Not long ago, I found a paperback copy of the Usborne Supernatural Guides: Mysterious Powers and Strange Forces book selling for less than $30 US. That's a rare find, as it and the two other books in the series from the late 1970s sell online for upwards of $50, if not more. The combined omnibus edition, Supernatural World, always sells for triple digits. Well, it sells for that much, but I wonder if anyone is buying the thing.
I discovered the books in the local library in the late 1980s. Their eerie illustrations perfectly accompanied the strange, short vignettes about Borley Rectory, ESP, people seeing their doppelgänger, haunted villages, werewolves – in reality, a massive drop of supernatural stuff.
A lot has changed in the last 30 years. One, I'm more skeptical than I used to be, and these lurid tales sound good on paper, but I can't help but wonder about Eliot Humberstone and Eric Maple's sources. Second, the Internet has opened up a world of resources – such as long-out-of-print books and newspaper archives – that one could harness to find those sources.
Maybe. But we'll see what we can find.
A-debunkin' we may go. Eh. Debunking almost sounds crass. Re-researching? Re-investigating?
Oh, why not? This should be a fun little exercise. Let's see how far we can go, shall we?
A-debunkin' we shall go.
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