Books published by White Crow Books Ltd

Gordon Phinn has been writing all his adult life. Arriving in Canada from Scotland as a sixteen year old in 1968, his love of literature, ignited at Glasgow Academy, expanded with every passing year. An interest in the esoteric, occult and metaphysical fields also developed during the 1970's, when the likes of Jane Robert's channeling of Seth and the wondrous instances of human/angelic cooperation in Scotland's Findhorn Garden were first revealed. He experienced occasional psychic contacts with his deceased father which developed over the years until by the nineties his OBE's and lucid dreaming accelerated into overdrive, spilling over into the composition of Eternal Life And How To Enjoy It, the type of guided tour of the realms that hadn't been seen in many a decade. Published in 2004, this was followed in 2006 by More Adventures in Eternity, where the promise of many lives, the soul's multidimensionality and the enigma of the Monad/Higher Self was fully embraced. Now we have the final installment of the Afterlife trilogy, You are History: The Soul, The Higher Self, and our Share of Divinity, in which the endless energetic interactions of past/present/future lives with their source self/higher self/Monad is explored and assessed. Here you will find the mystery of our spirit's true nature and ultimate destination approached, explored and unfolded.Gordon Phinn continues his writing, exploring, teaching and psychic facilitations from his home base in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. His videos can be viewed on www.youtube.com/thewordofgord and his blog at anotherwordofgord.wordpress.com.

More so than any other medium, cinema has shaped our expectations of potential alien life and visitation. From The Day the Earth Stood Still and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, to Battleship, Prometheus and beyond, our hopes and fears of alien contact have been fuelled by the silver screen. But what messages does Hollywood impart to us about our possible otherworldly neighbours, from where do UFO movies draw their inspiration, and what other factors - cultural or conspiratorial - might influence their production and content? Silver Screen Saucers is a timely and revealing examination of the interplay between Hollywood's UFO movies and the UFO phenomenon itself, from 1950 to present day. The book grants the reader a rare, close-up examination of the DNA that builds our perceptions of the UFO mystery: one strand of this DNA weaves real events, stories and people from the historical record of UFOlogy, while the other spins and twists with the film and TV products they have inspired. With our alien dreams and nightmares now more fully visualized onscreen than ever before, Silver Screen Saucers asks the question: what does it all mean? Are all UFO stories just fever dreams from LA screenwriters, or are they based in something else? Could any of them be real and are they part of a bigger message? From interviews with screenwriters and directors whose visions have been shaped by their lifelong UFO obsessions; to Presidents Carter and Reagan talking aliens with Spielberg at the White House; to CIA and Pentagon manipulation of UFO-themed productions; to movie stars and producers being stalked by real Men in Black, Silver Screen Saucers provides fresh perspective on the frequently debated but little understood subject of UFOs & Hollywood. The book addresses questions such as: ¿ Does Hollywood fuel the UFO mythos, or vice versa? In other words, are our beliefs about alien visitation shaped by UFO movies, or are UFO movies shaped by our beliefs about alien visitation? ¿ Do Hollywood's UFO movies fictionalize the UFO phenomenon in the public mind, actualize it, or both? ¿ If and when humanity makes full and open contact with an unearthly intelligence, would we, as cinemagoers, be able to divorce Hollywood's historical imaginings from the reality with which we are presented? Indeed... ¿ Should we? After all, a great deal of Hollywood's UFO movie content has been closely informed by supposedly factual UFOlogical literature, events and debates. Perhaps, then, there is more truth to be found in Hollywood's UFO movies than we might imagine - which raises the question: ¿ Just how has so much dense UFOlogical theory (by its very nature 'fringe' and subcultural) managed find its way into Hollywood's populist science fiction narratives? Is Hollywood's incorporation of UFO lore attributable to a "Hollywood UFO conspiracy" designed to acclimate us to a UFO/alien reality, or is it merely the result of a natural cultural process? Silver Screen Saucers is bursting with ideas and information that will excite and intrigue any reader with a passing or serious interest in UFOs and/or science-fiction cinema.

