Our Secret Powers

Terje Simonsen is a Norwegian historian of ideas – here he has provided an accessible and readable guide to the whole paranormal landscape using an interdisciplinary lens and a very wide range of case histories and some unfamiliar biographical references. His framing is unusual in terms of, for instance, the relationship between occultism and parapsychology - and many of the sections are short and concise. Within this comprehensive manual on the 'mental Internet', there are good discussions of perspectives on consciousness, laboratory parapsychology and the nature of scepticism, concluding that we need an updated grand narrative to take a wider perspective into account. Seasoned readers will find much new material, while those new to the field can rely on the author's fair-minded judgement.