The site www.archive.org is an invaluable resource for scholars of psychic phenomena and the paranormal. Using the site, you can find very many books written by witnesses of the paranormal and scholars of the paranormal. The full text of very many of these books can be read by a user who does not even bother to register at the site. Examples of such books are below:
- The astronomer Camille Flammarion's monumental three-volume work Death and Its Mystery (which you can read here, here and here);
- Flammarion's also monumental opus The Unknown;
- Catherine Crowe's long book The Night Side of Nature;
- The often cited work two-volume Phantasms of the Living by Gurney, Podmore and Myers, which you can read here and here;
- The long and very fascinating work Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World by former US congressman Robert Dale Owen;
- The Debatable Land Between This World and the Next by the same author, a worthy successor volume of equal length;
- The Voices by Vice-Admiral William Usborne Moore, a fascinating account of mysterious auditory phenomena during seances;
- On the Edge of the Etheric by James Arthur Findlay, a book on the same topic;
- The Proof Palpable of Immortality by Epes Sargeant;
- Planchette, or the Despair of Science, a longer work on paranormal phenomena by the same author;
- Natural and Mesmeric Clairvoyance by James Esdaille MD, written by a doctor who was very successful in getting very large numbers of patients to be pain-free during surgery without anesthesia (using only hypnosis);
- Clairvoyance and Thoughtography by Tomokici Fukurai, a Japanese professor, a book which presents in its Chapter 1 some superb evidence for clairvoyance;
- The very long two-volume work Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death by Frederic Myers, which you can read here and here;
- From the Unconscious to the Conscious by Gustave Geley;
- The Widow's Mite and Other Psychic Phenomena by Isaac Funk, the same Funk of the famous Funk and Wagnall's dictionary;
- The Watseka Wonder by E.W. Stevens, a contemporary account of one of the most notable cases in the history of the paranormal, discussed here;
- Noted Witnesses for Psychic Occurrences by W. F. Prince, a book documenting how countless illustrious names have reported paranormal experiences;
- Researches into the Phenomena of Modern Spiritualism by Sir William Crookes, one of the most accomplished physicists of the nineteenth century (see here and here and here for related writing by the same author);
- The Survival of Man by physicist Sir Oliver Lodge;
- Out-of-the-Body Experiences by Robert Crookall;
- More Astral Projections by the same author, containing some fascinating cases I discuss here;
- What Happens When You Die by the same author;
- Dead and Gone by James S. Pollack, a very readable description of paranormal phenomena;
- Ghosts and Poltergeists by Herbert Thurston and J.H. Crehan, one of the most in-depth examinations of poltergeist cases;
- Phenomena of Materialization by Baron Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, discussing very interesting results described here;
- Startling Facts in Modern Spiritualism by N. B. Wolfe MD, a book documenting materialization phenomena during seances of the medium Mrs. Mary J. Hollis;
- Letters to a Candid Inquirer, on Animal Magnetism, by William Gregory M.D. professor of Chemistry at Edinburgh University, a book abundantly documenting the reality of clairvoyance, as discussed here;
- Animal Magnetism, or Mesmerism and Its Phenomena, another book by Gregory documenting the reality of clairvoyance and other paranormal phenomena;
- "A Critical History of Animal Magnetism" by the scientist Joseph-Philippe-François Deleuze, a book (along with his book here) that documents the reality of clairvoyance during hypnotism (referred to in the book by the old term animal magnetism);
- New Frontiers of the Mind by J. B. Rhine, the foremost twentieth century researcher on ESP;
- After Death -- What? by Cesare Lombroso;
- Thirty Years of Psychical Research by Charles Richet, a Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine;
- The Seeress of Provost by physician Justinus Kerner, an astonishing case history described here;
- There Is No Death by Florence Marryat;
- Mysterious Psychic Forces, another great work on the paranormal featuring abundant first-hand testimony by the astronomer Camille Flammarion;
