Chasing the Dark

Name: Chasing the Dark
Price: 34.99 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9780349146836

Encounters with the supernatural

Ben Machell

$34.99

Paperback

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English

Abacus
26 August 2025

History: specific events & topics; History of ideas; Social, group or collective psychology; Impact of science & technology on society; History of science

'A fascinating testimony to our nervous hunger to map the hazy, haunted territory at the edges of the rational... engrossing, entertaining and distinctly unsettling' Sarah Waters

'Shiversomely eerie... so impressive in its research and remarkable in all it uncovers' Tom Holland

Late one evening the telephone rings, and on the line is a stranger. They tell you that your nine-year-old son gave them your number. Your heart stops. You tell them that your son has been dead for almost 20 years. They know this, they say. He wants you to come and see him.

What do you do when reality begins to fray around you? Where do you go when science cannot explain your experiences? The Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882 to tackle these very questions and to shine light on the shadowy world of the supernatural. Distinguished members have included prime ministers and Nobel Prize-winning scientists.

But the most prolific of all the SPR's paranormal investigators was a young British naval officer named Tony Cornell. A rationalist and a sceptic he became haunted by a wartime encounter in India that changed everything . Between 1950 and 2010 he became perhaps the world's most prolific investigator of psychic phenomena and paranormal events. Alongside his colleague, the psychologist Alan Gauld, they combined the roles of detectives, exorcists and psychiatrists, returning time and again to the unsettling spaces that exist on the very periphery of our tidy, rational lives: Ghosts. Poltergeists. Psychic powers.

Drawing on a previously untapped archive of Cornell's case files, which survive as a unique repository of encounters reported by ordinary people, Chasing the Dark is the compelling story of our relationship with the supernatural. What do these atmospheric and often chilling cases teach us about who we are, and the anxieties that consume us? And why do the dead still find ways to make themselves known?

By: Ben Machell
Imprint: Abacus
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 30mm
Weight: 375g
ISBN: 9780349146836
ISBN 10: 0349146837
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 26 August 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Ben Machell has worked for The Times since 2005, and is a principal feature writer, interviewer, and columnist for the award-winning Times Magazine. His debut book, The Unusual Suspect, was widely acclaimed and shortlisted for the Golden Dagger at the 2022 Crime Writers' Association Awards. The drama rights to The Unusual Suspect have been acquired by Pathe UK, who are to produce the story into a major TV series.

Reviews for Chasing the Dark: Encounters with the supernatural

A fascinating testimony to our nervous hunger to map the hazy, haunted territory at the edges of the rational. An engrossing, entertaining and distinctly unsettling read * Sarah Waters * Shiversomely eerie... so impressive in its research and remarkable in all it uncovers * Tom Holland * One of the best books about the paranormal I have read. A gripping, thought-provoking, brilliantly researched journey between belief and scepticism. Uncannily good * Danny Robins * Entrancing... elegantly thrilling * Guardian *