ORIGINS OF PSYCHIC PHENOMENA: Poltergeists, Incubi, Succubi,

Gooch was prompted to write this book by the paranormal experiences of a former detective sergeant who gave up a humdrum suburban life to be a bus driver and have more time with his own thoughts. He was subject to nocturnal visitations in which he was held without being able to move, which he identified with hypnagogy, the dreamlike experiences between sleep and waking. The author himself describes sexual encounters with a Succubus, an experience mentioned by St Augustine and condemned in the 15th century by Pope Innocent VIII. The author's research led him to conclude that Incubi, Succubi and poltergeists are real, but are products of the human mind, and although the terms "mind" and "consciousness" are contested terms in modern psychology, the author believes that the experimentation of Hilgard and others has proved their reality, with a clear division between conscious and unconscious mind. Each mind can see the other as a set of external events, and in neurosis the conscious mind becomes the slave of the unconscious. The chapter on psychosis, schizophrenia and autism looks at case studies involving famous people, for instance Virginia Woolf, William Blake and W. B. Yeats, who in young life came under the influence of the occultist Madame Blavatsky. Nadia, a child with autism, withdrew into herself at school and had no awareness of ordinary dangers, but she had highly developed motor control and her drawings were an amazingly accurate representation, associated with a very high IQ. The author also investigates mediums, hypnosis, stigmata, UFOs, and other paranormal phenomena. 262pp, paperback.