Paranormal Investigators and the Media

[cauldronbrewer]

For the most part, my day job has little to do with horror or the supernatural. Recently, however, I conducted a study of how media messages about paranormal investigators influence belief in ghosts and haunted houses. In case anyone is curious (and with apologies for the self-promotion), here's a story about my research. I give the writer credit for name-checking Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, and Arthur Machen.

[Dr Strange]

I've often been struck by the way that "believers" will tell you how science doesn't know everything, science can't get at the essential spiritual foundations of reality, there are more things in heaven and earth, blah, blah, blah... But then they will happily jump on any weird but vaguely sciencey sounding bandwagon and say "look science proves I am right about this". There is one of these US "paranormal investigations" series running on one of our freeview channels over here just now - it can evoke a strange mixture of hilarity and anger in me that I don't think I've ever really experienced before.

[cauldronbrewer]

You might appreciate this anthology, Dr. Strange. Each story is followed by a skeptical afterword written by Asimov, plus a list of additional readings.

Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh (ed.) - Isaac Asimov Presents Tales of the Occult (1989, Prometheus Books)

Isaac Asimov - Introduction: The Occult

1. After-Death Experiences: H.G. Wells - Under the Knife
2. Astrology: Rudyard Kipling - Children of the Zodiac
3. Clairvoyance: Henry Slesar - The Girl Who Found Things
4. Death Portents: Gertrude Henderson - The Emigrant Banshee
5. Devil Worship: Nathaniel Hawthorne - Young Goodman Brown
6. Doppelgangers: Helen McCloy- Through a Glass, Darkly
7. Dumb Supper: Kris Neville - Dumb Supper
8. Evil Eye: Edgar Allan Poe- The Tell-Tale Heart
9. Exorcism: Edward Bulwer-Lytton - The House and the Brain
10. Hand of Glory: Manly Wade Wellman - The Dead Man's Hand
11. Life Bonds and Tokens: Ray Bradbury - The Scythe
12. Personality Transfer: Arthur Conan Doyle - The Great Keinplatz Experiment
13. Possession: Fritz Leiber- Do You Know Dave Wenzel?
14. Precognition: W. F. Harvey - August Heat
15. Prophecies Fulfilled: Cornell Woolrich - Speak to Me of Death
16. Reading the Future: Avram Davidson - The Women Who Thought She Could Read
17. Reincarnation: C. L. Moore - Tryst in Time
18. Seances: John Hay - The Blood Seedling
19. Soul Travel: Robert W. Chambers - The Tracer of Lost Persons and the Seal of Solomon Cypher
20. Sympathetic Magic: August Derleth - Miss Esperson
21. Telepathy: Judith Merril - Peeping Tom
22. Will Control: Edith Wharton - The Moving Finger

Asimov writes that the Bradbury story is his favorite among the ones included in the anthology. I recommend Neville's "Dumb Supper" and Woolrich's "Speak to Me of Death" to anyone who hasn't read them. I also have a sneaking fondness for Robert W. Chambers' brand of shlock.