The authors¿ preoccupation with Indridi Indridason spans several decades. Erlendur Haraldsson first read about him in the 1960s, perhaps earlier. He joined the Psychology department at the University of Iceland in 1973 and, during his course on paranormal phenomena, he would regularly discuss Indridason, Iceland's most prolific physical medium. Loftur Reimar Gissurarson, one of Haraldsson's students, soon became interested and wrote his BA thesis on Indridason (Gissurarson, 1984).Based on their research, they co-authored a monograph entitled The Icelandic Physical Medium Indridi Indridason, which was published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (Gissurarson and Haraldsson, 1989). The monograph was subsequently reprinted partially and in full in Renaitre 2000 in France, Luce e Ombra in Italy, and Parapsykologiske Notiser in Norway.Loftur continued the work and co-authored with William Swatos, the book Icelandic Spiritualism: Mediumship and Modernity in Iceland (Swatos and Gissurarson, 1997), much of it dealing with Indridi and the history of Mediums and Spiritualism in Iceland.Shortly after the year 2000, two Experimental Society minute books dating back to the Indridason period were unexpectedly found that contained new information (Haraldsson, 2009). Some time later, Haraldsson delved into the new material which resulted in three major articles being published in the Proceedings and the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (Haraldsson, 2011, 2012a) and the Journal of Scientific Exploration (Haraldsson and Gerding, 2010). It soon became obvious that only a book would do justice to Indridi, as he deserved to be known to the wider international public. This is that book.

Heaven and hell-are they real places, or are they fantasies invented to inspire good behavior and overcome our fear of dying? In this book Stafford Betty, a university professor and international expert on afterlife research, answers these questions. He allows deceased human beings speaking through authentic mediums to describe their actual worlds. And what they tell us would revolutionize the world's religions if they would listen.Our brothers and sisters in the afterlife are not "resting," as Christian theology often asserts. They live in a world of infinite possibility, and their wills are as free over there as they are here. They are busy beings, and some are climbing toward higher realms while others languish. Suffering in the afterworld, not just joy, can be intense; it exists to awaken souls to their errors so they will enter into the happiness of those higher spheres, where corruption can't enter. Professor Betty explores those heavens, those places where love reigns unchecked-as well as those unhappy places where it doesn't.The religions we've fashioned here on earth could all use an upgrade. They are moons that derive their light from the central sun. This book is about that sun.

The Near Death Experience or N.D.E. is becoming the most talked about phenomenon of the 21st century. All over the world people experience life threatening events on a daily basis, and having been resuscitated, they often experience tunnels, light, beautiful surroundings, spiritual guides, deceased loved ones, other beings, a life review, increased universal knowledge, oneness, unconditional love, and the decision to return to the body.The Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) has been reporting on these experiences for 15 years, and it provides a forum the people that have them. God's Fingerprints: Impressions of Near Death Experiences is an anthology of NDE's that will leave the reader, enlightened, uplifted, challenged, and importantly it may provide us information on what happens when we die, and how if affects us while we live.

