New Books and Media

From the publisher’s website: Science and the Near-Death Experience explains why near-death experiences (NDEs) offer evidence of an afterlife and discredits the psychological and physiological explanations for them; challenges materialist arguments against consciousness surviving death; examines ancient and modern accounts of NDEs from around the world, including China, India, and many from tribal societies such as the Native American and the Maori

Predating all organized religion, the belief in an afterlife is fundamental to the human experience and dates back at least to the Neanderthals. By the mid-19th century, however, spurred by the progress of science, many people began to question the existence of an afterlife, and the doctrine of materialism--which believes that consciousness is a creation of the brain--began to spread. Now, armed with scientific evidence, Chris Carter challenges materialist arguments against consciousness surviving death and shows how near-death experiences (NDEs) may truly provide a glimpse of an awaiting afterlife.

Using evidence from scientific studies, quantum mechanics, and consciousness research, Carter reveals how consciousness does not depend on the brain and may, in fact, survive the death of our bodies. Examining ancient and modern accounts of NDEs from around the world, including China, India, and tribal societies such as the Native American and the Maori, he explains how NDEs provide evidence of consciousness surviving the death of our bodies. He looks at the many psychological and physiological explanations for NDEs raised by skeptics--such as stress, birth memories, or oxygen starvation--and clearly shows why each of them fails to truly explain the NDE. Exploring the similarities between NDEs and visions experienced during actual death and the intersection of physics and consciousness, Carter uncovers the truth about mind, matter, and life after death.

From the publisher’s website: The root of the word science is knowledge; the root of the word magic is wisdom. Serena blends these two spheres of human experience and shows how the latest scientific research and parapsychological study interact. The quantum view of matter is overturning the traditional world-view and the fantastic discoveries being made bring new insights into the connections between all forms of magic and science. We share the exciting results of her research on the scientific validation of psychic phenomena. Drawing on her ground-breaking work on the pineal gland - something called the third eye - and the phenomenon of second sight, she shows that the greatest implication of psychic phenomena is that each of us is potentially aware of the natural magic of our earth and of everything in the universe.

From the publisher’s website: Ghosts and hauntings… these words convey to some individuals an in-depth fear of the paranormal. The chilling thought that deceased persons have in some cases returned from the grave to once again appear, if only in shadowy forms, and to fill us with fear of their grimly presences, is a fact that few seriously minded persons can now dismiss.

Strange tales of ghosts and hauntings can be found from all corners of the earth and records show that accounts of ghostly presences go well back into antiquity. As a researcher on the paranormal, Malcolm takes from his files incredible tales of ghosts and paranormal events. He also shares with us his own ghostly encounters of which he has had more than his fair share. This book covers some amazing cases from haunted council houses to haunted castles. Malcolm brings forward personal accounts from people who have had first hand dealings with ghosts. Their testimonies will shock and in a court of law these would be hard to dismiss.

In this, his second book, Malcolm clearly shows that evidence can be found of ghosts that will make even the biggest of sceptics sit up and take notice. Britain is known worldwide for its ghostly tales and this book contributes to the growing testimony that shows that whatever we may think ghosts are, there is no denying that, come what may, they are real - as the cases from frightened witnesses in this book clearly show. A stunning and frightening look at some of Britain’s ghostly case files. Read on if you dare.

From the publisher’s website: Paranormal Technology is the first book to provide a scientific method for ghost hunting, which includes in-depth explanations of what the collected data mean. Paranormal Technology offers new techniques, answers questions, and provides experiments, which will help bridge the gap between the paranormal and science. Written in everyday language, it offers keen insights into the nature of paranormal phenomena, the protocols required for collecting evidence that will stand up to scientific scrutiny, and the possible theories that may explain the source of "Ghosts". Currently employed test equipment is examined and proper use is covered in great detail.  Paranormal Technology is an indispensable aid to any scientific researcher or ghost hunting group, whether you are a beginner, or with many years of experience. This book is not a means to an end, but rather, an invitation to a fresh beginning.

