J.B. Priestley is considered by many to be an old-fashioned playwright whose work is locked in a pre-war world of provincialism and whose ideas are way past their sell-by date. In Time and the Rose Garden, internationally recognised author Anthony Peake re-assesses the plays and novels of this fascinating writer. In doing so, Peake argues that Priestley should be recognised as one of the most prescient of all middle century playwrights and that his ideas on time, consciousness and mortality can be found in hugely popular blockbusters such as The Matrix, Vanilla Sky, Deja Vu, Sliding Doors, Butterfly Effect and many others.
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Time and The Rose Garden: Encountering the Magical In the Life and Works of J.B. Priestley, by Anthony Peake
Publication Details: O-Books, ISBN: 978-1782794578
Publish Date: January, 2018
Arthur Balfour's Ghosts: An Edwardian Elite and the Riddle of the Cross-Correspondence Automatic Writings, by Trevor Hamilton
Publication Details: Imprint Academic ISBN-13: 978-1845409135
Publish Date: December, 2017
From the publisher's website: "This book tells the incredible story of the cross-correspondence automatic writings, described by one leading scholar of the field, Alan Gauld, 'as undoubtedly the most extensive, the most complex and the most puzzling of all ostensible attempts by deceased persons to manifest purpose, and in so doing to fulfil their overriding purpose of proving their survival'. It is an intensely personal and passionate story on so many levels: May Lyttelton trying to convince her lover Arthur Balfour of her continued existence; Frederic Myers with indomitable persistence trying to produce evidence to prove survival generally; Edmund Gurney and Francis Balfour striving from beyond the grave to influence the birth of children who would work for world peace; Gerald Balfour and his lover Winifred Coombe-Tennant believing that their child, Henry, would be the Messianic leader of this group of children."
Further information about the book can be found on Imprint Academic's website:
http://books.imprint.co.uk/book/?gcoi=71157100349240
Trevor Hamilton has produced an entry on the cross-correspondences in the SPR's online Psi Encyclopedia:
https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/cross-correspondences
Angelos Tanagras – My Memoirs: A Collection of Short Stories, by Fotini Pallikari
Publication Details: Athens, Greece. ISBN: 978-960-93-9605-9
Publish Date: November, 2017
From Dr. Pallikari’s website: The present volume contains 23 articles based on the memoirs of Dr. Angelos Tanagras, edited, annotated and translated from the original Greek into English by Fotini Pallikari. They describe the life, work and personality of Tanagras: his childhood, when he was serving as adoctor in the Greek Royal Navy, and later when he established and ran the Greek Society of Psychical Research.
These selected stories aim to offer a valuable source of information on the cultural heritage not only of Greece, but also of those countries Tanagras visited or just interacted with during the time from the late 19th and up to the middle 20th century. The material presented here should be of interest to historians, psychologists, parapsychologists and humanities scholars.
Further information can be found on Dr. Pallikari's website:
http://users.uoa.gr/~fpallik/tanagras.htm
and on her Linkedin page:
Science of the Seance: Transnational Networks and Gendered Bodies in the Study of Psychic Phenomena, 1918-40, by Beth A Robertson
Publication Details: UBC Press, ISBN:9780774833509
Publish Date: November, 2017
From the publisher's website: In the 1920s and ’30s, people gathered in darkened rooms to explore the paranormal through seances. Science of the Seance resurrects the story of a select transnational group and their quest for objective knowledge of the supernatural world, casting new light on empiricism and its relationship to gender, sexuality, and the body in this era.
Drawing on publications, correspondence, seance notes, and photographs from Canada, the UK, and the US, Beth A. Robertson draws back the curtain to reveal a world inhabited by researchers, spirits, and spiritual mediums, including the notorious Mina “Margery” Crandon. Representing themselves as masters of the senses, untainted by the effeminized subjectivity of the body, psychical researchers believed that machines and empirical methods could transform the seance from an isolated spiritual encounter into a transnational empirical project. The laboratory of the spirits that they created, however, opened up a space where mediums and ghostly subjects could and did challenge their claims to exclusive scientific expertise and authority.
