Spektator
28th December 2011, 03:11 PM
Paranormal America, by Christopher D. Bader, F. Carson Mencken, and Joseph O. Baker. NYU Press: 2011. Reviewed: the Amazon Kindle version of the book, $9.76.
Skeptics, the war is lost. In the United States, the paranormal is the norm.
At least that is the conclusion of Bader, Mencken, and Baker, based on multiple surveys that reveal 68% of Americans believe in some manifestation of the paranormal (excluding traditional religious beliefs, such as the intervention of angels and demons in our everyday lives). What do the majority of Americans believe in? UFOs, bigfoot, ghosts and haunting, astrology, the prophecies of Nostradamus, alien abductions, witchcraft, New Age teachings, and so on and so forth. The authors are all sociologists: Bader and Mencken teach at Baylor University (a Baptist institution--I'm just sayin'), and Baker teaches at East Tennessee State. They used a Baylor questionnaire on beliefs as their primary research instrument, implemented by the Gallup pollsters.
And more excitingly, they did field research, attending psychic fairs, a bigfoot convention, consorting with bigfoot researchers in Texas and elsewhere, and spending the night in a haunted house. Well, a haunted place of business, anyway. An Internet café that was never open because the workmen were too terrified to install the IT tech needed.
However—and this is key—the authors make it clear that they do not intend to come down on either the believer or the skeptical side regarding paranormal belief. Their interest is solely the question of "who believes?" Which Americans believe in which paranormal manifestation? And what can we tell about them if we analyze their race, their creed, their income, their family situation, and any other variables we can think of. This objectivity occasionally seems a bit forced, but the book is engaging and entertaining none the less.
When the authors spend the night in that haunted house, for example, the owner of the place solemnly assures them that he will conduct a ritual to draw the ghosts—he is a practicing Wiccan. And two firm believers in ghosts are there to do what they can to help. That night the authors witness strange movements, hear weird voices, and experience entities that express strong emotion. The entities are the psychics, by the way. No ghosts put in an appearance, though the owner assured the authors that "You will believe" after one night. For some reason in my head I hear that in a kind of Yoda voice.
At the bigfoot conference, sponsored by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy, they run into Bob Gimlin and by chatting people up, discover that bigfootery is asplinter with different viewpoints: Some people believe that bigfoot is a space alien, some that bigfoot is an interdimensional creature (they cite Jon-Erik Beckjord), some that bigfoot is an apparently single individual, a Native American who has learned shapeshifting—and some, the mainstream, that bigfoot is a biological creature that leaves scat in the woods, howls and bangs tree limbs, and looks very much like an apelike hominid of gigantic stature.
The believers, not bigfoot, are what interest the authors. They discover that, while women are more apt to believe in the paranormal than men in general, many more men believe in bigfoot than women. Oh, I suppose some men believe in women—no, let's be serious. There is a gender difference here. Your bigfoot believer is more apt to be male than female.
Similar breakdowns are done by religion (though most often "religion" seems to concentrate mainly on Protestant evangelicals rather than, say, on Jews, Catholics, Muslims, or Buddhists), by income, by family situation, and other sociological factors. I'm sure these are significant, but for the general reader the profiles of believers in the paranormal and the anecdotes about them are probably the main draw.
Now my complaints: the research instrument, it seems to me, may be a bit misleading. One question is "Have you ever consulted a horoscope?" If the answer is "yes," then bang, you are one of the believers in the paranormal (though you may be a specialist believer, investing credence in only astrology and not in the other matters under question). Another question: "Have you ever seen a light in the sky that you could not explain?" You say "yes," you believe in UFOs.
Now, see, I differ. I have, once in a while, glanced at the astrology column in a magazine in my dentist's waiting room or in the daily paper. But I don't believe in astrology, not one little bit. Similarly, I have seen a few lights in the sky that I could not identify (two of them were really weird, but I did learn what they were: one was a weather balloon dropping an instrument package by parachute, the other the reflection of the moon I glimpsed in an airplane window). But I don't "believe" in UFOs in any paranormal way. I think there are lights that people have seen that they couldn't identify—but not that the lights can never be identified, or that they are alien craft. I tend to wonder if the study is tainted to some degree by responses such as I would make were I honest in checking the boxes.
A grumble: The authors very briefly survey some major contributions to bigfoot lore, and they include Theodore Roosevelt's supposed account of a murderous sasquatch in Wilderness Hunter. However, in the book itself, Roosevelt's informant refers to the creature as a bear and the description of the wounds it leaves match the dentition of a bear, not an ape, exactly. Additionally, no independent source has verified that the attack ever took place at all, and Roosevelt calls the tale a "goblin story."
Say what? complaint: the authors discuss angels, demons, glossolalia, and faith healing, but do not classify them as paranormal. They are traditional religious beliefs instead.
Last complaint: I don't know if the typos are in the original or only in the ebook, but there are several that hit me as weird. One, for example, was the identification of a witness as a "formal postal worker." Our mail carrier doesn't wear a prom dress. Another: a sentence or two ends with a strange conglomeration of punctuation, such as a comma and a period, together. There are a few grammar issues—pronoun reference is sometimes muddy, diction is occasionally odd. The book does need a little more proofing and editing.
Now, the book was first published around Halloween of 2010, but I just caught up with it in e-book form, so it's new to me, and hence the review. Taking the book for what it is, I would say Paranormal America is a good read. Behind the lines and a little beneath the surface I see hints of skepticism: the authors note the "evolution" of the popular image of bigfoot, from the Neanderthal-like vision of the 1950s to a more gorilla-like creature today, hard to imagine if bigfoot is a flesh-and-blood creature but much easier if the stories, not the physical reality, are in a state of change. And of course, no ghosts appeared.
