Most of us at the very least wonder about our own immortality and many people are convinced that there is something beyond death, beyond the blackness of the grave. In Western Judaeo-Christian culture we absorb from an early age the idea that virtue now has its own reward - later. We are taught that the universe is essentially moral and that there are absolute human values. But increasingly, science presents us with a picture of a much more mechanical universe in which there is no absolute morality and man has no purpose and no personal responsibility except to his culture and his biology. We no longer live in an age when faith is sufficient; we demand data, and we are driven by data. And it is data - data that apparently throws some light on our current concepts of Heaven and Hell - that the near-death experience seems to offer. The near-death experience (NDE) is intriguing for two major reasons. First, it is very common and secondly, it is cross-cultural. The results of one NOP survey in America suggest that over 1 million Americans have 'seen the light'. Any experience that is so common must have had some influence on the way we think about life and death. Indeed, it could be the very engine that drives our ideas of an afterlife. Many people believe that in the NDE we are given glimpses of Heaven (or Hell). But it is just as reasonable to assume that it is the NDE itself which may have shaped our very ideas about Heaven and Hell. The experiences described in this book are all first-hand accounts from people who wrote to me or to David Lorimer, chairman of the International Association of Near Death Studies (UK), after a television programme, radio broadcast or magazine or newspaper article made them aware of our interest in near-death experiences. We asked 500 of those who wrote to answer a detailed questionnaire about their experiences. Our aim was to gather in a standardised format as much detail as we could about the NDE, the people who have experienced it and the effect that the experience has had on their lives. It is from this database that the statistics quoted in this book have been drawn, and the accounts given to me by these people and by others who have written to me since then form the basis of the book. But their accounts provided much more than mere statistics. Each one was special in its own way, and provided a personal testimony which I found both moving and utterly sincere. It is very seldom that an author can so truthfully say that without others a book could not have been written - in this case, without these people there would, indeed, have been no book. I feel privileged to have been allowed to read their accounts, and I am grateful to everyone who, by being willing to share their experience with me, has helped in this search to find the truth in the light. Peter Fenwick London December 1994

John Mack explored alien encounter experiences deeply, revealing a world of meaning and power that can revolutionize our understanding of who we are and our place in the cosmos. Dr. Mack suggests that such experiences reveal to us a universe which is filled with intelligence and life, though this may not always take the densely embodied form with which we are most familiar. This book brings us to the edge of material reality and beyond, shattering the boundary that has separated matter and spirit and scientific or spiritual ways of knowing. Dr. Mack asks us to move beyond the largely useless debate about whether UFOs or abductions are real in a purely material sense. He shows us the limited way that we have used ourselves in learning about the cosmos, and challenges the limitations of traditional science as a way to learn about the multi-dimensional world in which we reside. Insights about the relationship between spiritual and physical energy; trauma's role in transformation; information about the ecological crisis facing the planet and the urgency that we do something about it; the possibility that human beings are participating in the creation of some sort of interdimensional hybrid race; the expansion of human consciousness and our spiritual reawakening; and the apparent evolution of extraordinary relationships that some human beings may be developing beyond the earth plane - these are the matters this book includes.Dr. Mack demonstrates that the investigations of a skilled clinician, exploring human consciousness through in-depth conversations, can reveal to us a multidimensional, apparently intelligent, cosmos whose nature is fundamentally consistent with the discoveries of leading scientists who have been gaining knowledge primarily through exploring the physical world.

In spite of human prejudice to the contrary, there is but one religion and one truth, and all the great faiths of the world are parts or fragments of the Ancient Wisdom. The Scriptures of the world are the written records devised both to preserve and at the same time to conceal the mystery of Eternal Law. It naturally follows that there is certain interdependence between religious writings. To understand any one sacred book completely it is necessary to also understand all other sacred books. The Christian Bible is the greatest book in English literature. But like most other great books, it must be approached with understanding, gentleness, and a sincere desire to find truth. The Bible as we know it today is a fragment of that truth. How to Understand Your Bible goes a long way to explaining myth and history, spiritual and religious, fact and fiction, and is a must for truth seekers everywhere. The whole motion of the Universe is toward Truth. Truth is growing up in everything, manifesting through all forms and natures. Truth, therefore, may be called the hidden good, the secret God who dwells in the temples that are built for it according to the law. Manly P. Hall

Since its spectacular launch in 1993, The Only Planet of Choice has been widely acknowledged as one of the most significant books in the genre for our time. Many of those thousands who have already read it have spoken of the profound effect it has had upon them.

