From the book...


In Havana, the ghost of Ernest Hemingway has been terrifying the employees at the writer's former estate.


In Madrid, a ghost named "Ataulfo" has been haunting the museum that houses Picasso's masterpiece, Guernica.


In Washington, D.C., the vice president's daughter was so scared by a ghost's visitation that she fainted.


Ghost sightings happen every day throughout the world. Those who have never seen a ghost tend not to believe in their existence, but the experience of seeing a ghost certainly feels quite real. This entertaining cross-cultural guide to ghost sightings worldwide uses firsthand testimony and an illustrator's renderings to explore the great variety of ghost experiences that people have reported for thousands of years. You will, of course, read about ghosts of the dead, some of whom offer guidance and warning, but also about ghosts of the living, as well as what appear to be ghosts of the future. Most ghosts are of people, but they can also be of animals, things, and places -- entire ghost buildings and ghost gardens, for instance. How can we possibly explain all this? Are ghosts merely images seen in the mind's eye? Are they visitors from some alternate reality? Can they be real in an everyday material sense? Or could ghosts actually be a phenomenon of time itself?

The Field Guide to Ghosts

The Field Guide to Ghosts and Other Apparitions

by Hilary Evans and

Patrick Huyghe


Quill/HarperCollins, 2000

Trade Paperback, Out-of-print



"[This book] illustrates the diverse ways in which spectral visions manifest, a point which is sometimes overlooked. . . The Field Guide to Ghosts and Other Apparitions is a welcome addition to the literature on the subject."– Journal of the Society for Psychical Research


"In their fascinating, thoughtful, and delightfully written introduction and afterword, the authors offer new slants on, and a new typology for, ghostly phenomena. . . a very interesting and entertaining new book."– Saucer Smear

"An appealing survey of the spectral world."– Fortean Times

"Here's the help ghost hunters need to tell a haunter from a revenant, a doppelganger from a harbinger or a specter from a poltergeist, presented in a series of anecdotal accounts. For those interested in the topic's deeper mysteries, the authors also take up larger questions, such as 'Why aren't ghosts naked?'"
– Chicago Sun-Times
 
"After a succinct overview of apparitions, the authors classify ghosts into three main categories ‘ghosts of the past,’ ‘ghosts of the present’ and ‘ghosts of the future’ and describe how these categories relate to time slips, hauntings, and precognition, and other psychic phenomena.  While the book is fairly short ... it covers the material quite well.  I highly recommend it. "

– Loyd Auerbach, Fate

"Firsthand accounts of ghost sightings in various cultures throughout the world are chronicled, along with illustrator Harry Trumbore's renderings showing the great variety of ghosts reported."

– Associated Press