Ghosts: A Natural History: 500 Years of Searching for Proof

This book proved quite disappointing to me. Much of it is just like so many others and that is one example of a haunting after another. The difference is that the vast majority of these are quite old and the author generally debunks almost all of these. These are also all ghost sightings in Britain. Period.

The author does do a good job of classifying the types of sightings. He also notes that the types of ghosts reported change with time and the place and culture in which they were seen.

Then he writes something I would need a lot of proof to believe, and that is that gothic novels were written mainly by gay men and women with asthma. He also says that many old tales of ghosts were used to cover up various crimes.

He says three things alter our perception of ghosts and those include religion, the media and social status.

Overall, then, this is not, at least for me, a good book.

Main index page

Main Unsolved Mysteries Ghosts index page