Parapsychologists and self-styled ghost-hunting organizations are just two examples of people who seek out the existence of ghosts. This resource, examines ghost hunting as a cultural and scientific phenomenon, sidestepping the many issues surrounding the reality of ghosts, and discussing the many and varied methods used by ghost hunters. Taking the approach that there is no such thing as the supernatural, only things we don't yet understand, the ghost experience is examined through case studies; the forms and functions that ghost hunters have taken down through history are analyzed; key historical figures and their influence on the research of ghostly phenomena are reviewed; ghost hunting in the 21st century, including the exploding phenomenon of Internet ghost-hunting organizations, is discussed; and the advances in the theory and technology of the parapsychology field are covered. For those who are skeptical about the reality of ghosts but who want to understand how so many individuals claim to have anomalous experiences, this book reviews the data, offers insight into logical explanations, and discusses why this is and has been for centuries such an important issue to humans.

Northern Virginia is full of stories of bravery, tragedy, and ghosts. Take a tour of some of the most well-known haunts in the region, including Gadsby's Tavern, where a strange couple left a mystery behind, the Carlyle House, where a jealous female ghost resides, and the Woodlawn Plantation, where the ghosts of slaves still work. But hauntings are not limited to Alexandria. In Occoquan, there's a story of lust, jealousy, and murder that keeps an Indian ghost at the Occoquan Inn. In Dumfries, learn about the spirit of a girl who died in seclusion because people believed she was demon-possessed. In Leesburg, meet a little ghost girl looking to play Hide and Seek. From ghostly strangers and nightmares, to body parts found in unknowing residents' homes, you'll find them in Haunted Alexandria.

The Monterey Peninsula, in California, is alive with ghosts and spirits. Spend time with a ghostly lady in a black dress who occupies a rocking chair at the Robert Louis Stevenson House. Read about a phantom woman in Pebble Beach who frightens drivers when she appears in the middle of the road. Examine the peculiar appearances of Monterey's famous sea serpent, "Bobo," and the ghost of Father Junipero Serra that returns annually to Carmel Mission to say Mass. Experience disembodied voices, phantom ships, and ghostly spirits wandering historic adobes, hotels, and roadways of the Peninsula. Unusual paranormal stories are compiled here, including the ghost of a Chinese fisherman, a Devil's Ship, a Haunted Lighthouse, and more.

Tour ghostly Bay City, Michigan and read tales of Native American residents as well as the legend of Paul Bunyan and other lumberjacks who traveled down Hell's Half Mile, the roughest stretch of land in the state. Ghosts still haunt the city and surrounding areas of Midland and Saginaw. Explore Bay City Theatre, with its ghost chair for the former manager. Pine Ridge Cemetery has Civil War soldiers who communicate beyond the grave. Read about the haunted home where spirits hide keys, write messages on walls and carpets, and leave objects from the spirit world. These haunts will chill you well into the night.

Journey to thirteen of Virginia's most haunted Civil War sites in search of spectral residents. Hear stories that have swayed skeptics and learn about new encounters with Civil War ghosts. Visit Cold Harbor, Henry House Hill, and the Bull Run Bridge at Manassas, Fredericksburg's Sunken Road, Grant's Headquarters at Appomattox Manor, and many more ghostly places! Do spirits still replay the past at Virginia's battlefields? Most definitely.

Folklore and ghost stories from the Piedmont area of North Carolina come to life as told by the region's favorite performer, Cynthia Moore Brown. Hear the sad tale of "The Gentleman Ghost of Uwharrie Mountain" in Asheboro; "Lydia," the phantom hitchhiker of Jamestown; and the real-life account of Lexington's very own hero, Valentine Leonard. Rediscover fan favorites, such as the humorous "God in the Lake," the eerie tale of "The Woman with the Basket," and Old Salem's very own whistling "Little Red Man." Appearing for the first time in print, 21 spine-tingling ghost tales from the region's renowned storyteller, including four original tales composed by Cynthia herself, perpetuate the history of tradition in and around Piedmont. Each story is beautifully written out by co-author Theresa Bane to capture every blood-chilling moment of the story-telling experience. This book will delight readers of all ages and quickly become a family favorite.

