DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?

For readers who hear ghostly voices (or who would like to) Laffon dishes up an unskeptical, Gallic-flavored history of 19th-century Spiritism. While taking a stab at explaining our enduring fascination with the supernatural, the author traces the rise of widespread efforts—sparked by the mystical Fox Sisters in the United States and Allan Kardec’s seminal Spirits’ Book in Europe—to set up channels of communication with the dead through mediums, automatic writing, poltergeist phenomena and other means. She then goes on to expand the discussion with quick looks at astrology, numerology, palmistry, reading coffee grounds and other divination techniques, in both Western and in other societies. She does note that the Fox Sisters and other mystics were proven fakes but encourages experimentation as harmless and, possibly (who knows?), even fruitful. Nonetheless, Matje’s cartoon images of comic figures with thick, green, gaseous “souls” coming out of their mouths help to keep the overall tone less than serious. (further reading) (Nonfiction. 11-13)