It is a pity that the author – or publisher – of this book decided to call it The Paranormal, which makes it sound like yet another mixed bag of anecdotes about ghosts, poltergeists, ESP and the rest. In fact, it is a bold and deeply impressive attempt to create a ‘new theory of matter, space and time’ which starts from quantum theory and relativity, goes on to plasma physics and superstrings, and throws in a section on ghosts, clairvoyance and precognition almost as an afterthought.

Seymour begins with a spirited attack on Stephen Hawking and his view that the goal of theoretical physics – the ultimate ‘theory of everything’ – might be achieved by the end of this century. His objection is not to Hawking’s views on the expanding universe so much as to the