Category: Books
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This is the second of a three-part series of excerpts from one (first-draft) chapter of the book I'm working on. —- You’ll notice that many of the cases I cite (though by no means all of them) are pretty old, dating back to the early 20th century or even to the 19th century. There are…
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With the blazing speed and singleminded determination of a roving garden slug, I’m moving forward with my nonfiction book on the afterlife. I don’t expect it to be a long or especially challenging book, but it’s taking time to organize the material and think it through. This post is the first of three excerpts that…
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In the comments thread on the last post, Amos Oliver Doyle includes a link to an issue of Psypioneer Journal that offers an exhaustive look at the puppet-photos controversy. The article, titled "Helen Duncan, Esson Maule and Harry Price," was written by Paul J. Gaunt. I can't add anything to this comprehensive overview, so I'll…
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This post is from 2008. If I were writing it now, I might give more attention to the possibility of low-level spirits communicating through the planchette, rather than focusing on "ordinary" psi. The title, by the way, is a pun on a movie called Things to Do in Jersey when You're Dead. Or at least…
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In the wake of my previous post about Michael Sudduth's critique of survival arguments, I looked up some other critiques online. I'm linking to three of them, with some excerpts. Of course, to get a full appreciation of each article, you should read the whole thing. The first, which is the shortest, comes from the…
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Dr. Michael Sudduth is the rare academic who takes evidence for postmortem survival seriously – seriously enough, in fact, that he's written a book about it for a scholarly audience: A Philosophical Critique of Empirical Evidence for Postmortem Survival. I have to admit I haven't read the book. I did start it, but I'm afraid…
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Longtime readers of this blog know that I sometimes take a break from our usual psi-related content to write about another outré topic, the Shakespeare authorship controversy. I won't reprise my reasons for disbelieving the standard story about the prodigy from Stratford, who overcame the handicap of an illiterate household and a meager education in…
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This letter was posted on The Polymath Mafia, a Facebook group. It surprised me a little, because I had no idea that science-fiction great Robert Heinlein had any interest in, or knowledge of, evidence for life after death. I did know that his fellow scribe Richard Matheson had a serious interest in the subject, which…
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Lately I've been reading Charles Mackay's famous 1852 book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. An unabridged version is available for Kindle for only $.99. The book is a carefully researched, often entertaining, occasionally tedious overview of mass movements encompassing harmless fads and fashions (the length of men's hair, the catchphrases of the…
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In some comments recently, I've recommended Leslie Kean's book UFOs: Pilots, Generals and Government Officials Go On the Record. But admittedly I don't know very much about the UFO phenomenon, so it occurred to me that I ought to try to check the book's presentation against the efforts of skeptical debunkers. The case I chose…