This innovative reassessment of paranormal investigation and the transatlantic ties of the seance reveals how science, metaphysics, and the senses collided to inform gendered norms in the interwar era.
This book will be of interest to historians of science, medicine, and religion and technology, as well as feminist scholars and cultural theorists.
The Ghost Studies New Perspectives on the Origins of Paranormal Experiences, by Brandon Massullo
Publication Details: New Page Books, ISBN: 978-1632651211.
Publish Date: October, 2017
From the publisher's website:
You’ve just laid down for the night when suddenly doors slam and the curtains shift. The lights begin to flicker and a white mist forms in front of you. You shut your eyes and keep muttering, “ghosts aren’t real.” But then you open your eyes and realize that “harmless” mist has shifted into the form of a man, staring intensely at you, as he floats above your bed.
What causes ghostly experiences?
Are ghosts real?
Why do certain people report numerous ghostly encounters and others none?
For centuries these questions have intrigued, puzzled, and bedeviled science, skeptics, and even believers. Based on cutting-edge research and new theories, The Ghost Studies provides insight into some of life’s greatest mysteries.
This fascinating book is far more than a compilation of ghost stories. The Ghost Studies provides scientific explanations for paranormal occurrences, including: New and exciting scientific theories that explain apparitions, hauntings, and communications from the dead. The latest research on the role of energy and electricity in hauntings. The role that emotions, bioenergetics, and the environment play in supernatural phenomena. New research into why some individuals are more prone to ghostly encounters.
Brandon Massullo is a clinical therapist and parapsychologist residing in Medina, Ohio. Fascinated by paranormal phenomena for more than 20 years, Massullo has been a participant in and featured speaker at numerous paranormal forums and events. He studied psychology and parapsychology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. His research has been cited in numerous parapsychological journals, articles, and mainstream books.
Listen to a sample on Brilliance Audio
Ghosts Of Scotland, by Gregor Stewart
Publication Details: Beul Aithris Publishing, ISBN: 9781549859007.
Publish Date: September, 2017
From the publisher's website: Scotland is known as one of the most haunted countries in the world, with many haunted hotspots in both Edinburgh and Glasgow. In this new book, author and paranormal researcher Gregor Stewart, covers both Edinburgh and ventures away from the main cities to explore many of the less well know locations across the country, giving not just details of the ghost stories but also the history behind the haunting.
Hailing from St Andrews in Fife, Gregor has been surrounded by tales of ghosts from a young age. His interest was sparked when his parents subscribed for him "The Unexplained" magazine. He is widely read on the supernatural, and has amassed a substantial library on the topic. He has written a number of his own books, both fiction and non-fiction, including the Witch Hunter series, Haunted Explorer Series, Haunted Kirkcaldy, Supernatural St Andrews and Glasgow Ghost Stories. He is also an active paranormal researcher and investigator, with a growing collection of haunted items.
The Survival of the Soul and its Evolution after Death, by Pierre-Émile Cornillier
Publication Details: White Crow Books, ISBN 978-1-78677-031-8
Publish Date: September, 2017
From the publisher's website: Pierre-Émile Cornillier (1862-1942), was a renowned artist and the son of the merchant Pierre-Émile Cornillier, the deputy mayor of Nantes, and Marie-Joséphine Leroux. He was also the uncle of the writer, Mireille Havet. He exhibited for the first time at the Salon of 1885 and sent his works to the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts until the beginning of the First World War.
One day in 1912, he noticed that Reine, an 18-year-old model he had been employing for several months, had psychic abilities of some kind. Although a student of agnostic philosopher Herbert Spencer, Cornillier had closely followed the psychical research of the time and had been an observer at some séances. On a November afternoon, when it became too dark to paint, Reine asked Cornillier if they could experiment with table tipping, something he had mentioned to her.
He somewhat reluctantly consented and they sat facing each other at a small table. They sat for a full hour and nothing happened. They were about to give up when they heard cracking noises and the table swayed to the right and to the left, then tapped clearly several times. Familiar with this phenomenon, Cornillier noted that the taps were spelling out letters. After some confusion and repetition of the message, Cornillier understood that he was to hypnotize Reine. Although he had never hypnotized anyone before, he had observed the process and decided to give it a try.
