War and the Weird

"War and the Weird" by Forbes Phillips is a set of reflections that looks at strange experiences and the supernatural during war in the early 1900s. The book blends together war stories and deeper thoughts, focusing on the strange things soldiers feel and see during wartime. It opens with a British officer hurt in battle, thinking about weird events and stories shared by his fellow soldiers during the Great War. These soldiers spoke of dreams, seeing the future, and other supernatural beliefs that came about during the craziness of fighting. They wondered if maybe war and the intense emotions of battle created these supernatural experiences. The officer links personal stories with deeper questions about what happens to the soul, showing war as a place where weird, unexplainable things happen, leading to questions about life, death, and belief in the unknown.