The Haunting of America »

JOEL MARTIN is nationally recognized as a paranormal expert and bestselling author. Since the early 1970s, Joel has been a rado talk show host. As a TV talk show host, he won the Cable Ace Award. As an investigative reporter about the paranormal & psychic phenomena, he discovered internationally renowned medium, George Anderson, and exposed The Amityville Horror as a hoax. Joel is also a network TV consultant about the paranormal and has made many TV appearances.

WILLIAM J. BIRNES is The New York Times bestselling co-author of The Day After Roswell. He is the star and consulting producer of the History Channel's UFO Hunters.

In the tradition of their Haunting of the Presidents, national bestselling authors Joel Martin and William J. Birnes write The Haunting of America: From The Salem Witch Trials to Harry Houdini, the only book to tell the story of how paranormal events influenced and sometimes even drove political events. In a narrative retelling of American history that begins with the Salem Witch Trials of the seventeenth century, Martin and Birnes unearth the roots of America's fascination with the ghosts, goblins, and demons that possess our imaginations and nightmares. The authors examine the political history of the United States through the lens of the paranormal and investigate the spiritual events that inspired public policy: channelers and meduims who have advised presidents, UFOs that frightened the nation's military into launching nuclear bomber squadrons toward the Soviet Union, out-of-body experiencers deployed to gather sensitive intelligence on other countries, and even spirits summoned to communicate with living politicians.

The Haunting of America is a thrilling exploration of the often unexpected influences of the paranormal on science, medicine, law, government, the military, psychology, theology, death and dying, spirituality, and pop culture.

Publishers Weekly

Birnes (The Day After Roswell), star of the History Channel's UFO Hunters, and veteran paranormal expert Martin chronicle a wide variety of what they view as occult and mystical experiences in a comprehensive account that spans centuries, from colonial times to 9/11. There may well have been black magic practice in Salem, they speculate, and recount George Washington's purported prophetic vision at Valley Forge, strange sightings of Washington's apparition at Gettysburg and elsewhere, the Bell Witch of Tennessee and Lincoln's precognitive dreams, while introducing such key figures as the charismatic Franz Mesmer and Margaret Fox, whose controversial spirit rappings prompted the surge of 19th-century spiritualism, even after her later revelation that she was just cracking "the joint of her big toe." Covering chicanery and conjurers, demons and guardian angels, skeptics and believers and a woman who's convinced her recurring dreams prefigured 9/11, Birnes and Martin have produced an informative and entertaining overview that will leave fans of the occult eager for future collaborations by these authors. (Sept.)

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Authors' Note 9

Foreword George Noory Noory, George 11

Acknowledgments 13

Introduction What Is New Age? 17

1 Colonial America: The Devil in Salem 63

2 Whig, Tory, and Spiritualist 102

3 Is that You, Mr. Splitfoot? 154

4 Spiritualism Spreading like Wildfire 176

5 Home and the Power of Levitation 223

6 Women at the Seance Table 246

7 From Seance to Science 282

8 A Magician Among the Spirits 328

Notes 349

Bibliography 367

Index 383