Speaking as one of the most skeptical of people, I can
confirm that Lisa Morton speaks the truth in Ghosts: A Haunted History. I don't believe for a second that
anything happens after the last gasp but a lot of decomposing, but I do love
the idea of unexplainable spirits drifting through the night and all the other
bunk that makes Morton's new book such a delicious
curl-up-on-the-sofa-on-a-stormy-night read.
Our ghost host drifts so quickly through all the legends,
literary and cinematic confabulations, religious spirits, “real life” spooks,
huckster spiritualists, and pseudo-science ghostbusters who haunt her book that
the old skepticism never has a chance to kick in. So Ghosts reads like a handy Reader’s
Digest version of centuries of paranormal history which find our central
creatures shifting shape from culture to culture so elastically that they
eventually start to resemble Manimal more than Casper.
As for Morton, she never lets her own stance on the
existence of ghosts slip (though she does not refrain from explaining when an incident has been properly debunked), so believers will not have to worry about having
their lovely fantasies shaken. According to the author, those believers account
for half of all Americans (and one third of the country’s population believe
they’ve actually lived in a haunted house!)… a statistic more unsettling than
all the child murdering, ectoplasm chucking, and YouTube abuse she chronicles
throughout this Halloween season must-read.
