Joe Nickell
Are ghosts real? Are there truly haunted places? How can we know?,From the most ancient times, people have experienced apparent contact with spirits of the dead. Some have awakened to see a ghost at their bedside or encountered a spectral figure gliding through a medieval castle. Others have seemingly communicated with spirits, like the Old Testament's Witch of Endor, the spiritualists whose darkroom seances provoked scientific controversy in the last two centuries, or today's "psychic mediums," like John Edward or Sylvia Browne, who seem to reach the "Other Side" even under the glare of television lights. Currently, equipment-laden ghost hunters stalk their quarry in haunted placesâ€”from urban houses to country graveyardsâ€”recording "anomalies" they insist cannot be explained.,Putting aside purely romantic tales, The Science of Ghosts examines the actual evidence for such contactâ€”from eyewitness accounts to mediumistic productions (such as diaphanous forms materializing in dim light), spirit photographs, ghost-detection phenomena, and even CSI-type trace evidence.,Are ghosts real? Are there truly haunted places, only haunted people, or both? And how can we know? Taking neither a credulous nor a dismissive approach, this first-of-its-kind book solves those perplexing mysteries and moreâ€”even answering the question of why we care so very much.
Nonfiction,Science,Philosophy,Skepticism,Fantasy,Paranormal,Mystery
The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead