Spooky Science

Name: Spooky Science
Author: John Grant

A hilarious lampoon of scientific inquiry into the psychic.

Life after death, spirit communication, the astral plane, reincarnation: on the relatively rare occasions when scientists have tried to apply their methods to the paranormal, they’ve often ended up embarrassed—fooled by obvious charlatans, deluded into making irrational and unsubstantiated claims, or frustrated in their attempt to find something that just isn’t there.

John Grant—author of Discarded Science and Corrupted Science—investigates the pseudoscience of spooky stuff to fascinating and humorous effect. From scamming mediums, to poltergeist fakery, to heavenly hallucinations, Grant spares ardent believers and gullible thinkers no mercy in this rollicking history of psychic “phenomena.”

John Grant

John Grant, real name Paul Barnett, was the author of over sixty books, of which about one‑third were novels. His The Encyclopedia of Walt Disney’s Animated Characters is regarded as the standard work in its field. As co-editor with John Clute of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, he received the Hugo, the World Fantasy Award, and several other international awards. He received his second Hugo in 2004 for The Chesley Awards with Elizabeth L. Humphrey and Pamela D. Scoville. As technical editor of the Clute/Nicholls Encyclopedia of Science Fiction he shared a rare British Science Fiction Association Special Award. He died in 2020.