Cock Lane and Common-Sense

"Cock Lane and Common-Sense" by Andrew Lang is a set of essays that looks at the worlds of folklore, anthropology, and claims of paranormal activity from the late 1800s. Lang tries to connect the thoughts of folklore experts and paranormal investigators, suggesting that looking into stories of spiritualism and other strange events is a real academic pursuit, but one that needs to be approached with doubt. Lang focuses on the academic discussions about ghost stories and supernatural claims, pointing out that folklorists and scientists are often unwilling to properly look into firsthand stories that go against what we know, and shares examples from different cultures, even things reported by people like the Wesley brothers. Lang believes these experiences should be studied, pointing out that similar strange things happen in different societies and asking why educated people shouldn't be questioned as much as uneducated people when they tell stories of the supernatural.