WOMEN OF THE PARANORMAL

Alex Matsuo. Women of the Paranormal. Privately published, 2023.

Writers exploring the history of the paranormal have often noted the prominence of women in the field, most particularly such individuals as Catharine Crowe, Helena Blavatsky, Eleanor Sidgwick, and mediums such as Florence Cook, Eusapia Palladino and the Fox sisters. 

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PHYSICS AND PSYCHICS

Richard Noakes. Physics and Psychics; The Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain. Cambridge University Press. 2019.

Psychical researchers, at least those at the more serious end will often justify the validity of their subject by referring to the many notable scientists in other areas of science who have been interested in, and often done their own research into alleged psychic phenomena.

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PARANORMAL CULTURE

Richard Reichbart. The Paranormal Surrounds Us, Psychic Phenomena in Literature, Culture and Psychoanalysis. McFarland, 2019.

I approach the word paranormal with a certain amount of apprehension. It conjures up psychics, clairvoyants, telepathy, precognition, telekinesis and ghosts. Now I am not a believer nor am I a total sceptic on these issues. There are unnatural phenomena in this world that cannot be explained by science.
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GHOST WRITINGS

Brandon Massullo. The Ghost Studies. New Page Books, 2017.

This is a genuine attempt by someone who is a trained clinical therapist and parapsychologist to scientifically evaluate reported experiences of the paranormal. The author accepts that "95% of reported ghostly encounters are not the result of mental illness"; this does not of course mean that the phenomena, which so many people (including the reviewer) have experienced, are real.
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JOURNALISTS ON THE PARANORMAL

Annie Jacobsen. Phenomena: The Secret History of the US Government’s Investigation Into Extrasensory Perception And Psychokinesis. Little Brown, 2017.

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Leslie Kean. Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife. Crown Archetype, 2017.

These two books by award winning journalists take very different approaches to the subjects they discuss. Annie Jacobsen is a cool, detached outsider, not willing to align herself with any of the factions involved. Her book has a long list of notes, and bibliography, the latter including the list of people she interviewed.
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PARANORMAL POINTERS

David Groome and Ron Roberts (editors). Parapsychology: The Science of Unusual Experiences. 2nd Edition, Routledge, 2016.

Let’s get one thing out of the way at the start, this book is mis-titled, parapsychology as such takes up only one chapter, so a more accurate title might be 'Critical Essays on the Paranormal' or 'The Psychology of the Paranormal' 
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SENSE ON PSI

Caroline Watt. Parapsychology: A Beginner’s Guide. OneWorld, 2016

In a field increasingly dominated by rival certainties, many seemingly fuelled by America’s culture wars, it was a pleasant surprise to read this admirably even-handed introduction to parapsychology. 
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JUST IMAGINE

Whitley Strieber and Jeffrey J Kripal. The Super Natural: A New Vision of the Unexplained. Tarcher, 2016.

There is no doubt that Whitley Strieber is a person of rare imagination, who produced some very effective horror stories. He also says claim to an extraordinary number of anomalous experiences, some more of which are related in this book. These include encounters with blue kobolds, a feral boy, a succubus, luminous orbs and much more including past life memories.

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WORLD OF THE SPIRIT

Christopher M. Moreman (editor) The Spiritualist Movement: Speaking With the Dead in America and Around the World. Three volumes. Prager, 2013
Volume 1: American origins and global proliferation;
Volume 2: Belief, practice and evidence for life after death;
Volume 3: Social and cultural responses.
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BELIEVING IMPOSSIBLE THINGS

Etzel Cardena, John Palmer and David-Macusson-Clavertz (Editors.) Parapsychology: A Handbook for the 21st Century. McFarland, 2015.

This large, 400-plus page work presents 31 papers under nine headings, which seeks to update the original Handbook of Parapsychology, edited by Benjamin Wolman and published by McFarland in 1985, itself an update of a work first published in 1977.
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