Journey through the spirit-filled streets of Dallas, Texas. Relive spine-tingling tales of the phantom hitchhiker, cowboy ghosts of Preston Road, and the grave-robbing monster of Ghost Mountain. Visit the hidden ballroom of the Adolphus Hotel, where phantoms still dance the night away. Explore the creepy history of the wax museum murders and stay the night in the infamous, blood-soaked Reindeer Manor. All these and more spooky adventures await you in the Big D... if you dare visit!

Journey through haunted theaters in historic North and South Carolina! Learn history behind-the-scenes and meet the ghosts inhabiting the stages. The father of John Wilkes Booth moves objects at the Dock Street Theater in Charleston, and a ghost at ImaginOn in Charlotte calls out visitors' names. Discover the origin of superstitions surrounding the theatrical worldwhy it's good luck to wish someone to "break a leg," and what a "ghost light" is really for! From some of the oldest haunted spots in North America, read about the Lost Colony on North Carolina's Outer Banks where a disembodied voice whispers for visitors not to be afraid, and brand-new buildings like the ImaginOn in Charlotte. These stories are proof that not all the spooky characters and effects in these theaters appear on the stage.

A ghost's work is never done in Cleveland, Ohio. Within these pages abide tall tales and myths, documented reports, and weird stories of the unspeakable. Learn about Melonheads, Gore Orphanage, and the curse of the Franklin Castle. Visit a ghost that stops a train (repeatedly), a phantom black dog that sinks ships, and a bloody, clutching hand that terrorizes a family. For the skeptic, the seeker, the storyteller, and the weekend spook-hunter, learn why the Best things in death are right here in Cleveland.

Scores of ghosts roam Civil War battlefields, streets, homes, and businesses in Adams County, Pennsylvania. Hear pots and pans rattle at the Klingle House as a ghostly woman prepares food on the battlefield for soldiers long dead. Meet Alice, the spirit of a little girl who appears at the Chestnut Hall Bed and Breakfast. Encounter a photogenic ghost in the basement of the historic Cashtown Inn. Learn about Jeremy's tragic death and how his mourning father still walks the halls at the Farnsworth House. Read a police officer's confession: he watched Flossy walk from the turret balcony into the Bechtel Victorian Mansion...without opening the door. Stick close as you walk the towns of Adams County; you may not be walking alone.

Nestled at the sourthern tip of New Jersey, beautiful Cape May is the perfect historical backdrop for some very ghostly haunts! Psychic Laurie Hull gives her impressions of Cape May's top beach sites and interacts with its ghostly past. Meet talkative ghosts at Elaine's Haunted Mansion and learn the heartwarming story of a child ghost who lingers with today's patrons. Consider exploding glasses at the Southern Mansion. Visit a speakeasy ghost at the Queen Victoria Bed and Breakfast. These and other ghostly Cape May beach tales will chill you to the bone!

This book describes the haunting of eighteenth-century England. It is the first in-depth study of the production, circulation and consumption of English ghost stories during the Age of Reason. This period saw the establishment of the ghost story as a literary genre. Handley combines close textual analysis with a broad conception of historical change. She examines a variety of mediums: ballads and chapbooks, newspapers, sermons, medical treatises and scientific journals, novels and plays. She relates the telling of ghost stories to wider changes associated with the Enlightenment, arguing that they played a key role in battles against atheism, republicanism, material excess and secularisation.

Wyoming is filled with ghosts and haunted adventures. Sleep at the Ferris Mansion where a mischievous spirit of a little boy resides. Take a hike to Big Horn Medicine Wheel and experience the history and spirits that reside within the sacred Wheel. Grab a magazine at a drug store where the late owner likes to be greeted each morning. Visit a ghost town where a former serial killer still walks on an unearthly plane. Find out about Yellowstones mysteries, as well as the spirits that still roam the many caves and grooves of Wyomings landscapes. Learn the signs to determine when ghosts are near and what you can do to protect yourself from them! Wyoming has plenty of hauntings just waiting for you!

On any given night, hundreds of guests walk the darkened streets of Colonial Williamsburg looking for ghosts. Since the early 2000s, both the museum and private companies have facilitated these hunts, offering year-round ghost tours. Critics have called these excursions a cash grab, but in truth, ghosts and hauntings have long been at the center of the Colonial Williamsburg project.The Spirit of Colonial Williamsburg examines how the past comes alive at this living-history museum. In the early twentieth century, local stories about the ghosts of former residents—among them Revolutionary War soldiers and nurses, tavern owners and prominent attorneys, and enslaved African Americans—helped to turn Williamsburg into a desirable site for historical restoration. But, for much of the twentieth century, the museum tried diligently to avoid any discussion of ghosts, considering them frivolous and lowbrow. Alena Pirok explores why historic sites have begun to embrace their spectral residents in recent decades, arguing that through them, patrons experience an emotional connection to place and a palpable understanding of the past through its people.

