Product Description

So you want to investigate a haunting? This book is full of practical advice used in the author's own ghost- hunting practice. Find out whether you're dealing with a ghost, spirit, or an entity … and discover the one time when you should stop what you're doing and call in an exorcist. Learn the four-phase procedure for conducting an effective investigation, how to capture paranormal phenomena on film, record disembodied sounds and voices on tape, assemble an affordable ghost-hunting kit, and form your own paranormal group.

For anyone with time and little money to spend on equipment, this book will help you maintain a healthy sense of skepticism and thoroughness while you search for authentic evidence of the paranormal.

Selling Features
-- Written by a paranormal investigator with fifteen years of experience, focusing on practical advice
-- The only handbook that details how to form paranormal groups, research a suspected haunted area, and practice effective eyewitness interview techniques.
-- Provides contact information on paranormal organizations and supply warehouses for hard-to-find materials (electromagnetic detectors, infrared film, etc.)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61087 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 168 pages

About the Author
Richard Southall (West Virginia) has been interested in the paranormal since a very young age, and was conducting his own paranormal investigations by the time he was a teenager.  He is the co-creator of a haunted walking tour of Parkersburg, WV, one of the best-received tours in the United States.  Today, Southall conducts private ghost investigations, teaches workshops on ghost hunting, has contributed to numerous periodicals, and has been interviewed on regional and national radio about ghosts and hauntings.  He is a member of the paranormal group MAJDA.

Customer Reviews

Strange pursuit ...
This book is a field guide for the prospective paranormal investigator. It provides information on how to form a group for the investigation of the paranormal, how to research haunted areas and much more. The advice is very practical and the author obviously has years of experience in this field. He provides details on the types of entities likely to be encountered, like ghosts, spirits or dangerous spirit creatures that are best left to an experienced exorcist. I found the sections on how to capture paranormal phenomena on film and how to record disembodied voices and sounds on tape particularly interesting, as these are easy to do with equipment that most people already have. What's more, it can be done anywhere as all walls and buildings contain some residue of recorded voices. Plenty of sources for material are provided, as well as contact details of organisations devoted to studying these phenomena. The book contains photographs, an appendix, a glossary, bibliography and index. It is a very thorough handbook for those who wish to pursue this rather unusual hobby.

Less antedotal/More How-To
I really hate so called 'experts' in the paranormal that believe their theories are truths and pass them off as such. His 'orb' pictures are obviously soft diffusion from the tombstone reflecting into a lens with a big of dew on it.

The margins are wide, reducing the actual text in the book. The author spends a great deal of time telling stories and actually very little on 'how' to hunt ghosts.

Troy Taylor's Guidebook is much better.

On the other hand, the forms in the back of the book are great starting points for creating your own tailored forms. There is good information in the book. There just isn't a whole lot of it.

recommended for all beginners
There is a little detective in all of us, but in most cases one wouldn't know where to begin. If you are curious about possible existence of paranormal phenomenon this book gives you that place to start. Whether a skeptic,a believer,this book gives the information needed to begin simple investigations in a manner that is easy to understand. For someone who hasn't had years of experience in the paranormal, or criminal investigation some of the books available can be intimidating. Mr Southalls book however makes you feel that doing your own investigation is within abilities. This book is not perfect, but it give an excellent starting point for the novice to begin investigating from.