Sunday, October 4, 2015

Review: 'Ghosts: A Haunted History'


“It is obvious that the most skeptical amongst us wants to believe in ghosts.”

Speaking as one of the most skeptical of people, I can confirm that Lisa Morton speaks the truth in Ghosts: A Haunted History. I don't believe for a second that anything happens after the last gasp but a lot of decomposing, but I do love the idea of unexplainable spirits drifting through the night and all the other bunk that makes Morton's new book such a delicious curl-up-on-the-sofa-on-a-stormy-night read.

Our ghost host drifts so quickly through all the legends, literary and cinematic confabulations, religious spirits, “real life” spooks, huckster spiritualists, and pseudo-science ghostbusters who haunt her book that the old skepticism never has a chance to kick in. So Ghosts reads like a handy Reader’s Digest version of centuries of paranormal history which find our central creatures shifting shape from culture to culture so elastically that they eventually start to resemble Manimal more than Casper.

As for Morton, she never lets her own stance on the existence of ghosts slip (though she does not refrain from explaining when an incident has been properly debunked), so believers will not have to worry about having their lovely fantasies shaken. According to the author, those believers account for half of all Americans (and one third of the country’s population believe they’ve actually lived in a haunted house!)… a statistic more unsettling than all the child murdering, ectoplasm chucking, and YouTube abuse she chronicles throughout this Halloween season must-read.
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