| Title | : | Will Storr vs. The Supernatural: One Mans Search for the Truth About Ghosts |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0061132195 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780061132193 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 322 |
| Publication | : | First published January 19, 2006 |
What resulted is a confirmed cynic's (and proud of it!) dedicated search for answers in a shadowy world of séances, mediums, devil worshippers—even the Vatican's chief exorcist. So get ready to confront the genuinely creepy along with the hilariously ridiculous in Will Storr vs. the Supernatural!
Will Storr vs. The Supernatural: One Mans Search for the Truth About Ghosts Reviews
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Will Storr - image from his site
Storr is a young journalist who decides that he wants to look first hand at various things ghostly. He begins with a skeptical eye, becomes mostly a believer after seeing some very strange things, then heads back to disbelief after meeting with a psychiatrist, then heads back somewhere in between. He is led to ponder the nature of souls. The book is written in a breezy manner, taking the subject matter seriously but not so much so as to become a harsh debunker. He has a nice sense of humor and a pleasing style that makes this book easy to read. My wife found it creepy at times, and I suppose it is, but I was never creeped out. It was an enjoyable and informative read.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to Storr's
personal and
Twitter pages
A list of his articles for
The Guardian
==================================Quotes
Physician Stuart Hameroff and his partner Dr. roger Penrose are world experts in the study of consciousness. And the work that they’re doing now may end up changing the way we view existence forever. Because they do think that the mind and the body are separate things. Their research has left them to believe that our souls exist on the tiniest, most fundamental level of the universe – the quantum level….Our brains, these men claim, do not create consciousness. They just channel it, like a television picking up a station. (p 234)
This is the thing that I’ve learned over the last twelve months about blind belief in the supernatural: faith is for the frightened. These are the things that frighten human more than anything else – death, loneliness and guilt. That’s the ominous three, the holy trinity of dread. If you sign up for a supernatural belief like Christianity, these timeless problems disappear in a puff of incensed smoke. Death? No worries. Paradise awaits you. Lonely? Don’t be daft – god loves you and is with you always. Guilt? Just say the word and you’ll be forgiven. And it’s not just the Christians. (p 306) -
I have had this book a while now, but it usually makes it to the bottom of the pile when it comes to my Halloweeny-themed reads because it struck me (based on the description and the goofy author photo on the back of the book) as a desperate attempt at bringing humor to the author's experiences. There is humor, there is some goofiness, but it's not desperate.
Will Storr is a self-proclaimed cynic, but follows paranormal investigator Lou Gentile (not to be confused with the senator from Ohio) to see what this whole ghost thing is about. Along the way, Storr meets a variety of people claiming paranormal experiences, from a demonologist to Janet, the younger sister involved in the Enfield Poltergeist case in the late 1970s. Storr has some questionable experiences himself, yet claims to continue to not believe, even when he runs out of rooms. He attempts to offer up other suggestions as to things he has seen or heard, but ultimately there aren't a lot of conclusions.
I was especially disappointed with the last investigation in the book, which was interesting and terrifying to me as it involved a young boy with autism in Kentucky who had an exorcism performed in order to release the demon inside of him. As the chapter was finishing up, some more questions were raised, but then it just... ended. Like Storr went to sleep and that was that.
Overall there are some spooky things going on in this book and it's a fine enough read. I think a nice addition would have been the inclusion of some of the photographs that were taken during the investigations, but that's a personal preference. It was a good addition (and final book) to my Halloween theme for 2014, and I am happy to finally have read it. -
a british journalist investigates the supernatural in this hilarious and completely entertaining read.
at one point he describes a few ghosthunters he is interviewing as being in their "late thirties and significantly out of shape, and one of them has upsetting, medieval teeth."
i COULD NOT put it down and was totally laughing out loud constantly. -
Will Storr vs The Supernatural is a book unlike any other I have ever read. It is the completely unashamed account of a skeptic journalist’s mental journey as he seeks out both believers and skeptics alike in his quest to discover a truth behind supernatural occurrences. It is a book that challenges everything that both skeptics and believers might think of ghosts, demons and the afterlife.
