The Mary Roach of psychic phenomena?
November 13, 2021 7:41 PM Subscribe
I love Mary Roach's approach to researching the afterlife in Spook. She gathers information and experiences without trying to sway the reader into dis/belief. Are there writers who use similar approaches to write about psychic phenomena (clairvoyance, telepathy, etc). Nothing about afterlife communication, and I'm hoping for a tone that isn't woo but respectfully curious. Anything come to mind?
The Oh No Ross and Carrie podcast does an excellent job of reporting on weird things while staying pretty polite and neutral.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:54 PM on November 13, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:54 PM on November 13, 2021 [3 favorites]
A Fortune Teller Told Me by Tiziano Terzani is about a foreign correspondent who was told by a fortune teller in the 70s not to travel by air in 1993. I won’t spoil it, but the author wants to write a slightly gimmicky travel book and ends up writing a book that’s a little more profound - one that’s both about “slow travel” and about fortune tellers and their believers.
You asked for respectfully curious - he starts the book a sceptic and while he never really comes off the fence, he has one early experience that is striking and hard to explain and that lends the book a more open-minded tone than it would have had otherwise. He visits a lot of fortune tellers in various Asian countries, some of whom he finds more convincing than others. But the tone overall I would say is respectfully curious, and the book is worth reading.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 12:32 AM on November 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
You asked for respectfully curious - he starts the book a sceptic and while he never really comes off the fence, he has one early experience that is striking and hard to explain and that lends the book a more open-minded tone than it would have had otherwise. He visits a lot of fortune tellers in various Asian countries, some of whom he finds more convincing than others. But the tone overall I would say is respectfully curious, and the book is worth reading.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 12:32 AM on November 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
"Living with a Wild God" by Barbara Ehrenreich might please you.
posted by heatherlogan at 6:56 AM on November 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by heatherlogan at 6:56 AM on November 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
This one on UFOs has that approach, and I found it very readable and entertaining. I suspect his other books on esoterica are similar - I've read a couple and they've all been good.
posted by restless_nomad at 3:49 PM on November 14, 2021
posted by restless_nomad at 3:49 PM on November 14, 2021
"Who Killed My Daughter?" is a non-fiction book by Lois Lowry, an author who wrote a lot of award-winning suspense novels. It's been years since I read it, but I remember it as being quite interesting. She details the use of psychics in finding her daughter's murderer.
posted by bearette at 7:51 PM on November 14, 2021
posted by bearette at 7:51 PM on November 14, 2021
The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World
posted by Bron at 7:20 AM on November 15, 2021
posted by Bron at 7:20 AM on November 15, 2021
I’ve been thinking about reading Randall Sullivan's The Miracle Detective out of motives that bear a strong family resemblance to yours.
His explorations confine themselves mainly to a Catholic context as far as I know, but I heard several interviews with him when his book came out, and I was very impressed with his intelligence, penetration, and determination to get at the facts and distill from them the truth — or at least a truth. And though I am an atheist, my guess is that strong religious beliefs predispose a person to experience real psychic phenomena under the assumption that they exist in the first place.
posted by jamjam at 12:57 AM on June 2, 2022
His explorations confine themselves mainly to a Catholic context as far as I know, but I heard several interviews with him when his book came out, and I was very impressed with his intelligence, penetration, and determination to get at the facts and distill from them the truth — or at least a truth. And though I am an atheist, my guess is that strong religious beliefs predispose a person to experience real psychic phenomena under the assumption that they exist in the first place.
posted by jamjam at 12:57 AM on June 2, 2022
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posted by j_curiouser at 9:05 PM on November 13, 2021