How to Hunt Ghosts : A Practical Guide

My wishlist has gotten so large that I sometimes forget what I put on it. Therefore, I was surprised when this showed up in a Christmas package. I checked and sure enough, I’d put it on the “Pseudoscience” list and somebody bought it for me.


This is, of course woowoo, but it’s interesting woowoo. The author, Joshua Warren, is the president of LEMUR, a “paranormal research team”, and advocates a “scientific” approach to the study of ghosts. Thus he has perfectly reasonable advice, like document everything, don’t jump to conclusions, always apply Occam’s Razor and seek a natural explanation first, and beware of “psychics”, since (as he puts it) “why would you use one unexplained phenomena to investigate show more another?” Unfortunately he also believes in things like dowsing rods pendulums, and automatic writing. And the center of his hypothesis for “ghostly” manifestations is the notorious “human energy field” which turns up so often in woowoo, from Therapeutic Touch to Spiritualism.


Mr. Warren’s idea is that ghosts have an “energy field” that can manipulate things like dust particles and the like, sometimes gathering them together to make some sort of coherent image. The “energy field” is sort of like static electricity, and Warren notes that hauntings can sometimes be stopped by installing humidifiers in the haunted house. (Of course, the elimination of creaking noises and ghostly “footsteps” by a humidifier suggests a simpler explanation to me). There are some relatively exotic suggestions that build on the “energy field” theme, such that ghosts are more active during times of high solar activity and that you can track otherwise invisible ghosts with an EMF meter. The book includes the usual assortment of camera artifacts that are interpreted as spiritual manifestations, including the infamous Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, who turns up in just about every ghost book ever written. I wonder if she gets royalties? (It’s instructive to use Google Image on “Brown Lady of Raynham Hall” and note how the supposedly authentic original photograph somehow comes in many different variations of contrast and detail).


Fairly entertaining and a good source if you want to be familiar with what you’ll have to debunk if you run into a ghost believer. show less

While I don't recommend people hunt "ghosts", or seek them out to tell them to feel free to use their brain to communicate, I do wish that the scientific community would get to work understanding what the hell is going on--and how. Warren's book has a nice bit of information along with some theory. I don't agree with everything he states, but he certainly is taking the right approach in trying to understand the "ghostly" phenomenon. As Joshua so reminded us here, let us not forget the late Carl Sagan's words: "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

As a paranormal investigator with over seven years of field experience, I've read a lot of ghost hunting "how-to" guides. While this has a fairly small targeted audience, I found it to be an informative and fast paced read. Much of the information doesn't differ too greatly from most other investigation guides available, but Warren seems to include more of the technical and theoretical side. His grasp of such is impressive.

Being such a dynamic field with no real hard evidence, some information is already being outdated, and can be open to interpretation. Therefore, this book should be used as a resource, but not a definitive set of guidelines for the field. I also would not recommend it to anyone who is not involved in paranormal show more investigation, nor has any plans to be. show less

Solid ghost hunting book.

Was recommended to me by a paranormal investigator who is going to take me on an investigation for a psychology class I am taking.

This probably gives you more than you need to know to start off and some of the parts (telekinesis for example), is more indirectly related to ghostly phenomena and that can be a little distracting. I would have liked more information on the history of the field, but it'll do.

Easy read.

I liked it. Most of the info was stuff that I've heard before on the many and varied ghost hunter adventure asylum shows. Makes a good starting point if you were going to hunt the phenomena. Cadi and i have discussed doing this at some point. This makes a good guide for the uninitiated.

Just reinforcing what others have said ... this is a good general book. The author is not too preachy or condescending. At the current shelf price of about $7 US, this book imparts a lot of general knowledge of the subject matter per buck.