- Patience Worth: A Psychic Mystery by Casper S. Yost, a book documenting one of the most interesting cases of the twentieth century;
- The Proofs of Life After Death, a balanced book presenting the opinions of many scientists, heavy thinkers and investigators regarding whether there is good evidence for life after death;
- Seen and Unseen by Emily Katherine Bates, a remarkable account of a woman's observations of paranormal phenomena around the world;
- Metaphysical Phenomena: Methods and Observations by J. Maxwell MD, which contains quite a few interesting accounts of observing paranormal phenomena, as I discuss here;
- Transcendental Physics, a book by an astronomy professor (Johann Carl Friedrich Zollner) who did careful experiments documenting many paranormal effects;
- An Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism by the Baron Dupotet de Sennevoy, a book that abundantly testifies to the reality of clairvoyance during hypnotic trances;
- The "Report on Spiritualism" by the Dialectical Society of London, a document of more than 400 pages containing some of the most shocking and interesting testimony ever given (the contents of which are discussed here);
- Incidents in My Life by D. D. Home, one of the most famous mediums;
- "Signs before death, and authenticated apparitions: in one hundred narratives," an 1825 book by Horace Welby that is one of many helping to show that scholarly research into psychical phenomena began much earlier than 1882;
- The Case for Astral Projection by Slyvan Muldoon;
- Eusapia Palladino and Her Phenomena by Hereward Carrington;
- Supernormal Faculties in Man by Eugene Osty, one of the most carefully documented accounts of clairvoyance, including the very interesting case discussed here;
- The Celestial Telegraph by Louis Alphonse Cahagnet, a book notable for its report of extreme clairvoyant or mediumistic skill in Adele Magnot, as I describe in my post here;
- Man and His Relations by Samuel Byron Brittan, a very long and little-known classic of parapsychology with contents described here;
- Glimpses of the Unseen by B. F. Austin, a 500+ page book documenting a great variety of paranormal experiences;
- The 633-page book "Psychical and Supernormal Phenomena, Their Observation and Experimentation" by Dr. Paul Joire, which you can read here (it includes the extremely interesting case I discuss here);
- Studies in the Out-lying Fields of Psychic Science by Hudson Tuttle;
- Why Mind and Memory Cannot Be Brain Effects by myself;
- Mollie Fancher, the Brooklyn Enigma, a long case history of one of history's most astonishing clairvoyants;
- China's Super Psychics by Paul Dong and Thomas E. Raffill;
- Man's Survival After Death by Charles L.Tweedale, a long book that includes many cases from the annals of the Society for Psychical Research, as well as many fascinating first-hand cases of paranormal observation by Tweedale and his family;
- 800 Mysterious Striped Orbs: A Paranormal Phenomenon by myself;
- Psychic Science: An Introduction and Contribution to the Experimental Study of Psychical Phenomena by Emile Boirac, which you can read here;
- "The Veil Lifted: Modern Developments of Spirit Photography. With Twelve Illustrations," a book centered upon a scientific paper by mainstream photography expert J. Traill Taylor, long-time editor of the British Journal of Photography, a paper testing spirit photography, and finding astonishing success;
- Photographing the Invisible by James Coates, PhD, a book that takes a very serious look at the topic of spirit photography, with some astonishing photographic examples;
- A Report of the Mysterious Noises Heard in the House of Mr. John D. Fox in Hydesville, Arcadia, Wayne County, Authenticated by the Certificates, and Confirmed by the Statements of the Citizens of That Place and Vicinity by E. E. Lewis (1848), which you can read here, and Explanation and History of the Mysterious Communion With Spirits Comprehending the Rise and Progress of the Mysterious Noises in Western New York, Generally Received as Spiritual Communications by Eliab W. Capron and Henry D. Barron (1850), which you can read here. These two are the oldest documents on the topic of spiritualism and the famous Hydesville/Rochester paranormal manifestations of 1848, and the first consists of witness statements taken within about two weeks after the events, and published in the same year. Whenever studying this topic, you should be trying to get documents written as close to the reported events as possible; and these are such documents.