Swan on a Black Sea is Geraldine Cummins final book which was first published in 1965. The book is an account - an afterlife communication, from the British suffragette and philanthropist, Winifred Margaret Coombe Tennant who passed away in 1956 and first communicated with Cummins in 1957. Coombe Tennant communicated through Cummins using automatic writing; the object being to let her sons know she was still very much alive in the spirit world. The communications are made up of 40 scripts which were communicated between 1957-1960 Throughout her life Coombe Tennant was a talented medium but due to her professional and social standing, she choose to keep her gift a secret from all but a handful of friends, and anonymously she practiced her mediumship under the pseudonym, Mrs. Willet. Her sitters included Sir Oliver Lodge, the renowned British scientist who devoted much of his life to psychical research, and a select number of senior members of the Society for Psychical Research. Relaying her experiences as a travel writer might, reporting back from a distant land, she describes her ability to travel back and forth in time. It's as if her physical life is a film and she is able to "go into her film" at any time or place and examine her physical life - a life review or judgment some might conclude. On October 29, 1958 (script 32) she addressed her skeptical son Henry who was still alive at the time and was finding it difficult to accept that his dead mother was communicating,'There is a dream sweetness about my present state or place.Yet my environment is familiar and totally real. I live in an existence in form both in human etheric forms and surroundings such as in outline nature and man provide. Yet I can be of them and not of them. I am not wedded to them or welded into them. One's mind can govern and alter conditions in a manner not possible on earth. That is, if one exerts oneself, makes an effort.'At present I am at home again in the long ago of Wales. You remember my break in life through your father's death. You may recall how I went to live in London in a flat. All that period is not my present environment.'I am back again in my married life. It is different, though in appearance to my perceptions it is the same outer world of reason, order and sensible arrangements. But it is different, humanly speaking. I am much with Christopher, who is a darling, while your father pairs off with Daff. That is a new experience to me.'What is novel also is that I appear to be in a kind of kindergarten and in my working hours I relive in memory what earth time has snatched away from me. So in the study of memory I do not remain at Cadoxton. I enter the film of past events and make excursions into different times in my past earth life so as to assimilate it.The scripts are essentially an afterlife memoir of Winifred Coombe Tennant; they provide a fascinating insight into her world beyond the grave and are essential reading for anyone interested in psychical research and life after death.

Before answering a ringing telephone, do you already know ho is calling? What about the "sudden" urge to check on your child in another room-only to find he is about to stick a bobby pin into an electrical socket? Welcome to the world of spiritually transformative experiences, or STEs.A Glimpse of Heaven, by Carla Wills-Brandon, Ph.D. explores premonitions of disaster, death-related visions, prophetic and visionary dreams, pets with a "sixth sense," and communications from those who have died. These STE's, although almost impossible to prove in a science laboratory, happen all over the world every day. These experiences suggest not just an afterlife, but an extra life - a realm that lies beyond our own three dimensions, yet that is capable of interfacing with our ordinary lives.Wills-Brandon has had her fair share of STE's and feels that having them validated by others adds weight to their testimony. Here is one of her personal examples.My two sons loved their grandfather. Several weeks before [his] passing, my youngest son made an announcement. While traveling to the grocery store, he informed me that there was a "red-haired kid" sitting with him in the backset of the car. "Honey, what's your friend's name?" I asked. While pulling at the legs of his [toy] dinosaur, Josh looked at the seat beside him and answered, "Who, him? That kid? His name is Damus." "Sweetie, how long has Damus been around?" I asked. "Oh, Damus just got here a few days ago," answered my son. He came here for Da! [their name for their grandfather]"Wills-Brandon then asked her friend, Rabbi Jimmy, if he had ever heard the term "Damus."He looked up and said, "Sure, Damus or Damas translates to 'messenger of death,' a positive being who assists the dying. Where did you hear this term? It isn't that common."Shortly afterwards, Da passed away... and Wills-Brandon's son received no more visits from Damus.A Glimpse of Heaven is filled with incredible experiences and life-changing anecdotes from people around the world. STE's provide evidence that we are all connected by the strings of a fantastic and vast universe that works in ways we are only beginning to understand.

Sir William Fletcher Barrett (February 10, 1844 - May 26, 1925) was Professor of Physics at the Royal College of Science for Dublin from 1873-1910 and one of the distinguished early psychical researchers. He was instrumental in the founding of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in 1882, serving as vice-president and editor of the Society's Journal during its first year and he became president in 1904. He also encouraged Professor William James of Harvard to organize the American branch of the SPR. in 1884.First published in 1917, On the Threshold of the Unseen is Barrett's examination of spiritualism, psychic phenomena, and life after death.Topics covered include, science and scepticism, automatic writing, clairvoyance, telepathy, direct voice, spirit photography, and much more.During his 50 years of psychical research, Barrett observed many types of psychic phenomena. Recalling his past experiences at a private meeting of the SPR on June 17, 1924, less than a year before his death, Barrett said: "I am personally convinced that the evidence we have published decidedly demonstrates, the existence of a spiritual world, survival after death, and of occasional communication from those who have passed over... It is however hardly possible to convey to others who have not had a similar experience an adequate idea of the strength and cumulative force of the evidence that has compelled [my] belief."Almost a century later, On the Threshold of the Unseen is still considered essential reading of anyone interested in psychical research and survival of consciousness after physical death.