A collection of supernatural tales and ghostly legends from around the state, including the Barre Vampire, the Thetford Horror, the ghost of Robert Lincoln, and the ghostly sentries of Bennington Monument. Divides the state by regions and gives the best tales of each.

Tour of one of the most haunted landscapes in the United States. Walk the halls of the chilling Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, a place that gave even Stephen King the creeps. Explore legends of Doc Holiday at the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs and visit his grave to see his ghost. Learn about "unsinkable" Molly Brown's haunted home in Denver, and read ghost stories that have haunted the Colorado Rockies for centuries. These places and more will chill you to the bone!

Ghosthunting Colorado is your one-stop source for everything that goes bump in the night In the 1800s, Colorado quickly became the heart and soul of the gold rush that eventually brought the territory into statehood. Thousands flocked to cities like Leadville in the hopes of finding their fortunes. Many of Colorado's most famous ghosts, such as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," have their roots in Colorado's colorful mining history. Alfred Packer, the state's sentenced cannibal, also came to Colorado for gold, but there are more than just the spirits of miners here. The eyes of paranormal enthusiasts have long been on the Centennial State due to the fame that Stephen King's The Shining brought to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. The stories of Colorado's mountainous hotel seem to have taken on a life of their own, making the building supposedly one of the most haunted in the country. The Stanley, however, is not the only haunted hotel in Colorado. Multiple inns and hotels in Denver alone have histories as sites of brothels, suicides, and other deaths that make their victims decide to stay in their beloved rooms forever. The oldest hotel in Denver, The Oxford Hotel has ghosts aplenty and a "Murder Room" to boot. A bed and breakfast in Capitol Hill called The Patterson Inn used to be the mansion of Colorado's first state senator. The 14,000squarefoot building is made of red sandstone native to the Garden of the Gods area. The mansion is also the source of several urban myths, such as the tale of "Willy," a satanic undertaker who lived in the carriage house and is said to have kidnapped and killed small boys. Outside of Denver, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado are considered to be one of the best destinations in the country for hiking and skiing. The mountains appeal to spirits, as well, including the ghost of a woman who was supposedly murdered by her husband and who is now said to hitchhike on the roads near Pike's Peak. The world-famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison is not without its ghosts. Concertgoers and employees have seen the apparition of a miner in restricted areas of the venue, while the Hatchet Lady of Red Rocks terrorizes lovers in the surrounding park. Author Kailyn Lamb looks at locations throughout the state and dives headfirst into the history behind the ghosts and what has made them stay.

From essays about the Salem witch trials to literary uses of ghosts by Twain, Wharton, and Bierce to the cinematic blockbuster "The Sixth Sense," this book is the first to survey the importance of ghosts and hauntings in American culture across time. From the Puritans' conviction that a thousand preternatural beings appear every day before our eyes, to today's resurgence of spirits in fiction and film, the culture of the United States has been obsessed with ghosts. In each generation, these phantoms in popular culture reflect human anxieties about religion, science, politics, and social issues.
"Spectral America "asserts that ghosts, whether in oral tradition, literature, or such modern forms as cinema have always been constructions embedded in specific historical contexts and invoked for explicit purposes, often political in nature. The essays address the role of "spectral evidence" during the Salem witch trials, the Puritan belief in good spirits, the convergence of American Spiritualism and technological development in the nineteenth century, the use of the supernatural as a tool of political critique in twentieth-century magic realism, and the "ghosting" of persons living with AIDS. They also discuss ghostly themes in the work of Ambrose Bierce, Edith Wharton, Gloria Naylor, and Stephen King.

Journey through New Englands darkest places and read 22 of its scariest stories and urban legends. Explore mysterious cryptids like the Dover Demon, Pigman, the Sea Serpent of Gloucester, the Dublin Lake Monster, and the Derry Fairy. Meet Champ, the legendary lake monster of Lake Champlain, and a fisherman who found himself thirty feet from the beast. See the grave of Midnight Mary and the Desert of Maine, and judge for yourself if their curses are real. Try to walk with the Leather Man and wonder why he chooses to walk alone. Visit The House of the Seven Gables and The Shunned House, both famous in literature, and learn of ghosts that still linger there. Cross Emilys Bridge in Vermont, creep over the alleged vampire Mercy Browns grave in Rhode Island, and more. New England promises to scare you!

