hauntings

Book Review: Dark Spirits by Stephen Lancaster

Title: Dark Spirtis: A Man Terrorized by the Supernatural

Author: Stephen Lancaster

Genre: Nonfiction, True Haunting, Ghosts & Hauntings

Age Group: Adult

Rating: 3 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Stephen Lancaster has been investigating haunted locations for the past 15 years, and these are some of his darkest cases, which have an eerie connection/familiarity. It also focuses on how the cases/investigations affect his life and what happens when an entity follows you home.

In Dark Spirits, Stephen Lancaster talks about some of his scariest cases to date. From a haunted plantation house to a spirit that possibly followed him home, all the cases are memorable. Some are a bit over the top, and don’t seem all that believable, but I’m willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt.

I do feel that in some cases, as with the spirit possibly following the author home, there might also be an edge of paranoia to the stories. Even if something is haunting you at home, it’s a bit irrationable to immediately think it’s the same ghost you met x number of days/weeks ago somewhere else. I didn’t immediately see why it would be that ghost, and not something else.

Anyway, despite showcasing the author’s scariest adventures, I wasn’t really terrified – not even freaked out to admit. Most of the accounts were just too over the top, and the repetitive writing (serioulsy, things were repeating A LOT of times) made the book lose its tension, and it wasn’t as scary as I had hoped and anticipated.

Nevertheless, if you enjoy true haunting books, I would recommend you give this one a shot. The writing isn’t bad, and the stories are entertaining.

Book Review: Battling Demons of Darkness by Brandon Boston

September 9, 2013 1 Comment

Title: Battling Demons of Darkness

Author: Brandon Boston

Genre: True Haunting, Non-Fiction

Publisher: Llewellyn Publications

Publication Date: September 8th, 2013

Rating: 3,5 stars

Purchase: Amazon, Llewellyn Publications

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

During a seemingly ordinary Sunday church service when he was a young child, Brandon Boston experienced his first encounter with the paranormal–an exorcism. After that life-changing day, demons and dark spirits relentlessly haunted Brandon as he grew up. Now a young man determined to face his destiny, Brandon shares his true, first-hand stories of battling demons.

Join Brandon on his transformative journey from a terrified boy running from dark entities into a confident man whose purpose is to defeat them. Experience his terrifying encounters with demons. Meet the families he has helped escape their own hauntings. Discover how to fight evil spirits yourself. Battling Demons of Darkness will give you the inspiration needed to fight any entity of darkness in your life.

In Battling Demons of Darkness, Brandon Boston gives an account of his experiences battling evil spirits and even demons. He witnessed his first exorcism at his local church while being a small child. His account of the events is so strange I wonder if he maybe imagined it all, seeing as he was a little kid. I’m open-minded, so I’m willing to believe in exorcisms and demons, but I’ve never heard of any exorcism ever performed the way he described it in this book. Either way, that aside, Mr. Boston has been tormented by evil spirits almost his entire life.

I find it a bit peculiar that from all Goodreads reviews this book has gotten so far, mostly 5-stars, these all come from users without an avatar, who’ve rated between 1-18 books, and gave all other books low ratings. Almost like sockpuppet accounts. Or maybe friends from the author. This book certainly doesn’t warrant a 5-star rating, as far as I’m concerned.

Mr. Boston deals with all issues by using his faith. When a demon appears, he calls out to Jesus to help him. I have no problem with that, except that maybe Mr. Boston goes a step too far. For every person he meets who is visited by demons he comes up with the same explanation: wavering faith. Whenever his own faith wavers, he’s visited by tempting demons. Right. Then how come atheists aren’t constantly the target of a demonic attack? Or have the demons already succeeded with the atheists because they no longer believe in God and Jesus? Right. For some reason, I’m not buying that.

I think Mr. Boston is a bit too eager to blame everything on demons. Footsteps in the middle of the night when no one is around? Demons. Objects moving on their own? Demons. While most paranormal investigators would claim these phenomenons are caused by poltergeist, Mr. Boston is happy to blame everything wrong with this world on demons.

Evidence is scarce and pseudo-scientific. Not enough explanation was given for me to truly believe it, and I had trouble with the constant blaming everything bad that happened on demons. Bad things happen to people every day, not because those people are supposedly tempted by demons, but just because that’s life.

I liked the book, and it was well-written, but I had plenty of criticism on it as well. A nice read if you like books about demons and spirits, but a little too heavy on religion for me. Mr. Boston’s faith is strong, which is admirable, but doesn’t convince me demons are real or that everything he’s battling are demons.