'Ghost Hunting' will put you in the mood for Halloween

Halloween is next month, and to put myself in the mood a little early, I recently read a fine book called “Ghost Hunting: True Stories of Unexplained Phenomena from The Atlantic Paranormal Society.”

Published in 2007 by Simon and Schuster, the primary authors of this 273-page book will be no strangers to fans of the hit SyFy Channel show, “Ghost Hunters.” Written by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, the co-founders of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), with award-winning writer Michael Jan Friedman, this book has something that will appeal to skeptics and believers alike.

Most of the commentary in the book comes from Hawes, and he begins by explaining the origins of TAPS as well as the group’s scientific approach to ghost hunting. The book also contains a glossary of supernatural and paranormal terms as well as a “Ghost Hunter’s Manual.”

The vast bulk of the book, 246 pages, consists of descriptions of TAPS’s early cases and a few cases that viewers of “Ghost Hunters” saw during the first two seasons of the show. Cases described in the book include investigations of Race Rock Lighthouse; Eastern State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania; Topton House Restaurant in Topton, Pa.; The Armory in New Bedford, Mass.; The Myrtles Plantation in Louisiana; The DeVille House in Louisiana; Brennan’s Restaurant in New Orleans; Bradley Playhouse in Putnam, Conn.; the Mordecai House (Birthplace of Andrew Johnson) in North Carolina; the USS North Carolina; Beechwood Mansion in Newport, R.I.; The Crescent Hotel and Spa in Eureka Springs, Ark.; Rolling Hills Asylum in Batavia, N.Y.; the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, Calif.; the St. Augustine Lighthouse in St. Augustine, Fla.; and the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colo.

To me, the most interesting portions of the book were those that discussed how Hawes and Wilson became involved in ghost hunting. The television show has often alluded to the fact that each man had separate paranormal experiences, which sparked their interest in the paranormal, but they decline to go into any detail on the air. The same is pretty much the case for Wilson in the book, but not Hawes.

Hawes traces his initial experiences back to when he was 20 years old and learned about Reiki, a “Japanese technique for stress reduction, relaxation and healing that depends on the manipulation of a person’s life force energy.” After about six months of exposure to Reiki, Hawes began seeing things – really weird things – like transparent animals and humans ghosts.

He thought that he was losing his mind, so he turned to John Zaffis, a paranormal researcher in Connecticut. Zaffis did a number of tests on Hawes and told him that he’d become sensitive to the paranormal. Zaffis suggested that Hawes start a ghost-hunting organization. Later, Hawes met Wilson, who’d been having his own paranormal experiences, and the eventual result was the formation of TAPS. The rest, as they say, is history.

In the end, I really enjoyed this book and recommend it to fans of the television show “Ghost Hunters” as well as to those interested in the paranormal and “ghost hunting.”

How many of you have had a chance to read this book? What did you think about it? Let us know in the comments section below.