Author Description

This is the first comparative study of ghosts, apparitions, astral doubles, alien visitors, and the many other nonhuman entities with which ordinary people - throughout history - have claimed contact. Through a careful analysis and assessment of the available evidence and the latest theoretical approaches, Hilary Evans offers an original and convincing explanation for the "ancient alien" entity enigma. Throughout history, men, women, and children have reported contacts with an extraordinary variety of non-human entities. In apparent good faith, they tell us of meetings with demons, angels, long dead saints, the Virgin Mary, fairies, spirits of the dead, and apparitions of the living. In our own time, the number of such reports has dramatically increased. What can we make of such claims? Evans reviews the enormous diversity of sightings, beginning with dream figures, imaginary childhood companions, doppelgangers, and UFO occupants. He then considers the ways in which entities have been deliberately induced, ranging from magical rituals and seances to laboratory experiments and the use of hallucinogens, and presents a Jungian model demonstrating how entity sightings - whether subjective or external in origin - may occur. Hilary Evans holds degrees from both Cambridge and Birmingham Universities, and helped found the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP). He is director of the Evans Library in London.