A Paranormal Library – Real Ghosts

Visible Ink Press (TM), 2003

I would like to preface my review by stating that I have purchased all the books I review for the public.  I am in no way being paid for my reviews, but I am sharing my favorite paranormal books for your reading pleasure.  The opinions expressed in these books do not always reflect my own personal opinion, but I do find these topics fascinating.  Your purchases of these books do not monetarily benefit me, nor do I gain points with your readership or purchase.  I am sure, however, that the authors do enjoy your patronage.  Happy reading Dreamers!

This disclaimer is in reference of my use of the word “paranormal.”  My use of the word “paranormal” refers to anything that is not normal, be it ghosts, conspiracy theories or aliens.  If the topic is not part of conventional beliefs, then it is paranormal.  So please do not bombard me with comments about how something is or is not paranormal.

Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places by Brad Steiger

Brad Steiger is a writer of a thousand books, more specifically 168, from a wide range of subjects. He has recently authored Real Nightmares: True and Truly Scary Unexplained Phenomena, The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings, Second Edition, and Real Aliens: Space Beings, and Creatures from Other Worlds.

This is an amazing read regarding the subject and history of ghosts and ghost hunting.  What I found interesting is how Steiger separated the topics into chapters with wonderful titles such as “Haunted Houses and Apartments,” “Encounters with Glowing Entities and Ghost Lights,” “Spirit Parasites that Possessed,” “Restored Scenes of the Past,” and “Strange Beings that Masquerade as Humans.”  Or in other words, Haunted Houses, Orbs and other glowing beings, In-human Spirits or Malevolent Spirits, Residual Hauntings, Ghosts that Pretend to be Humans to Finish a Task.  While most of the titles in the book are by far strange and unusual, I have been absolutely fascinated by the information and personal studies Brad Steiger has conducted and researched over his career.

The information provided in the book seems very well researched, with small case studies to prove points.  I do question some of these case studies, however, as I am not sure that the studies made before the 1950’s were hoaxes or not.  Historically speaking, The Spiritualist Movement was a movement based on the idea that you could speak to those who had moved on.  One such famous Spiritualist is our own President Abraham Lincoln, who, along with his wife, went to several celebrity Mediums, such as Nettie Colburn, for séances to talk with their deceased son, Tad. The only thing I have a problem with as far as the Spiritualist Movement, was the fact that some people preyed on the emotions of their clients and told them things that the clients wanted to hear.  So, while there are articles included from the Spiritualist Movement, their credibility is far from credible, in my personal opinion.  Aside from the Spiritualist articles, there are articles regarding supposed hauntings from the past, including that of the Bell Witch, who haunted the Bell family until Mr. Bell died in 1820.  A chilling idea when the Bell Witch foretold the family that the only way she will stop haunting the family is when the master of the house died.  Researchers have hypothesized that the reason behind the Bell Witch Phenomena was due to the fact that John Bell, Sr. was committing incestual acts against his daughter Betsy, and in her distraught state, her emotions created the Bell Witch to torment her family who turned a blind eye to her plight.

Along with well researched articles, there are some questionable photographs that are sprinkled throughout the book itself.  Now while some people do believe in the existence of orbs, I personally believe that a photographed orb is just dust/rain/snow/sleet/pollen that was captured in the flash.  When I do go and take photos of supposed haunted places, I actually take a long exposure and if an orb is caught, you would know, because there would be a trail of light.  The photos shown here are in my opinion faked as many are either A. the camera strap got in the way of the lens, B. particles of some sort, or C. someone in costume to hoax the image.  In any case, here are some of the images I found questionable:

Helen Duncan

Franek Kluski

Eva C.

At almost 600 pages, with three appendices, a glossary and an index, this is definitely a book to read for those who want to brush up on the ghost subject, from the basic ideas of the 1800’s to what we today believe are ghosts.  This book did take me several months to read, due to the fact that I found some accounts fully disturbing, I can firmly say that the book is by far a great textbook on the subject of ghosts, even with the questionable content in it.  The content really does give you a look into the Ghost subject from a historical perspective to a modern perspective.

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Brad Steiger

A Paranormal Library – The Dark Sacrament

Harper Collins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2007

The Dark Sacrament: True Stories of Modern-Day Demon Possession and Exorcism , by Richard Kiely, was one of the first books I downloaded to my Nook from the Paranormal Podcast .  I was attracted to the idea of exorcism, mostly because of the freaky 1973 The Exorcist, and that there was a weird blurb in the podcast, but more on that later.

