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Book Recommendations

Sharon Hill said:
These compilations are so expensive and usually cobbled together from random internet articles. I discovered my local library has them on their digital borrowing app so I've looked at a number of them. Be warned - they are full of cool pics but the info is typically not good quality.
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I've been watching a lot of YouTube 'haunted' tales, and they are using a phenomenal amount of AI generated images, which are a whole other world of spooky.
 
DrPaulLee said:
No, I don't want you to feel cheated if you buy the west Norfolk book only for a new version to come out.
It was 306 pages, now it's about 520 but the price is the same. My ghost pub book is 449 pages with loads of maps.
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My wife has just ordered me the Kings Lynn and West Norfolk book, the 519 page version for Christmas. I’ll leave a review when I’ve read it.
 
What would people's recommendations be for specifically British paranormal stories? Maybe separate recommendations on ghosts, folklore, occultists, cryptids, etc.
 
Delightful said:
What would people's recommendations be for specifically British paranormal stories? Maybe separate recommendations on ghosts, folklore, occultists, cryptids, etc.
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I'd definitely go for The Ghosts of Blue Bell Hill by Sean Tudor. The CFZ has done some decent county volumes on cryptids.
 
Delightful said:
What would people's recommendations be for specifically British paranormal stories? Maybe separate recommendations on ghosts, folklore, occultists, cryptids, etc.
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Janet and Colin Bord, and latterly Janet Bord produced a range of titles on supernatural stories and folklore in the British Isles a bit dated now but still worth a read; and of course there's the Reader's Digest volume as related in a recent FT.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/230829.Colin_Bord

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Folklore-Legends-Britain-Readers-Digest/dp/0276001680

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazing-Haunted-Mysterious-Places-Britain/dp/0276445457
 
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This book is very likely old news to Forum members but I read Oliver Sacks' Hallucinations recently. This was rather shattering to me because, although the late neurologist was never strident about it, his findings made me think that virtually all witnessed sightings - be they ghosts, religious visions etc etc - are either due to specific areas of the brain becoming activated or merely mistakes or else hallucinated due to eyesight difficulties or damage/injury to the brain or mental deterioration or whatever. I found this really depressing, not least because he wasn't making a big and militant point like: "All unusual phenomena are illusions, dammit!" but instead the matter was addressed in a quiet and understated way that nevertheless resisted argument (bar basically emotional 'special pleading').

Is he right though? Relatedly, I know from experience, as I'm sure many of us do, that seeing 'ghosts' so often suggestively occurs either a) when I'm tired, or b) when I've recently emerged from sleep, or c) when it's late at night or (very) early in the morning or d) whenever I'm experiencing stress or illness or injury. Oliver quoted a number of sightings in which 'ghosts' were seen by witnesses at the foot of their beds - as unsettling as this was and as solid as these 'spectres' seemed, the likely and logical explanation for such startling incidents is for Forteans rather disappointing. Although of course it's still fascinating even if such sightings and hallucinations generally have nothing supernatural about them.
 
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Steven said:
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This book is very likely old news to Forum members but I read Oliver Sacks' Hallucinations recently. This was rather shattering to me because, although the late neurologist was never strident about it, his findings made me think that virtually all witnessed sightings - be they ghosts, religious visions etc etc - are merely mistakes or else hallucinated due to eyesight difficulties or damage/injury to the brain or mental deterioration or whatever. I found this really depressing, not least because he wasn't making a big and militant point like: "All unusual phenomena are illusions, dammit!" but instead the matter was addressed in a quiet and understated way that nevertheless resisted argument (bar basically emotional 'special pleading').

Is he right though? Relatedly, I know from experience, as I'm sure many of us do, that seeing 'ghosts' so often suggestively occurs either a) when I'm tired, or b) when I've recently emerged from sleep, or c) when it's late at night or (very) early in the morning or d) whenever I'm experiencing stress or illness or injury. Oliver quoted a number of sightings in which 'ghosts' were seen by witnesses at the foot of their beds - as unsettling as this was and as solid as these 'spectres' seemed, the likely and logical explanation for such startling incidents is for Forteans rather disappointing. Although of course it's still fascinating even if such sightings and hallucinations generally have nothing supernatural about them.
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Any time I’ve seen anything it’s been during daytime.
 
Steven said:
View attachment 81033

This book is very likely old news to Forum members but I read Oliver Sacks' Hallucinations recently. This was rather shattering to me because, although the late neurologist was never strident about it, his findings made me think that virtually all witnessed sightings - be they ghosts, religious visions etc etc - are merely mistakes or else hallucinated due to eyesight difficulties or damage/injury to the brain or mental deterioration or whatever. I found this really depressing, not least because he wasn't making a big and militant point like: "All unusual phenomena are illusions, dammit!" but instead the matter was addressed in a quiet and understated way that nevertheless resisted argument (bar basically emotional 'special pleading').