Will Storr begins the book a firm skeptic when he travels to interview self-proclaimed “demonologist”, Lou Gentile in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. What he experiences there sends him on a journey which brings him face to face with ghost lights, anti-Satanist vigilantes, exorcisms, the Vatican, EVP and psychologists, along with a bevy of other fun and exciting characters. He stays in haunted houses, sleeps in haunted rooms, attends divination ceremonies and goes ghost hunting with paranormal researchers. What he finds along his journey is both fascinating and terrifying.
Storr does not give any definitive answer to the question behind the truth of the supernatural. The book proves to be less a book about proving or disproving the existence of an afterlife of sorts, and instead focuses on the human need to understand something unexplainable. It is a book about the human mind, and how those who believe wholeheartedly, and those who doubt, doubt with just as much conviction. It is a work that tries to bridge that divide and show both sides of the story with equal import. While there is no ultimate conclusion to be gained from reading this book, it does serve as a valuable insight in to how certain subjects can be viewed from the other side of the fence.
The prose flows, and the writing is funny, dark and self aware. Storr does not seek to force an opinion on his readers, simply to impart an experience, leaving his audience to decide for themselves what to do with the information that he provides. That he experienced things that cannot be explained is undeniable, but whether the experiences have a natural or a supernatural explanation is ultimately left to the reader to decide. Storr shares information without passing judgment, but does so in an entertaining, sharply intelligent and subtle way.
The book leaves the reader with the knowledge that there are things in this world and universe that cannot be explained. To deny something outright as possible or impossible is foolish and is narrow minded, in both belief and skepticism. Ultimately we are challenged to keep our minds open for the possibility that there are things out there that we as human beings are simply unable to explain.
Will Storr vs The Supernatural is a book that I would highly recommend to anyone. It is truly mind opening and downright entertaining. -
this book, british journalist will storr's examination of ghosts and the trappings that surround them, is an entertaining and oft-times spooky travelogue of one man's belief in the supernatural.
what started as a jokey assignment for a magazine (essentially poking fun at "american eccentric" and demonologist lou gentile), actually makes storr question his previously-held sceptic's beliefs. he then takes us with him from one interview to another, discussing his findings and experiences along the way.
while some folks he's interviewed come across as completely bonkers (or "mental," as the british case may be), others show an odd kind of reason.
i won't divulge where he ends up or the conclusions storr reaches, but this is definitely worth a read for anyone who's wondered about ghosts but hasn't quite made up his or her mind. -
I have what some might call an unhealthy interest in ghosts. I have been on ghost walks, read lots of ghost stories, and even stayed the night once at Edgar Allan Poe’s grave in the hopes of seeing a ghost. So when this book arrived, I got very excited. Then, I put it away. It fell into the TBR pile and didn’t reappear for months.
But the truth is, it’s good I didn’t read this book this winter when I might have - I would have been too scared to sit in my house alone on dark evenings. Somehow when I know it will be warm and sunny in the morning, things don’t seem as scary. That’s probably naive on a lot of levels, but so be it.
The book tells the story of journalist Will Storr’s attempts to discover the truth about ghosts by going on various supernaturally-motivated trips. The book begins, wisely I feel, in the States when Storr tags along with a demonologist to study the happenings at a particular woman’s house. I won’t tell you what does happen there - I don’t want to ruin it - but let’s just say it’s enough to make Will take these ghost ideas more seriously, even so far as to contemplate whether they might be demonic.
The book continues with Storr visiting various ghosty sites in the UK, his homeland, including the set of the popular TV show Most Haunted, where he is, let’s just say, less than impressed. He spends the night in haunted houses and walks the copses of England to try and thwart Satanic rituals. Basically, his exploration runs the gamut of supernatural experiences. And in the end, well, you’ll have to see what he decides about his experiences.
