80 books like Dark Entries

I read a lot of gothic literature, and very little actually scares me. This book does. Every time I return to this book, which I do every year, always after dark, in a silent place, I get that anxious chill that makes me want to pause, pull my collar a little tighter, and look around the room, just to be sure.

Jackson’s novel also has what I think is the finest opening paragraph in any work of the literary gothic, an opener so unexpected and so poetic that I know I’m in for more than a typical haunted house story. Picking up on "The Fall of the House of Usher," picking up on "The Turn of the Screw," and influencing everything that came after her, Jackson gives us a dark mirror of a setting—a story, above all, of a haunted mind.

I am a huge fan of the very-brief gothic. It’s so hard to do well; trivial jump-scares are easy, but to produce a meaningful effect in only a few pages takes real precision. Shirley Jackson holds the crown with "The Lottery," but my second favorite instance of a surprisingly quick read that produces a real gasp is Angela Carter’s mini-treasure, "The Werewolf."

It manages to be a fairy tale, feminist critique, a witch, and a werewolf story all at once—and, like the beast in the title, it may not be what it appears. Also wonderful to me are "The Company of Wolves," "The Snow Child," and the eponymous "The Bloody Chamber," that one a revisioning of "Bluebeard"—essentially, Carter updates all kinds of dark fairy tales, bringing out their subversive shadows for a savvy reader. Still so fresh to this day.

Are there any ghosts in the most famous ghost story of all time, "The Turn of the Screw"? Fans have been debating that for over a century. I am awed and frequently challenged by James’ prose style, in which so much is rendered carefully ambiguous.

In his greatest offerings—"The Jolly Corner," "The Real Right Thing," and, a personal fave, "The Friends of the Friends"—he was able to elevate Gilded Age ghost stories to the realm of high art. Among his most central gifts was a Hawthorne-inspired interest in the nature of guilt, self-deception, and the spectral world inside our minds.

I recently visited Henry James’ grave in Cambridge and found that anonymous fans continue to leave him little tributes to this day.

She’s more famous for novels like Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence, but I love Edith Wharton above all for her ghost stories. I especially admire "Afterward," which, for my candy corn, is the greatest literary ghost story ever written. It both chills me and makes me ponder; the emotions inside this complex tale of secret lives are so real that, after I’ve put it down, I find I want to talk to anyone else who has read it about what just happened.

Wharton handles both language and imagery with a deft touch, all while drawing the reader into a haunting that has more than one dimension.

Carl Jung is the person who actually coined the term “synchronicity” and was the first to recognize it as an important connecting principle between the unconscious and the outer world. He observed that such events occur when the archetypal processes of the collective and personal unconscious correspond to objective events in the real world. Here, for example, he reports the now-famous case of the patient who dreamed of a scarab beetle, a creature that represented transformation to the ancient Egyptians, only to find a similar beetle tapping on Jung’s consultation room window the next day, as the patient described the dream to him.

For Jung, virtually all authentic instances of synchronicity involve the archetypal unconscious and reflect mythic themes. This book includes a number of the first and best examples in synchronicity literature.

This is an excellent, yet brief history of the Black Arts and the famous (or infamous) people who practiced them. It was while reading this book, particularly the chapter on LaVoisin, that inspired the story of Christina Lafage, the main character in Widdershins. The book also describes other interesting practitioners, such as Dr. John Dee, Eliphas Levi, Nostradamus, Aleister Crowley, and many more. The chapters on Black Magic and Sorcery and Raising the Dead also contributed to my ideas for my book. I often find myself referring to this book over and over again for great source material.

Lobsang Rampa was a Tibetan Monk that took over the body of an Englishman in order to accomplish his destiny in teaching Westeners the Wisdom of the Ancients.

I found this book at 18 years old while searching for the meaning of life, needing to know that what I experienced and could do was not an overactive imagination. As I read the book, a great calmness settled into my soul. All the information related was confirmation that I knew all these concepts already. Now I had the terminology to go with it. It was such an exciting discovery.

If you wish to learn ancient knowledge in a nutshell, this is the book to start with.

Molly Tanzer came up with one of the cleverest “magic” tropes ever and I wish I’d thought of it myself. Her Victorian London “diabolists” engage with demons in a way that felt so logical that it seemed 100% plausible. It involves specific plants, for example, ginger. These demons are more like sentient aliens that enter into a (permanent) symbiotic relationship with a human host, upon which they confer benefits.

It made me go, “I mean, getting into devil worship like this may not be my thing, but yeah, I get why people could be into it.” It’s not all gushing balls and gaslit concerts either, since our protagonists are much more middle class. There’s danger here, because not all of these diabolists are harmless. I craved ginger for months after this book.

I love a good coming-of-age story coupled with supernatural events in a period-piece setting, and that’s exactly what Polly Schattel serves up. Her cinematic style of story-telling (her filmmaking past is obvious) offers up a vivid picture of her protagonist, young Max Grahame as he journeys literally across the country from his home in Georgia and metaphorically as he discovers more about who he is and what his budding supernatural talents entail. Schattel is also a master of creating rich supporting characters ranging from the other children whom Max meets as he first undergoes his occult training to the mysterious adults whose spiritual machinations are woven into the history of this turn-of-the-century setting. This book begs to be made into a movie, but Schattel helps you create one in your head.

Hey, this non-fiction book I’ve read has a lot to offer. Great study for those who wants to understand more about metaphysical world!

This is his fourth book that I’ve read besides Reincarnation, The Secret Teaching of All Ages, and The Wisdom of the Knowing Ones. I love his books, because can I learn a lot of mystical things which is related to the fantasy series that I’ve been working on. And it has a great impact on my writing for the first book in my series.

It taught me that we are not alone in this world. There are a lot that we don’t know about spiritual dimension that can’t be seen with our mundane eyes. As within, so without. Our inner wisdom creates the reflection of our reality.
I feel contented with the knowledge shared in this book. It helped me to enlighten my perspective… show more.