Book Review: Australian Poltergeist: The Stone-Throwing Spook of Humpty Doo and Many Other Cases

Abstract

No doubt this breezily written and informative volume will fill a gaping lacuna in most JSE readers’ knowledge of evidence for psychokinesis generally and poltergeist phenomena in particular. It certainly did for me. Healy and Cropper survey 52 different Australian cases, spanning the years 1845–2002. The first eleven chapters cover the authors’ 11 strongest cases in considerable detail. Chapter 12 describes the remaining 41 cases more briefly, and catalogues all 52 cases in chronological order. Chapter 13 purports to wrap things up, but it’s followed by three appendices introducing additional cases outside Australia and brief discussions of similar or at least potentially relevant physical mysteries—for example, some Asian fire poltergeist cases, ball lightning, UFOs, and reported rains of fishes.