The Seen and the Unseen

The Seen and the Unseen examines reported presences, apparitions and other experiences gathered under the broad heading of psychical research. Its 30 chapters are arranged in five sections, beginning with sensed presences and moving through hauntings, experiences associated with the dead, collective experiences and apparitions of the living.

The final section considers reports that resist easy classification, placing them alongside more recognisable accounts of haunting and apparition. MacKenzie writes from the perspective of a journalist and active Society for Psychical Research figure, treating these episodes as claims and testimony rather than established fact. The result is a focused study of how people describe encounters with something they believe to be present, though not always visible.