Reviews for Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter

The average rating for Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-10-04 00:00:00 Tedral Hill I very rarely read horror titles or ghost stories, but I have had this book on an A-Z challenge list for awhile and thought October was an appropriate time for it. I was a little concerned before I started, because I do have a very active imagination and thought I just might scare myself silly while reading. So I gave myself permission to bail out and DNF if the book was just too creepy. Well, it wasn't too creepy. But it was pretty silly. There were some sections that I skimmed through because of the creepiness, and others I skimmed through because of the silliness. I confess to completely skipping the piece in Chapter Five, Wild Animals And The Unknown ~~ Apes. Why? Because of this sentence: The following case of animal hauntings was recorded in automatic writing. Oh, please. Of course by then I had discovered more than a few things about O'Donnell and was thinking of him as a crackpot. Maybe if that story had been at the beginning of the book, I might have read it, who knows. I had to look up Elliott O'Donnell at wiki after reading the preface to this book, where he seems to almost rant about what happens to animals after they die. His tone made me curious. Turns out he was a writer and ghost hunter, investigating haunted houses. The word 'claimed' is a prominent feature of that wiki article, as in He wrote several popular novels, including an occult fantasy, The Sorcery Club (1912) but specialized in what were claimed as true stories of ghosts and hauntings. This 1913 book was supposedly taken from extracts of publications of the era, letters written to the author and stories told to him by people he knew at various times in his life. These last were claimed to be in the words of the people themselves, or as near to them as possible. And this is where O'Donnell messed up. In the very first story, told by a teacher from O'Donnell's school days, there is this sentence describing the house she was in at the time she had her experience with a ghost cat: "The towers, half included in the building, were completely circular within, and contained the winding stairs of the mansion; and whoever ascended them when a storm was raging seemed rising by a whirlwind to the clouds." But look! In a later story told by an adult male friend about a ghost horse, the friend says this: "The towers, half included in the building, were completely circular within, and contained the winding stair of the mansion; and whoso ascended them, when the winter wind was blowing, seemed rising by a tornado to the clouds." Piffle. Some of the entries were legends of sightings in mostly rural areas, and sometimes in cities as well. But I am curious: why are most of the ghost horses white? The dogs and cats were whatever color they had been in life, but nearly all of the horses were white and enormous. Do they grow and change color after they die, maybe? Or is a white horse more likely to become a ghost and go galloping around scaring everyone? There were ghost pigs (white with splotches) ghost sheep (white) even ghost rabbits...big ones...and they were white, too. Even the ghost tiger was white! By this point I had the giggles and when I saw the chapter mentioning elephants, I nearly snorted my chocolate. But of elephants, white or otherwise, all O'Donnell says is: Elephants undoubtedly possess the faculty of scenting spirits in a very marked degree. It is most difficult to get an elephant to pass a spot where any phantasm is known to appear. The big beast at once comes to a halt, trembles, trumpets, and turning round, can only be urged forward by the gentlest coaxing. How in the world did he figure that out?! One truly interesting bit in this book was about The Gabriel Hounds, a ghost pack of hunting dogs: According to Mr. Roby, a spectre huntsman known by the name Gabriel Ratchets, accompanied by a pack of phantom hounds, is said to hunt a milk-white doe round the Eagle's Crag in the Vale of Todmorden every All Hallows Eve. These hounds were also seen in Norfolk. But the reason I thought this was interesting is not because the Gabriel Hounds were also supposedly white (claimed by an eyewitness account), but because Mary Stewart wrote a book titled The Gabriel Hounds and it is time for me to re-read it after many many years. So I have to say thank you, Mr. O'Donnell! Your odd book gave me a good laugh, one creepy image to try not to have nightmares about (that headless cat attacking people....ick!) and a good suggestion for my next read.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-10-02 00:00:00 Troy Parker This was quite outstanding paranormal reading for me (and I've read A LOT on this subject, believe me). The stories in this book are compelling and some alleged hauntings described by the author ended up sounding pretty creepy. However, there were some stories that sounded too exaggerated and seemed to me more like some legends or spooky fairy tales. That's the case with paranormal and supernatural stories - either you accept that it COULD have happened, or you don't. If you don't believe in such things, don't read about them then. On the other hand, this O'Donnell's book is a fine example of collection of spooky stories and encounters for all lovers of this literature. Phantom felines and dogs that haunt old houses, horses and their riders galloping through chilly nights, even ghostly cattle and apes or birds in a form of some kind of menacing omen. Great for the autumn season!