"Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Life After Death," by Deborah Blum

Though mainstream science has long held itself to be a bastion of free-thinking and the willingness to reach the truth through experiment, scientists have long been among the first to dismiss paranormal research out of hand as the realm of kooks, crazies and all around bad science. Almost from the inception of psychical research in the 1840s, science labeled those investigating claims of the paranormal as unbalanced, and possibly dangerous to science as a whole.

That’s what makes “Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death,” such an inspiring book. A tale of pioneers who wouldn’t be silenced by the naysayers -- even at the cost of their own reputations -- it's a must-read for any student of the history of ghost hunting.

"Ghost Hunters" centers around the brilliant psychologist-turned-paranormal researcher William James. Brother of the great American novelist Henry James, William was already in middle age when he helped found the American Society for Psychical Research in 1885. The U.S. counterpart to its older British cousin -- the Society for Psychical Research, founded three years earlier -- the ASPR was even more rigorously scientific that the SPR, allowing only credentialed academics to join. While the SPR was mostly a philosophical group formed by those curious about the supernatural, James and his colleagues created the ASPR for a purpose: to use scientific methods such as statistical analysis and chemistry to investigate claims of hauntings, telekinesis, mind-reading and the occult.

Though their purpose eventually evolved into large-scale debunking of fraud in the medium and fortune-telling business in the late 19th-century, James originally envisioned the ASPR as fulfilling a very spiritual function. With the publishing of Darwin's "The Origin of Species" and the advancements of the Scientific Revolution beginning to take much of the mystery out of the universe, James -- famous for his book "The Varieties of Religious Experience," about the ability to lead a moral life without organized religion or even a belief in God -- thought that people needed something to substitute for the mysticism and superstition scientific advancement was slowly stripping away. His answer was spiritualism -- which led to his research into the paranormal and the founding of the ASPR.

Even in those early days, mainstream scientists weren't willing to give paranormal research a place at the table. Seeing James' study into the supernatural as just more of the same superstition they felt had kept mankind mired in ignorance for generations, many of William James' closest friends and colleagues turned their backs on him as he pressed on. It was the same attitude that -- two decades earlier -- had caused Charles Darwin to all but disown his friend, Alfred Russel Wallace after Wallace turned to psychical research. Though Wallace had helped Darwin hash out some of his earliest theories about natural selection and species, Darwin angrily warned Wallace that he was lending ammunition to critics of mainstream science, and giving credence to those who insisted on a supernatural version of creation. His old friend's public interest in psychical research, Darwin said, might make critics think that Wallace had turned his back on the very theories he helped develop -- which could be a crushing blow to the science of Evolution, just as it was beginning to gain widespread traction in the scientific community and the public at large.

"You write like a metamorphosed -- in the retrograde direction -- naturalist," Darwin wrote. "I defy you to upset your own doctrine."

The exchange between Darwin and Wallace, related in the early chapters of "Ghost Hunters," stands as a kind of touchstone in the book. Darwin's attitude illuminates and clarifies the problems William James and every paranormal researcher since has had in breaking through the sheepskin ceiling to legitimacy: Scientific endeavor is a process of giants standing on the shoulders of other giants. And Darwin's letter to Wallace reveals the mainstream's reluctance to accept paranormal research as working the same way... one old prejudice atop another, until the original reason for that prejudice is lost and only the kneejerk cry of "illigitimate!" remains. Though science has long since accepted evolution as the best theory of how we got here, most scientists still scoff at ghost hunting, never knowing how closely the two disciplines are linked in history.

Author Deborah Blum (who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for her writings on primate research) does an excellent job here, plotting not only the complex motives of William James, but the foundations of the scientific paranormal investigation movement and those who sought to quash the field in its infancy. Though her history lesson on spiritualism in American and the founding of the ASPR very well done, Blum really hits her stride with her descriptions of the ASPR's field investigations -- both their work with debunking frauds and those cases that would not be debunked, no matter how hard their tried. Among these -- most interestingly -- are the late chapter descriptions of James' and his colleagues' work with Boston housewife Lenore Piper.

Unlike most mediums, Piper charged nothing for the messages she delivered to those who sought her help, and had an amazingly high accuracy rate when it came to details, even when presented with cases she couldn't have possibly known about. In the end, it was the case James and his fellow ASPR members returned to time and again to renew their faith when faced with the mountain of fraud in the field of mediumship. Blum's descriptions of interactions between the ASPR and Piper are often enough to send a chill up your back, and are worth the price of the book in themselves.

In short, while the $25.95 hardcover price might tempt you to wait for the paperback, "Ghost Hunters" is a damned fine look into the early days of one of the most controversial and maligned fields in science. Doing much to clarify the origins of the mainstream's distrust and even contempt for paranormal investigation, it's a must read for even the casual student of the supernatural.