In 1981 British Rail had a call from a woman who claimed to have had a vision of a fatal crash in which a freight train had been involved. So clear had it been, she said, that she not merely saw the blue diesel engine, but could read the number: 47 216. Two years later, an accident of the kind she predicted occurred, all the details matching - except one: the engine's number was 47 299.That would have been that, but a train spotter, Howard Johnston, happened to have noticed that 47 299 was not the engine's original number. It had been renumbered, a couple of years before, from 47 216. Diesels, he knew, were ordinarily renumbered only after major modifications, which this one had not undergone. When curiosity prompted him to ask why, he was told about the prediction. Apparently British Rail officials had been sufficiently impressed (they had checked with the local police, and found that the woman who had provided it had given them some useful information from her visions) to try to ward off fate by changing the number. The ruse had failed, and 'they had officially logged it all as an "amazing coincidence".'Life is full of coincidences, some are minor, but often, like the one above, they are extraordinary. Whether they are random events or meaningful cosmic moments which have a purpose, we don't know-it remains a mystery. But what is certain is, a lot of people have them, and they never cease to amaze us.In Coincidence: A Matter of Chance - or Synchronicity? Author and historian, Brian Inglis has compiled a collection of fascinating accounts that will uplift, confound, and leave the most committed sceptics scratching their heads.

Private Thomas Dowding, a 37-year-old British soldier, was killed on the battlefield in WWI. On March 12, 1917, he began communicating through the mediumship of Wellesley Tudor Pole. After floundering in the ethers, not even realizing he was dead for a time, as time goes on that side, he was met by his brother, William, who had died three years earlier, and began his orientation."Hell is a thought region," Thomas Dowding communicated on March 17, 1917. "Evil dwells there and works out its purposes. The forces used to hold mankind down in the darkness of ignorance are generated in hell! It is not a place; it is a condition. The human race has created the condition."Those who enter it are led to believe that the only realities are the sense passions and the beliefs of the human 'I'. This hell consists in believing the unreal to be real. It consists in the lure of the senses without the possibility of gratifying them...Hell, apparently, or that part of it we are speaking about, depends for its existence on human thoughts and feelings."Purgatory and hell, Dowding learned, are different states. He was in purgatory. "We all must needs pass through a purging, purifying process after leaving the earth life. I am still in purgatory. Some day I shall rise above it. The majority who come over here rise above or rather through purgatory into higher conditions. A minority refuse to relinquish their thoughts and beliefs in the pleasures of sin and the reality of the sense life. They sink by the weight of their own thoughts. No outside power can attract a man against his own will. A man sinks or rises through the action of a spiritual law of gravity."And so it was that his brother and the angel failed in their rescue mission. "He would not come away," Dowding communicated. "They had to leave him there. Fear held him. He said his existence was awful, but he was afraid to move for fear worse conditions befell. Fear chained him. No outside power can unchain that man. Release will come from within some day."Dowding returned to the Hall of Silence to ponder what he had just witnessed, determined not to return.

