Synopses & Reviews
A significant number of Americans spend their weekends at UFO conventions hearing whispers of government cover-ups, at New Age gatherings learning the keys to enlightenment, or ambling around historical downtowns learning about resident ghosts in tourist-targeted “ghost walks”. They have been fed a steady diet of fictional shows with paranormal themes such as
The X-Files,
Supernatural, and
Medium, shows that may seek to simply entertain, but also serve to disseminate paranormal beliefs. The public hunger for the paranormal seems insatiable.
Paranormal America provides the definitive portrait of Americans who believe in or have experienced such phenomena as ghosts, Bigfoot, UFOs, psychic phenomena, astrology, and the power of mediums. However, unlike many books on the paranormal, this volume does not focus on proving or disproving the paranormal, but rather on understanding the people who believe and how those beliefs shape their lives.
Drawing on the Baylor Religion Survey—a multi-year national random sample of American religious values, practices, and behaviors—as well as extensive fieldwork including joining hunts for Bigfoot and spending the night in a haunted house, authors Christopher Bader, F. Carson Mencken, and Joseph Baker shed light on what the various types of paranormal experiences, beliefs, and activities claimed by Americans are; whether holding an unconventional belief, such as believing in Bigfoot, means that one is unconventional in other attitudes and behaviors; who has such experiences and beliefs and how they differ from other Americans; and if we can expect major religions to emerge from the paranormal.
Brimming with engaging personal stories and provocative findings, Paranormal America is an entertaining yet authoritative look at a growing segment of American religious culture.
Review
“It is accessible to any reader with an interest in the convergence of paranormal beliefs and religion. The thought-provoking narrative will not disappoint experts on the topic. Highly recommended”
“But this fascinating book calls into question that easy explanation. The authors convincingly show that believing in flying saucers or some other paranormal subject—Bigfoot, ghosts, astrology, psychics—is not fringe at all. More than two-thirds of Americans accept the reality of at least one such phenomenon.”
“What makes Paranormal America a fun read is that one would assume scientists would poke more fun at people who study paranormal activity. Instead, they blend skepticism with data and great details that leave readers with a sense of balance.” "This is an interesting study which is likely to be referred to by sociologists for some considerable time to come, and no doubt put to various, sometimes mutually contradictory, uses."
“Paranormal America is an authoritative but extremely readable analysis of an important but often ignored subculture. This fine book explains how many people seek personally-relevant meaning in a chaotic and often alienating world. In these pages we learn much not only about believers in ESP, Bigfoot, and astrology, but also about the general ways in which all human minds make sense of our perplexing position in the universe.”
Synopsis
The early conviction that the destruction of the federal building in Oklahoma City was the work of Islamic fundamentalists is testimony to the depth of current American fears of Middle Eastern terrorism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and in the wake of the World Trade Center bombing, terrorist attacks have rapidly replaced nuclear armageddon as the foremost lurking threat in the nation's consciousness.
Is militant Islam an unstoppable juggernaut, an imminent danger to both moderate Muslim governments and Western ones? Or will it inevitably burn itself out? Regardless, its record during the past decade and a half is impressive and bloody. With the destruction of Israel as its stated goal, the Islamic fundamentalist movement has embraced terrorism as the means to this end. In his bid to consolidate power in Iran after the Islamic revolution in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini, facing terrorist opposition, curbed it by extreme measures, gaining a taste for this form of warfare and using it as an arm of Iranian foreign policy to aid like-minded terrorist groups and embarrass Iran's national enemies. Since then, Iran has been at the heart of both the fundamentalist movement and the terrorism which seems inextricably linked to it. The Iranian Connection is a world-wide network of embassies and diplomatic missions--staffed with intelligence personnel-- which shelters terrorists, stores their weaponry, and monitors potential targets.
With this book, Edgar O'Ballance has written a readable investigative account of Iran's involvement in international terrorist activity.
Synopsis
This expanded, updated, and revised edition of
A Guide to the Ghosts of Lincoln takes you on a tour of the known and the obscure sites in Lincoln, Nebraska, where on a dark and silent evening you might feel a slight chill in the air, hear the faint calling of a lost soul, or see the ghostly shape of a spirit fade into blackness.
Since its original publication, hundreds of people have submitted stories about the haunted places of eastern Nebraska. The best of those stories have been added to this new edition along with updated versions of all the old, classic stories. A book for both the easily frightened and the hardened skeptic, A Guide to the Ghosts of Lincoln is guaranteed to send shivers of fear down any spine.
Alan Boye includes the famous story of the apparition at the C. C. White Building, as well as those of the Capitol Building ghost, the haunting of the universitys Temple Theater, the woman at Antelope Park, the details of Lincolns haunted bike path, and the mysterious story of Captain Jack. The new stories introduce readers to the fervent face in the window of a church and the chilling girl on the other side of the mirror in the locker room of a local high school.
About the Author
Christopher D. Bader is an associate professor of sociology at Baylor University. With F. Carson Mencken, he is Principal Investigator on the Baylor Religion Survey Project.
F. Carson Mencken is professor of sociology at Baylor University.
Joseph Baker is an assistant professor of sociology at East Tennessee State University.