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Andrew Mackenzis is the enviable position of being just about the only serious regular writer on ghosts and apparitions in this country, if not the English-speaking world, In this, his seventeenth book devoted to psychical research he devotes special attention to a the sense of presence - the feeling that one is sharing ones space with an unseen companion or companions, either benevolent, malevolent or neutral, This is a topic which the author says has been neglected over the past fifty years.
The study of such presences constitutes the first section of the book; the other sections being on haunted houses, apparitions of the dead and living, collective apparitions, and a miscellany of other strange experiences. A major source of his material is reports sent in by readers of his previous books, as well as cases investigated by the author and others. Often a chapter will revolve around a principle case, which introduces points which are expanded upon by reference to other case. Mackenzie rejects the idea that cases of apparitions are less frequent than they were; rather he suggests that modern habits such as writing rather than using the telephone make investigation much more difficult. He generally allows the correspondents to speak for themselves, but wherever possible tries to get confirmation from other persons involved. At times one feels that this may allow certain features of the cases to become obscured, for example, is experiencing a 'hostile presence' the cause or result of family difficulties?
The range of experiences, given the obvious self-selection, is surprisingly broad, and covers many of the motifs we are familiar with in Magonia, such as bedroom visitors, and even a couple of phantom bus passengers. Some of the more curious cases include the goblin of Wildenstein Castle in Germany, and the white and black spectres of Graut, which push at the limit s of the parapsychologists' categories,
Indeed, if I have a criticism of this book it is that, unlike the author's earlier books, traditional parapsychological interpretations are forced on cases very uneasily, Despite what Mackenzie says there seems very little evidence to connect most apparitions with previous inhabitants of the houses where they occur. Many cases seem to involve a veritable menagerie of apparitions, noises , poltergeist effects, etc . I suspect that people may have a much wider range of anomalous experiences than we normally imagine, only those which can with greater or lesser difficulty be fitted into one of our neat boxes labelled 'psychical', 'UFO', or 'religious vision', etc., being reported.
It is often quite arbitrary which particular box an experience is fitted into. The last case discussed involves a couple going for a picnic, they start the day feeling depressed, get off their bus at the wrong stop, walk round a church, enter a phantom landscape and sit on a phantom bench. Here the woman enters a deeper level of enchantment involving the cutting off of birdsong and extraneous noises paralysis and coldness. In this state she 'sees' three men through the back of her head. They take flight, appearing half way back along their journey with no idea of how they got there. This report could clearly have been discussed in terms of a UFO abduction. Mary Rose Barrington, the parapsychologist who investigated the case, thought it was unique - the ufologist knows otherwise!
Mackenzie writes in a literate and courteous fashion, and unlike some writers in this field treats his readership as thinking adults, This is a book that all readers of Magonia should read,
- Peter Rogerson, from Magonia 26, June 1987.
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