Macabre accounts of the lingering spirits who were once subjected to primitive and barbaric medical practices in Kentucky’s iconic mental hospital. The Western Lunatic Asylum has held the interest of people worldwide for decades. Anyone who passes beneath the grand silver dome can feel something menacing from within. For over one hundred and twenty years, this hellish building has stirred with secrets. The mad, the violent, and the disenfranchised of Western Kentucky have languished here inside its dark medical wards, the victims of garish experiments and arcane medical practices. In Hauntings of the Western Lunatic Asylum, author Steve E. Asher brings you chilling real-life encounters of haunting paranormal activity from those who have worked inside the aged madhouse. Discarded orphans, the feeble minded and the criminally insane living together and now locked inside a man-made purgatory. They remain hopeless and filled with inhuman rage. Steve E. Asher brings you gripping stories that only a small handful of people even knew existed. Do you dare look further? Do you dare to enter the Western Lunatic Asylum?

Ice-pick Lobotomies * Straight Jackets * Seclusion Cells * Ice Water Baths Sound like a scene from a horror movie? Welcome to the 19th century asylum located in Weston, West Virginia. It held the demented, the insane and the unfortunate. Come explore ghosts and haunted history with author Sherri Brake. Built in the 1860's to house 250, the asylum in Weston was overcrowded with 2,400 patients by the 1950's. Barbaric treatments, unsanitary conditions coupled with scandals, murders and suicides made for a nightmarish situation. To some it was a haven from the streets, to others it was hell on earth.

First built in 1867, the remarkable Gothic structure of the former Ararat Lunatic Asylum, colloquially known as Aradale, has overlooked the regional town of Ararat for over 150 years. Throughout its history it has seen remarkable transformations in the history of Australian psychiatry and western society's treatment of the mentally ill, and it has participated in some of their darkest scandals. Today in popular press, the labyrinthine complex is commonly acclaimed as 'Australia's most haunted building' and is home to a flourishing dark tourism industry boasting tens of thousands of visitors a year. This book explores the history of the former asylum, and examines what is it that makes a place 'haunted' in the popular imagination, and what it is about hauntings that so invariably connects them with problematic histories.

A psychologist unearths America’s darkest secret through the terrors of an asylum in 1933 Virginia, where the elite aim to eliminate millions of "unfit" citizens. The truths that have been erased from history come to life in this thriller about the nation's ugly and forgotten chapter. Still haunted by the death of this wife and son during childbirth, psychologist and WWI vet Samuel Taylor accepts a position at Western Valley Hospital. Superintendent Joseph Dejarnette leads the movement to purify humanity by exterminating anyone the Society, led by the kings of industry, deemed to be "defective" or "unfit". Sam discovers that his testing often condemns patients simply for being less than the new "American" ideal, yet he learns he cannot quit his job. Dejarnette desires Sam to be his right hand at the asylum but warns him that Sam’s deaf brother and new immigrant girlfriend have already been labeled as unfit by the new masterminds of eugenics. Sam begins to question his sanity as the mysteries of the area emerge from the shadows, compelling him to dig deeper into the horrors of the movement, realizing how complicit he is in the deaths around him. Experiments beyond his worst nightmares occur daily, as citizens from neighboring towns begin disappearing at a frightening rate. Sam devises a bold plan to escape and unleash the truth, but learns that Dejarnette’s tendrils reach into every major American city. The proof he ultimately uncovers may doom everyone he holds close while influencing the world's most heinous act in history.

Abandoned Asylums takes readers on an unrestricted visual journey inside America's abandoned state hospitals, asylums, and psychiatric facilities, the institutions where countless stories and personal dramas played out behind locked doors and out of public sight. The images captured by photographer Matt Van der Velde are powerful, haunting and emotive. A sad and tragic reality that these once glorious historical institutions now sit vacant and forgotten as their futures are uncertain and threatened with the wrecking ball. Explore a private mental hospital that treated Marilyn Monroe and other celebrities seeking safe haven. Or look inside the seclusion cells at an asylum that once incarcerated the now-infamous Charles Manson. Or see the autopsy theater at a Government Hospital for the Insane that was the scene for some of America's very first lobotomy procedures. With a foreward by renowned expert Carla Yanni examining their evolution and subsequent fall from grace, accompanying writings by Matt Van der Velde detailing their respective histories, Abandoned Asylums will shine some light on the glorious, and sometimes infamous institutions that have for so long been shrouded in darkness.

Shiver-inducing science not for the faint of heart. No one studies fear quite like Margee Kerr. A sociologist who moonlights at one of America's scariest and most popular haunted houses, she has seen grown men laugh, cry, and push their loved ones aside as they run away in terror. And she's kept careful notes on what triggers these responses and why. Fear is a universal human experience, but do we really understand it? If we're so terrified of monsters and serial killers, why do we flock to the theaters to see them? Why do people avoid thinking about death, but jump out of planes and swim with sharks? For Kerr, there was only one way to find out. In this eye-opening, adventurous book, she takes us on a tour of the world's scariest experiences: into an abandoned prison long after dark, hanging by a cord from the highest tower in the Western hemisphere, and deep into Japan's mysterious "suicide forest." She even goes on a ghost hunt with a group of paranormal adventurers. Along the way, Kerr shows us the surprising science from the newest studies of fear -- what it means, how it works, and what it can do for us. Full of entertaining science and the thrills of a good ghost story, this book will make you think, laugh -- and scream.

The darkest stories from the nefarious “Castle on the Cumberland” from a former prison guard and paranormal expert. “The place sits on blood as surely as it does on stone and earth.” The Kentucky State penitentiary opened its heavy iron gates to the condemned over 100 years ago—yet many of them, long deceased, still walk its corridors. Noted paranormal researcher Steve E. Asher provides true, first-hand accounts of the paranormal as well as his own personal experiences at the state’s most violent, controversial—and haunted—prison. He uncovers the shocking testimonies of the men and women who have actually worked behind the prison walls and their encounters with the spirits of dead inmates. The compelling facts found inside this book will leave you questioning everything you ever thought possible about life after death.

From the mediums of Spiritualism's golden age to the ghost hunters of the modern era, Taylor shines a light on the phantasms and frauds of the past, the first researchers who dared to investigate the unknown, and the stories and events that galvanized the pubic and created the paranormal field that we know today.

Known as "Old Main," the New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica opened in 1843 as the first institution of its kind to treat madness as a medical illness, not a curse. A series of groundbreaking administrators sought to save mentally ill New Yorkers from lives of confinement in sordid conditions and create a safe haven. A sense of normalcy was established for patients through Old Main's Asylum Band, the Opal monthly publication and other arts programs. The infamous Utica Crib was invented at the asylum, and visitors from around the world sought to tour the facility and its utopian structure. Though closed in 1978, Old Main was placed in the National Register of Historic Places, and its iconic columns still mesmerize the public today. Author Dennis Webster charts the history of the New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica.

Hauntings lurk and spirits linger in the Mountain State Reader, beware! Turn these pages and enter the world of the paranormal, where ghosts and ghouls alike creep just out of sight. Author Rosemary Ellen Guiley shines a light in the dark corners of Virginia and scares those spirits out of hiding in this thrilling collection. From the headless ghosts wandering Droop Mountain to the tortured spirits of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, there’s no shortage of bone-chilling tales to keep you up at night. Around the campfire or tucked away on a dark and stormy night, this big book of ghost stories is a hauntingly good read.