Peter Aykroyd spent his childhood watching his family's parlor séances through the crack of a basement door. Here, for the first time, Aykroyd tells the strange and delightful story that inspired his son, Dan, to make the mega-hit, Ghostbusters. Part history, part family legend, A History of Ghosts starts in 1848 in upstate New York, where the spiritualist craze first began. Aykroyd introduces the reader to notable mediums while telling the story of the development of spiritualism, interweaving a personal history marked by a fascination with ghosts and spirits with the larger narrative about the role the paranormal has played in our culture. Such legendary figures as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini appear and vanish. Everyone loves a good ghost story. Successful TV shows such as Medium and Ghost Hunters are proof that our national obsession with ghosts is here to stay. Millions of Americans believe in the paranormal—and even skeptics have heard a bump in the night and suspected it might be something supernatural.

A natural history of the supernatural from Roger Clarke, lifelong investigator into England's creepiest real-life ghost stories 'Is there anybody out there?' No matter how rationally we order our lives, few of us are completely immune to the suggestion of the uncanny and the fear of the dark. The subject of whether ghosts exist has fascinated some of the finest minds in history and it remains a subject of overwhelming interest today. This is the first comprehensive, authoritative and readable history of the evolution of the ghost in the west, examining as every good natural history should, the behaviour of the subject in its preferred environment: the stories we tell each other. What explains sightings of ghosts? Why do they fascinate us? What exactly did the haunted see? What did they believe? And what proof is there? Taking us through the key hauntings that have obsessed the world from the poltergeist of Cock Lane through the true events that inspired The Turn of the Screw and the dark events of Borley Rectory right up to the present day, Roger Clarke unfolds a story of class conflict, charlatans and true believers. His surprising castlist ranges from Samuel Johnson to John Wesley, and from Harry Houdini to Adolf Hitler. Inspired by a childhood spent in two haunted houses, Roger Clarke has spent much of his life trying to see a ghost. Written as grippingly as the best ghost fiction, A Natural History of Ghosts takes us on an unforgettable hunt through the most haunted places of the last five hundred years and our longing to believe.

From that cheerful puff of smoke known as Casper to the hunkiest potter living or dead, Sam Wheat, there is probably no more iconic entity in supernatural history than the ghost. And these are just recent examples. From the earliest writings such as the Epic of Gilgamesh to today’s ghost-hunting reality TV shows, ghosts have chilled the air of nearly every era and every culture in human history. In this book, Lisa Morton uses her scholarly prowess—more powerful than any proton pack—to wrangle together history’s most enduring ghosts into an entertaining and comprehensive look at what otherwise seems to always evade our eyes. Tracing the ghost’s constantly shifting contours, Morton asks the most direct question—What exactly is a ghost?—and examines related entities such as poltergeists, wraiths, and revenants. She asks how a ghost is related to a soul, and she outlines all the different kinds of ghosts there are. To do so, she visits the spirits of the classical world, including the five-part Egyptian soul and the first haunted-house, conceived in the Roman playwright Plautus’s comedy, Mostellaria. She confronts us with the frightening phantoms of the Middle Ages—who could incinerate priests and devour children—and reminds us of the nineteenth-century rise of Spiritualism, a religion essentially devoted to ghosts. She visits with the Indian bhuta and goes to the Hungry Ghost Festival in China, and of course she spends time in Mexico, where ghosts have a particularly strong grip on belief and culture. Along the way she gathers the ectoplasmic residues seeping from books and film reels, from the Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto to the 2007 blockbuster Paranormal Activity, from the stories of Ann Radcliffe to those of Stephen King. Wide-ranging, informative, and slicked with over fifty unearthly images, Ghosts is an entertaining read of a cultural phenomenon that will delight anyone, whether they believe in ghosts or not.

