The Encyclopaedia of the Paranormal

Reviewed by Leonard Dunn, England.

Lynn Picknet: "The Encyclopaedia of the Paranormal: the Complete Guide to the Unexplained". Gould Publishing. 1990

The author, who is also a healer, is a leading authority on the paranormal and there are also contributions from other well respected workers in their specialist fields.

The work is divided into eight sections after an introduction: The power of belief. Secrets of the mind. Extraordinary people. The unpredictable world. UFO phenomena. PSI research. Frontiers of science. Life after death.

The book is well illustrated with a good index.

There are over 400 entries which are all dealt with in a very rational way, neither accepting everything at face value nor, like so many scientists, rejecting anything out of hand without investigation. It covers such diverse subjects as Healing, Witchcraft, UFO's, the more obvious aspects of the paranormal.

I was especially interested in part 7, dealing with Quantum mechanics and Formative Causation in their relationship to the paranormal. This was quite new to me although I have a fairly comprehensive knowledge of much of the paranormal as it has long been a strong interest of mine.

It is the best and most comprehensive work on the subject that I have seen and each subsection is fully cross-referenced to other comprehensive bibliography for further reading since with over 400 entries in less than 300 pages some of the entries are, of necessity rather briefer than could be desired. Nevertheless this is a work that I can fully recommend to interested people.

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