'It's enthralling stuff, mixing the scholarly with the accessible and placing storytelling right at the heart of the human experience.' - History Revealed 'A fascinating journey' - Yorkshire Post 'Marvellous...Finkel is an expert in Mesopotamian cultures at the British Museum, and is one of the most clever, and nicest, of people it has ever been my pleasure to encounter...A fascinating journey' - The Scotsman There are few things more in common across cultures than the belief in ghosts. Ghosts inhabit something of the very essence of what it is to be human. Whether we personally 'believe' or not, we are all aware of ghosts and the rich mythologies and rituals surrounding them. They have inspired, fascinated and frightened us for centuries - yet most of us are only familiar with the vengeful apparitions of Shakespeare, or the ghastly spectres haunting the pages of 19th century gothic literature. But their origins are much, much older... The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies takes us back to the very beginning. A world-renowned authority on cuneiform, the form of writing on clay tablets which dates back to 3400BC, Irving Finkel has embarked upon an ancient ghost hunt, scouring these tablets to unlock the secrets of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians to breathe new life into the first ghost stories ever written. In The First Ghosts, he uncovers an extraordinarily rich seam of ancient spirit wisdom which has remained hidden for nearly 4000 years, covering practical details of how to live with ghosts, how to get rid of them and bring them back, and how to avoid becoming one, as well as exploring more philosophical questions: what are ghosts, why does the idea of them remain so powerful despite the lack of concrete evidence, and what do they tell us about being human?

M. R. James was born in Kent, England in 1862. James came to writing fiction relatively late, not publishing his first collection of short stories - Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904) - until the age of 42. Modern scholars now see James as having redefined the ghost story for the 20th century and he is seen as the founder of the 'antiquarian ghost story'. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions with a brand new introductory biography of the author.

How can an entire town be haunted? The paranormal activity in the small, sleepy Midwestern town of New Harmony, Indiana, has been reported for decades. Nearly every building has a ghost in residence. Join author and paranormal investigator Joni Mayhan as she explores this mysterious town that was the site of two Utopian colonies and undercovers the truth behind the hauntings. Filled with personal accounts and true stories that will leave you spellbound.

Black Magic Church: The True Story of Clophill is dedicated to one of the UK's most notorious haunted locations, Old St Mary's Church in Clophill, Bedfordshire. In 1963, graves were disturbed in celebration of a black mass and ever since the church has since gained a sinister reputation for paranormal activity, explored in full for the first time.

A paranormal investigator explores a haunted Connecticut farmhouse—with the diaries of a resident detailing decades of unexplained phenomena. Nestled deep in Litchfield Hills, Connecticut, a 1790 farmhouse overlooks the epicenter of a paranormal crossroads. The family that resides there regularly encounters its own ancestors, as well as strangers - human and nonhuman - who seemingly occupy the same physical space in parallel worlds. When ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated, they dubbed it "Ghost Central". When William J. Hall visited the house, family member Donna Fillie showed him her journal of the paranormal activity she’s experienced there over the years. Here is Donna’s diary spanning five decades of uncanny occurrences, supplemented with background information provided by Hall. It tells of notes from old friends who insist they didn't deliver them; a grandson playing with an invisible - but very real - friend; and Donna awakening to phenomena at precisely 12:42 a.m. - an eerie correspondence to her house number, 1242. This compelling work includes many other kinds of inexplicable incidents that frequently occur in this otherwise normal area of Connecticut, which some believe is also the site of a secret military base.

This book is an account of those paranormal events and what I think that I learned from them. Most importantly, I learned that these events are a natural part of the human experience, so if they happen to you, don’t think you might be crazy. More people have paranormal events than you think but tend to tell no one about them. There are many other dimensions and many other life forms that inhabit them, and we all have psychic senses we should have been taught how to use to help us throughout our lives.