Haunted ground

About this book

This book takes us on a tour through present-day meetings of Spiritualists, UFOlogists, and dowsers, illuminates our obsession with the paranormal and challenges the misunderstanding of the paranormal as a marginal or inconsequential feature of America's religious landscape. Lily Dale, New York, is a thriving Spiritualist community established well over a century ago. Roswell, New Mexico, is home of the Roswell UFO Festival that attracts nearly 30,000 attendees annually. There are popular television shows like The X-Files, Medium, and The Mentalist, hit movies such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Sixth Sense, and Phenomenon. Why do Americans continue to have such a keen interest in the paranormal? According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 75 percent of Americans believe in some form of paranormal activity. The United States has had a collective fascination with the paranormal since the mid-1800s, and it remains an integral part of our culture. This book examines three of the most vibrant paranormal gatherings in the United States: Lily Dale, a Spiritualist summer camp; the Roswell UFO Festival; and the American Society of Dowsers' annual convention of "water witches", to explore and explain the reasons for our obsession with the paranormal. Academically informed, this book takes readers on a "road trip" through our nation, guided by the author, a professor of American religion. He interprets seemingly unrelated case studies of phantasmagoria collectively as an integral part of the modern discourse about "nature" as ultimate reality. Along the way, he reveals how Americans' interest in the paranormal is rooted in their anxieties about cultural, political, and economic instability, and in a historic sense of alienation and homelessness.