The book revolves around several cases in Ireland of either possessions or cursed land.  The cases are separated between two men, Reverend William H. Lendrum and Father Ignatius McCarthy.  The two men are highly sought-after exorcists who work in two completely different ways to rid evil Spirits.  While Reverend Lendrum discusses the different ways he expels spirits, Father Ignatius keeps his solemn oath to make sure that only those deemed an Exorcist by The Church keep the holy rite secret.

Before I go into my review, I would like to address something.  There are those who prefer to have scientific proof of these events happening, I am one of those people as well, while this book is NOT one that is based on science.  There are people in this book who did consult other professionals before contacting the two exorcists, so I took this as positive feedback towards the cases that are presented.

Now, since I was very little, I have always had an interest in the paranormal-that and I grew up in a very superstitious Catholic household.  Trust me on this, when you say the lord’s name in vain, my grandmother would cross  me, turn me around three times and spray holy water on me to prevent the devil from coming in. Interesting times!  So as I grew up learning about the paranormal, my parents would try to deter me because they didnt’ want me to get possessed, a very real possibility for a child of 10, not so much for a woman of her late twenties.

Fast forward to now, I’m not as scared about being possessed, but with a family like mine, I kind of wonder if they’re possessed or not, they tend to be on the weird side, but aside from the fact.  These superstitions that were placed in me are still around, and listening to the podcast episode regarding the book, doing my hair in the near dark climate of early February 2011, I was getting on edge a little bit, and I had turned on all of my lights due to the subject, and around half way through the discussion, I heard something whisper behind me.  It was too soft for me to hear what the whisper was saying, but loud enough to know that there was a whisper and right behind me.  Scaredy Cat me, looked into the mirror to make sure no one was behind me, and then I looked into my room.  At that point my rational mind kicked in, and I went to my phone to make sure that the phone downloaded the file weird and that was the noise that I heard,  sure enough, I heard something all right, but it was just the file, it had corrupted somehow into what sounded like a loud whisper.  I’m a weirdo I know.

The book is essentially about families, who at one point had a traumatizing event upturn their lives, and the book is about these two men who came in and helped work out these demons, angry humans, and strange what nots that occurred.  I do want to say, that while I read this book for pleasure, I in no way want this to happen to people, the pain and suffering some of these people have had in their past is something that I do not wish on my worst enemy, I also send my heart out to the people who were effected by these possessions.

One story to me stood out the most, it was about a family who had lived and owned an orchard farm in County Wexford, Ireland.  The family had lived on this property for several generations, and no one had really liked the land because of it being cursed.  In 2003, the current owner who had lived in the 200 year-old cottage that resided on the property, wanted to build a new house for his family.  Once construction was finished, and after the death of a loved one, the family started experiencing strange incidents that seemed innocent at first, but started getting more and more malevolent.   The incidents started effecting the whole family, but especially that of 15-year-old Katie, who was being attacked physically by the evil entity.

The Family had asked the Parish Priest to bless the house, but things go awry even further, and that’s when they had to call in Father McCarthy.

While I did enjoy the book, it was written as a cautionary tale for those who like dabbling in magic and playing with Ouija boards (I swear I’m not going to preach here, because I like reading about these things, so I’m very guilty).    The book is basically a discussion of how more and more people are becoming possessed in this time because we have pretty much debunked every form of possession as Schizophrenia or some other form of mental illness.  As the Reverend and the Priest have said, “The Devil is the master of disguising, and he has disguised himself under Mental Illness and false promises of richness and greed.”  Basically saying, our society has completely dismantled the idea of Possession as a form of Mental illness or other mental problem/disease.

In following with this idea, they said that as a society, as we devalue the idea of Possession, we have devalued the fear of playing with oracles (the Tarot, Ouija boards, seances, etc.), put more value on things that devalue our soul (money, sex, food, etc.), and that leaves us open for Possession, or easily influenced by things that are evil.  The two men are basically saying that everything we do in our society is making it easier for the devil to influence us.  That’s why the majority of the book discusses this subject, and at the end of the book there are four Appendices that discuss the history of exorcism in detail, The Prayer to Archangel Michael, The Lorica of St Patrick, Prayers of Exorcism and a Bibliography.

While I really don’t agree with what the book was discussing as far as our souls, I do agree with the fact that maybe we do need to take sometime and look at what is really important to us, I really can’t believe that the majority of our lives should be about money, that’s just really sad for those of us who had a job that wasn’t a really good paying one to begin with and then lose it because of saving money…makes you think that money is the root of all evil (messing by the way).

This is my first review for my Paranormal Library, I hopefully will get the better hanging of this after a while.

Dreamers, do you believe in Possession? Do you agree with what Reverend Lendrum and Father McCarthy had said about our lives today and possibility of Possession?

The ever confusing, Oracle of Dreams