Australian Poltergeist
The Stone-Throwing Spook of Humpty Doo and Many Other Cases.
Author: Tony Healy & Paul Cropper
Publisher: Strange Nature
Type: Soft Cover
Pages: 292
Genre: non-fiction
Published: 2014
ISBN: 97819211340
The book itself is well made, it is seven inches wide, ten inches tall and over half an inch thick. The book has a great amount of black and white photos thorough and a few newspaper clippings and sketches.
The book delves briefly into the history of the Poltergeist starting off in 355 CE and examines cases up to 1998. I will note that the book does use the antiquated BC/AD instead of the secular BCE/CE. The difference between Poltergeists and Ghosts in examined as well as possible causes, folklore, and some very poignant observations about 'skeptics'.
This book is at its heart a catalogue of cases. Each case is given a five star rating with the weakest accounts getting zero stars and the most documented getting five stars. Each entry is also listed by the name given to the case, the location it occurred and the year or years the Poltergeist manifested.
Chapter one deals with the Humpty Doo Poltergeist from the title, from there each chapter deals with a particular case.
The second chapter in addition to detailing the Mayhap case from Western Australia, also references Min Min, UfO's and Phantom Hands.
Chapters three and four deal with a haunted cowshed and a haunted prostitute respectively.
The cases in chapters five and seven are from 1935 and 1887. It is interesting to hear the language of the times used in the reports.
Chapter eight may detail a gay ghost.
The Dubbo poltergeist of NSW in 1891-1894 details an Australian Kobold and parallels the Bell Witch phenomenon.
Chapter twelve is different in that it shows all fifty two cases in lesser detail. These cases come from all over Australia and manifested in1845 to 1998.
Chapter thirteen takes a closer look at some possible causes and some interesting scientific findings.
The appendix takes a close look at three Djinn cases, with some short descriptions on fish falls, ball lightning, spook lights, UFO's, cosmic prankster, Yowie, alien big cats, and astral travel among other topics.
The book has an extensive bibliography and index. Every page has footnotes where they are relevant.
This is an amazing book, and i can highly recommend it to anyone interested in Australian history, folklore, and of course Parapsychology.
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