New Books and Media

From the back cover: The Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences is publishing an Advances in Postmaterialist Sciences book series to educate scientists, students, and science-minded readers about postmate-rialist consciousness research and its applications. Our intent is that each volume combines rigor and creativity, expresses first person (inner expe-riences) as well as third person (external observations), and facilitates the betterment of humanity and the planet. Some volumes will address spe-cific topics or themes, others will be wide ranging and diverse collections of research

From the publisher's website: Following on from Things You Can Do When You’re Dead! and More Things You Can Do When You’re Dead! Scottish psychical researcher Tricia Robertson’s latest book delves into psychic phenomena from the unbelievable to the bizarre. In her straightforward and inimitable style Tricia explores topics including Electronic Voice Phenomena, Thoughtography, Psychokinesis, Distant Healing, Xenoglossy, Mediumship and much, much more. 

Tricia’s philosophy is: ‘Let the evidence speak for itself’ and whether you’re a sceptic and yet to be convinced psi exists or an enthusiast wanting to know more, It’s Life And Death, But Not As You Know It! has something for everyone.

Further information at the publisher's website: White Crow Books.

Review by Ashley Knibb.

From the publisher's website: London, 1938. Alma Fielding, an ordinary young woman, begins to experience supernatural events in her suburban home. Nandor Fodor – a Jewish-Hungarian refugee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical research – begins to investigate. In doing so he discovers a different and darker type of haunting: trauma, alienation, loss – and the foreshadowing of a nation's worst fears. As the spectre of Fascism lengthens over Europe, and as Fodor's obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed. With rigour, daring and insight, the award-winning pioneer of historical narrative non-fiction Kate Summerscale shadows Fodor's enquiry, delving into long-hidden archives to find the human story behind a very modern haunting.

Further information at the publisher's website: Bloomsbury.

From the publisher's website: One of the most significant cases in the last fifty years, the South Shields poltergeist is a true and terrifying account detailing a family’s brave fight against an invisible intruder. This intense, protracted and well-documented encounter spanning 2005–06 is said to be one of the best cases of its kind, and is certain to go down in the annals of psychical research. Objects moved on their own, carving knives were thrown around, coins appeared in mid-air before being thrown to the floor, sinister text messages were sent by the poltergeist, apparitions were seen, and a number of physical assaults took place on one unfortunate householder. Now, fifteen years on, this new and updated edition includes the original case review, which was first published in the ‘Journal of the Society for Psychical Research’ in 2010. It contains a preface by Alan Murdie, and a new chapter that was originally omitted from previous editions. Based on the testimonies of those who experienced it first hand, the South Shields poltergeist is a chilling reminder that reality is not what we think it is.

From the back cover: This book is about the nature of extrasensory perception, and is based on a 25-year investigation into the physical and biological principles underlying its occurrence. Jon Taylor has carried out a careful examination of the case histories and laboratory research. He concludes that precognition is the fundamental phenomenon of ESP, and that it occurs when people connect with their future experience of an event. The precognition is due to a transfer of information from the brain in the future to the brain in the present, just as telepathy is due to a transfer between different brains. Taylor rejects the clairvoyance interpretation—direct connection with the event—and suggests that acceptance of this interpretation by a majority of parapsychologists has led to an important misunderstanding about the nature of ESP.

Review by Nemo C. Mörck.

From the publisher's website: This volume addresses controversies connected to the testing of the capacities and potentials of mediums. Today we commonly associate the term "medium" with the technical communication between transmitters and receivers. Yet this term likewise applies to those who cooperate with agencies that exceed the presumed domain of the material world. Insofar as one presumes a division between distinctly opposed categories of religion and the secular, technical media tend to be associated with the secular and human (trance) mediums tend to be associated with religion after 1900. This volume concerns the ways in which the term medium still marks an overlapping of – and thus problematizes – the aforementioned division between religion and the secular, the personal and the technological.

Further information at the publisher's website: De Gruyter.

From the publisher's website: In this exploration of the role of emotion in non-ordinary states and abilities, Michael Jawer shows how the flow of our emotions greatly influences the development of personality, exceptional capacities, and sensitivities. He also reveals the significant role of emotion in PTSD, autism, savantism, synesthesia, déjà vu, phantom pain, migraines, and extreme empathy.

