"Paranormal Planet"

     If you keep your eyes and mind open, you will find that the paranormal, the miraculous, the simply inexplicable not only happen, but are not even uncommon. If you haven't had an experience which defies the paradigm of modern science, which appears to violate the laws of nature that we know, then you know somebody who has. Four years ago I published a book entitled, Apparitions: tulpas, ghosts, fairies, and even stranger things, which goes further than simple ghost stories, but explores a parallel world of non-material beings which is only occasionally perceptible to us. Now I have produced a companion volume entitled simply, Paranormal Planet in which I seek to document and explore more than a dozen aspects of the paranormal which do not involve apparitions

    Regular readers of this blog will be aware that, as someone with training in science, I always provide my sources. For this reason the book contains 231 endnotes, nearly all referring to primary sources, and when I have to deal with secondary sources, I say so. I also attempt to find a more mundane explanation before declaring an event paranormal. In dealing with apparent violations of the known laws of nature, the sum of the data is more important than any individual occurrence. In other words, although a single incident can be written off as a hoax or a misinterpretation, this becomes more and more difficult as the information accumulates. Also, I believe that nothing, no matter how bizarre, should be rejected out of hand. If it is placed in a folder there is always the possibility that, sometime in the distant future, a similar report will turn up.

    So what's it about? Well, the titles of the chapters are as follows:

1. Sorcery
2. Bursting Into Flames
3. Gravity Defied
4. Living Without Eating
5. Extrasensory Perception
6. The Psychics and the Saucers
7. Abducted by Aliens
8. Meet the Poltergeist
9. Out of Thin Air
10. Now You See It, Now Your Don't
11. Portals to Where ...?
12. Defeating the Demonic
13. Meeting the Miraculous
14. Tales from the Damascus Road

      It starts with something which similar books fail to cover: primitive magic which appears to work, described by western witnesses who appear to be reliable. In some instances I suspect there is something missing, but cannot say what. In any case, they need to be recorded before they are all forgotten.

      Next I reveal that spontaneous human combustion is not only strongly suspected, it has been actually witnessed. At the same time, levitation has been reliably recorded with respect to two very different types of people: Christian mystics and the demon possessed.

     In the chapter on ESP I explore the boundaries of this phenomenon as established by the U.S. Government's psychic spies. I explain why self-proclaimed "psychics" do not win lotteries, but can play the stock market, while ordinary people dream of winning numbers and hear voices warning them of danger.

     You might think it peculiar to have alien abductions included in the paranormal. However, if the paranormal is defined as violations of the laws of nature as we knew them, we must accept that eventually we will finally know them, and that it is possible that a more advance civilisation has already discovered them. But mainly I've included it because I'm aware that a lot of people have heard of it, but only piecemeal, and I consider they would benefit from someone who has followed the phenomenon since it began 60 years ago explaining the evidence, the pitfalls, and the controversy.

     Then we get onto poltergeists, one of the most common of paranormal phenomena. Traditionally interpreted as mischievous spirits, they are now more often interpreted as "recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis" (RSPK) or, as I prefer to call it, a "psychic tantrum": that it is all caused by the subconscious mind doing things the conscious mind never could. I examine all aspects of the phenomenon and show that both explanations are inadequate. Looking back at levitation, I wonder if it is possible for the subconscious mind to reach out and connect with some psychic force which may or may not be intelligent.

    The next couple of chapters deal with matters which appear to have some connection to the above. Chapter 13 is really weird, something I noticed only because of my custom of never throwing out fantastic stories in case they may accumulate. They appear to be portals into some parallel realities. After that, the final chapters cover areas which should be of concern to all of us: that the forces of evil, and of the divine, are everywhere present.

     As usual, the book is available in both paperback and Kindle format.