Product Description

Guardian angels, demonic spirits, extraterrestrial visitors; are these entities figments of the imagination, or is there evidence for their existence? Famed psychic detective Joe Nickell answers these questions in his lively book. From the 'Newberry Demon' of 1679 and the strange henomena produced by 19th-century spiritualist mediums to such modern enigmas as alien abductions, bigfoot sightings, and the bizarre mystery of Atlanta's 'House of Blood', "Entities" examines eyewitness accounts and other evidence for strange beings world-wide. Without dismissing or advocating any particular view, Nickell takes a detective's approach to controversial claims, shedding light on dozens of otherwise perplexing mysteries. An afterword by acclaimed psychologist Robert A. Baker adds an authoritative voice to the discussion and explains the impact that beings of whatever variety can have on our lives. "Entities" will challenge, anger, amuse, and fascinate but, most importantly, it will enlighten. Believers and skeptics alike will benefit from the careful analysis that appears on every page.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #981688 in Books
• Published on: 1995-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 297 pages

Customer Reviews

Nickell writes the way Nickell always writes
Joe Nickell isn't just a member of CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal). He's also a former detective and stage magician, and in paranormal circles he's known as a diehard skeptic who prefers to base his research on first-hand investigations. This latter quality becomes very evident in Entities, where he personally carries out a large number of investigations. On more than one occasion during the reading you'll find a section where it's mentioned how this or that case for a long time has remained forgotten. Until Nickell finds out about it, that is. And after investigating it he always comes to the same conclusion: there is no such thing as the paranormal; everything can be explained using traditional scientific methods and rationality, it's just misinterpretations, hoaxes, and so on.

The book deals with, just as the title says, all kinds of possible and impossible "beings", from poltergeists and ghosts to angels, demons, spirit entities, lake monsters, extraterrestrials, and much more. On page after page, Nickell demonstrates how even the most outrageous reports can be explained without using anything paranormal whatsoever, and he uses tons of different sources to back up his claims. For example, chapter two, which deals with ghosts and haunted houses, is 33 pages long with a total of 100 footnotes. Not only that, each chapter ends with a list of recommended reading for anyone interested in pursuing his or her own research.

But I had a real problem with this book, the meticulous research aside. It completely lacks unexplained cases. Every time Nickell, for instance, cannot find a definite explanation to an alleged haunted house or encounter with an extraterrestrial he simply concludes that it was all imagination or a hoax. Misunderstandings among the witnesses or staged supernatural events are nothing new for the paranormal researcher, but I have to say that it really does feel greatly insulting towards the reader - not to forget towards the scientific principle - to quite bluntly assume that if you cannot find an explanation through the use of mainstream science, then obviously the witness must have misunderstood the entire thing, had a hallucination, joked, or in some other way fabricated whatever it was that took place.

This attitude sounds more like fundamental scientism than healthy scepticism to me, and even though this is the only real drawback to the book the high level of annoyance it results in is such a nuisance that it overshadows all the great things about Nickell's research.

A lot of information in a small space...
Joe Nickell, in this work, tackles a formidable task. He has looked at a variety of "entities," beings that are outside of normal human experience. Angels, demons, sasquatch, faeries, and extraterrestrials are just some of the beings that he covers, reviewing the folklore of these beings and the actual cause of belief in them.

The only drawback to the book is that he seems to try to cover to much in too limited of a space. Much detail that might be interesting is lost, due to the number of beings covered. Overall, this is a good general overview of the belief systems that revolve around these nonexistent entities.

Joe Nickell is my favorite author
What else can I say, this book's great.

Being the person of no faith that I am, I was drawn to the premise of Entities: what evidence, if any, is there that proves beings such as ghosts, fairies, aliens, Loch Ness monster, and bigfoot exist?

Well, besides the occasional anecdote, not much. Read it and find out why.