The novel “Parapsyche” by Jack Vance was published for the first time in 1958.

When Jean Marsile and her friend Don Berwick see what they believe to be a ghost in an old house, their reaction is more of curiosity than fear. Jean discusses it with her family, and her father has no answers to give her while her brother Hugh hides behind religious answers because he recently started attending an evangelical church.

The years pass but Jean and Don, who in the meantime got married, still remember that apparition and started thinking about how to scientifically study the phenomena attributed to supernatural causes. Hugh repeatedly shows his opposition to such investigations, which he considers blasphemous, but the couple intends to find out if there really is an afterlife.