Supernatural

by Colin Wilson

  It was an embarrassing admission to have to make. With the exception of Guy Playfair there is probably not a single respectable parapsychologist in the world who will publicly admit the existence of spirits. Many will concede in private that they are inclined to to accept the evidence for life after death, but in print even that admission would be regarded as a sign of weakness. Before that trip to Pontefract I had been in basic agreement with them: it seemed totally unnecessary to assume the existence of spirits. Tom Lethbridge’s ‘tape-recording’ theory explained hauntings; the unconsciousness’ and the ‘information universe’ combined to explain mysteries like telepathy, psychometry, even precognition. Spirits were totally irrelevant. Yet the Pontefract case left me in no probability of some local monk who died in a sudden and violent death, perhaps on the gallows, and who might or might not be aware that he was dead. And I must admit that it still causes me a kind of flash of protest to write such a sentence: the rationalist in me wants to say, ‘Oh come off it. . .’ Yet the evidence points clearly in that direction and it would be simple dishonesty not to admit it.

  When I returned from Yorkshire I took a deep breath and plunged into the annals of poltergeist activity with the aid of the library at the Society for Psychical Research and the College of Psychic Studies. The picture that now began to emerge made me aware of how far my preconceptions had caused me to impose an unnatural logic on the whole subject of the paranormal. It was not so much that the conceptions underlying my previous books The Occult and Mysteries were wrong as that they were incomplete. And much of the evidence required to complete them had been staring me in the face from the beginning.

  This edition published in the UK and USA in 2011 by

  Watkins Publishing, Sixth Floor, Castle House,

  75–76 Wells Street, London WIT 3QH

  First published in paperback as The Mammoth Book of Supernatural by

  Robinson Publishing in 1991, reprinted in 1997

  Published by Magpie Books, a Division of Robinson Publishing, in paperback as

  The Giant Book of the Supernatural in 1994

  Text copyright © Colin and Damon Wilson, 1991, 1994, 1997, 2011

  Colin and Damon Wilson have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the Publishers.

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  Typeset by Dorchester Typesetting Group Ltd

  Printed and bound by Imago in China

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Available

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

  ISBN: 978-1-907486-55-5

  www.watkinspublishing.co.uk