Review: Ghosted: A History of Ghost Hunting and Why we Keep Looking by Alice Vernon

Ghosted: A History of Ghost Hunting and Why We Keep Looking

by Alice Vernon

Release Date: September 2, 2025

2025 Bloomsbury Sigma

Ebook ARC; 304 Pages

ISBN: 978-1399418706

ASIN: B0F4FX2HTG

Audiobook: B0F9FXJ7P8

Genre: Non-Fiction / Paranormal

Source: Review copy from publisher

 

3.5 / 5 Stars

 

Summary

Ghosted follows the journey of paranormal investigations from the Victorian era to the modern day, examining how our fascination with ghost hunting has changed alongside technology and culture. Where we once gathered around tables, observing and recording every movement of the medium, we now take electronic equipment and app-laden phones around haunted locations to catch ghosts digitally. Where theatres and concert halls held sold-out performances by conjurers recreating the tricks of fraudulent mediums, we now delight in picking apart and exposing the evidence presented on reality television programmes.

In this book, Alice Vernon embarks on a journey to encounter a ghost, travelling to some of the UK's most haunted locations and encouraging readers to interrogate their own scepticism and belief. Ghosted examines what we are looking for, why we are looking for it, and why have we never given up the ghost.

 

My Thoughts

Ghosted was an interesting book that delved into the history of ghost hunting and we we have been so fascinated with the paranormal throughout the centuries. While the history of ghost hunting goes back thousands of years, with the development of science and technology, the rise of interest in the subject has grown exponentially and this thought does exist that perhaps we are on the cusp of discovering why ghosts exist and capturing scientific evidence, a concept that drives even more and more people to 'ghost hunt' and to be interested in the paranormal.  The author mentions that our interest in the subject goes far deeper than simple curiosity, that we are looking for comfort, for something that helps us when we are suffering, something that I did find interesting.  However, while I did find the material to be fascinating, there wasn't anything really new in this book and I didn't feel like the scientific exploration went deep enough.

 

The book traces our journey from earlier times to Victorian times when it was quite popular to attend seances, gathering around tables, using spirit cabinets, and other paraphernalia to attract spirits, to modern times where it is popular to go to haunted locations with expensive technology and videotape the experiences.  Like today, there were societies set up to investigate the claims put forth by these mediums and even magicians, like Houdini, were able to show how some of the fraudulent schemes worked in their acts.  Again, while I enjoyed the discourse around the events that happened, I would have liked to have seen a more rigorous discussion around the events, especially the use of the so-called 'spirit cabinets'.  I am not necessarily an unbeliever, but I am a skeptic, and as a scientist with a history background, the lack of discussion of the sources did bother me quite a bit.  I understand the author wanted to let the reader make up their own mind about what was happening, but the surface-level thinking was too shallow for some of the sources that were used. The book was quite easy to read however, and it moved along chronologically. I especially enjoyed the chapters during the Victorian era as that is when the rise of spiritualism occurred, and I did find it interesting how even the aliens were brought into the discussions in order to make sense of what was happening. Quite an interesting time period! The author interjected a lot of humour into the book and I chuckled over the Scooby Doo references.  

 

Verdict

Ghosted was interesting as a non-fiction history book, but it was definitely lacking when it came to the scientific exploration as that was done on a quite superficial level.  And if you think, well, this is the paranormal, how can you analyze that? You can definitely analyze documents, especially someone who has training in the field.  The interrelated/independent data can be analyzed and discussed as there were plenty of people who wrote about what they saw and experienced. However, I did enjoy this book, the author had a good sense of humour, and I especially loved it when the author bought a haunted doll off EBay and her colleagues would not go near it. Now, I am a skeptic, but I have to admit, the porcelain dolls my mom gave me are secured in their respective closets. I did watch the first Chucky film when I was about 14 and am not taking any chances.