Haunted Bloomington-Normal, Illinois


Book Description

Discover the haunting history—and supernatural mysteries—of this Midwestern city and its resident ghosts. Includes photos! From the clamor of bygone parades to the phantom scent of burned rubber on Route 66, ghoulish and supernatural visions flourish in Bloomington-Normal . . . Claimed by a devastating fire in 1859, the spirit of a young girl haunts Kelly’s Bakery. Visitors to Kemp Hall report seeing the specter of a lady in red. Cantankerous pitcher Charles “Old Hoss” Radhourn trolls Evergreen Memorial Cemetery. In this spooky book, Deborah Carr Senger embarks on a tour of Bloomington-Normal’s haunted heritage.




Haunted Route 66


Book Description

Pack your bags, hop in the car, and head out on a haunted adventure across legendary Route 66 Embrace the spirit of adventure and freedom with an exciting journey of spine-tingling paranormal activity and American history along Route 66. This travel companion transports you from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, exploring over one hundred ghostly hot spots filled with fascinating facts and lingering spirits. From ghost hunters to avid fans of the Mother Road, everyone can take their own haunted road trip on Route 66 with this essential, easy-to-read guide. Explore the famous highway through historic locations and gripping ghost stories about the St. Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago, the restless spirit of Charlie Chaplin that still haunts the Venice Beach Boardwalk in Los Angeles, and many more. This one-of-a-kind collection, with chapters organized by state, paves the way for your grand tour into the unknown.




Haunted Sumter County, Florida


Book Description

Sumter County's serene beauty is cloaked by mystery--a Seminole sage's timeless spell, a lurking swamp monster, a family's spirited legacy and the ghostly cries of brokenhearted souls. Floridian bad boys, mobsters and bank robbers line the pages of Sumter County's criminal past. Murder, mayhem and mystery are embedded in our cultural timeline, from the indigenous eradication to the present-day retirement utopia. Step into the paranormal possibilities swirling inside the historic Baker House in Wildwood. Sense the residual energy that sways from Sumter County's courthouse front steps. Feel the county's macabre history come alive as Deborah Carr Hollingsworth churns up chilling tales from our mysterious past.




Haunting Experiences


Book Description

Ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are widely represented throughout modern culture. They can be found in any number of entertainment, commercial, and other contexts, but popular media or commodified representations of ghosts can be quite different from the beliefs people hold about them, based on tradition or direct experience. Personal belief and cultural tradition on the one hand, and popular and commercial representation on the other, nevertheless continually feed each other. They frequently share space in how people think about the supernatural. In Haunting Experiences, three well-known folklorists seek to broaden the discussion of ghost lore by examining it from a variety of angles in various modern contexts. Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas take ghosts seriously, as they draw on contemporary scholarship that emphasizes both the basis of belief in experience (rather than mere fantasy) and the usefulness of ghost stories. They look closely at the narrative role of such lore in matters such as socialization and gender. And they unravel the complex mix of mass media, commodification, and popular culture that today puts old spirits into new contexts.




Weird Illinois


Book Description

Explores bizarre sights and stories found in Illinois.




Grave Deeds and Dead Plots


Book Description

Welcome to the first volume of an exciting new series, Grave Deeds and Dead Plots. These collections feature spine-tingling tales of true crime ... with added ghosts. Each story is a tale of murder, passion, or cold-blooded killing—and each case has resulted in an eerie haunting. Do the victims of true crime remain to tell the tales of their untimely demise? Are the dead still crying out for justice? Do the departed have stories to share? Find out in the first installment of Grave Deeds and Dead Plots, a new series by award-winning* author Sylvia Shults." *First Place in the Spring 2022 BookFest Awards, for Days of the Dead: A Year of True Ghost Stories




From Shaman to Scientist


Book Description

"The writers of From Shaman to Scientist take the approach that there is no such thing as the supernatural, only things we don't yet understand. The ghost experience is examined through case studies; forms and functions ghost hunters have taken throughout history; key historical figures and their influence on the research of ghostly phenomena: ghost hunting in the twenty-first century, including the exploding trend of Internet ghost-hunting organizations; and the advances in the theory and technology of the parapsychology field. For those who are skeptical about the reality of ghosts but want to understand how so many individuals claim to have anomalous experiences, this collection reviews the data, offers insight into logical explanations, and discusses why this is - and has been for centuries - such an important and intriguing issue."--BOOK JACKET.







Haunted Media


Book Description

Examines the repeated association of new electronic media with spiritual phenomena from the telegraph in the late 19th century to television.




The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales


Book Description

" West Virginia boasts an unusually rich heritage of ghost tales. Originally West Virginians told these hundred stories not for idle amusement but to report supernatural experiences that defied ordinary human explanation. From jealous rivals and ghostly children to murdered kinsmen and omens of death, these tales reflect the inner lives—the hopes, beliefs, and fears—of a people. Like all folklore, these tales reveal much of the history of the region: its isolation and violence, the passions and bloodshed of the Civil War era, the hardships of miners and railroad laborers, and the lingering vitality of Old World traditions.