Hans W. Holzer (1920–2009)
Author of Ghosts: True Encounters with the World Beyond
About the Author
Disambiguation Notice:
Hans Holzer, whose investigations into the paranormal took him to haunted houses and other sites all over the world, wrote more than 140 books on ghosts, the afterlife, witchcraft, extraterrestrial beings, and other phenomena associated with the realm he called "the other side." Among his famous subjects was the Long Island house that inspired The Amityville Horror book and film adaptations. Holzer studied at the University of Vienna, Austria, and at Columbia University, New York, earning a master's degree in comparative religion. He taught parapsychology at the New York Institute of Technology. Holzer died in 2009.
Image credit: By Hans Holzer - Ghost Hunter, 1963. Also in Ghosts I'Ve Met. Bobbs-Merrill, 1965., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48775169
Works by Hans W. Holzer
Where The Ghosts Are: The Ultimate Guide to Haunted Houses (Library of the Mystic Arts) (1995) 59 copies, 2 reviews
Hanz Holzer's Travel Guide to Haunted Houses: A Practical Guide to Places Haunted by Ghosts, Spirits and Poltergeists (1999) 50 copies
Tales at Midnight: True Stories from Parapsychology Casebooks and Journals (Courage Classics) (1994) 46 copies
Ghosts, Hauntings & Posessions: The Best of Hans Holzer, Book I (Fate Presents) (Bk.1) (1990) 35 copies
The Amityville Curse: Fact & Fiction (Murder In Amityville / The Amityville Curse / The Secret of Amityville) (2007) 27 copies, 1 review
Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology: An illustrated encyclopedia of witches, demons, sorcerers and their present day counterparts (1974) 24 copies
Are You Psychic?: Unlocking the Power Within : A Guide to Developing, Controlling, and Using Your Psychic Abilities (1997) 22 copies
Haunted House Album (A Ghostly Register of the World's Most Frightening Haunted Houses) (1992) 20 copies
Hans Holzer's Psychic Yellow Pages: The Very Best Psychics, Card Readers, Mediums, Astrologers, and Numberologists (2001) 9 copies
Hans Holzer's Haunted Houses: A Pictorial Register of the World's Most Interesting Ghost Houses. (1971) 7 copies
Charismatics: How to Make Things Happen for You by Developing Your Untapped Sensory and Extrasensory Powers (2018) 6 copies
The Directory of Psychics: How to Find, Evaluate, and Communicate With Professional Psychics and Mediums (1995) 3 copies, 1 review
Exploration of the Unknown: The Best of Hans Holzer (The Hans Holzer Paranormal Series) (2016) 3 copies
The Vegetarian Way of Life: How the Proper Foods Determine Your Health Outlook, Health and Fulfillment (1978) 3 copies
Der Fluch über dem Hause Habsburg. Von Marie Antoinette bis zum tödlichen Geschehen in Mayerling. 2 copies
[No title] 1 copy
Inside Witchraft 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Holzer, Hans W.
- Birthdate
- 1920-01-26
- Date of death
- 2009-04-26
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Vienna
Columbia University
London College of Applied Science - Occupations
- paranormal researcher
author
parapsychologist - Organizations
- New York Institute of Technology
- Relationships
- Countess Catherine Geneviève Buxhoeveden (wife)
Holzer, Alexandra (daughter) - Nationality
- Austria
USA - Birthplace
- Vienna, Austria
- Place of death
- New York, New York, USA
- Disambiguation notice
- Hans Holzer, whose investigations into the paranormal took him to haunted houses and other sites all over the world, wrote more than 140 books on ghosts, the afterlife, witchcraft, extraterrestrial beings, and other phenomena associated with the realm he called "the other side." Among his famous subjects was the Long Island house that inspired The Amityville Horror book and film adaptations. Holzer studied at the University of Vienna, Austria, and at Columbia University, New York, earning a master's degree in comparative religion. He taught parapsychology at the New York Institute of Technology. Holzer died in 2009.
- Associated Place (for map)
- New York, New York, USA
Members
Reviews
The technology-laden art of ghost-hunting commonly practiced today (evidenced by the scads of popular ghost-hunting shows currently haunting your cable television for all the 26 weeks on either side of Halloween) is based largely on an extravagant array of exotic gadgets calibrated to detect the piercing of our earthly veil by ethereal forces otherwise immeasurable dispassionately. This "objective" approach was first widely championed and documented by Briton Harry Price in his 1940 tome, show more "The Most Haunted House in England," a classic in the field examining the haunting of Borley Rectory in Essex. But there are more ways than one to confront a wraith, as celebrated American spirit chaser Hans Holzer demonstrates in his seminal 1963 (reprinted in new editions in 2005 and 2014) work, "The Ghost Hunter." Rather than depend on cold engineering's electronic or mechanical fruits like Price and most phantom finders currently on TV, Holzer's methodology relies on selecting deft and trustworthy psychic mediums to accompany him on investigations of locations squatted by specters along America's northeast coast. Once ensconced in a haunted location, Holzer's medium-du-jour allows herself to be commandeered by the wronged spirit so the latter can speak the grievances that compel it to wreak eerie havoc. The book's collection of reports is mostly entertaining, sometimes enlightening, and Holzer's interventions usually (but not always) lead to the elimination of spooky doings once the living appropriately address the ghosts' gripes. Holzer's book teaches it may be folly to assume people's quest for fairness in love and war is constrained by mortal borders, and that a good medium gives any fancy contraption a run for its money in tracking ghosts. show less
Ghost Hunter: The Groundbreaking Classic of Paranormal Investigation (Tarcher Supernatural Library) by Hans Holzer
Interesting book by Holzer where he is investigating houses/apartments in and near New York City. Is almost funny to think of him going with just a tape recorder and a medium in today's high tech world of ghost hunting. Also was neat to see him research the history of the locations etc after they have done their investigation trying to prove or disprove what they learned during their session with the medium.