It was on November 29, 1912 that Cornillier recorded his first real success in what amounted to clairvoyance by Reine. After she was in “hypnotic sleep,” he asked her to visit his apartment, on another floor of the building, and she, never having been in the apartment, provided an accurate description of the layout. Further experimentation involved communication with some apparently low-level spirits, but a “high spirit” named Vettellini emerged in the ninth séance and continued on as Reine’s primary guide, the 107th and final séance in this book taking place on March 11, 1914.
Further information, and an extract, can be found on the White Crow Books website:
Wings of Ecstasy: Domenico Bernini’s Vita of St. Joseph of Copertino, by Michael Grosso
Publication Details: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, ISBN: 978-1973739906.
Publish Date: September, 2017
First English translation of the life of St. Joseph of Copertino, mystic famous for his ecstasies, levitations, bilocations, mind-reading, miraculous healings, and other extraordinary phenomena. The Vita is followed by a Commentary that details the evidence for these claims, and discusses their implications for human potential and human evolution; offering new perspectives on our understanding of the nature of mind and spiritual life. This book is unabashedly conscious of itself as a challenge to reductive scientific materialism.
Dreaming The Future: How Our Dreams Prove Psychic Ability Is Real, And Why It Matters, by Bruce Siegel
Publication Details: MetaStory Books, ISBN: 9780692855270
Publish Date: August, 2017
From the publisher's website:
Bruce Siegel was a longtime denier of all things paranormal or spiritual, and a passionate one. Then something extraordinary happened. He noticed that many of his nightly dreams were coming true. The predicted events were odd, even bizarre, and happened quickly-often just minutes after awakening.
Reluctant to believe what he was seeing, Siegel conducted an experiment that would ultimately span years and involve hundreds of dreams. The result: fully one in four have proven to be precognitive, anticipating future events with striking precision.
A skeptic no longer, the author explains why, for decades, he failed to take the clues within his dreams seriously, and shows why and how you may be doing the same. To prove his point, he helps you carry out your own dream explorations.
Siegel is particularly interested in the larger meaning of his experiment. He says:
The true gift here is the surprising-and surprisingly friendly-universe such dreams suggest. This more expansive reality is the real subject of my book. By validating psychic ability, dreams like mine shatter the myth that we are purely physical beings, fixed in time and space within a mechanical universe. Clearly, we are more.
Scientific experiment, spiritual odyssey, and how-to manual rolled into one, Dreaming The Future is a remarkable addition to the literature on the paranormal.
Bruce Siegel lives, writes, and dreams in Southern California, where he is also known as a pianist and music educator. His passion is exploring the larger meaning of psychic ability-what it says about who and what we really are. Follow his blog at http://brucesiegel.net; contact him at Bruce@BruceSiegel.net.
Making Sense of Life and Consciousness, by Richard Alabone
Publication Details: Smashwords, ISBN: 9781370940820.
Publish Date: June, 2017
From the publisher's website: The science of DNA has a problem; the book of instructions for life is nowhere to be found. This book suggests that DNA is all passcodes, accepting only the correct instructions to build anything from a fish to an elephant. Information flows from the species and family to build a body and mind, creating instinctive knowledge and behaviour with a control system. That same system occasionally allows information flow from mind to mind, which we call telepathy. This revelation answers unsolved questions relating to heredity, evolution and psychic experiences; making sense of life and consciousness.
About Richard Alabone:
Richard has been studying psychic experiences for more than 60 years, and is a member of the Society for Psychical Research, and the Scientific and Medical Network in the U.K. He is retired from a career as a research and development engineer on radar and television equipment, and also spent nine years as a Civil Service technical manager. During 40 broadcasts, entitled Paranormal is Normal; he spoke to many interesting people who explained the psychic side of life.
UFOs: Reframing the Debate, edited by Robbie Graham
Publication Details: White Crow Books, ISBN: 978-1786770233
Publish Date: May, 2017
From the publisher's website:
IF YOU LIKE YOUR UFO LITERATURE TO CONFIRM WHAT YOU ALREADY ‘KNOW,’ THIS IS NOT THE BOOK FOR YOU!
