[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Yeah, I wonder about the backstory, too.

Maybe there is no backstory. I couldn't find anything else on the subject, because every article just quotes his blog. I found one blog that had a letter from Richard Wiseman about the subject, and initially I thought that I had finally found something new, but the only difference is that his blog starts with

Paranormality launches in the USA today……under rather unusual circumstances!

while the letter starts with

Hi
Just a quick email to say that Paranormality, my book about the science of the paranormal, has just been launched today in the USA.....under rather strange circumstances!

So I was looking for information that predates his blog, and I found this:

Put aside your prejudices for a moment, and consider what Professor Wiseman has to teach us. I’m going to assume you know who Richard Wiseman is, because let’s face it apart from a few tribes living in the most impenetrable jungles of E17 who have never seen a Guardian readers face everyone knows who Richard Wiseman is, and if this week was anything to go by, regards him as a dear and bosom pal, have done several shows with him, and have taken deep personal offence to my Paranormality review (despite me giving it 5 stars on Amazon…) If you don’t know, flip back through my blog – he is the guy who gets mentioned more than my girlfriend, which has to be unhealthy!

His review of the book contained the words:

So my review? Good book, fundamentally limited. Worth reading – but it would fail any Advertising Standard Authority check if someone reported the claims on the cover as an actual advert. Wiseman effectively claims to dismiss the paranormal, vanish it like a ghost at cock crow; here is the real science that replaces our wacky world of the paranormal. So sayeth the book; yet in fact, it does nothing of the sort. Instead what it does is scout around the edges of the current parapsychological debate, taking potshots at the fatally wounded, the stragglers, but in the main just shooting up the corpses left by the onslaught of Hyman, Alcock, Blackmore, Randi et al. The huge column of psi researchers making positive claims and producing high quality papers are marching off unscathed off over the hills – nothing as complex as a real peer reviewed parapsychology paper is even assailed in this books first two parts.

On top of that the book is supposed to be interactive, with links to interviews, so it works better in ebook form anyway. And it's been available on the UK Amazon since March, so if Americans couldn't get to it until now it can only mean that it had georestrictions on it.

But hey, this happened just in time to announce his free Paranormality iphone app, and you can probably find the explanation for how it works if you buy the book.