Richard Wiseman produces books at a prodigious rate. He’s done an evidence-based self-help guide, and looked at luck and the quirky side of life, but his main interests are magic, illusions and parapsyschology.
In Paranormality, Wiseman explores how everyday reality creates the illusory experiences we often attribute to the paranormal. He has a conversational tone and deftly combines anecdote with solidly referenced research data.
Wiseman is sceptical about the paranormal, but he’s in a different league to your usual sceptic. He carefully explains how the appearance of paranormality is produced in the phenomena he is examining, and does so based on his own research, be it into ghosts, prophecy, fortune-telling or mind-control. Usefully, the book contains QR codes the techies amongst you can scan using a smartphone to take you to supporting material.
Wisely, he concentrates on phenomena, or aspects of phenomena, where human involvement is crucial, as these are most amenable to systematic examination and understanding. Wiseman makes convincing cases for the lack of paranormality in most of them.
This is scepticism done right. Where phenomena have prosaic explanations, it needs to be said. There’s no point in mystifying things needlessly. He does not comment on phenomena which are unlikely to yield to the kind of research he’s equipped to carry out.
This sits in stark contrast to the average ill-informed sceptical vilification we routinely see. We need more serious investigation like Wiseman’s, and less armchair sneering.
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