The Other World is a vision of the afterlife transmitted from Albert Pauchard, shortly after he passed away in 1934. Pauchard was the president of the Geneva Society for Psychic Studies and it seems his passion for psychical research continued after his death.In the vein of Elsa Barker's Letters From a Living Dead Man and Wellesley Tudor Pole's Private Dowding, Pauchard relays his experiences in the manner of a travel writer reporting back from some far-flung land. On 'arrival' he is surprised to find himself in the astral plane where he meets the 'guardian of the threshold'. Thinking himself to be a good person, he reflects, Once out here, and the first moments of bliss after our liberationand happy meetings have passed, we descend to a region whereit is more or less dark and where we meet the famous `guardianof the threshold'. It would seem that, according to each individual,things happen in a slightly different way. In my case, the curiousthing was that while walking all by myself along a lonely path,I was attacked by wasps, or something of the kind, which threatenedto sting me.'A Voice, like thunder, said to me:"Well, you cannot complain. For if they had stung you, what wouldhave become of you?"And suddenly I realised that this was connected with all irritations,all the thoughts of criticism, which I had passively borne whileon earth. If I had nourished them, the wasps would have stung me. IfI had chased them away, there would have been no wasps!Pauchard explains that purgatory is indeed a real condition created by our thoughts and actions. He make a point of emphasizing the importance of dealing with unresolved issues such attachments, addictions, and negative relationships, 'before' we pass into the higher vibrations of the afterlife.Consoling a friend still on earth he advises, "as to your illness, my dear friend, do not get discouraged. Do not listen to the tempter. What you can pay off on earth will be a manifold gain in the hereafter. Remember what I told you in the beginning aboutthose `powers of the dark', which we bring along with us when we areborn, and at which we have to work while on earth. The non-regeneratedforces of our own past. They must, must!, be liquidated below." The book deals with subjects such as guardian angels, reincarnation, the animal kingdom, deva's, children in the afterlife, and even fairies and goblins...the list goes on and on.At one point Albert meets a priest he knew on earth, who he refers to as Father S. Father S. has only been in spirit for three days and is still trying to understand his condition. It has not occurred to him that he now resides in a thought world where 'physical 'objects are created by thought. At the end of their conversation Albert remarks; Finally, I had to say Goodbye to him. And then he suddenly noticedthat he had lost his Bible! Not having thought about it, it had disappeared...He was very much annoyed. But I explained that here it is uselessto look for something, because in looking for it, he naturally assumesthat he does not have it. And the result is, he does not have it.I told him:"Tell yourself that you have your Bible in your hand, and it will bethere."He thought I was joking:"You are still the same, Mr. P., even after such a long time in thisworld!""But ... you have your Bible in your hand!" I said.He looked, and there it was.He could not understand it!The encounter has a delightful Alice in Wonderland feel about it and demonstrates that the regions close to earth where 'dead' people find themselves are just as illusionary as our physical experience is-according to the mystics. The Other World is enlightening and entertaining and is essential reading for anyone interested in the field of survival research.

From earliest times, people have speculated about what happens when they and their loved ones die. Their views vary from certainty about life after death to utter disbelief. Today, many continue to believe in the survival of consciousness after physical death with some claiming actual experiences of the departed and contact with them of some kind. In an era which we think of as the enlightened era of science, education and widespread secularism, many people report contact with dead. In a survey at the end of the 20th century, 31% of people in the USA , reperted they had felt that they had been in contact with some one who had died (Greeley 1975), and in Europe the number was 25% (Haraldsson and Houtkooper 1991). Scientist, Erlendur Haraldsson, a native of Iceland, sought an answer to his question, "Have you ever been aware of the presence of a deceased person?" In the modern and educated society of Iceland, one of the Scandinavian countries; he conducted an extensive survey. During the following years, detailed personal interviews were conducted with over 450 people who responded with a yes to questions about personal experiences of the deceased while in a waking state. These accounts form the basis for this book. The results are fascinating and make compelling reading.

