the encyclopedia of ghosts and spirits

Summary:

As I have said before, everyone in my family has a ghost story. I don’t know if we have some genetic predisposition or we’re just odd. It might be one or the other, of maybe both. Maybe we were genetically predisposed to being odd. That makes sense.

Anyways, I have this encyclopedia. I have had it for quite a few years now. Now that I think about it, I’ve probably had this book in my possession for ten years or so. Ha, I’ve possessed this book that mentions possession. I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it. Not that I’m one of those let’s-go-hunt-ghosts-with-our-weird-equipment-and-recored-it-people, I’m just a person who acknowledges that there are unexplainable things in the universe and I also like folklore. This book is full of a bit of both of those things. This book also holds a lot of history. Believe it nor not, spiritualism actually has its own history, most subjects do, in fact. I’m not overly concerned with the history of spiritualism, but the history does coincide nicely with other movements in the mainstream world.

The book is divided into sections A-Z. It’s an encyclopedia of course. This is a true reference book. There is an index at the back and each entry has citations. It’s actually quite nicely done. The book isn’t going to win a prize for most illustrations though. There are a few black and white illustrations here and there. They are still nice illustrations they are just black, white, and tiny. Each letter at the beginning of each section is in some Adams family type of font. It’s cute and all. I guess it goes with the theme of the book. I’m not really convinced that it adds a lot to the over all feeling of the book or not.

The entries themselves cover a wide range of areas. There are entries about locations that are haunted, for example, the Bachelor’s Grove Cemetary in Chicago. There are definitions of various ghostly apparitions. I’m in the B section, so I’m just going to keep going with that. The example here is the Bakechochin. If you haven’t already guessed this is a Japanese ghost. This basically means haunted lantern, or Japan’s version of will o’the wisp. There are definitions of people. These people have either been haunted or they are spiritualists themselves. The book doesn’t skimp on charlatans either. There are a few entries about people who claimed to be mediums, but were only fooling around. There are entries about individual residences. There are entries about famous ghosts like the Baltimore Poltergeist. I don’t actually recall hearing about this one, but maybe I did and I forgot. Another type of entry are entries about texts that are about the dead or the afterlife. One such book is the Bardo Thodol from Tibet. I haven’t read that one. There are also entries about folklore concerning ghosts and spirits. There is even an entry for beans. Apparently, beans have had some spiritual association in the past. The only thing close to spiritual beans I have seen are Mexican jumping beans. They don’t do that because they’re possessed, they do that because there are tiny worms inside of them.

It’s not a read-straight-through type of book. It’s nice to have as a reference. I know most people generally don’t think they need a reference book about ghosts and spirits in their collections, but Halloween is coming up. Why not? It’s not a very costly book. It is fun to read. There are some rather absurd entries at points.

What I liked: I like folklore. I like how people practice various traditions. This book is full of those. You can deny it all you want to, but plenty of people believe in ghosts or spirits. You’re going to know someone who can associate with something in this book. You may know a full-fledged ghost hunter or you may simply know someone who walked through a cold spot somewhere. Most people have something to relate to the other-worldly. That doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, but it would be nice if you could hold up your end of the conversation when they come around.

This book is rather large. I like that it holds a lot of information. Books should hold lots of information. I feel cheated when I spend money on some book and it doesn’t hold the amount of information I was expecting. I’m paying for information not prettily arranged words or pictures, although I have been known to purchase a book for those reasons.

I really like that this book is not presented in an “out-there” manner. It’s very straight-laced. It lines out all these entries like a regular encyclopedia. I like the factual tone that the book takes. I honestly don’t think I would have bought it had I picked it up and read somebody’s gushing about the orbs they photographed over by the old grain mill, or whatever. I like that the writing is more objective. I like that I can peruse all of this information and find little bits and pieces I’m interested in and leave the other bits and pieces out of it.

What I didn’t like: The book is a paperback. I would like for it to be a hard back, it would hold up better. I don’t know if a hard back version of this book even exists or not.

I’m not too disappointed that there aren’t more pictures because of the nature of the book. Encyclopedias generally don’t require a million pictures.

That’s pretty much all. I generally like this book even if it’s not something I use all the time, or rather something I use rarely. It’s something interesting to drag out around Halloween or read up about something I heard in passing somewhere.

Overall, if you are into this sort of thing, you should get this book. Like I said before, it’s professional in its presentation. It’s a book you can be proud to have on your shelf rather than some shoddy ghost story book you ordered off an outdated website.