Time-Life: Mysteries of the Unknown (pick your favorite volume)

There were 33 volumes in the series:
Alien Encounters Discusses extraterrestrial encounters and possible abductions.
Ancient Wisdom and Secret Sects Includes details on Hermeticism and secret societies.
Cosmic Connections Discusses mankind's long curiosity about the influence of celestial bodies. Includes extensive looks at the solar system and the zodiac.
Cosmic Duality The concept of duality (good/evil, black/white, male/female) is discussed in depth. Topics include Zoroastrianism, Satanism, conceptions of God and Goddess, demon possession and exorcism.
Dreams and Dreaming
Earth Energies
Eastern Mysteries
Hauntings Discusses the apparent haunting of people and places by ghosts, as well as ghosting hunting. Includes information on poltergeists, the Moberly–Jourdain incident, ghost ships and the Bell witch.
Magical Arts
Master Index and Illustrated Symbols
Mind Over Matter Deals predominately with people who possess abilities considered abnormal, though not necessarily supernatural. Discusses hypnosis, poltergeists, levitation and Uri Geller.
Mysterious Creatures Discusses cryptozoology, with a focus on sea monsters and ape-men. Topics include Nessie, the Patterson-Gimlin film, Ameranthropoides loysi, and mokele-mbembe.
Mysterious Lands and Peoples
Mystic Places Discusses places known for supernatural activity or ancient mysteries yet unsolved. Topics include the search for Atlantis, traveling to the earth's center the Great Pyramid of Giza, Stonehenge, and the Nazca lines.
Mystic Quests
Phantom Encounters Discuses encounters with mysteries apparitions. Includes stories haunted families, banishing ghosts, and various ghost stories from Japan.
Powers of Healing Discusses unexplained alternatives to traditional medicine. Topics include medicine men, Edgar Cayce, acupuncture, Rasputin and chakras.
Psychic Powers Discusses ESP and other people who claim to possess psychic abilities. Includes information on Patience Worth and the involvement of psychics in the Yorkshire Ripper case.
Psychic Voyages Discusses accounts of out-of-body experiences, near death experiences, and reincarnation.
Search for Immortality
Search for the Soul
Secrets of Alchemists
Spirit Summonings Discusses mediums and seances. Topics include the Fox Sisters, Daniel Dunglas Home, and Harry Houdini's debunking of mediums.
The Mind and Beyond
The Mysterious World
The Mystical Year
The Psychics
The UFO Phenomenon Discusses sightings and controversies regarding unidentified flying objects. Topics include alien encounters, the Roswell incident, and allegations of government cover-ups.
Time and Space Deals predominately with the history of human interpretations of time and space, as well as unusual phenomena associated with the two (such as time slips). Quantum physics and Pythagorean mysticism are discussed at length.
Transformations Discusses human transformation into animals or other supernatural creatures. Focuses on werewolves and vampires. Topics include tricksters, feral children, Peter Stubbe and Elizabeth Báthory.
Utopian Visions
Visions and Prophecies
Witches and Witchcraft

It wasn't this commercial but one of these commercials in the series really frightened me.

i voted for "ancient wisdom and secret sects" btw.

i am a fan of mysterious creatures, also mysterious lands and peoples sounds good

In Search Of... with Leonard Nimoy was a major deal to me when i was a pre-teen

^ that also but these commercials were fantastic, someone i knew had the wild west and the civil war ones but not this. i wanted THIS. finally downloaded a torrent of all of them at some point god knows when, still have it on a hard drive, just not the same really.

was there one that looked like this? that one also frightened me. ESP guy also scary.
http://www.read-irresponsibly.com/wp-content/uploads/2005/09/The-Voyage-of-the-Dawn-Treader.png

they had this great illustration technique using silver ink that made all the images all ghostly and supernatural, it was excellent. my favorites were hauntings, phantom encounters, and the mystical year... I would only read them in the morning because they terrified me at night.

Yeah, the commercial for this really freaked me out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHA_1yD-qxs

this is the one I always saw (loved the music at the very end)

Look, read the fucking book.

the image in the first video of the woman burning herself on the hot pan has always stuck with me.

OMG, my former housemate had these!

I don't think I ever finished reading one, though.

hahaha, I forgot about the one where he's in bed with a woman who has a nightmare and he immediately goes into his "read the book" spiel!

lol at that weirdo bringing in some time-life mysteries of the unknown books w/ him to lunch

I have one of theses, but it is just called "Mysteries of the Unknown", I think it's an anthology or compilation.

the image in the first video of the woman burning herself on the hot pan has always stuck with me.

― kilt by defrock (get bent), Sunday, February 23, 2014 3:14 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember some 80s comedian riffing on this. "'Coincidence?' YES! THAT'S WHAT A COINCIDENCE IS!"

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So weird that this stuff was sold under the quasi-respectable mantle of Time/Life. I think when I was a kid I almost thought there was something legit about the books because of that.

lol yeah i definitely assumed there was something definitive about these and that a great deal of serious research had gone into them, that basically this was the academic research the ghostbusters would've been working on before they lost their funding

Lol

It's basically an Encyclopedia of folklore, so regardless of whether these things are true or not it's at least worth it to have a record of stories.

Holy shit, I forgot all about these! These commercials FREAKED ME THE FUCK OUT when I was a kid.

"suddenly he paused. he doesn't know why. but he's got to walk away."

DISMISSED AS CHANCE

(cue scary music)

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