Ghost Hunters: A Guide to Investigating the Paranormal

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So, it might seem reasonable to expect that I didn’t like this book. Well, it is a strange thing. Parts of this book annoyed me – but not for the content so much as how it was told. I got a bit lost at times as there seemed to be too many stories going on. But this was less a book about the cheats (oh, sorry, spiritualists) and more about those who had been cheated (oh, I mean, their scientific investigators). I did warn you that I was prejudiced. I believe this is a first book, and to be fair I did think it improved as it went along. The character of Harry Price was well drawn - a really mercurial personality. I'm going to investigate more about him. Sarah, the ex glamour model (??) never rang true for me. In fact many times I could have cheerfully slapped her. This book is much more sympathetic to spiritualists and spiritualism than I would have thought likely. If I have one prejudice it is that this stuff does not deserve anything more than laughter. The book itself claims Borley is surrounded by 'Essex marshes' but that's not true - it stands on a small hill (Suffolk is fairly flat) and is surrounded by arable fields.

Furthermore, I think my biggest disappointment with the book was the fact that I worked out the link between the prologue and the epilogue before I’d even started the first chapter, due to that I was somewhat disappointed come the end (although the ending itself was great within its own right, being a perfect ending to the book).

Success!

I came to this book knowing nothing about the subject matter but as a keen student of history and Ghosthunters did not disappoint. It started too slowly for my liking but then I found it to be drawing me more and more into the story and caring about Sarah Grey, the mysteries surrounding the haunted Borely Rectory and the strange larger than life Harry Price. This to me is a very British story. It tells of eccentricity as one man and his enterprise creating a laboratory invested in solving the paranormal mysteries of the day and of ages past. He is a showman and a self-publicist operating in a very clipped, very precise world but he is also very much part of this world. He is also a very British boffin conjuring up new devices to unmask mediums who are magicians and other paranormal fraudsters. It is also a very British story to have a situation whereby a man's qualifications and his integrity can be called into question in an area where belief is usually suspended. There are also undercurrents of secrets that must not see the light of day and repressed love that cannot be. All these events are seen from the reflection of Sarah Grey and in truth it is more her story and how events impact and how Harry impacts upon her. Sarah Grey has returned to England after a brief time as a model in Paris. She is looking for a new job, but she never expected to be offered and accepting a job as a personal assistant to Harry Price, the infamous ghost hunter. Harry has devoted himself to expose mediums and false hauntings. And, despite being temperamental and neurotic is he also very charming and Sarah can't help but be drawn to him. One of the most puzzling cases for them will be Borley Rectory. Is the place really haunted or are the rumors about it exaggerated? If you look at my read list you will find mostly romances & mysteries. Many of the authors I read include paranormal elements, or the "woo-woo" factor if you will, since that is the current fashion. William James & his colleagues would be appalled at how all their painstaking, reputation breaking work has become fodder for the mass market entertainment around the world.

In her groundbreaking book, Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Deborah Blum has masterfully retold the story of the birth of spiritualism and the scientific pursuit of “psychical research.” In the late nineteenth century, William James, renowned philosopher and psychologist, and a small group of eminent scientists staked their reputations, their careers, even their sanity on one of the most extraordinary quests ever undertaken: to empirically prove the existence of ghosts, spirits, and psychic phenomena. Deborah Blum artfully retells this story. Along with Raymond Moody’s The Last Laugh, this book should be required reading for any aspiring investigator of the paranormal. If you're a fan of spooky tales, of things that go bump in the night, of gothic fiction, detective stories, or hell, if you just fancy a good old yarn around a camp fire that will keep you wondering from start to finish, give this one a go. I can't recommend it highly enough. It's a five from me, and it's found its way on to my favourite books shelf; I'm sure it will for you too. I am very glad to be able to say, though, that the book did improve. As the story went on, it did become less of an account of "bumps in the night", flying bars of soap and heaving tables and turned into some much more subtle and chilling. It is actually difficult to say more without giving away some of the secrets of the book. But it is worth reading that first section for the sake of the ending.This is an first rate account by Deborah Blum of the emergence of a growing curiosity and serious research project regarding the existence of life after death, the possibility of communication with spirits, as well as the existence of mental telepathy. The parties involved were a group of well respected scientists and psychologists in the US, as well as the UK, in the late nineteenth century who formed the "Physical Research Society." It is hard to arugue with the respectibility of William James and Harvard as well as several other educated and determied participnts. In addition to their quest for knowledge and proof of an afterlife, they also set out to uncover the scam artists who were plentiful at the time. The work went on diligently for years by dedicated, educated people on both sides of the Atlantic, though many of their contemporaries spent a great deal of effort trying to dismiss any interest in this subject matter as pure folly. Those nay sayers and detractors made it their own mission to portray any of the documented findings in a negative and dismissive light. Written in first person, everything we read is from Sarah Grey's point of view, except at the very beginning and the very end. I don't want to say too much about this as it will give a huge part of the story away so I'll leave it at that!