This book represents the outcome of twenty years of work by a distinguished international research group whose members have been communicating through psychic transceiver, Phyllis Schlemmer, with an enlightened circle of universal beings known as the Council of Nine.

Its underlying theme is free will and the power of the inhabitants of Planet Earth to create a better, more harmonious world. Among the many themes covered in detail are the existence of ET civilisations and their interactions with Earth, the nature of the Source of the Universe, the ancient history of humanity, Jesus the Nazarene, environmental issues and humankind's as-yet-unrealised potential for self-awareness. But, above all, for those who are prepared to listen and heed its message, it offers a positive outcome for the future.

New readers will welcome the opportunity to explore this riveting book for the first time: Existing readers will want to discover the wise new truths it contains.

What is consciousness? How does it relate to the brain, to the mind? Does it even extend beyond them? And if so, might those experiences -- telepathy, extrasensory perception, near death experiences -- be called 'paranormal' because we can't explain them by any normal means?

Anything with a firm belief structure, whether it is science or religious faith, limits experimentation and a free spirit of enquiry. I wanted to find a synthesis between these two fields of experience, the measurable and the immeasurable. And it seemed to me that the best - indeed, the only way I could find out more was by finding people who had such immeasurable experiences and studying them.

A few years ago I was introduced by a friend to a philosopher, Alain Forget, who, I was told, had a remarkable ability to give 'energy. During this 'energy-giving' process my friend had been aware of light radiating from him.

My own ego wanted to persuade this unusual man to allow me to put him under the microscope. But in doing so I found myself, perhaps reluctantly at times, under the microscope of his perceptual grasp of human nature. And I realise that it has changed me, and that much of what I thought about myself was not based in reality.

This book tells that story.

Peter Fenwick

In Life Before Life psychologist Helen Wambach asked 750 subjects under hypnosis about their pre-birth memories. Questions included:

Did you choose to be born?

Why did you choose the twentieth century?

Have you chosen your sex for the coming lifetime?

Have you known your mother-to-be in a past life?

When does your soul enter the fetus?

The results are compelling and collectively the data obtained makes for fascinating reading for anyone pondering the question of reincarnation.

BACK IN PRINT: SECOND EDITION.

DO YOU KNOW WHICH BODY YOU'RE IN?

Many spiritual traditions, from yoga and Buddhism to contemporary theosophy, teach that we are multidimensional humans. We exist simultaneously on several planes and in several bodies. These bodies range from the familiar physical body to the astral body experienced in dreams and out-of-body states, as well as higher energy bodies that access realms and states of consciousness beyond our wildest dreams.

In The Multidimensional Human, consciousness researcher and intuitive consultant Kurt Leland reveals the secret of how to master these energy bodies: we must develop our inner senses. Based on a close study of theosophy, the Seth Material (as channeled by Jane Roberts), and his own clairvoyant investigations, Leland explains that there are twenty inner senses. They come in four categories: existential (those that help us know and understand ourselves), environmental (those that help us perceive nonphysical environments), kinesthetic (those that help us move within and between nonphysical realms), and relational (those that allow us to interact with nonphysical beings).

He also provides thirty-two practices for developing our inner senses. These practices are extremely simple. They can be done in ordinary waking consciousness by anyone--beginner to advanced--who has an interest in psychic development, out-of-body experiences, lucid dreams, astral projection, and other adventures in consciousness.

By mastering these inner senses, we learn how to use our energy bodies to experience the bliss of higher states of consciousness, explore the astral plane and beyond, meet nonphysical Teachers and Guides, and work for the spiritual benefit of humanity. We achieve our birthright as multidimensional humans.

A seasoned traveler in the realms of alternate reality gives useful and practical advice for anyone who wants to follow his example. One of very few books on astral travel that is worth reading. Follow him if you dare.

