Alan Brown’s previous books on the paranormal consist of compilations of ghost stories and local legends as well as studies of putatively haunted sites throughout the southern states. Ghost Hunters of the South shows an interesting development in Brown’s own interest in supernatural legends. He displays an interest in what is actually occurring in reportedly haunted sites. Rather than simply documenting stories about hauntings, his latest book profiles researchers of the paranormal who investigate ghost stories.
Brown’s approach reflects a shift in ways historians and researchers within the ethnographic disciplines have studied the supernatural. Prior to scholarship first published in the 1980s, most researchers on the paranormal focused mainly on the social, cultural, and historical information that could be gleaned from stories of hauntings. Questions about the veracity of the stories and beliefs were generally considered outside the scope of research. In 1982, David Hufford’s The Terror that Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions and other subsequent publications opened new ways to research supernatural phenomena. Hufford’s contribution was to demonstrate the limits of assuming that these types of stories are derived solely from cultural sources, wishful thinking, or overactive imaginations. Rather, he developed an innovative way to enrich research into parapsychology. Hufford’s approach asks that researchers question their own biases of skepticism, since automatically dismissing claims about supernatural experiences will limit one’s understanding of how people believe in supernatural phenomena. Instead, he demonstrates that a richer understanding of beliefs about the supernatural will emerge if the researcher begins with the assumption that people have had actual experiences with phenomena that they cannot rationally explain. This proposition is a starting point for Hufford’s approach, and it has yielded rich studies on a variety of subjects.
Brown uses a method complicit with Hufford’s "experience-centered approach" to research ghost stories. His specific focus is on those who research haunted sites within a dozen southern states. Although he neither confirms nor (fully) denies whether he believes in ghosts, he non-judgmentally accepts that others sincerely believe in the supernatural. Rather than simply dismissing reports of balls of light, disembodied voices, and ghostly apparitions, Brown documents how these phenomena are recounted by those who experience them. This approach is essential for his research, as his book is an excellent documentation of the goals and research methods of scores of paranormal investigators—or "ghost hunters" as they are popularly called. Surprisingly, his own implicit skepticism is often matched, and even exceeded, by the overt skepticism of these researchers.
Brown takes the ghost hunters’ research seriously. He used questionnaires and structured interviews to document the activities of paranormal researchers who investigate reports of haunted sites. The book primarily consists of profiles of these researchers. The profiles and the descriptions of numerous case studies provide an excellent resource for comparative study. The accounts document numerous texts that include elements that are common to legends and ghost stories. They include motifs such as ghostly apparitions, stories of revenants, balls of fire, inexplicable changes in temperature, and mysterious lights. Brown includes the ghost hunters’ own explanations for these occurrences, and the range of interpretations is fascinating. Some are quick to accept photographs of inexplicable orbs as valid evidence of the supernatural; others immediately dismiss this visual evidence as unreliable. Some researchers state that their overt goal is to find verifiable proof of the supernatural, whereas others assert that their goal is the opposite, namely to demonstrate that a site is not haunted. Numerous researchers claim that the majority of their investigations show overwhelming evidence of supernatural occurrences, but a few of the researchers almost totally dismiss the explanation that a site is haunted. These contrasts are useful for understanding cultural assumptions about the supernatural, and the commonalities within the texts themselves provide excellent fodder for generalizing about ghost stories.
One of the most intriguing profiles is of a group called Virginia Science Research. Its founder and director, Joseph Holbert, is one of the few full-time investigators. He is open to the existence of the supernatural, but he seeks rational explanations for what others’ observe. Holbert takes a critical approach, and he displays a forthright willingness to let others critique his work. His account of a presentation that he made to the National Capitol Area Skeptics Society and his work with Penn and Teller’s TV show Bullshit!, demonstrate a bold application of the old adage "Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out." Holbert’s approach could serve as a model for what is most valuable in Brown’s fine contribution to the literature on supernatural legends. Like Holbert, Brown offers a serious treatment of a topic that is too easily dismissed as dubious academic research.
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[Review length: 780 words • Review posted on March 2, 2009]