Is there life after death? This question is raised by many people, both believers and non-believers alike.Surveys in the Netherlands have shown that 57% of church members (Roman-Catholic and Protestant) and 55% of the unchurched believe in a life after death.1 It is remarkable that so few members and so many non-members believe this. Even more remarkable is that in both categories more people believe in life after death than in God (40% among church members and 7% of non-members). Consider that church atten¬ders, whenever they recite the Nicene Creed, affirm in the first line their belief in 'God, the Father, the Almighty' and in the last line their belief in 'the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come'. All this appears to indicate a considerable degree of 'wishful thinking' among the unchurched on the one hand and a rather confused belief among many church members on the other. This seems to me sufficient reason to reconsider the question of life after death extensively and critically. The biblical grounds for the belief in life after death will be discussed. Other religions are also considered. In this context, I also discuss reincarnation belief that has come to us from eastern religions and that is accepted by 25% of church members in the Netherlands.Special attention is paid to the interim period between death and resurrection, a subject about which the Bible tells us little and on which most theologians remain silent. I consider therefore what we can learn from the so-called 'near-death experiences' about which there has been much discussion lately due to the work of scientists such as Pim van Lommel, whose recent book, Consciousness Beyond life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience, has received much attention. It appears to provide information about the interim period between death and resurrection, a subject about which the Bible tells us little and on which most theologians remain silent. It is also to consider our scientific knowledge of life and its inescapable limitation. This further requires a discussion of the images that bible and science present of the human person. In this way I arrive at a novel answer to the question: "Is there life after death?"

Did Moses turn rods into serpents? Does Uri Geller bend spoons? Did Socrates and Joan of Arc have spirit guides? Did Daniel Home levitate? The 1970's provided a striking revival of interest in the paranormal which has continued unabated into the twenty first century.Telepathy ESP, clairvoyance, premonitions, and psychokinesis - the action of mind upon matter - it was not long ago that orthodox opinion, both scientific and religious, rejected the possibility of such things out of hand. Today, their reality has been demonstrated and tested in laboratories all over the world and the results are published in serious scientific journals. Natural and Supernatural is the first full survey of the subject for over a century. With scrupulous thoroughness and a wealth of extraordinary detail, Brian Inglis presents his evidence, drawing on anthropological studies of primitive tribes and records of classical antiquity and taking his story to the outbreak of the First World War, when the first phase of scientific psychical research came to an end. He pays particular attention to the work of the mesmerists and of the early psychical researchers in the last century. He deals, too, with related aspects such as hauntings, poltergeist outbreaks:, scrying and dowsing.Contrary to popular belief, the evidence for psychic phenomena and non-locality, and the mass of material available to researchers is huge. Inglis meticulously sifted the genuine from the false., singling out such episodes as may reasonably be identified as historical and allowing the reader to make up his own mind, on the basis of the fullest and soundest knowledge, whether to accept paranormal phenomena or not. If they are accepted - and informed opinion is more and more moving that way- then a real revolution in our way of thinking is due to follow. For if mind can communicate with mind at distance, or move objects without contact, not merely will there have to be extensive revision of science textbooks. History, too, will need to be re-written, to allow for the possibility that reports which have long been dismissed as myth or illusion may have been accurate after all.The implications of the subject are great, and Inglis does them full justice.Praise for Natural and Supernatural.'I believe it to be an extraordinarily important and valuable work, sensational in what it contains and even more so in its implications. . . he has piled up a mountain of evidence, searchingly examined and scrupulously evaluated.' Bernard Levin, The Times'It has the two basic qualities which make books on history endure: it is both scholarly and readable.'Arthur Koestler, the Guardian'A tour de force. . . one of those works, like H. G. Wells Outline of History, that fires the imagination and leaves the reader feeling stunned, but excited.'Colin Wilson, Evening News'Brian Inglis is eminently sensible and sane. In this massive survey, the evidence is presented in a sober and scholarly way. . . Natural and Supernatural is hard to fault.'the EconomistInglis bring to this book the same thoroughness and care that he shows in his other books... while I have not been converted, it has intensified mental conflict, and I admire and respect him for writing it.'Karl Sabbagh, New Scientist'Cool, authoritative and highly readable - a service to science and society.'Ray Brown, Psychology Today

