Natural and Supernatural: A History of the Paranormal from Earliest Times to 1914

Natural and Supernatural traces changing ideas about paranormal claims from tribal communities and early civilisations through Christianity, the Renaissance and the Age of Reason. Brian Inglis follows the ways miracles, apparitions and other extraordinary reports were interpreted within religious, philosophical and intellectual settings.

The later chapters turn to mesmerism, spiritualism and the emergence of psychical research as a more organised field of enquiry. Particular attention is given to the Society for Psychical Research, its aims and activities, and the subsequent decline of interest in psychical research before 1914. Arranged as a broad chronological history, the book places accounts of the paranormal alongside the changing standards of evidence, belief and explanation used to assess them.