Frequently Asked Questions
The ending of Will Storr Versus The Supernatural was rubbish. What happened after you fell asleep in Denzel's bedroom?
Yes, I'm sorry about that. The ending didn't really work, did it?
This is what happened. I woke up. I felt bored. Then – at some point in the early hours – the lights on the EMF metre that Lou left in Denzel's closet (Denzel's own drawing of what happens during his apparent haunting is pictured here) slowly rose from the green right up to the red. At this point, I did feel very scared indeed. In all my travels, I'd never seen one of these things actually work and the fact of the light's suddenly rising, apparently of it's own accord, did suggest something was going on in their close vicinity. But nothing happened. In the morning, Lou gave Denzel's mother a very stern talking-to about not putting her autistic child through any more violent exorcisms. She promised not to. We drove home. It took a long time.
Has anything spooky happened to you since the book?
One thing, which is so utterly bizarre I still don't know what to make of it. After it happened, I emailed David Fontana (who's professor of transpersonal psychology at Liverpool's John Moores University, chair of the British Psychological Society's transpersonal section, a former chair of the SPR and author of the brilliant, exhaustive book 'Is There An Afterlife?'). I'll let the emails do the talking:
Dear David,
Can I tell you about something that has left me slightly disturbed? I was doing a radio interview to publicise my book on Thursday, and got to talking about EVP. I was explaining how sceptics think that the phenomena is just stray radio waves, when this hectoring voice cut in for about 10 – 15 seconds. I couldn't really make out what it was saying, but it sounded staticy and a little angry. The word 'magazines' was mentioned. The DJ became a little annoyed as he thought I was playing a prank on him. I insisted I wasn't, but he was unconvinced. (He said, 'bit of a prankster are you?' in an irascible tone). Then, after the interview finished, I put the phone down. After a minute or two, it rang (this was my work number, which the radio station didn't have). I picked it up and it was the same voice saying the same thing. It sounded strangely EVP-ish, if you know what I mean – there was lots of static and there was that distance to it. After it had finished, the phone went dead.
I'm at a complete loss to work out what on earth this was. Have you heard of anything like it before?
Will
Dear Will,
Yes indeed. There is a great deal of literature on phantom phone calls (the best book is by Scott Rogo some years ago, called 'Phone Calls From The Dead'.) Usually the messages appear to be from the deceased – sometimes left on answer phones and sometimes given live over the line – and they do seem to be genuine.
If I had to give an opinion (I always prefer to do this rather than the academic trick of sitting on the fence) I would suggest your voice was indeed ITC [Instrumental Trans-Communication, the preferred academic term for EVP – Will], and more likely from the deceased than impressed there mentally by a living mind (there is not much evidence that the living can do this). If you taped the voice (usually we are so taken by surprise by these things that we never think to turn on a tape recorder) we could get the voice analysed for paranormal characteristics.
Even in the absence of this kind of proof this remains a very interesting experience.
Warm regards,
David
Unfortunately, I didn't tape record the interview.
Can you do a talk at my event?
I'm usually delighted to appear at things, but as I'm currently based in Sydney, UK events aren't possible for the time being.
Can you send me free books for my charity raffle?
Unfortunately, authors are only allocated 25 free books by their publishing company. My stash was used up instantly when I sent copies to the people who appeared in it. Apologies.
What other books would you recommend in a similar vein?
Other first-person narrative non-fiction authors I'd recommend would be Danny Wallace (for pure comedy), Jon Ronson (who's 'Them' is a classic of the genre), Ryszard Kapuscinski, AA Gill (try his wonderful collection 'AA Gill is Away') and George Orwell (particularly 'Down & Out in Paris & London'). Jack London's 1903 book 'The People of the Abyss' is one of the earliest examples of the genre, and still stands as one of the finest. But the best of all, in my opinion, is Bill Drummond & Mark Manning's evil masterpiece 'Bad Wisdom'.
When is the novel that's mentioned in your biography being published?
Never, I expect. I decided the idea probably wasn't very good and gave up.
Would you like a penis enlargement?
That's a very kind offer. I'll think about it.