I found the book both immensely interesting, profoundly honest, quite scary at times, and very well-written. There’s a clear awareness by Storr of his prejudices and his dispositions about these things, and he’s not afraid to keep himself in the story. Because he allows himself to speak out clearly in the book, I am able to travel along with him and translate the experiences through his eyes, eyes I trust. Plus, he’s just really funny. Really funny.
I also appreciate that he entertains all kinds of theories about ghosts - from the demonic to the scientific. There are no easy - or easily accepted - answers here, and as a person of faith who struggles with how to interpret the experiences of the supernatural, I appreciated both his candor and his sincere questions.
I highly recommend this book if you’re interested in the subject matter or if you just want to read a good book of creative nonfiction. It’s really worth it, even if you get a bit nervous at the thought. -
Will Storr doesn't believe in ghosts but he's open to persuasion. In this book he attempts to find out the truth about the spirit world.
I quite enjoyed it but while some chapters were excellent and highly amusing others were a bit on the boring side. I also couldn't quite work out why he refused to debunk the various clearly deranged ghost hunters he met during his investigations. His argument that they seemed like nice people and he didn't really have the ability to prove that they weren't making it up seemed a bit lame to me. The requirement for proof ought to lie at the feet of those making grand claims, especially in this area where great swathes of charlatans (even nice ones) clearly exist.
Also, when I first heard about the book, the reviewer implied it was really scary. I didn't find it a bit frightening however, except maybe one bit where he's hanging around in the woods, which was tense from a 'there might be mentalists on the loose' sort of angle rather than a fear of the supernatural.
My biggest problem with it is it just petered out, with no satisfying conclusion. It was a journey that went nowhere in the end. His one "real" encounter with a ghost led to him bottling it. If he wanted to prove or disprove the supernatural that was his chance, and instead he hightailed it, which I just didn't get.
Definitely an interesting book, and worth a read, but ultimate somewhat of a letdown. -
Interesting read on a man's journey from finding the supernatural ridiculous to becoming an unwilling believer, to learning where he's been fooled, where he's fooled himself, and where areas of doubt remain. Storr picks this all apart intelligently, recording and analysing his emotional responses, pointing out that without investigation, both belief and disbelief are just articles of faith rather than considered views. My notes on this also say "good on quantum" which I'm going to have to take Past Me's word for, since I can never remember anything about quantum.
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This book was more or less an impulse buy at the local public library's friends of the library two-for-one sale. Honestly I don't know what to think about ghosts and whether or not they exist in some meaningful sense, but I enjoy hearing about them, watching TV shows about them, and reading about them, particularly if the presentation is good. So when I saw this eye-catching cover and saw that it was subtitled "one man's search for the truth about ghosts," I thought, "This definitely looks like it would be worth a quarter." (Actually, my first thought was, "Who in the heck is this Will Storr fellow, and am I so out of the popular culture loop that I have never heard of someone famous enough to reference himself in the title of his book?") And boy, was this book ever worth a quarter! I would even go so far as to say I would buy it new, now that I know how good it is. It is witty, engaging, creepy, and deeply thoughtful. Storr lives up to his word: he really is after the truth about ghosts, whatever that is, and while he interviews scads of people from diametrically opposed positions and perspectives, he never gives in to the urge to resolve things too easily. I want to quote his thoughts near the end of the book to show you what I mean:
I'm now convinced that there is evidence of something following death. Because ghosts exist. There really are such things as apparitions and EVP and poltergeists and heavy breathing in old rooms in the night. And humans, being humans, feel compelled to explain that. But they can't. It's only the faithful who think they can. In this regard, Christians are just the same as witches and druids and anti-Satan vigilantes and skeptical monsterologists and hard rational scientists. They all think they've got answers, but really, they're all wildly theorizing. The simple truth is—nobody knows. Nobody, not Dr. Salter, Dr. Garvey, Father Bill, or The Founder, knows what happens when our brains finally flicker off. We're in the dark about death and the purpose of existence. And an awful lot of people, it seems, are scared of the dark. This is the thing I've learned over the last twelve months about blind belief in the supernatural: faith is for the frightened. These are the things that scare humans more than anything else—death, loneliness and guilt. That's the ominous three, the holy trinity of dread. If you sign up for a supernatural belief like Christianity, these timeless worries disappear in a puff of incensed smoke. Death? No worries. Paradise awaits you. Lonely? Don't be daft—God loves you and is with you always. Guilt? Just say the word, and you will be forgiven.