Explore the Main Line in Pennsylvania where there are a multitude of haunted locations! Find out what lurks in the lagoon at Westminster Cemetery. Meet the ghosts of Harriton House and specters that haunt the General Wayne Inn. Walk the haunted halls of higher learning at Bryn Mawr College. And don't be surprised if you find a ghost as you travel from one place to another along the Main Line suburban area. From haunted mansions to apartment buildings, Philly's Main Line Haunts will chill you to the bone.

Real firsthand encounters of paranormal experiences are related straight from Minnesotas most haunted places. Visit the actively haunted Lakeview Cemetery where the Potter's Field for Shaw Hospital was born. Interact with a ghostly potato garden spirit who resides at Moon Lake. It makes rounds through the house that sits on its grave. Eavesdrop on a paranormal investigation at Union Depot, where a bodiless apparition moves between train cars. At the haunted Grand Marais home, singing star Barry Cowsill roams with other ghostly souls.Gather tips from a first-rate investigative team, the Northern Minnesota Paranormal Investigators, who will take you through some of the best ghostly hangouts in the country. Minnesota's ghosts will haunt you.

Massachusetts, the birthplace of America, is home to some of the most fascinating haunts in the world. Colonial ghosts still watch over their ancient inns in Concord and Charlemont. A railroad tunnel under the Mohawk Trail is doomed by the spirits of those who perished while digging it. The unearthly shrieks of a banshee in Marblehead chills the very marrow of those who must endure its curse. And phantom trawlers ply the waters near Gloucester. You will also experience tales of reincarnated souls, haunted lighthouses, mythical creatures, and remains of ancient civilizations. Investigations into haunted mansions and taverns reveal that the people of the past still reside with those of the present. Glowing gravestones, witches, ghost towns and haunted quarries are among the encounters that will bring you to the edge of alarm. Forty-one towns and cities hold legends and mysteries that stretch beyond the imagination into the chilling realm of the macabre. Follow, if you dare.

Based on fieldwork in the north Indian state of Rajasthan, this book focuses on supernatural affliction - illness and misfortune ascribed to demonic spirits or ghosts and to other mystical agents, such as sorcerers and witches. The study augments and extends the existing scholarship on a range of issues, including inter alia beliefs about spirit possession, sorcery, witchcraft and the evil eye. The themes of ritual practice, especially exorcism or healing ceremonies, Hindu priests and curers, popular Hinduism and pilgrimage are discussed, and the anthropology of South Asia is explored with an emphasis on medical anthropology and Indian ethnomedicine. At a theoretical level, the book sharply contrasts with much of the literature on spirit possession or on supernatural affliction and its treatment, as the author's phenomenological orientation involves movement away from psychological or psychiatric paradigms as well as from other forms of Western rationalism that have tended to dominate scholarly work. The book thus offers fresh insights, both in terms of understanding supernatural malaise and its treatment, and in terms of the application of the approach the author engages.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203222539

Orlando, Florida, has more to offer than theme parks and vacation spots-there are ghosts aplenty! Meet an actress-turned-professor at Rollins College, still giving her students advice from beyond the grave. Take a stroll through Leu Gardens with a few of the ghostly residents that will not leave, and dare to walk around Rouse Road Cemetery to face the vengeful spirit of Benjamin Miles. Orbs and goosebumps await you in Oviedo with the strange green balls of ghost light that hover and sometimes chase those brave enough to go looking for them, known only as the Oviedo Lights. Be it folklore or fact, Orlando is waiting to disclose all its haunted secrets to you.

Unravel the mysteries surrounding some of Music City's most recognizable landmarks. Who has been ringing the bells at St. Mary's Catholic Church in the dead of night? Is Andrew Jackson's spirit still riding his ghostly stallion through his plantation home, the Hermitage? Why have there been reports of ghostly fighting at the State Capitol? Learn of the terror in Room 711 at the Union Station Hotel and in Civil War morgues and hospitals that still bear phantom forms of Confederate soldiers. Decide for yourself if Hank William's apparition is still performing at the Ryman Auditorium. Nashville's tragic love stories and grisly murders are as fascinating as the haunted tales themselves!