I just saw that Nick Redfern's book, "Nessie: Exploring the Supernatural Origins of the Loch Ness Monster", has appeared on Amazon with a publication date of September 8th, 2016. I note the American site offers kindle and paperback versions, while the British site offers only kindle. I am sure that will change over time.
As an aside, I noticed Nick's book was categorized under "Religion & Spirituality" while the more biographical book "A Monstrous Commotion" was filed under "Social Sciences/Anthropology". It seems the subject of the Loch Ness Monster covers a plethora of disciplines.
BTW, is there a difference between "supernatural" and "paranormal"?
This also prompted me to produce this graph, it is the number of books and booklets published exclusively on the Loch Ness Monster or with a good part devoted to it since the 1930s on a decade basis. It is based on the list I maintain here but does not include reprints and revisions.
Not surprisingly, the 1970s was the top decade, boasting 23 publications with the 1980s second with 14. However, this decade looks set to grab second place with a current projected total of 10 going into this year and with another three years to go. The projections suggests we could end up with 16 books by the end of 2019. Perhaps this is not so surprising in this age of online self-publishing. Mind you, the 1970s had its fair share of tatty tourist booklets and boilerplate books.
There has to be something beyond the understanding of current science to explain Nessie and even other lake monsters. None have ever been caught, many dis-similar reports of shape and features, no dead ones ever recovered and what seems to be a sort of ridiculous dis-information campaign from the local Ness investigators. Glad that Nick's got the nads to maybe pick up where Ted Holiday left off.
ReplyDeleteReligion & Spirituality, really? Well blessed be Nessie and Amen brother. I would say that the supernatural concerns itself with the religious and spiritual aspects of life, while the paranormal with phenomena not readily explained by science.
ReplyDeleteI think John's broadly right - 'supernatural' implies phenomena not explicable by science (so beyond nature) while paranormal implies the phenomena are explicable even if we do not understand how they come about. As a rough example, if you thought poltergeist phenomena were caused by evil spirits, that would be a supernatural explanation, while if you thought they were a projection of kinetic energy which is somehow generated by the 'focus' that would be a paranormal explanation.
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