And it's not just the Christians. There's a certain kind of ghost-believer that's victim to this same syndrome. They use ghosts, just as Dr. Salter said, to make themselves feel more important or to convince themselves that their dead friends, family and lovers are'nt just Spam for maggots. They use their cod logic to bring order and meaning to their chaotic and seemingly meaningless lives. And some of them use it to dress themselves up as instant experts. You can say anything you like about ghosts and, providing you do it with enough authority, you'll get your own slot on satellite TV.
But not all the ghost-convinced are like this. Because if you strip away all the nonsense, you're left with something that most Christians will never have. You're left with evidence. Genuine, unexplained, skull-bucklingly fantastic evidence. For me, the extraordinary truth about ghosts doesn't lie in the individual experiences of one witness or another. It lies in the patterns. That, perhaps, four or five other people heard breathing in that room before me, doesn't make it four or five times more interesting, it makes it one of the most incredible mysteries in the world. Just like the previous occupants of Annie's room, the many victims of poltergeists, the worldwide thousands who've recorded EVP, the routinely spooked visitors to Michelham Priory, the young brothers who talked to the woman in their bathroom, it's the chorus of humans who are experiencing the same things, evidence of intelligent ghosts, that make this subject so profound and wondrous and universal....
As for the hard skeptics, I think that to believe so passionately in the existence of nothing that isn't immediately obvious is to suffer the most gigantic failure of intelligence and imagination. The universe—the reality in which we exist—is such an immeasurable, unbelievable and, ultimately, unknowable thing. And the only thing I know for sure is that it's a stranger place than any human has the capacity to imagine. (pp.306-8)
For a transcendental agnostic like me, that kind of (in)conclusion is music to my ears. -
The best parts of Will Storr vs. The Supernatural are when Storr happens upon nifty philosophical questions posed by the possibility of the supernatural. Storr realizes, for example, that if ghosts live on after the mortal coil has died, then Cartesian dualism is correct. So he contacts a philosopher to explain Cartesian dualism and how it was defeated. And then he gets into Hume, balance of probabilities, and defaults and concludes that one should default against ghosts existing.
And then there's the issue of evolution--when do ghosts start? As for people, when do they depart? In Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich wonders when they leave while working in a care home. If someone has no idea who they are, or who anyone around them is, has the spirit left? Does one ascend as a healthier, younger spirit? How much younger--Anakin Skywalker younger? Are people soulful creatures or are they just complex zombies?
The voices in one's head. One psychologist says that all of us can talk to ourselves in our head, a phrase which means a sort of dialogue. He argues that as we talk more to this voice, it and the other begin to take on more distinct personalities. In this moment, perhaps we gain a sense of what it is like to hear voices. He suggests that maybe whatever happens that allows us to talk to ourselves can become faulty and this is where voices come from.
Our brains are hardwired to explain what we encounter, and they'll often jump to conclusions. (Sounds like confabulation.) It's easy to conclude that supernatural explanations are correct when we aren't sure what has just happened. I haven't experienced this in a supernatural way, but I do notice whenever I play "collect every American licence plate over the summer" that I'll often glance at say, a licence plate from Oklahoma and see Kentucky (esp. if I've yet to see a Kentucky plate on the road that summer). I've actually seen the letters rearrange themselves as my mind sorts out what it's seeing rather than what it wants to see.
The weakest part of the book is ironically the possessed people he encounters. Somehow they're just not very interesting. In its best moments, this is a fun book. Apparently ghosts appear around 3:00 a.m. Last night, I woke up at 2:25 and panicked: "go to sleep! go to sleep! go to sleep!"