Further information the publisher's website: Park Street Press.

From the publisher's website: Charting the evolution of afterlife beliefs in both pagan and medieval Christian times, Claude Lecouteux offers an extensive look at the cartography and folklore of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven as seen by our ancestors. He also explores tales of near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, dream journeys, and travels made by a double or fetch.

Further information at the publisher's website: Inner Traditions.

From the publisher's website: Séances, clairvoyance, and telepathy captivated public imagination in the United States from the 1850s well into the twentieth century. Though skeptics dismissed these experiences as delusions, a new kind of investigator emerged to seek the science behind such phenomena. With new technologies like the telegraph collapsing the boundaries of time and space, an explanation seemed within reach. As Americans took up psychical experiments in their homes, the boundaries of the mind began to waver. Common Phantoms brings these experiments back to life while modeling a new approach to the history of psychology and the mind sciences.

Drawing on previously untapped archives of participant-reported data, Alicia Puglionesi recounts how an eclectic group of investigators tried to capture the most elusive dimensions of human consciousness. A vast though flawed experiment in democratic science, psychical research gave participants valuable tools with which to study their experiences on their own terms. Academic psychology would ultimately disown this effort as both a scientific failure and a remnant of magical thinking, but its challenge to the limits of science, the mind, and the soul still reverberates today.

Further information at the publisher's website: Stanford University Press.

From the publisher's website: Dangerous Pursuits is a wry allusion to philosopher Stephen Braude’s obstacle-strewn career path over the past several decades—to the vindictive hostility, ridicule, and condescension he’s encountered for his decision to look carefully at the data and theoretical issues of parapsychology. The diverse chapters, which are incisive but not without humor, focus on the topic of mediumship, and in the process address major parapsychological themes, including the evidence for postmortem survival and the unsettling question of the limits of paranormal influence. In the end, it turns out the real danger is the widespread ignorance of how these issues impact our understanding of reality. 

Further information on the publisher's website: Anomalist Books.

From the publisher's website: THEY KNOW YOUR NAME! Voices are calling us—voices without an attached form. Encounters with these disembodied voices warn us, haunt us, confuse us, inspire us . . . and scare us. For good reason . . . Explore spine-chilling, true stories from investigations and real occurrences throughout history that expose disembodied voices. Objectively and thoroughly presented, the evidence and theories shine light on possible reasons and agendas for these voices and where they might originate. Gain insight into what they are and what we may be able to learn from them. Sometimes they inspire great acts; other times they lead us astray. Are they forgotten woodland deities? Is it an ancient evil from the days of Eden? Is there a single intelligence behind them all . . . or perhaps we shouldn’t look too deeply . . . or else . . . Famous reports from history as well as never-before-published reports of disembodied voices from the everyday lives of common people are discussed. But what about you? When the voices call, will you answer? Hair-raising conclusions found here will make you think twice.

Further information at the publisher's website: Schiffer.

RE-INTERPRETING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AWAKE: The Hidden Revelation, a previously unpublished manuscript of Ingo’s, was discovered by Nick Cook in 2016 in a nondescript folder tucked inconspicuously among some of Ingo’s notes. Now, together with Beyond the Gods’ Devices, another undiscovered manuscript, it is published for the first time as Resurrecting The Mysterious, a posthumous compilation that delivers what we (that is Nick and Swann-Ryder Productions, LLC) offer here as Ingo’s’ ‘grand unified theory’ of the human experience (and, in part, of consciousness itself). This asserts that paranormality is part of an ‘expanded reality-set’ rooted in the relationship between quantum theory, us the observer and something infinitely more profound, even, that is fully described in Beyond the Gods’ Devices. The Hidden Revelation is more concerned with us, the immanent experience, the inward journey; Beyond the Gods’ Devices with that world, whatever that world truly is, that binds and connects us to ‘the numinous’ -- that, which, at present, science is unable to describe. For many, it may also make the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness just that little bit easier to comprehend. We certainly hope so.