New Books and Media

From the publisher's website: This is a powerful and inspirational story about a young baseball prodigy who, at the age of two, began sharing vivid memories of being a baseball player in the 1920s and ’30s. Christian Haupt described historical facts about Lou Gehrig that he could not have possibly known at the time.

Distraught by their son's uncanny revelations, his parents embarked on a sacred journey of discovery that shook their beliefs to the core and forever changed their views on life and death. The Boy Who Knew Too Much delves into the mystery of life and will inspire even the greatest skeptics to consider the possibility that love never dies.

Review by Dieter Hassler

From the author's website: Rapping on the walls. Mysterious rains of stones. Furniture moving around by itself. Phantom voices. Unexplained fires. Invisible assaults. The symptoms of poltergeist activity are well known, but what is a poltergeist, really? Is it some type of demon, or an angry spirit whose only mission is to cause mischief and destruction? Is it the unconscious energy of a troubled living person, somehow affecting the environment from a distance? Or could it all be simply fraud or misidentification? In this comprehensive book, well over one hundred cases of poltergeist activity, from the first century to the present day, are summarized and examined. All the best-known cases are presented, from Borley Rectory to the Bell Witch, from the Great Amherst Mystery to Gef the Talking Mongoose, from Rosenheim to Tina Resch, from Enfield to the Entity. A large selection of fascinating and lesser-known accounts from all over the world are also included, and all contain testimony of the most eerie and extraordinary events. The Unseen Hand is the ultimate, one-stop shop for readers interested in poltergeist disturbances throughout history and the theories behind what causes them.

Jenny Ashford is a horror and paranormal writer. Her books include three paranormal nonfiction books: House of Fire and Whispers: Investigating the Seattle Demon House, and The Rochdale Poltergeist (both with parapsychologist Steve Mera), and The Mammoth Mountain Poltergeist (with poltergeist focus Tom Ross). She has also written three horror novels: Red Menace, Bellwether, and The Five Poisons; two short story collections, Hopeful Monsters and The Associated Villainies; and a graphic novel, The Tenebrist. Her horror blog, Goddess of Hellfire, contains writing news, short stories and articles, and her reviews and opinions on horror films and books. She also co-hosts a podcast with Tom Ross called 13 O’Clock, on which they discuss various paranormal topics, true crime, and unexplained mysteries. Find her online at www.jennyashford.com or at goddessofhellfire.com, and listen to 13 O’Clock on the Project Entertainment Network, or on YouTube at 13OClockPodcast.

Review by Tom Ruffles

In this insightful new book on the remarkable William James, the American psychologist and philosopher, Krister Dylan Knapp provides the first deeply historical and acutely analytical account of James's psychical research. While showing that James always maintained a critical stance toward claims of paranormal phenomena like spiritualism, Knapp uses new sources to argue that psychical research held a strikingly central position in James’s life. It was crucial to his familial and professional relationships, the fashioning of his unique intellectual disposition, and the shaping of his core doctrines, especially the will-to-believe, empiricism, fideism, and theories of the subliminal consciousness and immortality.

Knapp explains how and why James found in psychical research a way to rethink the well-trodden approaches to classic Euro-American religious thought, typified by the oppositional categories of natural vs. supernatural and normal vs. paranormal. He demonstrates how James eschewed these choices and instead developed a tertiary synthesis of them, an approach Knapp terms tertium quid, the third way. Situating James's psychical research in relation to the rise of experimental psychology and Protestantism’s changing place in fin de siècle America, Knapp asserts that the third way illustrated a much broader trend in transatlantic thought as it struggled to navigate the uncertainties and religious adventurism of the modern age.

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the publisher's website:I Saw A Light And Came Here is the result of decades of scholarly research and investigations into past-life memories, primarily of children. The first author, Erlendur Haraldsson, a psychologist, has over two decades of experience behind him, having investigated some one hundred cases in the field. He worked closely with Ian Stevenson, M.D., of the University of Virginia, who began systematic studies of “cases of the reincarnation type,” but soon broke new ground with psychological studies of children who insist they remember episodes from past lives. Haraldsson invited anthropologist James Matlock to join him because of his thorough familiarity with research around the globe. This book deals with various aspects of past-life memory and attempts to answer the questions that will inevitably come up in the minds of thoughtful readers.

Further details are available on the White Crow Books website:

http://whitecrowbooks.com/books/page/i_saw_a_light_and_came_here_childrens_experiences_of_reincarnation/

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the publisher's website: Within the little known ‘Century of Wonders’ between 1848 and 1948 in America, the physical phenomena manifesting in the séance rooms of the great psychic mediums baffles description. Two of its most famous mediums and yet, most vilified by the conjurers and critics of that day, were the Bangs Sisters, May and Elizabeth, of Chicago.

In their presence spirits of the departed would manifest and precipitate directly on to a blank canvas in front of the astonished witnesses and, equally wondrous, spirit writing would manifest directly on to blank sheets of paper or slates.

The present work, by author and researcher N. Riley Heagerty, explores through rare source material and eyewitness accounts by people of unimpeachable character, the seemingly “ miraculous ” phenomena that was produced. In a fair and balanced manner, the writer also takes a close look at the most heated and public charges of fraud brought against these Chicago wonder workers.

This in depth, complete work, the first of its kind, unravels the truth of the great psychic mystery of the Bangs Sisters.

About the author

N. Riley Heagerty, has been involved non-stop in research involving Spiritualism and Physical Mediumship since 1985. 

He has, up to the present day, collected and read more than 600 books - mostly rare, on the subject, and has lectured extensively in England and America.  His first published book, The French Revelation, dealt exclusively with the Independent Voice mediumship of Mrs. Emily S. French, of Rochester, New York. 

Mr. Heagerty, considered one of the leading authorities on American Physical Mediumship in the United States has said, “The research of Mediumship and Spirit Communication is just as exciting and enthralling to me in the present day as it was during the first days of my research. It is an ongoing adventure that will never cease.  The subject is vast, marvelous and contains, in this researchers opinion, the most important truths we could ever know.  The heyday of Spiritualism, what I have termed the ‘Century of Wonders,’ existed between 1848 & 1948. Mrs. French along with May and Elizabeth Bangs are just three of the many that demonstrated their wondrous gifts within this time period and I am honored to write about them. “

Further information, and samples of the book, can be found on the publisher's website.

Review by Tom Ruffles