The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts: A Riveting Investigation into Channeling and Spirit Guides is a book by the journalist Joe Fisher. It was published in 1990 in Canada and the United Kingdom and was later published in the United States in 2001. It has become a popular book within the New Age movement.
Fisher began to investigate paranormal phenomena and made contact with his own spiritual guide, a spirit who claimed to be a Greek woman who was his lover during an earlier life. He received much information from his contact with the spirits and started to check whether it was true or not. At first, some seemed to be correct, but as he started to check more closely, some turned out to contradict what he had been told. This raised doubts in his mind. Information given by different mediums contradicted and he came to the conclusion that at best, the spirits were guessing and at worse, deliberately lying. He also came to the conclusion that some of the information that he was provided could not possibly have been collected by natural means, that is, the mediums were not frauds.
By consulting a friend, he came to the conclusion that the spirits were trying to gain total control of him.
By re-delving in to numerous and varied ancient religious mystical texts, he eventually found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead what he concluded these entities are, namely Pretas, or Hungry Ghosts, which stimulate in the living un-naturally heightened levels of all the negative emotions the living can have, and then feed on the negative emotional energy produced.
The same year that the book was published in the United States, Fisher, experiencing personal problems and feeling tormented by the spirits that he claimed to have angered, committed suicide. Something that his publisher thought were quite incredible as Fisher was known as one who wrote against suicide in a previous book he had authored.
Famous quotes containing the words siren, call, hungry and/or ghosts:
“Postmodernism entices us with the siren call of liberation and creativity, but it may be an invitation to intellectual and moral suicide.”
—Gertrude Himmelfarb (b. 1922)
“One day my mother called me ... and she said, “Forty-nine million Americans saw you on television tonight. One of them is the father of my future grandchild, but he’s never going to call you because you wore your glasses.””
—Lesley Stahl (b. 1941)
“Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beating up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready. And when the people eat the stuff they raise, and living in the houses they build, I’ll be there, too.”
—Nunnally Johnson (1897–1977)
“There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.
There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)