Mr. Price's character has several sides to him--and none of them match up to any one person's perception of the man. Sarah's character was a bit "over-the-top" and transparent to me, but I can see why the author added her as she made for several additional branches of this story. What is very interesting is the roll call of exceptional scientists who in one way or another gave their names in support of this kind of research. From Wallace (Darwin’s co-discoverer of Evolution) to Arthur Conan Doyle. That I can think of not a single scientist who would be prepared to say that it is remotely likely that spirits can lift tables or move curtains today either proves that there has been a remarkably successful conspiracy to keep this stuff secret or modern scientific methods of detection are somewhat better at spotting fraud than they were at the start of the 20th century. This novel merges fact and fiction in an absorbing and evocative ghost story. Harry Price (1881-1948) was a real psychic researcher; a sceptic renowned for exposing fake spiritualists and best known for his investigation into Borley Rectory, called ‘the most haunted house in England.” In this book, an academic is given a manuscript by Miss Sarah Grey, which tells the story of Price’s investigation into Borley Rectory. Miss Grey was a young woman whose father had died in the first world war and who lived with her mother. Like many of her generation, her mother looked for answers in spiritualism, which flourished after the war, capitalising on grief. Sarah and her mother attend a meeting with Mr Price, after which she is fascinated by both him and his work. Before long, she has become his assistant and her life is changed forever. And indeed, I found it very hard to keep going with this book, all the way through the first two thirds. I didn't believe the characters, I kept tripping over the writing, and not much happened. The books only diverge at this point. Those in favour focus on the ‘successful’ accounts and say something like, “Although we can never really know, some doubt must always be part of the scientific method and …”

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What? People are disappointing? They're flawed and given to delusions no matter where you look? Noooo... it can't be! *sigh*

What if a world-renowned professor of psychology at Harvard University, a doctor and scientist acclaimed as one of the leading intellects of the time, suddenly announced that he believed in ghosts? At the close of the nineteenth century, to great public and professional astonishment, William James-the great philosopher, a founder of the American Psychological Association and brother of Henry James-did just that and embarked on a determined, lifelong pursuit of scientific evidence to prove it. I have to admit this book excited my interests in the studies performed by the Society for Psychical Research (The SPR’s former presidents’ list reads like the Who’s Who in Science). One reason may have been my enormous respect for the works of the father of American psychology William James who presided over the SPR from 1894 to 1895. As they repeatedly test remarkable mediums and hear overwhelming reports of ghostly warnings of loved one's deaths, these scientists become more convinced than ever that in the vast ocean of fakers, some events truly are supernatural in origin. But they face growing suspicion and ridicule from their fellow scientists and anger from spiritualists who find those they've put on pedestals tumbling down one after another. It turns out that this is Neil Spring's first published novel. It turns out he's working for John Lewis (blame Goodreads; it's not stalking - I promise, Your Honour), it also turns out that this novel is one of the best ghost stories, historical novels or gothic novels that I have read in years. Bravo, that man. Wow. Seriously, damn (said in an American accent).In the United States, William James led the charge at the helm of the American Society for Psychical Research, but his investigations seemed no more fruitful than those of his British counterparts. By 1886, Blum wrote, “their annual report… had degenerated into a list of exposures of professional practitioners.” Their experiments dismantled spiritualist claims one after another, and many members began to conclude that mental illness lay at the heart of ghost sightings. That gives me a dilemma in rating the book - sometimes I find that the hardest part of a review. if I had to judge the first part on its own, I would award it no more than two stars. For the ending, I'd give four. So overall - three stars.