This book presents one hundred real-life stories from the nineteenth century press. Along with accounts of ghosts, poltergeists, and haunted houses, we meet extraordinary reports of the dying appearing hundreds or thousands of miles from the sight of their death, and living people who quite literally appear in two places at once. Analysing and interpreting these stories in the light of modern paranormal events and scientific findings, Century aims to show that ghosts and poltergeists certainly do exist. It offers a range of persuasive theories about what they really are and what they mean, and screws the microscope down on the details of ghost sightings and poltergeist incidents. Why are some ghosts grey or vague, and others able to pass as living people? Can ghosts speak? How do ghosts or poltergeists use human energy, and particularly the energy of the young or the traumatised? How do such phenomena relate to light, to electromagnetism, and even the body's circadian rhythms? This is a book about ghosts and poltergeists by someone who never expected to take them seriously. It is a book inspired by the strange experience of continually hearing such stories from people who kept them hidden until they were prompted to speak. It aims to help those who have suffered from the trauma of poltergeists, and to bring back into the open experiences which, in the developed world, have become a new kind of taboo. It is a book for anyone interested in the extraordinary effects of human emotion; the fringes of biology and physics; and the possible survival of human consciousness after death.

Bestselling author and ghost historian MJ Wayland explores America's haunted heritage. As well as visiting some of the most famous ghost cases of the time, the author also uncovers ghost stories that have never seen print in over a hundred and fifty years! From the downright chilling, to scary and the weird, this collection of REAL ghost stories is ideal for a Halloween thrill or an insight into a unique haunted history. The real life ghost cases include: Faces in the Windows The Haunted Bedstead The Ghost Clock of Boston Poor Bessie Brown The Jonah Three Stories of Hauntings Good News for Ghosts Des Moines's Plague of Ghosts Shooting a Ghost A Live Spook The Return of Dr. Jewel Forbes Manor Ghosts in the Capitol Jonelle Lambkin Rings the Bell Mrs. Warfield's Haunted House Mumler's Spirit Photography Scared to Death by a Ghost The Bones of Timothy Felt A Ghost Hunt of Louisville The Ghost of Henry Smith Giant Ghost of Benton A Real life Daphne and Velma - Sixty Years Before! The Haunted Chamber Investigation of a haunted church The Haunting of Clara Robertson Hoffman Family Poltergeist Indiana Ghost Frenzy The Tipton Ghost An Indianapolis Haunted House Piano-Maker's Ghost The Restless Spirit of Flatbush Return of the Union Officer In Search of a Spectral Calf Unseen Terror of Dubuque The White Mountain Ghost of Lizzie Bourne A Seance Too Far Benjamin Stiver's Ghost Attack! The Big Joke Death by Ghost A Civil War Ghost Story AND MORE!"

Discover the spine-chilling history of ghosts and the supernatural across the world in this stunningly illustrated guide. A History of Ghosts, Spirits and the Supernatural charts the extraordinary narrative of one of the most fascinating and controversial subjects in the world, covering everything from Neolithic ancestor-worship and ancient necromancy to modern-day ghost-hunting and "creepypasta" tales, and from the Japanese onryo ("vengeful spirit") to the La Llorona ("weeping woman") of Latin America. The perfect introduction to the subject, this spellbinding volume details the numerous ways in which spirits and the spirit world have been depicted in myth and religion, folklore, art, and literature, and recounts infamous tales of haunted houses and ghost ships, séances and mediumship, poltergeists, possessions, and demonic encounters. Features profile other ghostly or “undead” beings such as vampires and werewolves, and explore the numerous reasons that ghost stories and tales of the uncanny are a common feature of cultures the world over. Entries also explore scientific theories around ghosts and hauntings, such as stone-tape theory (the idea that spirits can leave a sound impression on audio tape) or Kirlian photography (images of electrical discharges at the point of death). The most comprehensive and lavishly illustrated history of the subject available, A History of Ghosts, Spirits and the Supernatural will shock and delight you in equal measure - whether you are a believer or a sceptic.