Beyond the Occult

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.)