This is the third Storr book I've read, and I seem to have encountered them out of order as this one was published before Unpersuadables and Selfie. This is also the weakest of the three that I've read. -
Will Storr is a journalist and a lapsed Roman Catholic.
He did a piece on an American demonologist which some how lead into an investigation of the paranormal.
The result is a brilliantly written little book that traces Will's research and the ups and downs of his understanding and belief. An excellent book for believers and sceptics alike.
I particularly liked his interviews with Maurice Grosse, one of the investigators of the Enfield poltergeist. Guy Lyon Playfair's book of the subject was my first introduction to paranormal research.
Highly recommended. -
A fun and honest journey through something we know nothing about. It makes you question what you know and I feel like it covers a lot of bases. I just found will a bit naive when it comes to the question of religion and why would a Vatican exorcist lie? Because they want you to believe in consequence and hell will, because they want you to be scared. To listen. And that’s why issues like in the last pages of your book happen.
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I like Will Storr's later work (Selfie) so I felt compelled to pick this one up.
This book does a great job of introducing the reader to the world of demonologists, spiritualists, exorcists and others. There are plenty of great stories and interesting anecdotes in there if you're looking for that sort of thing.
It was well written and nicely laid out. I suppose I was looking for more research, perhaps a thicker tome which would exhaust some of the avenues a little more relentlessly. Still a worthwhile read. -
I loved this guys style of writing, very easy very thought provoking and well mapped. Interesting read, scary as hell at times and hilarious in others. Intriguing read.
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Well, there goes my hard earned confidence that ghostly phenomena has been all but explained away! English journalist Will Storr, a "recovering Catholic" convinced that the afterlife is pure fantasy, encounters frightening, unexplainable events that shake his former skepticism to the core while following a batty American demonologist for a fluff piece. Thoroughly freaked out, Storr embarks on an almost obsessive quest across the UK and beyond to uncover as much as he can about the reality of ghosts, hauntings, and possessions. Perhaps if he could find a way to debunk his own experience, his skepticism could be saved and Storr could sleep easier, but unfortunately, it does not turn out to be that easy.
From the Pope's head exorcist to fundamentalist pastors, "demonologists," paranormal researchers, druids, mediums, and even rationalist philosophers, Storr interviews a lot of interesting eccentrics and is unable to reach a conclusion about the existence of the supernatural. Some of the humans he encounters, though, are just as frightening as the ghosts and demons they hope to discover or confront. Storr himself remains admirably stoic when confronted by some of these unorthodox, illogical belief systems. Storr himself also finds things he is powerless to explain, in particular in the nameless Medieval building known as Britain's most haunted house.
An interesting counterpoint to such accounts as Mary Roach's
Spook, another fun paranormal read, who comes to slightly more definitive scientific answers when it comes to the debunking of ghosts. Storr himself encounters things he cannot explain and has a bit of a more philosophical take, wrestling with metaphysics and ramifications of the existence of ghosts, rather than attempting to debunk them through scientific methods, though he does muse about the possibility that quantum physics might soon explain this phenomenon. All in all, fascinating stuff!
Perhaps it was not the best idea to read this quest for the truth, and the creepy places it takes to get there, alone in a century old apartment building. I am still skeptical about ghosts, but I know I would still totally freak out if something creepy and inexplicable were to occur, and it seems just thinking about ghosts can put you more in the frame of mind to encounter them. Nothing out of the ordinary in my apartment yet, thankfully. -
Fun spooky season read! I always like Will Storr’s books but this surpasses The Unpersuadables as my favorite. It’s a great blend of science and skepticism, but with a healthy acknowledgment that we don’t know everything yet. (I feel I’m a little more skeptical than him, but to be fair I’ve never found myself in a dark room that seems to be breathing.) And it’s so entertaining. I couldn’t wait to pick it up again. It’s a good companion read to Mary Roach’s Spook.