Is he right though? Relatedly, I know from experience, as I'm sure many of us do, that seeing 'ghosts' so often suggestively occurs either a) when I'm tired, or b) when I've recently emerged from sleep, or c) when it's late at night or (very) early in the morning or d) whenever I'm experiencing stress or illness or injury. Oliver quoted a number of sightings in which 'ghosts' were seen by witnesses at the foot of their beds - as unsettling as this was and as solid as these 'spectres' seemed, the likely and logical explanation for such startling incidents is for Forteans rather disappointing. Although of course it's still fascinating even if such sightings and hallucinations generally have nothing supernatural about them.
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Many of my main paranormal experiences have been when I am awake and alert, mostly during the daytime and usually when I'm out and about... in a bookshop, visiting a church etc.

Sure, a reductive materialist would claim it is all in the mind. I am not a reductive materialist. I could equally say that fatigue allows other realities to impinge upon our own as brain-built filters break down... I don't necessarily claim that, but I  do view it as a possibility.

It also doesn't allow for those paranormal experiences that are not purely subjective, such as moving and vanishing objects, sometimes witnessed by more than one person.
 
Steven said:
View attachment 81033

This book is very likely old news to Forum members but I read Oliver Sacks' Hallucinations recently. This was rather shattering to me because, although the late neurologist was never strident about it, his findings made me think that virtually all witnessed sightings - be they ghosts, religious visions etc etc - are either due to specific areas of the brain becoming activated or merely mistakes or else hallucinated due to eyesight difficulties or damage/injury to the brain or mental deterioration or whatever. I found this really depressing, not least because he wasn't making a big and militant point like: "All unusual phenomena are illusions, dammit!" but instead the matter was addressed in a quiet and understated way that nevertheless resisted argument (bar basically emotional 'special pleading').

Is he right though? Relatedly, I know from experience, as I'm sure many of us do, that seeing 'ghosts' so often suggestively occurs either a) when I'm tired, or b) when I've recently emerged from sleep, or c) when it's late at night or (very) early in the morning or d) whenever I'm experiencing stress or illness or injury. Oliver quoted a number of sightings in which 'ghosts' were seen by witnesses at the foot of their beds - as unsettling as this was and as solid as these 'spectres' seemed, the likely and logical explanation for such startling incidents is for Forteans rather disappointing. Although of course it's still fascinating even if such sightings and hallucinations generally have nothing supernatural about them.
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This is one of the reasons why I discount almost all ghost sightings that start 'I had just woken up/fallen asleep' and continue 'I know I was awake and not dreaming, because.....' It's almost as though nobody has ever heard of hypnopompic or hypnogogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis.
 
Steven said:
View attachment 81033

This book is very likely old news to Forum members but I read Oliver Sacks' Hallucinations recently. This was rather shattering to me because, although the late neurologist was never strident about it, his findings made me think that virtually all witnessed sightings - be they ghosts, religious visions etc etc - are either due to specific areas of the brain becoming activated or merely mistakes or else hallucinated due to eyesight difficulties or damage/injury to the brain or mental deterioration or whatever. I found this really depressing, not least because he wasn't making a big and militant point like: "All unusual phenomena are illusions, dammit!" but instead the matter was addressed in a quiet and understated way that nevertheless resisted argument (bar basically emotional 'special pleading').

Is he right though? Relatedly, I know from experience, as I'm sure many of us do, that seeing 'ghosts' so often suggestively occurs either a) when I'm tired, or b) when I've recently emerged from sleep, or c) when it's late at night or (very) early in the morning or d) whenever I'm experiencing stress or illness or injury. Oliver quoted a number of sightings in which 'ghosts' were seen by witnesses at the foot of their beds - as unsettling as this was and as solid as these 'spectres' seemed, the likely and logical explanation for such startling incidents is for Forteans rather disappointing. Although of course it's still fascinating even if such sightings and hallucinations generally have nothing supernatural about them.
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The problem with his theory it's a theory that attempts to explain everything, and like all over attempts it falls flat, I have no doubt that some reported phenomena are hallucinations but, I honestly believe that some of it is induced by whatever is behind it, who knows but if it could have been explained by this theory we would not be sat here discussing it
 
Yep. For example, Dr Sacks noted the similarity between the elves, faeries etc of legend and the elf-like creatures often 'seen' by people under the influence of DMT. Surely that could just be a coincidence rather than an indication that these sightings & drug-induced visions are basically the same illusion/delusion?
 
Steven said:
Yep. For example, Dr Sacks noted the similarity between the elves, faeries etc of legend and the elf-like creatures often 'seen' by people under the influence of DMT. Surely that could just be a coincidence rather than an indication that these sightings & drug-induced visions are basically the same illusion/delusion?
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I think co incidence only stretches so far. Ditto the circles that feature so heavily in all forms of prehistoric art among widely spread cultures - co incidence or some artifact of the human brain?
 
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