Book review: Atlas of Paranormal Places: A Journey to the World’s Most Supernatural Places
reviewed by Jack Tieszen
Hollow, Evelyn. Atlas of Paranormal Places: A Journey to the World’s Most Supernatural Places. Ivy Press. September 26 2024. 224 p. $30. ISBN: 978-0711287969.
In Atlas of Paranormal Places: A Journey to the World’s Most Supernatural Places, author Evelyn Hallow wants you to believe. Not necessarily in ghosts or cryptids but rather in what causes them to manifest, whether these causes are something beyond our understanding or entirely a human invention. Hallow explains that “at the core of the human experience lies our ability to make sense of our own existence by embodying difficult concepts into material or bodily forms. Belief is not always literal, and yet it is always powerful. When we believe, we make real that which we give power to” (219). Regardless of whether you think the paranormal events in this book are real or completely explainable, one can’t dismiss the stories that surround them, and it is in these stories that Hallow wishes to examine belief.
Hallow splits Atlas of Paranormal Places into six distinct chapters, with each chapter further subdivided into sections. The chapters are as follows: Haunted Places, Witchcraft, Sacred Sites, Myths & Legend, Strange Nature, and Cryptids & Creatures. Each section depicts a different geographic location and tells the stories associated with the area, along with additional relevant information. Longitude and latitude coordinates are also provided at the beginning of each section to offer further detail. Sections can range from four to six pages, featuring a vast array of visuals alongside the text. The first image seen in each section is a map displayed legibly on a full page. Depending on the location, this map can take on a form as focused as a floor plan or as massive as an entire island. Each of these maps also includes an inset map to show the location’s position within the profiled country. Photographs of the areas take on a more varied format, ranging from small insert visuals to full two-page spreads. To create uniformity, each image displayed has a filter applied to it. This gives the images a shared identity and also serves to provide the atlas with a haunting aesthetic, one that is furthered by the prose itself as Hallow paints vivid pictures to the reader, such as how she describes La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as “an art gallery of ghosts” (91).
Throughout the 38 sections in the book, there are 33 unique countries profiled, five of which get two sections (India, Ireland, the Philippines, Scotland, and the United States). The only continent not represented in this book is Antarctica. Concerning the topics, the paranormal focus ranges from broad concepts, such as witches and UFOs, to more culturally specific examples, like Djinn (“supernatural beings found in Islamic beliefs”) (198). The latter of these topics is given great care in the text regarding its cultural significance. For instance, instead of just presenting the concept of Skinwalkers (figures from Native American beliefs) to the reader, Hallow’s discussion acknowledges that external cultures lack a framework for conceptualizing indigenous belief systems and folklore (172). The author gives the same level of attention to the various theories meant to provide answers to some of these paranormal experiences, like the possible explanation as to why compasses don’t work correctly in Japan’s Aokigahara Forest (the forest is located on a bed of cooled lava resulting in it having a large concentration of iron and therefore impacting compasses) (157). These scientific explanations aren’t presented in this text to dissuade anyone from their beliefs but rather to provide possible reasons why such paranormal events occur in these spaces. As Hallow states, “sometimes places become paranormal locations because the living have desired them to be so, either to explain a strangeness they do not understand or because such things create an opportunity for profit” (51). Through this discussion of the paranormal and the various causes associated with these phenomena, Hallow provides the reader with a nuanced understanding of belief.
Given the various topics in the book, the question of where mapping fits in is a crucial one, as this book is an atlas. The maps themselves, while displayed prominently at the beginning of each section, serve mainly as visual keys to understanding the specific location. Beyond an additional map of the world at the beginning showing all of the places discussed, there are only as many maps as there are sections in the book, which is 39 in total. While the book is deserving of the atlas title due to these maps, it isn’t the maps themselves that are the primary focus, but rather what has occurred in the locations they depict. With this understanding of how Hallow uses the maps within this book, the question thus becomes, what value does Atlas of Paranormal Places hold in the geography world? One can certainly argue for this atlas as a geographic text, as the use of maps effectively provides real-world context to the content. However, the content itself seems less critical to the geographic world and more valuable to other fields, such as history or parapsychology. From this perspective, this book is more suited to a personal or public library collection rather than an academic map space.
Jack Tieszen
Geospatial Resources Librarian
George Mason University
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