939, they reveal a gripping story of groundbreaking research, told in the words of the main player as he worked with his team, subjects, critics and supporters alike.
Further information at the publisher's website: McFarland.
Reincarnation as a Scientific Concept: Scholarly Evidence for Past Lives, by K.S. Rawat and Titus Rivas
From the publisher's website: Reincarnation as a Scientific Concept focuses on the question of whether reincarnation should be recognized as a serious subject by the contemporary scientific community. After a historical overview of the psychical research into reincarnation memories, the authors present well-documented cases that have been studied by scholars from East and West.
Further information at the publisher's website: White Crow Books.