I have been asked many times why so much of what I write about - life after death, psychical research, and related paranormal subjects is taken from research done a hundred or more years ago, and why I don't write more about modern mediums and researchers. Part of the reason is that there has been relatively very little research looking at evidence of survival after death since 1930. But that is a secondary reason. The primary reason is that I am convinced that the phenomena observed by the pioneers of psychical research, especially in the area of mediumship and, concomitantly, in the area of spirit communication, were much more dynamic and evidential than those of today. Sometime around 1920, when Professor James Hyslop, one of the key pioneers, died, the research reached a point of diminishing returns. The scientists and scholars engaged in the research began to realize that they were continually reinventing the wheel and would never succeed in producing evidence to satisfy either the scientific fundamentalists or the religious fundamentalists. As strong as the evidence was, it did not offer the absolute proof the skeptics demanded.The pioneers were followed by researchers, who, having witnessed the derision heaped on their predesessors by materialistic "know-nothings," were concerned with their reputations in academic circles. Since consciousness survival had come to be a taboo subject in academia, the new breed of researcher focused on ESP - often going out of their way to avoid the survival of consciousness issue. In fact, a fair percentage of parapsychologists, while accepting the reality of ESP, rejected the spirit or survival hypothesis, concluding that all such phenomena were somehow produced by the subconscious of the individuals involved in their experiments. Such a conclusion was much more academically and scientifically acceptable and made sure funds for further research were available. To even hint at the spirit hypothesis was to invite disdain. While a few later researchers delved into the area of past-life studies, their work received little attention from mainstream science and was ignored or resisted by orthodox religions. When, during the 1970s, research began in the field of near-death experiences, the researchers, wanting to be scientifically proper, focused more on the positive effects of the NDE than on the survival implications. It was not until late in the 1990s, when Dr. Gary Schwartz of the University of Arizona, began investigating the clairvoyant type of mediumship that survival research again resurfaced. But Schwartz came under attack by many scientific fundamentalists and research in this area was further discouraged. This volume, intended as the first of four volumes, covers the period before 1882, the year the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was organized and more formal scientific methods were employed. The pre-1882 researchers were by no means ignorant of the scientific methods necessary to validate mediums, and it becomes clear to the discerning reader that these pioneers were very much on guard against deception and mindful of other explanations, including the subconscious theories.It also becomes apparent to the serious student of this subject that the earliest researchers went beyond the evidential aspects of mediumship and recorded many messages concerning the afterlife environment and the meaning of this life. They served as the foundation for a whole new philosophy, one that made some sense of the afterlife and gave meaning to this life.

This book is not quite like other books about the Titanic. As the title suggests, it is an attempt to explore the more transcendental aspects of the Titanic story - those suggesting a non-mechanistic universe. The subjects include premonitions, apparitions, out-of-body experiences, telepathic communication among the living, and after-death communication, many related to the Titanic passengers, others offered in support of the Titanic phenomena. Many of them have to do with other ocean tragedies. Chief among the Titanic passengers in this book is William T. Stead, a British journalist, who did not survive the disaster but apparently survived in another dimension, from which he communicated in the weeks following his death. . The Titanic story offers us the opportunity to examine death in a safe haven with the added bonus that, unlike most stories involving death, the parties actually have time to contemplate theirs death, some to escape, some to succumb. More than any other modern story, the Titanic might be viewed as a microcosm of life, a "community" isolated in the vast reaches of the ocean, one offering wealth and poverty, the opulence of first class and the ordinariness of steerage class, with a middle or second class in between. Every type of emotion, mindset, virtue and vice is represented - love and fear, hope and despair, bravery and cowardice, arrogance and humbleness, pomp and shame, selfishness and brotherhood. To accent it all, the iceberg impacted by the leviathan was reported as being a rare black berg looming high over the vessel, as if a giant evil predator. More than anything though, the Titanic story represents the struggle between man's inner and outer self, a struggle which many people are interested in but prefer to avoid except in books or movies.