I seem to hear the disappointed voice of Yoda: "Awwww. Believe you do not."
Skeptics, the war is lost. In the United States, the paranormal is the norm.
At least that is the conclusion of Bader, Mencken, and Baker, based on multiple surveys that reveal 68% of Americans believe in some manifestation of the paranormal (excluding traditional religious beliefs, such as the intervention of angels and demons in our everyday lives). What do the majority of Americans believe in? UFOs, bigfoot, ghosts and haunting, astrology, the prophecies of Nostradamus, alien abductions, witchcraft, New Age teachings, and so on and so forth. The authors are all sociologists: Bader and Mencken teach at Baylor University (a Baptist institution--I'm just sayin'), and Baker teaches at East Tennessee State. They used a Baylor questionnaire on beliefs as their primary research instrument, implemented by the Gallup pollsters.
And more excitingly, they did field research, attending psychic fairs, a bigfoot convention, consorting with bigfoot researchers in Texas and elsewhere, and spending the night in a haunted house. Well, a haunted place of business, anyway. An Internet café that was never open because the workmen were too terrified to install the IT tech needed.
However—and this is key—the authors make it clear that they do not intend to come down on either the believer or the skeptical side regarding paranormal belief. Their interest is solely the question of "who believes?" Which Americans believe in which paranormal manifestation? And what can we tell about them if we analyze their race, their creed, their income, their family situation, and any other variables we can think of. This objectivity occasionally seems a bit forced, but the book is engaging and entertaining none the less.
When the authors spend the night in that haunted house, for example, the owner of the place solemnly assures them that he will conduct a ritual to draw the ghosts—he is a practicing Wiccan. And two firm believers in ghosts are there to do what they can to help. That night the authors witness strange movements, hear weird voices, and experience entities that express strong emotion. The entities are the psychics, by the way. No ghosts put in an appearance, though the owner assured the authors that "You will believe" after one night. For some reason in my head I hear that in a kind of Yoda voice.
At the bigfoot conference, sponsored by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy, they run into Bob Gimlin and by chatting people up, discover that bigfootery is asplinter with different viewpoints: Some people believe that bigfoot is a space alien, some that bigfoot is an interdimensional creature (they cite Jon-Erik Beckjord), some that bigfoot is an apparently single individual, a Native American who has learned shapeshifting—and some, the mainstream, that bigfoot is a biological creature that leaves scat in the woods, howls and bangs tree limbs, and looks very much like an apelike hominid of gigantic stature.
The believers, not bigfoot, are what interest the authors. They discover that, while women are more apt to believe in the paranormal than men in general, many more men believe in bigfoot than women. Oh, I suppose some men believe in women—no, let's be serious. There is a gender difference here. Your bigfoot believer is more apt to be male than female.
Similar breakdowns are done by religion (though most often "religion" seems to concentrate mainly on Protestant evangelicals rather than, say, on Jews, Catholics, Muslims, or Buddhists), by income, by family situation, and other sociological factors. I'm sure these are significant, but for the general reader the profiles of believers in the paranormal and the anecdotes about them are probably the main draw.
Now my complaints: the research instrument, it seems to me, may be a bit misleading. One question is "Have you ever consulted a horoscope?" If the answer is "yes," then bang, you are one of the believers in the paranormal (though you may be a specialist believer, investing credence in only astrology and not in the other matters under question). Another question: "Have you ever seen a light in the sky that you could not explain?" You say "yes," you believe in UFOs.
Now, see, I differ. I have, once in a while, glanced at the astrology column in a magazine in my dentist's waiting room or in the daily paper. But I don't believe in astrology, not one little bit. Similarly, I have seen a few lights in the sky that I could not identify (two of them were really weird, but I did learn what they were: one was a weather balloon dropping an instrument package by parachute, the other the reflection of the moon I glimpsed in an airplane window). But I don't "believe" in UFOs in any paranormal way. I think there are lights that people have seen that they couldn't identify—but not that the lights can never be identified, or that they are alien craft. I tend to wonder if the study is tainted to some degree by responses such as I would make were I honest in checking the boxes.
A grumble: The authors very briefly survey some major contributions to bigfoot lore, and they include Theodore Roosevelt's supposed account of a murderous sasquatch in Wilderness Hunter. However, in the book itself, Roosevelt's informant refers to the creature as a bear and the description of the wounds it leaves match the dentition of a bear, not an ape, exactly. Additionally, no independent source has verified that the attack ever took place at all, and Roosevelt calls the tale a "goblin story."
Say what? complaint: the authors discuss angels, demons, glossolalia, and faith healing, but do not classify them as paranormal. They are traditional religious beliefs instead.
Last complaint: I don't know if the typos are in the original or only in the ebook, but there are several that hit me as weird. One, for example, was the identification of a witness as a "formal postal worker." Our mail carrier doesn't wear a prom dress. Another: a sentence or two ends with a strange conglomeration of punctuation, such as a comma and a period, together. There are a few grammar issues—pronoun reference is sometimes muddy, diction is occasionally odd. The book does need a little more proofing and editing.
Now, the book was first published around Halloween of 2010, but I just caught up with it in e-book form, so it's new to me, and hence the review. Taking the book for what it is, I would say Paranormal America is a good read. Behind the lines and a little beneath the surface I see hints of skepticism: the authors note the "evolution" of the popular image of bigfoot, from the Neanderthal-like vision of the 1950s to a more gorilla-like creature today, hard to imagine if bigfoot is a flesh-and-blood creature but much easier if the stories, not the physical reality, are in a state of change. And of course, no ghosts appeared.
I seem to hear the disappointed voice of Yoda: "Awwww. Believe you do not."