The UFO field has produced thousands of dedicated researchers over the years, and reams of literature; but to what end? What can we claim to know conclusively today about the underlying nature of UFO phenomena that we didn’t know in the late-1940s? UFO study has always suffered from major organizational and methodological problems. It has also become dangerously self-referential.
If ever we are to further our understanding of the UFO enigma, we must fundamentally reframe our debate. We must wipe the board clean and fill it with new ideas, new theories, even new language. We must be willing to start from scratch when the field stagnates. We must be critical, sober, and free of dogma—ready to rinse away the residue of our own beliefs.
UFOs: Reframing the Debate is a collection of original essays exploring alternative perspectives on UFOs and how we might more usefully study the phenomenon in the 21st Century. The book brings together some of the most progressive and iconoclastic thinkers in the field for an incisive deconstruction of current popular ideas. Critical but constructive, this challenging volume represents a range of differing (even conflicting) alternative viewpoints on UFOs and related phenomena.
UFOs: Reframing the Debate is a cold, hard, slap in the face for ‘UFOlogy,’ a call to break away from established ideas, approaches, and practices, and to boldly tread a new path in quest of understanding what may very well be the greatest mystery of all.
For more information, including a sample chapter, visit White Crow Books
Gef! The Strange Tale of an Extra-Special Talking Mongoose, by Christopher Josiffe
Publication Details: Strange Attractor Press, ISBN 978-1-907222-48-1
Publish Date: April, 2017
"I am the fifth dimension! I am the eighth wonder of the world!"
During the mid-1930s, British and overseas newspapers were full of incredible stories about Gef, a ‘talking mongoose’ or ‘man-weasel’ who had allegedly appeared in the home of the Irvings, a farming family in a remote district of the Isle of Man. The creature was said to have the ability to talk in several languages, to sing, to steal objects from nearby farms and to eavesdrop on local people, such that they became uneasy at the farmer’s seeming ability to be able to tell them their most private goings-on.
Despite written reports, magazine articles and books, several photographs, fur samples and paw prints, voluminous correspondence and signed witness statements, there is still no consensus as to what was really happening to the Irving family. Hoax? Mental illness? A poltergeist? The possession of an animal by an evil spirit? Now you can read all the evidence and decide for yourself.
Seven years’ research and interviews, photographs (many previously unseen), interviews with surviving witnesses, visits to the site – all are presented here in this new book, the first examination of the case for 70 years.
About the author:
Christopher Josiffe is a regular contributor to Fortean Times and has also been published in Faunus, Abraxas and The Pomegranate. He has presented lectures at (amongst others) the Ghost Club, the Society for Psychical Research, Senate House (University of London), Alchemical Landscape II (University of Cambridge), the London Fortean Society, and the Fortean Times Unconvention.
During the mid-1930s, British and overseas newspapers were full of incredible stories about Gef, a ‘talking mongoose’ or ‘man-weasel’ who had allegedly appeared in the home of the Irvings, a farming family in a remote district of the Isle of Man. The creature was said to have the ability to talk in several languages, to sing, to steal objects from nearby farms and to eavesdrop on local people, such that they became uneasy at the farmer’s seeming ability to be able to tell them their most private goings-on.
Despite written reports, magazine articles and books, several photographs, fur samples and paw prints, voluminous correspondence and signed witness statements, there is still no consensus as to what was really happening to the Irving family. Hoax? Mental illness? A poltergeist? The possession of an animal by an evil spirit? Now you can read all the evidence and decide for yourself.
Seven years’ research and interviews, photographs (many previously unseen), interviews with surviving witnesses, visits to the site – all are presented here in this new book, the first examination of the case for 70 years.
About the author:
Christopher Josiffe is a regular contributor to Fortean Times and has also been published in Faunus, Abraxas and The Pomegranate. He has presented lectures at (amongst others) the Ghost Club, the Society for Psychical Research, Senate House (University of London), Alchemical Landscape II (University of Cambridge), the London Fortean Society, and the Fortean Times Unconvention.