PENNSYLVANIA, USA — The FOX43 Book Club highlights the works of local authors with ties to central Pennsylvania.
October's pick, "Coal Region HooDoo: Paranormal Tales from Inside the Pit," was written by paranormal researcher Maxim Furek. Originally from Berwick, Columbia County, the author was born right into the heart of Pennsylvania's metaphysical and mysterious scene.
"Berwick is pretty close to the coal region, and there was always a lot of superstition and paranormal stories," Furek said.
He has been writing since he was about 5 years old, starting with comic books that often featured his brother being captured by evil creatures. In his professional career, the author used to be a drug and alcohol counselor before breaking into rock journalism.
"Rock and roll is always my passion; I believe that music is just so important from a sociological standpoint," Furek said. "It did so much for so many movements... you name it, I mean, music has always been there to motivate us."
His shift into the paranormal came when he was attempting to write a "rock mythology" connecting The Buoys' 1971 song "Timothy" to the 1963 Sheppton Mine collapse in Pennsylvania.
"Both the song 'Timothy' and the Sheppton mining disaster had one thing in common, and that is that three men went down into the mine and only two returned, and in both cases, there were allegations of cannibalism," Furek said.
While writing his book, Furek discovered that after they were rescued, the men who were trapped in the mine reported a plethora of paranormal activity, such as out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences and after-life experiences. Trapped miners Henry Throne and David Fellin swear that they did not make up any of their experiences or hallucinations, and numerous psychologists have agreed that the pair appear to be telling the truth.
Furek fell down the rabbit hole of paranormal research and was hooked. The bibliography for "Coal Region HooDoo" alone is nearly 30 pages, and Furek estimated that he cites over 400 sources in his text—everything from interviews with famous demonologists such as Lorraine and Ed Warren to TV news.
The author grew up surrounded by paranormal themes that helped spark his interest later in life.
"I'm a Baby Boomer... we were raised on things like 'Twilight Zone' and 'Outer Limits' and I guess 'X Files' came later, and all of the classic black and white horror movies, I mean, they were schlock-y, they had cheap special effects, but we loved them," Furek reminisced. "I mean, even today. But we were raised on that, so we knew about aliens and vampires and werewolves and all of that. That was just part of our, I guess, culture—or pop culture."
And Furek is in a good geographical location to pursue his research. Pennsylvania is home to a number of famous paranormal curiosities like the Philadelphia Experiment and Centralia, and the Commonwealth also ranks at No. 3 in the U.S. for its amount of Bigfoot sightings.
"I traveled to Sheppton numerous times, met a lot of people there from Sheppton-Oneida," Furek said. "Centralia, the cursed city, I've been there a million times. And you do that. You do the research, you write it down, and then you talk to people that are close to the source to validate your narrative."
Educating the masses about Pennsylvania's paranormal activity is a passion for Furek.
"I want to do for the Pennsylvania supernatural what Stephen King did for the state of Maine," Furek shared.
"Most of the paranormal books are written about Lancaster or Gettysburg, and I was frustrated. I thought 'wait a second, we have our own story to tell.'"
To some people, these instances of paranormal activity are just that--stories. But Furek believes the natural and supernatural may not be as separate as people assume.
"I think they're the same," he theorized. "I think that the paranormal is part of the scientific realm, but we may not have a doctrine or a theory to explain it."
When it comes to theories on how to be a great author, Furek's advice is simple:
"Write every day," he directed. "Write a couple of paragraphs and make them the best paragraphs ever, and just keep on going from there. And if the paranormal speaks to you like it does to me, then write about that, because it's just so fascinating and there's just so many different areas, different aspects of it."
The author clearly heeds his own advice--"Flying Saucer Esoteric: The Altered States of Ufology" was just published earlier this month, and he already has another novel in the pipeline.
Furek will take a break from the paranormal in his next work, which will be about "society's unhealthy fixation on celebrities that crash and burn," he shared.
"These folks couldn't deal with fame, and they did a lot of substances, and they ended up dead," Furek said. "It's sad. It's a sad, sad narrative, but it's happened to so many people. I think the book that I'm working on is more of a cautionary tale."
Those interested can follow along with Furek on his website, Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date on his latest works.
Furek talks more about his life, passion for the paranormal and experience with the supernatural community in the full interview below.
Anyone interested in the FOX43 Book Club's discussion of "Coal Region HooDoo" can find the prerecorded talk here. To participate in future discussions, join the Book Club Facebook group.