Comments on: Good books about 'unexplained' phenomena?

Question: Good books about 'unexplained' phenomena?

misteraitch — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:17:25 -0800

What are some well-written, readily-available books about, for want of a better term, 'the unexplained:' apparently psychic phenomena, apparitions, telepathy, and the like?

I have a pen-pal who is at college studying electrical engineering in north-eastern Africa. He has a great curiosity about philosophy, literature, and the arts, but books of all kinds are hard to come by where he is, so I have been sending him some of my old volumes.

He's expressed a particular interest in these 'unexplained' phenomena, but I am a skeptic, and haven't anything that fits the bill. What are some good general works on these subjects? Ideally, I suppose, I'd prefer books that would allow him to draw his own conclusions, and are neither blindly credulous nor dogmatically skeptical.

By: amyms

amyms — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:24:55 -0800

Time-Life Books has a really interesting (and well-written/researched) series on the unexplained... I'll try to find a link.

By: amyms

amyms — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:28:19 -0800

Here it is... Mysteries of the Unknown... I just noticed that the site says the series is unavailabe for ordering (which means it must be out of print), but my local library has it, so I'm sure you could direct your friend to a library (or maybe find the books on ebay?).

By: amyms

amyms — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:29:29 -0800

Oh, sorry, I realize you said "books are hard to come by"... But, hopefully you can find a set of the Time-Life books to send to him, they're worth it.

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:59:21 -0800

Man, these are super cheap on eBay.

AARRRRGH... MUST RESIST ... URGE TO BUY ... CRAP I DO NOT NEED...

By: hAndrew

hAndrew — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 01:18:47 -0800

How about a very old volume?

By: low_horrible_immoral

low_horrible_immoral — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 01:50:38 -0800

You could always get him a subscription to the Fortean Times - they tread the tightrope between credulity and forcible scepticism pretty well. Or go back to the source - I think Fort's works are all still available in print.

By: Leon

Leon — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 04:37:45 -0800

By: dnc

dnc — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 04:48:31 -0800

i really enjoyed reading anything by lyall watson. he did a book called supernature, which was him attempting to put a semi-scientific type explanation behind possible extraordinary events.

he's done a lot of different books, but supernature is the best to start with - they are relatively easy to get hold of over here in the uk.

By: popcassady

popcassady — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:20:39 -0800

I thought I was the only person to have experienced 'the old hag'... then I read, Borderlands by Mike Dash; a fantastic read. It's a good level-headed book that I would recommend to anyone.

By: ROTFL

ROTFL — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:36:55 -0800

By far the best books I've read on the subject are "Oddities" and "Enigmas" by Rupert Gould. They're old, but they've been reissued many, many times. They may even still be in print somewhere. Should be cheap and easy to get used copies if not.

By: outlier

outlier — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:37:30 -0800

I came in here to recommend Fortean Times - it has a great "accept everything, believe nothing" approach. But there's only so much weird stuff out there, so the monthly can be a bit content-lite sometimes... maybe there's a Best Of collection?

FT used to issue compendiums but gave up as it was too expensive. They still have older ones for sale on their website and are now doing computer versions I think.

Having just been beaten to it, I'll second Mike Dash's Borderlands. He used to be one of the FT crew and so has a good grip on the whole universe of anomalies. One of the FT editors is also responsible for The Rough Guide to Unexplained Phenomena (John Michell and Robert Rickard), which has a good and wide (if necessarily thin) coverage of forteana.

Two other good but more specific books are by Jim Schnabel: Round in Circles and Dark White about crop circles and ufo abductions. Both well written and even-handed up until the final verdicts.

By: santojulieta

santojulieta — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:44:02 -0800

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach. A damn fine read.

Not exactly the same subject, but Mary Roach's first book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers was both fascinating and hilarious.

By: ChuckLeChuck

ChuckLeChuck — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:27:14 -0800

Regardless of what you think about his fiction, Michael Crichton's first-person, nonfiction "Travels" totally fits the bill.

Amazon Link

From the Amazon review:

"Shuffled among these chapters are accounts of psychic experiences that include channeling, exorcism, and spoon-bending and end with a defense of "paranormal experience."

By: scody

scody — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:33:34 -0800

Enthusiastically seconding Spook by Mary Roach. I'm reading it right now and it's great. And yes, Stiff was fabulous as well. She's a firecracker of a writer.

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:47:01 -0800

My thanks to you all for your thoughtful responses. The Rough Guide to Unexplained Phenomena sounds like a fine starting-point, and most closely matches what I'd had in mind. I might well send my friend Spook and/or Borderlands too, and possibly some of the other titles suggested if he finds these to his liking.

I was interested to see that the original Time/Life Mysteries of the Unknown series extended to thirty-two volumes! The books sound excellent, but unless I were very selective, shipping them would be expensive...

Also, some of the other suggestions (Extraordinary Popular Delusions... for example), while not quite the kind of book I was thinking of, sound like works I'd like to read for myself.

By: lgyre

lgyre — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:50:02 -0800

Cosmic Trigger 1 by Robert Anton Wilson fits these criteria-- open minded but skeptical, and also lots of fun to read.

By: levijk

levijk — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:57:03 -0800

Conscious Universe by Dean Radin. Quotes Sagan, Einstein, and others about their beliefs. Includes charts on psi studies going back to the 19th century all the way to modern day.

By: jpaulholbrook

jpaulholbrook — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:11:25 -0800

Lynn McTaggart has a couple of books with a different perspective: The Field, and The Intention Experiment. Both approach the kind of phenomena you're talking about by discussing the different kinds of research that claim to support the existence of the unexplained.

I bought both of the books. I'm not convinced by either one that such things exist - but - there is more experimental work than I would have thought existed. The problem is that there isn't a counterpoint here to give the criticisms of the studies cited.

An entirely different kind of book is How To Think About Weird Things, which is a book about critical thinking using using unexplained phenomena as a vehicle.