Publisher's Weekly
Wilson ( The Occult ; The Misfits ) maintains that a belief in telepathy and precognition is compatible with science, arguing that mystical and paranormal experiences involve a widening of one's ordinary field of perception. A well-documented synthesis of research into the paranormal, this lively, succinct narrative hops from ESP to mediumship, out-of-body travel, spirit possession, poltergeists, near-death visions and reincarnation. Wilson weaves in the psychic or mystical experiences of Blake, Goethe, Jung, Maupassant, Arthur Koestler, Dylan Thomas, Philip K. Dick, others. He grounds his beliefs in the theory of an ''information universe,'' in which everything that ever happened is somehow on record, and in the view that so-called occult powers are latent in each of us as part of our unfulfilled evolutionary potential. (Dec.)

Library Journal
Novelist and mystic Wilson is probably the wrong person to write nonfiction examinations of the occult. The part of the occult that purports to be scientific (e.g., parapsychology) requires the ability to think like a scientist and to evaluate evidence. Instead, Wilson gives many nice anecdotes, all of dubious value scientifically. These he ''supports'' by offering quotations from fringe scientific sources, never mentioning that most scientists don't accept them. Because there are many popular misinterpretations cited in the bibliography, Wilson's narrow speculations are ultimately built on sand. His work would have been less spectacular, but more deserving of attention, if he had based it more solidly on established facts. He writes well, and may hold the reader's interest, but what he says will do little toward unifying the occult as a serious scientific subject.-- Gordon Stein, Univ. of Rhode Island