Investigating the Paranormal

Rating:
Summary: Very Careful Investigations = Highly Compelling Book
Review: Investigations of ghost and poltergeist stories are always interesting and spooky, but often times their "hokeyness" can undermine their legitimacy. However, in Tony Cornell's latest book, Investigating the Paranormal, so-called paranormal phenomena is approached in a conservative fashion, making the source -Tony Cornell himself - more believable, resulting in a much more compelling (and unsettling!) book.

Being a skeptic of paranormal phenomena, I started reading Investigating the Paranormal for something fun and different. Once I started, I could not put the book down. Each chapter presents a different one of his cases, whether it was an alleged haunting, poltergeist or other paranormal phenomena. Cornell begins by presenting all the facts, including a description of each recorded incident, who saw or heard the incident, what time, etc. One never knows his exact opinion while he's reporting, because he presents the information in a very factual, non-biased fashion. To me, this built everything up and created suspense - almost every case was at least somewhat believable in my mind. I couldn't put the book down because I had to get to the end of the chapter to find out his conclusion. Was there really a spiritual presence?

I recommend this book to anyone who holds even a slight interest in supernatural occurrences or beings. If nothing else, Cornell illustrates how psychic investigations can be legitimate, systematic and scientific, even though they're often ignored by traditional science.

Rating:
Summary: Very Careful Investigations = Highly Compelling Book
Review: Investigations of ghost and poltergeist stories are always interesting and spooky, but often times their "hokeyness" can undermine their legitimacy. However, in Tony Cornell's latest book, Investigating the Paranormal, so-called paranormal phenomena is approached in a conservative fashion, making the source -Tony Cornell himself - more believable, resulting in a much more compelling (and unsettling!) book.

Being a skeptic of paranormal phenomena, I started reading Investigating the Paranormal for something fun and different. Once I started, I could not put the book down. Each chapter presents a different one of his cases, whether it was an alleged haunting, poltergeist or other paranormal phenomena. Cornell begins by presenting all the facts, including a description of each recorded incident, who saw or heard the incident, what time, etc. One never knows his exact opinion while he's reporting, because he presents the information in a very factual, non-biased fashion. To me, this built everything up and created suspense - almost every case was at least somewhat believable in my mind. I couldn't put the book down because I had to get to the end of the chapter to find out his conclusion. Was there really a spiritual presence?

I recommend this book to anyone who holds even a slight interest in supernatural occurrences or beings. If nothing else, Cornell illustrates how psychic investigations can be legitimate, systematic and scientific, even though they're often ignored by traditional science.

Rating:
Summary: Mostly good, but uneven
Review: Like another reviewer, I was unsettled by Cornell's acceptance of a fairy picture that looks all too faked. It does indeed remind me of the stories of Conan Doyle accepting the similarly faked fairy photos so long ago, but in today's world when photo fakery and special effects are so much more sophisticated it calls a lot of his other work in this book into question. On the other hand, there are a lot of good points about the book, so I would recommend it to anyone interested in ghosts and the paranormal. For a more scientific approach, I would have to recommend Joshua Warren's How to Hunt Ghosts or Troy Taylor's Guidebook.

Rating:
Summary: Mostly good, but uneven
Review: Like another reviewer, I was unsettled by Cornell's acceptance of a fairy picture that looks all too faked. It does indeed remind me of the stories of Conan Doyle accepting the similarly faked fairy photos so long ago, but in today's world when photo fakery and special effects are so much more sophisticated it calls a lot of his other work in this book into question. On the other hand, there are a lot of good points about the book, so I would recommend it to anyone interested in ghosts and the paranormal. For a more scientific approach, I would have to recommend Joshua Warren's How to Hunt Ghosts or Troy Taylor's Guidebook.

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent, Unflappable Tony Cornell!
Review: When I picked this book up, I noticed something oddly familiar about the picture on the back. Then a memory flashed of an enjoyable evening I spent curled up on the couch next to my mother back in 1964. We were watching an incredible, British-made T.V. special on ghosts that included an odd light moving about in a sealed castle room and the taped singing of what appeared to be ghostly monks. I broke open the book--and there it was! Mr. Cornell was featured in this show.

This is by far one of the most intelligently written books that I have encountered on this subject. Mr. Cornell presents the evidence for many spontaneous cases and proceeds to give an admirably even-handed analysis. His cases stretch back over 55 years of research, and they run the gamut from obvious hoaxes to real puzzlers.

There were a few draw-backs, however. After such a splendid show of intelligence, Mr. Cornell calls it all into question by including a photograph of miniature nuns and Indians (also tiny) engaged in lilliputian activities in tall grass close to a group of young girls. When I saw the picture I immediately thought of the Kottingly fairies, and I dropped my head in my hands and groaned gustily through half-clenched teeth when I read Mr. Cornell's attestation of authenticity! Shades of Conan-Doyle! The chapter on ghosts and animals was also a bit of a throw-away.

All in all, though, this book is a must-have for serious researchers. Tony Cornell shows us all how it should be done in almost every case.

If I were investigating an out-break of rampant, disembodied [pick your enigmatic action] and wished to choose my dream team, Tony Cornell would be my go-to man. A Michael Jordan of a researcher, and totally unflappable in the witching hours to be sure!