The Other World, or Glimpses of the Supernatural

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8
Word count
356K words
Chapters
36

Tags

English Originals Religion Historical ReappraisalMysterious PhenomenaCuriositySpiritual ComfortHorror AtmosphereMystical ExperienceSupernatural NarrativeEyewitness AccountsFolk LegendVictorian Era

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Other World; or, Glimpses of the Supernatural (Vol. 2 of 2) by LeeAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: BF: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Psychology, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Release Date: Jul 29, 2013

Editor's review

This is the second volume of the nineteenth-century work The Other World; or, Glimpses of the Supernatural, prepared by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain ebook. Its value lies not in offering definitive conclusions but in showing how one era collected, narrated, and debated experiences of ghosts, omens, and visions, preserving primary material for readers today studying the history of supernatural belief, popular culture, and psychology. While reading, pay attention to narrative structure and standards of evidence: how the author selects cases, distinguishes rumour from firsthand account, and uses religious and scientific language to position anomalous experience. Such a text is best browsed as historical source material or cultural reading rather than read straight through as a collection of ghost stories. Read selectively with questions in mind, for example comparing narrative patterns across cases or noting how people of the time understood the boundary between natural and supernatural. Some ideas and expressions will seem unfamiliar to modern readers, but precisely for that reason the book helps us understand why supernatural topics have long held appeal.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Begin with the table of contents and opening notes to understand the volume's scope, then choose cases by theme.
  2. Keep pen and paper to note case types, sources of evidence, and the narrator's stance for comparison.
  3. Treat it as historical source material rather than a story collection, and interpret unfamiliar ideas in their period context.
  4. Pause after one or two chapters, write down your questions, then continue reading.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36

FAQ

Is this book suitable for reading as a collection of ghost stories? Not really. It is closer to a nineteenth-century record and discussion of supernatural phenomena, with a religious and argumentative tone, and its pacing and pleasures differ from those of a modern ghost story collection. It yields more if read as historical source material or cultural reading, selectively and with questions in mind.
What background knowledge is needed before reading? A basic familiarity with nineteenth-century religious atmosphere, spiritualist topics, and scientific ideas of the time is helpful. Ordinary English reading ability is enough, but you will encounter old-fashioned expressions and religious vocabulary, so annotated or background material is recommended.
Is this the complete text or a selection? According to the source, this is the second volume of The Other World; or, Glimpses of the Supernatural, the latter of two volumes. It is not a standalone complete book, so note its place within the whole and avoid mistaking cases selected here for the work's overall conclusions.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.