James Padmore

Paranormal Investigator

A landmark reference book that every paranormal investigator should own.

I'm a Paranormal Investigator in the UK, a member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP), The Ghost Club and I also host my own Podcast on the Paranormal. So, because of my background, I have followed Sarah Chumacero's Paranormal Blog with interest ('Living life in Full Spectrum') and have always found her approach extremely refreshing.

Sarah is a true-blue Investigator with a wealth of field experience and technical knowledge & expertise. With that in mind, when I clicked the 'Buy' button I knew that this book was highly unlikely to be yet another poorly written publication where the content had been copied and pasted verbatim from online sources (like so many others in circulation).

When the book landed on my doormat I opened it eagerly and began to read. It is nothing like those other "Paranormal Guide" books I just mentioned and I'll tell you why...

Sarah's style is so engaging; each section of this book covers a fascinating cornucopia of subjects from Pareidolia to Misophonia, False Memories, the Baader Meinhof and Barnum effects, Perception, The Ganzfeld, White Noise, Hypnagogia and so much more. And what's special about Sarah is that she never "tells" - like the greatest of inspirational investigators who have gone before, she questions and presents you with the facts then leaves you to ponder and draw your own conclusions.

This book requires little or no prior knowledge of the Paranormal, or Xenonormal, phenomena it discusses. Therein lies its beauty. Also, structurally this book makes perfect sense; it lays out a logical landscape of topics for the reader to explore so it flows like a meandering yet purposeful river of information. We begin the journey by getting onto the "boat" where we're introduced to some basic definitions and are then given the tour of Visual Experiences, Auditory Experiences, Memory & Perception and Physical Responses. When we reach the end of this revealing and edifying journey we're given a conclusion, but again it is wonderfully typical of the author's style to leave us with more questions than 'carved-in-stone' answers; she doesn't want to preach to you or bring you over to her side of thinking in this book - she wants you to think and review the facts and evidence like any real Investigator should. This book achieves that objective and then some; it's a tour-de-force written by an author who clearly knows and loves her subject.

I have read many books of this genre by the likes of Harry Price, Tony Cornell, Andrew Green, Peter Underwood and Steve Parsons but this book is the best "Paranormal Guide" I have had the pleasure of reading in the last couple of decades, I didn't put it down, I read it from cover to cover in a single sitting (which is very unusual for me!) and I cannot wait for Volume 2 which I am sure will be just as monumentally significant as this one.

This is a landmark reference book that every Paranormal Investigator should own; it really does contain stuff paranormal investigators need to know.

The tagline to this book is 'What the eyes see and the ears hear the mind believes'; my eyes have seen this book for what it is and everyone's ears will hear me tell them that a bright star has just lit up the Paranormal void. Believe it.