Leo Ruickbie - A Brief Guide to the Supernatural: Ghosts, Vampires and the Paranormal

Dr Leo Ruickbie has been investigating, writing about and sometimes experiencing the darker side of life from Black Masses to haunted houses for most of his professional career. He has a PhD from Kings College, London, on modern witchcraft and magic. He is the author of Witchcraft Out of the Shadows and Faustus: The Life and Times of a Renaissance Magician, as well as being a frequent contributor to Paranormal magazine. His work has been mentioned in the media from the Guardian to Radio Jamaica, and his expertise has been sought from film companies to the International Society for Human Rights. He is a member of Societas Magica, the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, the Society for Psychical Research and the Ghost Club. Visit him online at www.witchology.com

Very well written. Exciting, enjoyable and thought-provoking. Packed with interesting and intriguing ideas. Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe, President of the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena

It is a pleasure to read such a well-researched and documented guide to the major fields of interest in the paranormal. Dr Leo Ruickbie has created a work of tremendous value to readers and researchers alike. Rosemary Ellen Guiley, author of The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits

A first-class piece of work! Nick Redfern, author of The Real Men in Black

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First published in the UK by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2012

Copyright Leo Ruickbie, 2012

The right of Leo Ruickbie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-84901-675-9
eISBN: 978-1-78033-070-9

Printed and bound in the UK

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First published in the United States in 2011 by Running Press Book Publishers,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group

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US ISBN 978-0-7624-4438-0
US Library of Congress Control Number: 2011933253

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Printed and bound in the UK

To Antje and Morgana

CAUTION TO THE READER

B EFORE reading the contents of this book,

PLEASE NOTE

1. That the narratives printed in these pages had better not be read by any one of tender years, of morbid excitability, or of excessively nervous temperament.

2. That the latest students of the subject concur in the solemn warning addressed in the Sacred Writings to those who have dealings with familiar spirits, or who expose themselves to the horrible consequences of possession.

3. That as the latent possibilities of our complex personality are so imperfectly understood, all experimenting in hypnotism, spiritualism, etc., excepting in the most careful and reverent spirit, by the most level-headed persons, had much better be avoided.

T HIS CAUTION is printed here at the suggestion of Catholics, Theosophists, and Spiritualists, who declare themselves to be profoundly convinced of its necessity.

An actual notice first printed in W. T. Stead, Real Ghost Stories: A Record of Authentic Apparitions, Review of Reviews, London, December 1891; here reproduced from the 1897 revised edition, p. xiii.

A little while ago I was interviewed on a radio station and the presenter decided to get right back to basics with his first question: What does paranormal mean what is the paranormal? he asked me.

Since I was then the editor of a magazine called Paranormal the interviewer had every reason to expect me to answer that question quickly and concisely but... in truth, I had to think about it. When it comes to the paranormal the simple questions can be the hardest to answer.

The word paranormal simply means beyond the normal, in the same way the word supernatural means beyond the natural. But how far beyond? Thats the nub of it.

For many who say they believe in the paranormal the word presumes the acceptance of a spirit world, a world beyond our own with laws different from our scientific laws. For them the paranormal is merely a foyer that leads to the great halls of religion. This is not true of everyone who accepts the reality of paranormal phenomena, however.

Personally, I believe that a great deal of that which is currently beyond the natural will in time be understood as natural. That is to say, it will one day be brought into the realm of science (provided the scientific establishment ever gets round to taking an interest).

Are poltergeists mischievous spirits or the effects of some energy source not currently known to science? Are ghosts the returning dead or images created by our brains in response to some external stimulus we dont understand? If it is found that extraterrestrials really are visiting us, isnt it likely we will also find they are employing principles of some alien science in order to do so?

I think it likely most of the phenomena discussed by Dr Leo Ruickbie in this fascinating book will one day be understood by science.

The few sound-bites laymen like me pick up of quantum physics research implies that the gap between the supernatural and the natural is narrowing. We hear of particles that can arrive at a destination before leaving their point of origin and of particles which, once connected, remain mysteriously linked to each other even when they are light years apart. Such phenomena sound paranormal to me and yet, if true, they are effects manifesting in the natural world at the most fundamental level.