I'll be honest, I'm more interested in William James than I am in his more popular brother, Henry, because Henry wrote really snooze-worthy books and I have it in my mind that he wasn't all that nice to my BFF, Edith Wharton. I haven't read all that much of James's philosophy/psychology (but I have some of his stuff!), but the concept of him has always fascinated me, probably because Henry gets all the attention. (And then sister Alice gets no love whatsoever; my heart has always gone out to her, poor lady.)

Greta lives with her grandma, parents, younger brother, and a few ghosts. Her Mother is yoga obsessed and her father tries his hand on poetry. Younger brother is too young to talk and anyways he is always busy playing with lorries. Naturally, Grandma is Greta's best friend. But she talks to the ghost of grandpa and Greta's parents want her to send her to an old home. Greta also used to think that grandma is losing marbles until one day Greta was hit by a vehicle and after that accident now she can also see the ghosts. Her parents are more than sure that Grandma is a bad influence on their daughter.

I think that structuring the book differently might have alleviated this problem. For example, had the book followed fewer people, focusing more on their narratives, it might have felt more "over" when the people at the center of the story die. Or having the final chapter or two follow more recent follow-up studies on the same topic. Another great quote (pg 264) by W James: "Nature is everywhere gothic, not classic. She forms a real jungle, where all things are provisional, half-fitted to each other & untidy." Speaking about Mr. Myers acceptance of the complexity of the cosmic environment, "although we may be mistaken in much of the detail, in a general way, at least we become plausible." In all, it was frustrating to see this group of learned men and women consistently run up against vicious criticisms from the rest of the scientific community, who refused to participate or even entertain the notion that the work that they were doing had merit. I sincerely wish that some group of researchers had continued this work, which sadly lost steam after most of the main investigators, particularly Hodgson and James passed on. My personal feelings on the subject accord with those of James; I don't necessarily believe in life after death or spirit communication, but I have not ruled out such things, because there are some situations that current science cannot explain fully.

Regarding ghosts, in the end you are free to think whatever you want, to accept the hauntings as true or not. The way this book is written, both are acceptable. I think this is this book's greatest strength. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been expecting a horror story. The most important thing is to start reading this knowing this is closer to historical fiction than horror. While the book was dry in places due to the wealth of factual information provided, I found myself unable to put it down.Denise Summers who read books that nobody should read just for fun, since her life turned into a living hell. So, it might seem reasonable to expect that I didn’t like this book. Well, it is a strange thing. Parts of this book annoyed me – but not for the content so much as how it was told. I got a bit lost at times as there seemed to be too many stories going on. But this was less a book about the cheats (oh, sorry, spiritualists) and more about those who had been cheated (oh, I mean, their scientific investigators). I did warn you that I was prejudiced. Blum does her best to make this subject interesting. Alas, this is a dry read. Why? Because William James and his cohorts make for an interesting albeit dry read. Also, this book is rather ambitious with quite the scope.