From the publisher’s website: Spectres of the Self is a fascinating study of the rich cultures surrounding the experience of seeing ghosts in England from the Reformation to the twentieth century. Shane McCorristine examines a vast range of primary and secondary sources, showing how ghosts, apparitions, and hallucinations were imagined, experienced, and debated from the pages of fiction to the case reports of the Society for Psychical Research. By analysing a broad range of themes from telepathy and ghost-hunting to the notion of dreaming while awake and the question of why ghosts wore clothes, Dr McCorristine reveals the sheer variety of ideas of ghost seeing in English society and culture. He shows how the issue of ghosts remained dynamic despite the advance of science and secularism and argues that the ghost ultimately represented a spectre of the self, a symbol of the psychological hauntedness of modern experience.
 
 Incorporates literature, psychiatry and popular belief, presenting a variety of ideas about ghost-seeing • Compares contexts from Germany, France and America, providing an international understanding of the topic • Examines the culture of ghost-seeing rather than the validity of ghost-belief
 
Contents: Introduction; Part I. The Dreams of the Ghost-Seers: 1. The haunted mind, 1750–1850; 2. Seeing is believing?: Ghost-seeing and hallucinatory experience; Part II. A Science of the Soul: 3. Ghost-hunting in the Society for Psychical Research; 4. Phantasms of the living and the dead; 5. The concept of hallucination in late-Victorian psychology; Epilogue: towards 1920; Appendix; Bibliography.

Further information is to be found on the publisher's website: Spectres of the Self.

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the author’s website: Have you ever wondered where on earth your life is going?  Are you trying to live a spiritual life but feeling lost?  The gurus and teachers tell us that we are “guided” – but how can we recognise and understand this guidance?  This remarkable book describes in detail hundreds of examples of synchronicities and prophetic dreams.  For the first time, here is sound and documented evidence that every one of us can receive  enuine spiritual guidance. This book asks profound questions about the true nature of human consciousness.

From the publisher’s website: This is the first biographical and critical study in English of one of the outstanding mediums of all time, through whom more than 450 books were received by 'automatic writing' over a seventy year period, few of which until recently were available in English translations. 
 
Extracts from some of Chico's major works are included, and give an idea of the scope and the high quality of the output of this unique medium, whose centenary in 2010 was marked by numerous celebrations, two feature films and a special postage stamp. This book tells the fascinating story of how a primary-school dropout from a poor working-class background rose to become a national hero.

This book has been reviewed by Roy Stemman in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research Vol 75(2).

From the publisher’s website: As a cardiologist, Pim van Lommel was struck by the number of his patients who claimed to have near-death experiences as a result of their heart attacks. As a scientist, this was difficult for him to accept: Wouldn't it be scientifically irresponsible of him to ignore the evidence of these stories? Faced with this dilemma, van Lommel decided to design a research study to investigate the phenomenon under the controlled environment of a cluster of hospitals with a medically trained staff. 
 
For more than twenty years van Lommel systematically studied such near-death experiences in a wide variety of hospital patients who survived a cardiac arrest. In 2001, he and his fellow researchers published his study on near-death experiences in the renowned medical journal The Lancet. The article caused an international sensation as it was the first scientifically rigorous study of this phenomenon. Now available for the first time in English, van Lommel offers an in-depth presentation of his results and theories in this book that has already sold over 125,000 copies in Europe.
 
Van Lommel provides scientific evidence that the near-death phenomenon is an authentic experience that cannot be attributed to imagination, psychosis, or oxygen deprivation. He further reveals that after such a profound experience, most patients' personalities undergo a permanent change. In van Lommel's opinion, the current views on the relationship between the brain and consciousness held by most physicians, philosophers, and psychologists are too narrow for a proper understanding of the phenomenon. In Consciousness Beyond Life, van Lommel shows that our consciousness does not always coincide with brain functions and that, remarkably and significantly, consciousness can even be experienced separate from the body.