Richard Smoley, author of The Dice Game of Shiva: How Consciousness Creates the Universe

John Mack explored alien encounter experiences deeply, revealing a world of meaning and power that can revolutionize our understanding of who we are and our place in the cosmos. Dr. Mack suggests that such experiences reveal to us a universe which is filled with intelligence and life, though this may not always take the densely embodied form with which we are most familiar. This book brings us to the edge of material reality and beyond, shattering the boundary that has separated matter and spirit and scientific or spiritual ways of knowing. Dr. Mack asks us to move beyond the largely useless debate about whether UFOs or abductions are real in a purely material sense. He shows us the limited way that we have used ourselves in learning about the cosmos, and challenges the limitations of traditional science as a way to learn about the multi-dimensional world in which we reside. Insights about the relationship between spiritual and physical energy; trauma's role in transformation; information about the ecological crisis facing the planet and the urgency that we do something about it; the possibility that human beings are participating in the creation of some sort of interdimensional hybrid race; the expansion of human consciousness and our spiritual reawakening; and the apparent evolution of extraordinary relationships that some human beings may be developing beyond the earth plane - these are the matters this book includes. Dr. Mack demonstrates that the investigations of a skilled clinician, exploring human consciousness through in-depth conversations, can reveal to us a multidimensional, apparently intelligent, cosmos whose nature is fundamentally consistent with the discoveries of leading scientists who have been gaining knowledge primarily through exploring the physical world.

During his 50 years of psychical research, Sir William Fletcher Barrett (February 10, 1884 - May 26, 1925) observed many types of phenomena. In his reminiscences, read at a private meeting of the Society for Psychical Research (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 (1) the existence of a spiritual world, (2) survival after death, and (3) 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. Barrett was the prime-mover in the founding of the SPR in 1882, serving as vice-president and editor of the Society's Journal during its first year and president in 1904. He also encouraged Professor William James of Harvard to organize the American branch of the SPR in 1884. In this book, Deathbed Visions, first published in 1926, the year after his death, Barrett reported on a number of intriguing cases in which a dying person appears to see and recognize some deceased relative or friend, some of them involving instances where the dying person was unaware of the previous death of the spirit form he saw. These cases form, perhaps, one of the most cogent arguments for survival after death, as the evidential value and veridical (truth telling) character of these visions of the dying is greatly enhanced when the fact is undeniably established that the dying person was wholly ignorant of the decease of the person he or she so vividly sees, Barrett stated in the book, now something of a classic in the field.

In The Next World, historian of religions Gregory Shushan explores the relationships between extraordinary experiences and beliefs in life after death. He first shows how throughout history and around the world, near-death experiences have influenced ideas about the afterlife. Shushan also takes a deep dive into the problem of similarities and differences between NDE accounts. Not only do they vary widely, but so does a culture's way of responding to them and integrating them into their belief systems.

In this book Shushan also compares NDEs with accounts of shamanic spirit journeys to afterlife realms, intermission states between reincarnations from people who remember past lives, and descriptions of otherworlds by souls of the dead communicating through mediums. Accounts of all these phenomena bear striking similarities to NDEs, though also have important differences. Examining them each in relation to the other results in a kind of reciprocal illumination, in which each type of extraordinary experience sheds light on the other.

Drawing on over two decades of research into cross-cultural afterlife beliefs and extraordinary experiences, The Next World presents not only an accessible overview of Shushan's work, but also takes a bold new step in psychical research. By combining ideas and methods from a variety of disciplines - archaeology, anthropology, sociology, and the study of religions - Shushan's unique take on the issues leads to new understandings of them. Unlike any of these disciplines, however, Shushan also crosses over into metaphysics, philosophy, and parapsychology, considering the implications of the cross-cultural data for the survival hypothesis: Are NDEs and other extraordinary experiences actually glimpses into another world and a taste of the true spiritual reality? If so, what could this afterlife actually be like in light of all the diversity of accounts?

The Spiritualist Prime Minister by historian Dr. Anton Wagner presents former Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's quest for spirit communication within the historical and cultural context of British, Canadian, and American Spiritualism.

Mackenzie King was Canada's longest-serving Prime Minister from 1922 to 1930 and from 1935 to 1948. Historians have ranked him as Canada's greatest Prime Minister for his political leadership in winning Canada's autonomy from the British Empire and for organizing Canada's enormous war effort that enabled Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt to lead their countries to victory in World War II.

The Spiritualist Prime Minister is the first in-depth examination of King's spiritualist beliefs and occult practices. Volume 1: Mackenzie King and the New Revelation takes its title from Arthur Conan Doyle's affirmation during World War I that Spiritualism was a new revelation from God that would become the dominant world religion within a generation. The volume contrasts the rapid growth of Spiritualism in the United Kingdom with King's turn towards Spiritualism following the death of his mother in 1917 and demonstrates the very significant influence of British Spiritualism on a Canadian Prime Minister.

