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Ghosts, grief and the paranormal

From Victorian mediums to modern-day psychic investigators, Alice Vernon explores our enduring attempts to communicate with the dead

• Jon Bauckham

Published: October 27, 2025 at 8:00 AM

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Why are we so spooked – and yet so fascinated – by things that go bump in the night? And can science really prove that ghouls exist? Alice Vernon talks to Jon Bauckham about the evolution of ghost-hunting over the past 200 years, and how tales of pesky poltergeists and ectoplasm-filled séances have turned even some of the hardest sceptics into true believers.

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Alice Vernon is the author of Ghosted: A History of Ghost Hunting and Why We Keep Looking (Bloomsbury, 2025).

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Authors

Jon BauckhamDigital commissioning editor

Jon Bauckham is the digital commissioning editor at HistoryExtra

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