From the publisher’s website: Dowsing - The Ultimate Guide for the 21st Century is a book for its time. It brings the undoubted benefits of this ancient art to a modern world, and makes dowsing, and its unlimited applications, accessible and relevant for all.

Find out what dowsing is; who can do it; how to do it; when and where it works. Learn about the pioneering scientific discoveries that explain the mechanics of dowsing. Understand how dowsing can become an invaluable tool to optimise your own health, well-being, and quality of life, by giving you the means to discern truth from non-truth, and to identify what is, and what is not, in your individual best interests.

And at this pivotal time in the evolution of human consciousness, discover how dowsing physically demonstrates on a tangible level the existence of an invisible world of energy outside the one we perceive with our five senses - and our ability to connect with it.

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the publisher's website: A young man of Dublin walks past a row of streetlights at night–and they go out, one by one, as he passes.  An engineer in Woodville, Washington, is stopped by police and his car searched to find out what he's doing to their streetlights.  An Australian in the entertainment industry parks his car in a parking lot, and the light above him goes out–until the following evening when he parks in precisely the same space and the light comes on again.

And that's not all. When a guest in a restaurant in Athens, Greece, asks that the music be turned down, they refuse–whereupon she "kills" the restaurant's electricity and they eat the rest of their meal by candlelight. Other people affect traffic lights, computers, railway crossings...

This is Street Light Interference (SLI). Once considered to be folklore–something that happened to a friend of a friend–today it is recognized as a scientific enigma with implications for our knowledge of the universe, including ourselves. In this, the first full-length book on SLI, we hear from some of the hundreds of SLIders who have reported their uncanny experiences, and consider the wider implications of this fascinating phenomenon.

From the publisher’s website: Can hands-on healing can cure cancer? Skeptics say no. One man’s research — in 10 controlled, university experiments with cancer-injected mice — shows that it does. This is a self-proclaimed skeptical scientist’s story.

With The Energy Cure, Dr. William Bengston presents astonishing evidence that challenges us to totally rethink what we believe about our ability to heal. Drawing on his scientific research, incredible results, and mind-bending questions, Bengston invites us to follow him along his 35-year investigation into the mystery of hands-on healing and to discover a technique that may activate your healing abilities. Part memoir and part instruction, this provocative book explores: Bengston's paradigm-shifting experimental results and why they seem so difficult for some medical practitioners to accept - Image cycling, a unique preparation method for a hands-on-healing treatment - Why traditional Western medicine isn't always best, the value of skepticism, the strengths of energy medicine, and more.

This book has been reviewed by Robert A. Charman in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research Vol 75(3).

From the publisher's website: Most scholars dismiss research into the paranormal as pseudoscience, a frivolous pursuit for the paranoid or gullible. Even historians of religion, whose work naturally attends to events beyond the realm of empirical science, have shown scant interest in the subject. But the history of psychical phenomena, Jeffrey J. Kripal contends, is an untapped source of insight into the sacred and by tracing that history through the last two centuries of Western thought we can see its potential centrality to the critical study of religion.

Kripal grounds his study in the work of four major figures in the history of paranormal research: psychical researcher Frederic Myers; writer and humorist Charles Fort; astronomer, computer scientist, and ufologist Jacques Vallee; and philosopher and sociologist Bertrand Méheust. Through incisive analyses of these thinkers, Kripal ushers the reader into a beguiling world somewhere between fact, fiction, and fraud. The cultural history of telepathy, teleportation, and UFOs; a ghostly love story; the occult dimensions of science fiction; cold war psychic espionage; galactic colonialism; and the intimate relationship between consciousness and culture all come together in Authors of the Impossible, a dazzling and profound look at how the paranormal bridges the sacred and the scientific.