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Ghost Hunters

Ghost Hunters

William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death

About the Book

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Poision Squad and The Poisoner's Handbook tells the amazing story of William James's quest for empirical evidence of the spirit world

What if a world-renowned philosopher and professor of psychiatry at Harvard suddenly announced he believed in ghosts? At the close of the nineteenth century, the illustrious William James led a determined scientific investigation into "unexplainable" incidences of clairvoyance and ghostly visitations. James and a small group of eminent scientists staked their reputations, their careers, even their sanity on one of the most extraordinary quests ever undertaken: to empirically prove the existence of ghosts, spirits, and psychic phenomena. What they pursued—and what they found—raises questions as fascinating today as they were then.
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Praise for Ghost Hunters

Fascinating . . . Blum tells her literally wondrous tale very well. (The New York Times Book Review)

A fascinating reminder that reason and revelation are not opposites. (James Shreve, author of The Genome War)
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About the Author

Deborah Blum

Deborah Blum is director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, and publisher of Undark magazine, (undark.org). In 1992, she won the Pulitzer Prize for a series on primate research, which she turned into a book, The Monkey Wars. Her other books include The Poisoner's Handbook, Ghost Hunters, Love at Goon Park, and Sex on the Brain. She has written for publications including The New York Times, Wired, Time, Discover, Mother Jones, The Guardian and The Boston Globe. Blum is a past president of the National Association of Science Writers, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a lifetime associate of the National Academy of Sciences.


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