The Amityville Curse: Fact & Fiction (Murder In Amityville / The Amityville Curse / The Secret of Amityville) by Hans Holzer
Where to even start? First, I find the title to be a bit misleading. Not wrong, exactly, but misleading. My version was three books in one. Fact & Fiction makes it sound as though they're going to go through each legend/story about the house and land and tell us what's accurate, what's embellished, and what's entirely made up. Not so. It's called Fact & Fiction simply because one of the books is nonfiction, Hozler's investigation into the DeFeo murders themselves, and the other two books are show more fiction. The books are entertaining, though I personally found the first one about the DeFeo murders to be the most interesting and fun to read, but there are still some pretty glaring problems.
I find it hard to believe that this book had an editor other than the author himself, simply because there are so many grammatical errors involved. Just a few would be one thing, but I found so many that it became a bit distracting.
In the fictional books, Holzer seems to forget some of his timeline and events because there are quite a few contradictions even just a page or two after they happen. Also in the fictional books, the I found to the characters to be highly stupid and lacking in even the slightest common sense even if in mundane matters. Who in the world would see a person pointing a gun at them in their home and think, "oh well, I must be hallucinating?" Sure, your first thought might not be "omg a ghost!" but it sure as heck would probably be something like, "omg an intruder!" instead. Their reaction to it isn't my problem, so much as their thought process and logic.
Also, any answers we get to tie up events tend to be vague and make no sense if you think about them for two seconds. Not even skeptically speaking, but just they make no sense for the characters /themselves/.
And to wrap it all up, there's a ritual scene near the very end of the book where sex takes place, but I find it really hard to consider the sex to be consensual. It felt more like the woman was tricked into it and decided to go along with it at the last minute because she'd already promised and the man who'd tricked her into it was hot. He didn't tell her until the last possible second that the ritual involved sex, but he had no problem making her promise to go through with "the willing and symbolic sacrifice" right from the start. Coercion is not consent.
In addition to ALL of that, I think it seems at best to be culturally insensitive to Native Americans.
That said, despite all of that, it can be an entertaining read so long as you don't expect too much out of it once you realize what it is but I probably wouldn't recommend it. show less
I find it hard to believe that this book had an editor other than the author himself, simply because there are so many grammatical errors involved. Just a few would be one thing, but I found so many that it became a bit distracting.
In the fictional books, Holzer seems to forget some of his timeline and events because there are quite a few contradictions even just a page or two after they happen. Also in the fictional books, the I found to the characters to be highly stupid and lacking in even the slightest common sense even if in mundane matters. Who in the world would see a person pointing a gun at them in their home and think, "oh well, I must be hallucinating?" Sure, your first thought might not be "omg a ghost!" but it sure as heck would probably be something like, "omg an intruder!" instead. Their reaction to it isn't my problem, so much as their thought process and logic.
Also, any answers we get to tie up events tend to be vague and make no sense if you think about them for two seconds. Not even skeptically speaking, but just they make no sense for the characters /themselves/.
And to wrap it all up, there's a ritual scene near the very end of the book where sex takes place, but I find it really hard to consider the sex to be consensual. It felt more like the woman was tricked into it and decided to go along with it at the last minute because she'd already promised and the man who'd tricked her into it was hot. He didn't tell her until the last possible second that the ritual involved sex, but he had no problem making her promise to go through with "the willing and symbolic sacrifice" right from the start. Coercion is not consent.
In addition to ALL of that, I think it seems at best to be culturally insensitive to Native Americans.
That said, despite all of that, it can be an entertaining read so long as you don't expect too much out of it once you realize what it is but I probably wouldn't recommend it. show less
Although the book has a copyright date of 2002 most of the stories are from the 1960's. He takes us through a few different portions of the US. The ones that I found mot interesting this time were the ones where he brought Sbyil Leek along with him as a medium and quoted verbatim what she said while in her trance state. His telling of the stories is very different then the more present day ones in which sometimes they can get the ghosts to cross over and other times not and he doesn't have show more any emotional attachments to the results. Also again thinking from a more modern perspective he's getting most of this cases form receiving letters from the participants which is so different than our modern day instant communication. Over all a good book and he is a fairly good story teller. show less
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- Rating
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