If you take the time to register at www.archive.org, which does not take long, the door will be opened to a huge number of more modern books, which you can "borrow" on an hourly basis simply by pressing a Borrow button after logging in. By clicking on the Borrow button after registering, you will be able to read important works on the paranormal such as these:
- Life After Life by Raymond Moody;
- Hidden Channels of the Mind by Louisa Rhine, who was one of the leading collectors of accounts of spontaneous telepathy and spontaneous precognition;
- Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder;
- The Gift: ESP, the Extraordinary Experiences of Ordinary People by Sally Rhine Feather and Michael Schmicker;
- Extra-sensory perception after sixty years; a critical appraisal of the research in extra-sensory perception, a long book co-edited by Joseph Rhine that gives details on some of the best experimental evidence for ESP;
- What Happens When You Die by Robert Crookall PhD, which contains many interesting accounts of out-of-body experiences;
- Out-of-Body Experiences: A Handbook by Janet Lee Mitchell;
- Extraordinary Experiences: Personal Accounts of the Paranormal in Canada by John Robert Colombo;
- At the Hour of Death by Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson, a book on deathbed visions and apparitions;
- The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology edited by Leslie A. Shepard, in two volumes (which can be read here and here);
- Apparitions and Survival of Death by Raymond Bayless.
- Phantom Encounters by the editors of Time-Life books. While it discusses quite a few dubious cases as part of its highly entertaining and visually appealing presentation, this book also includes a discussion of many important and evidential apparition cases.
An aspect of www.archive.org that I particularly like is that there are individual URLs for each page. So if a scholar is citing page 347 of some book, he can include a link that takes the reader exactly to that specific page.
Other sources of information about psychical phenomena are listed below:
- The Psi Encyclopedia of the Society for Psychical Research (available here).
- The page here of the Parapsychology Foundation has links to very many papers about psychical phenomena, which can all be conveniently read online.
- The much older 1932 Encyclopedia of Psychic Science by Nandor Fodor available here.
- The book-length document on ESP evidence here, "Extrasensory Perception: Research Findings" by John Palmer, which includes in white text below the book a book-length document ("Notes on the Paranormal") on evidence for the paranormal, written by Ben Steigmann. The latter document contains very many links to online original source materials on psychical research.
- The page here gives links to hundreds of books you can read online, all dealing with the paranormal or spiritual phenomena. Very conveniently, we have a very long table of links, which is in chronological order. The list includes books providing evidence for the paranormal, as well as quite a few books trying to discredit such phenomena. Many of the books on the page are worth reading, and many others are not worth reading.
- The videos here and here seem to provide modern evidence for clairvoyance.
My very long post "Candid Confessions of the Scientists" contains links to very many papers and books by scientists who challenged the most prevalent thinking in fields such as chemistry, neuroscience, biochemistry, physics, natural history and cosmology. Many of that post's links can be followed for illumination on such topics. My very long post "120+ Types of Paranormal or Anomalous Experiences" contains countless links to interesting papers and books on that topic. Below are books or articles on topics such as biology and cosmology and psychology:
- Cosmo Sapiens: Human Evolution From the Origin of the Universe by John Hands. The book is discussed in my post here.
- A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos by astrophysics professor Geraint F. Lewis and astronomy postdoctoral researcher Luke A. Barnes. The book is discussed in my post here.
- Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves by physician James Le Fanu. The book is discussed in my post here.
- "Using statistical methods to model the fine-tuning of molecular machines and systems" by Steinar Thorvaldsen and Ola Hössjer. This peer-reviewed paper in the mainstream Journal of Theoretical Biology discusses very well the evidence for fine-tuning in biology and physics.
- "The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists" by Bruce Alberts. This peer-reviewed scientific paper is essential reading for students of biological complexity.
- "The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life" by Luke A. Barnes. This paper (also available here) is a lengthy peer-reviewed paper discussing the evidence for fine-tuning in physics and cosmology.
- "Giving Up Darwin" by computer scientist David Gelernter. Trying to explaining the reasons why Darwinian ideas cannot explain the appearance of proteins, Gelernter does a good job, but actually underestimates the difficulties. He lists the average amino-acid length of a protein as 250, but eukaryotic proteins (like those in our body) actually have an average of about 472 amino acids, according to the paper here; and achieving proteins of that size by unguided processes is more than a billion trillion quadrillion times harder.
No comments:
Post a Comment