Reviewed by Peter A. McCue
Author information
Richard Estep hails from the UK but moved to the USA in 1999. He and his wife live in Colorado. He works as a paramedic and ‘clinical educator’ in the private sector. The paranormal caught his interest as a child when he learned that his grandparents’ house in Yorkshire had been the setting for sightings of a female apparition, although the figure seemed entirely benign. Estep did a lot of reading about ghostly phenomena, and in 1995, he started to investigate cases.
As well as being the author of numerous books, mainly about the paranormal, Estep is a regular columnist for a popular paranormal magazine; and he’s appeared on TV shows such as Haunted Case Files, Haunted Hospitals, and Paranormal 911.
Structure of the book
After the table of contents and details regarding sourcing of the black and white photos that illustrate the book, there’s a foreword by Joshua Dairen (pp. xvii-xx). I found it rather opaque and uninformative, but I find Estep’s own writing clearer.
The main part of the book begins with a brief introduction. Then, there are 13 unnumbered chapters, followed by references and an index.
Content
I don’t think the book deserves its sensationalist title, Dark Spirits: Monsters, Demons, and Devils. For example, the first chapter (‘Dark corners of the world’) opens with an item about Japan’s Aokigahara Forest, where a surprisingly large number of people commit suicide each year (pp. 1-3). Maybe people go to the forest to kill themselves because there’s plenty of tree cover there, enabling them to carry out the planned act with little chance of being interrupted. I doubt whether they’re lured there by evil spirits.
There are sections on Scotland’s ‘Loch Ness Monster’, which is also known as ‘Nessie’ (pp. 127-131), and Asia’s ‘Abominable Snowman’, also known as the ‘Yeti’ (pp. 117-121). Despite having pejorative monikers, these fabled creatures hardly sound like menacing, dark spirits! And regarding ‘Nessie’, it should be noted that although Loch Ness is surrounded by roads and receives many visitors, we don’t seem to hear of people being carried off or killed by the supposed ‘monster’. For his part, Estep notes that whether the sightings “are caused by wishful thinking, misidentified marine animals, or even the ghost of a long-dead plesiosaur remains a matter of discussion” (p. 131).
Another section of the book with no clear link with ‘dark spirits’ concerns the Bermuda Triangle, an area in the western Atlantic that’s associated with reports of ships and aircraft disappearing, and other anomalies (pp. 22-26). The few pages that Estep devotes to the topic don’t do it justice; and on p. 143, he wrongly associates the Bermuda Triangle with the Pacific Ocean rather than the Atlantic.
In a chapter on UFOs (‘Not of this earth’), the book mentions, among other things, the controversial ‘Roswell Incident’ in the summer of 1947, when something crashed to earth in New Mexico (pp. 160-162). According to Estep this happened “just outside” Roswell, although other sources claim that it happened further away – about 75 miles from the town. Whether it was man-made or of exotic origin remains a matter of debate.
Although the book concerns itself mainly with supposedly real events, there are parts that seem to be a recital of fanciful folklore rather than historical happenings (see, for example, pp. 7-10).
Like many other people who describe themselves as paranormal investigators, Estep appears to have eclectic views that incorporate New Age and spiritualist beliefs. For example, he refers to an incident in March 1943 when 173 people were suffocated or crushed to death while rushing down into London’s Bethnal Green underground station to take cover from a German bombing raid. Since then, he reports, stories circulate regarding screams and cries still being heard, most commonly around 9 p.m., when the tragedy occurred. “This has”, he observes, “all the hallmarks of a residual haunting rather than an intelligent one; at least, we must hope that to be the case” (p. 19). (In the jargon of ‘ghost hunters’, ‘intelligent hauntings’ are those that are attributed to active spirits.)
Concluding comments
Dark Spirits reminds me of Theresa Cheung’s (2024) book Haunted World. Like Estep, she mentions some well-known cases and localities (e.g., the Tower of London, Amityville, the Bermuda Triangle, and Highgate Cemetery). These books are presumably aimed principally at newcomers to the field of the paranormal. People who regularly watch paranormal-themed non-fiction TV programmes or read a lot on the subject may already be familiar with some of the cases. However, that’s not to say that they won’t find items of interest in these wide-ranging books.
Reference
Cheung, T. (2024). Haunted World: 101 Ghostly Places and Encounters. Michael O’Mara Books Ltd. (Reviewed here: https://www.spr.ac.uk/HauntedWorld