FLAMING MYSTERIES

Louis Proud. Borderland Phenomena. Volume One, Spontaneous Combustion, Poltergeistery and Anomalous Lights. August Night Books, 2019.

Louis Proud’s first book, Dark Intrusions, [reviewed here] examined the phenomenon of sleep paralysis, and the often alarming visions associated with them. In it he drew very much on his own experiences, and his attempts to find some sort of understanding that would allow him to come to terms with them.

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TRICK AND TREAT

S. D. Tucker. Blithe Spirits, an Imaginative History of the Poltergeist. Amberley, 2020.

The author lays out his stall in an introductory caveat lector, ‘How True Are These Tales?’: “I take the vast majority of accounts presented throughout at face value. I have made zero attempts to interview witnesses or hunt down any polts myself”. 

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A UNIVERSE OF GHOSTS

Paul Eno, Dancing Past the Graveyard: Poltergeists, Parasites, Parallel Worlds and God. Schiffer Books 2019.

Paul Eno is a former seminary student turned paranormal investigator. He trained for the Roman Catholic priesthood at seminaries in Bloomfield, Connecticut, and Ogdensburg, New York. Converting to Eastern Orthodoxy, he began studying at an Orthodox Seminary in New York City. He was already fascinated by ghosts and the afterlife, and the theological questions they raised while at the Roman Catholic seminaries.
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PROBLEMS WITH POLTERGEISTS

Jenny Ashford. The Unseen Hand: A New Exploration of the Poltergeist Phenomena. Bleed Red, 2017.

Horror story writer Jenny Ashford here looks at various types of phenomena that have been attributed to poltergeist and presents chronologies of cases showing these various symptoms. 

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POLTERGEISTS INTERNATIONAL

Patrick J Gallagher. (Editor and compiler) The Guyra Ghost: Original Newspaper Accounts of Australia’s Most Prominent Poltergeist Case. CreateSpace, 2015.

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Darren Ritson and Michael J Hallowell. Contagion: In the Shadow of the South Shields Poltergeist The Limbury Press, 2014.

I have shown in Magonia how useful local newspapers are as sources of Fortean stories and this little book provides an extensive example of how the Australian press dealt with a “poltergeist” case back in 1921. It centred around the home of a working class family in a small New South Wales town and involved mainly stones being hurled at the property from sources which evaded detection even when crowds of people ringed the house.

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WET WET WET

Jenny Ashford and Steve Mera. The Rochdale Poltergeist: A True Story. Bleed Red Books, 2015.

This little booklet co-written by an American horror story writer and a Greater Manchester ufologist and paranormal researcher deals with a poltergeist case in pre-fab bungalow in Rochdale in the hot August of 1995. The case was the subject of an article by Peter Hough in Fortean Times 89, August 1996.
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HAUNTING HUMPTY-DOO

Tony Healy and Paul Cropper. Australian Poltergeist: The Stone –Throwing Spook of Humpty Doo and Many Other Cases. Strange Nation, 2014.

The authors of “Out of the shadows: mystery animals of Australia” and “The Yowie” here provide a catalogue of Australian poltergeist cases and give detailed accounts of eleven of them.
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THE BATTERSEA POLTERGEIST

Shirley Hitchings and James Clark. The Poltergeist Prince of London: The True Story of the Battersea Poltergeist. The History Press, 2013.

In January 1956 the inhabitants of 63 Wycliffe Road, Battersea were Walter Hitchins, a 48 year old tube driver, his wife Catherine (51), who suffered from arthritis, their daughter Shirley (15) the co-author of this book, Walter’s mother Ethel, a retired district nurse and midwife, and in many ways the local matriarch, along with a male relative who did not want his identity revealed.
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SCOTTISH POLTERGEISTS

Geoff Holder Poltergeist Over Scotland. The History Press, 2013.

Taking a leaf from Harry Price’s classic Poltergeist over England, Geoff Holder presents a comprehensive list of poltergeist cases/stories from Scotland that should be of great interest to psychical researchers and folklorists alike. The book is chronologically arranged and covers the period from about 1635 up to 2012.
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THE HAUNTED GIRL

Laurie Glenn Norris, with Barbara Thompson. Haunted Girl: Esther Cox and the Great Amherst Mystery. Nimbus Publishing (Halifax N.S.), 2012.

On August 28th 1878, Esther Cox, an 18 year old girl living, along with three of her siblings, with her elder brother, her husband and their family in a rented house in Amherst, Nova Scotia, went out on a buggy ride with her boyfriend, Bob MacNeill. Things did not go well, for she came home alone, crying, and next day it was found that Bob had left town.
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SECRET HISTORY OF POLTERGEISTS

Claude Lecouteux. The Secret History of Poltergeists and Haunted Houses: From Pagan Folklore to Modern Manifestations, translated by Jon A Graham. Inner Traditions, 2012.

Claude Lecouteux, author of Return of the Dead and Phantom Armies of the Night, here turns his attention to poltergeists, tracing their manifestation and perception from antiquity to modern times. In some ways this follows the pattern established by P G Maxwell-Stuart. but what sets it apart is that its sources are mainly continental; especially from his native France.
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POLTERGEISTS ANCIENT AND MODERN

P. G. Maxwell-Stuart. Poltergeists: A History of Violent Ghostly Phenomena. Amberley, 2012.

Dr. Maxwell-Stuart here traces the history of poltergeists, or at least poltergeist phenomena from early Christian times to the present. The largest portion of the book deals with the history before the 19th century, and thus before the social construction of the concept of ‘poltergeist’.
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REVIEW ROUNDUP

Lorn Macintyre. Pitmilly House ‘Poltergeist Manor’: Terrifying Paranormal Events in a Fife Mansion House. Priormuir Press, 2011.

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Bernardo Kastrup. Dreamed Up Reality: Diving Into Mind to Uncover the Astonishing Hidden Tale of Nature. O Books, 2011.

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Brian Haughton. The Encyclopedia of Paranormal Powers: Discover the Secrets of Mind Reading, Mediums and More. David and Charles, 2010.

Lorn Macintyre's little pamphlet is an example of how a ghost story can be used as the kernel around which a local history can be constructed. In it Macintyre briefly tells the story of this now demolished house and the families that lived in it. It is illustrated with period illustrations.
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PROBLEMS WITH POLTERGEISTS

Michael Clarkson. The Poltergeist Phenomenon: An In-Depth Investigation Into Floating Beds, Smashing Glass and Other Unexplained Disturbances. New Page Books, 2011

Michael Clarkson is a Canadian journalist who has previously written a number of books on the general theme of the psychology of fear. His long term interest in poltergeists began with a visit, at of all times Halloween 1980, from a person who as a boy had been the centre of a poltergeist case 10 years before in St Catharines, Ontario.
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