I only wish there’d been a follow up on the poor kid - called Denzel here - who was autistic and his mother wanted him exorcised. He sounded like such a sweet kid in a messed up situation that’s not his fault and I hope he’s ok. -
I was expecting a laughable tale of a skeptical journalist encountering spiritualist kooks, demonologists and mediums, and revealing them all to be charlatans, mentalists, and the mentally disturbed. Will Storr, however, is a much better journalist than I would have been. He tried to look at the world of the supernatural through a lense uncolored by disbelief. If the person he was interviewing seemed to genuinely believe in the phenomenon they were talking about or that the experience they had could have been nothing other than ghostly then he took them for their word.
On the other hand, he also had no qualms in pointing out his true feelings and pointing out when he thought someone else had something wrong. Especially in the last case of the book, which made me feel sad for children born with disabilities in religious families. I was unsurprised that the most 'messed up' people, the most harmful people and the most completely wrong people were the American religious.
Another thing about the book that surprised me was the depth of the research. Storr doesn't just go to ghost clubs and haunted locations, he talks with pscyhologists and philosophers and researches any angle that might explain the unexplained, including quantum physics.
After reading this book I found that the world is even more strange than I knew, though it did not change my status as a faithful skeptic.
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I grew up watching every weird ghost hunting show that Discovery Channel had to offer so I was pretty excited to discover this book, and boy did it deliver!! Storr's writing is heartfelt, funny, and crushingly candid about his experiences with people on all sides of the paranormal debate, and he managed to achieve that delicate balance of pairing investigation with his personal journey, which is HUGE for me because I can get turned off of nonfiction very easily when the author decides to take a break from the cool shit to talk about their ~*~feelings.~*~ Overall this book was just fascinating and a great time to read!!!
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Kind of a stupid book about a journalist trying to find the truth behind ghosts. The book succeeds however in creeping you out with stories of ghosts doing their thing. The author is too "look-at-these-crazy-ghost-hunters" and often goes into personal musings about the afterlife and his own spirituality. Screw that. I want to read about ghosts haunting the crap out of some poor old people in Ireland. The informative part is when you get to learn about different types of ghosts and all the many kinds of hauntings.
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Fans of famous British haunted houses will be pleased to find some behind-the-scenes looks at such spots as Michelham Priory, The First and Last Inn, and perhaps most exciting of all, the Enfield poltergiest case, which is the equivalent of the Amittyville Horror across the pond. However, there is no great insight into these amazing paranormal cases and Storr doesn't really succeed in the sarcastically humorous tone he clearly strives for. But it did hold my interest through the end.
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I felt I would think and act so similarly in the situations he encountered (except I'd be more scaredy-cat, refusing to sleep in haunted rooms by myself) that it was like going on the journey myself, but from the safety of my own home. It was a little frightening at times but not horrifying. Some parts were so funny as well, without going too far mocking the odd people. I was so interested that I could've read about 500 more pages of this while he kept on traveling.
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This book was so good. I loved the author's willingness to always keep an open mind, even as he veers between complete belief and complete non-belief, and in the end he seems to have come down on the same page that I have: that insisting that there is absolutely no validity in things like ghosts is as ridiculous as believing blindly in everything.
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Very British but worth it for those looking for a humorous and at times quite scary exploration of one man's encounter with the 'supernatural'. Hard to describe, but if you like ghosts, you'll probably like this.
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Of all the books I have read on the paranormal (and seriously, there have probably been hundreds), this one is my absolute favorite. I can give no higher recommendation than that. I love it. Will Storr is an excellent writer and I plan to read more of his work.
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This was a hoot. There's some philosophical meat to it as well, but the joy comes from Storr's observations of the people invested in the reality of the supernatural. It's rare to read a book on this topic and come away with quotable lines, but they're here, all right. A real delight.
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A hopeful skeptic takes a journey to discover the truth about ghosts. At times creepy and often hilarious, this is a highly enjoyable read for anyone with a questioning mind.
