Strange Frequencies, by journalist Peter Bebergal, is three things. First, it is an informal history of the use of technology in the pursuit of supernatural experience. Second, it is an extended philosophical meditation by a self-professed skeptic about what might be happening when those who use such technologies claim success. And third, it is something of a memoir of the author’s own experimentation with these technologies, inspired as he was by a childhood watching Poltergeist and Ghostbusters, playing Dungeons & Dragons, and fooling around with tarot cards and I Ching sticks. The result is a book that many academics might find frustrating due to its idiosyncratic approach. Patient readers, however, will be rewarded with some interesting insights into the ironic role technology may be playing in the re-enchantment of the lives of some twenty-first-century Americans.
In terms of the specific technologies surveyed, Strange Frequencies includes some unexpected choices....
University of California Press