This is the Amazing Story of the Enfield Poltergeist On August 31st 1977, normal life ended for Mrs Harper and her four children in their modest council house in a hitherto quiet corner of the north London suburb of Enfield. Compared to what was to come, the initial phenomena were relatively minor - knockings on the walls, and pieces of furniture moving in ways that did not seem normal. The neighbours came in and searched the house, finding all in order, though they too heard the knocking. The police were called, and were able to witness a chair sliding along the floor. The disturbances went on, getting more intense and more frightening. They were eventually witnessed by at least thirty people. They included examples of everything a poltergeist can do - overturning chairs and tables, flinging things about, whipping off bedclothes, levitating one of the girls in full view of passers-by, making her speak with the voice of an old man and defying the laws of physics by passing matter through solid matter. Much of this bewildering and often terrifying activity was captured on tape and film by Maurice Grosse of the Society for Psychical Research and his colleague Guy Lyon Playfair, who were on the case within days of its outbreak stayed on it until it finally came to an end, with a twist as unexpected and surprising as in any detective story. No other case of its kind has been so well witnessed from start to finish or so thoroughly documented. Incidents are described as they happened, without embellishment, from some six hundred pages of transcripts of live tape recordings. The story of the Enfield poltergeist is already regarded as a classic in the annals of psychical research. It has been the subject of worldwide press coverage and several radio and television documentaries.

In the twenty first century many people would agree that more fruit and vegetables and less meat is the way to a healthy diet. Scientific studies often publish statistics comparing meat eaters with Seven Day Adventists (SDA) because the Adventists are a group of people who have advocated and practiced vegetarianism for almost 150 years. The reason this lifestyle came about is largely due to an event which occurred in the summer of 1863 in Michigan, USA. In June 1863 Ellen Gould White, one of the co-founders of the SDA has a vision. She was at the home of brother A. Hilliard, at Otsego, Michigan, when (as she puts it in her own words) the great subject of health reform was opened before me in vision. Prior to this 'vision' physical health and diet was becoming an issue for the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) ministers and a number of them were in poor health. White claimed the vision was from God and that it lasted for 45 minutes, during which God was said by her to have revealed many important principles for a health reform movement she was to later institute in the SDA Church. Later that year she wrote her first pamphlet An Appeal to Mothers which was published in 1864, in which she asked questions such as; have you not marked the lack of healthy beauty, of strength, and power of endurance in your dear children? Have you not noticed that there was a deficiency in the mental health of your children? Have you not been alarmed at their disregard of parental authority, which has bowed down the hearts of their parents with grief and prematurely sprinkled their heads with grey hair? It gives you pain to see your children feeble in body and mind; but does it not cause you still greater grief to see them almost dead to spiritual things, so that they have but little desire for goodness, beauty of character, and holy purposes? White and many of the Adventists regarded her visions as gifts of prophecy and she went on to have many visions and to write many essays and books. According to Wikipedia's list of the best selling books of all time, her book Steps to Christ first published in 1892 has sold 62 million copies and her 5000 articles and 40 published books have been translated into more than 140 languages. In 1905 White's book The Ministry of Healing was published. In the preface she wrote; It is not the creator's purpose that mankind shall be weighed down with a burden of pain, that his activities shall be curtailed by illness, that his strength wane, and his life be cut short by disease. But all too frequently the laws established by God to govern the life are flagrantly transgressed; sin enters the heart, and man loses sight of his dependence upon God, the source of life and health. Then follow the penalties of transgression--pain, sickness, and death. The book emphasizes the link between diet and spiritual growth. It's a diet book, a self -help book, and a Christian spiritual guide all rolled into one, and it continues to be read widely to this day.

Rebecca Ruter Springer was 29 when the American Civil War started in 1861. When the war ended five years later, 620,000 soldiers and countless civilians lay dead. It is not surprising, therefore, that the dead and heaven were much considered over the next forty years in the USA. And it was this spiritual climate that created Springer's classic, 'Intra Muros', or as it is now generally known, 'My dream of heaven.' There is not a great deal known about the author herself. She was born in 1832, in Indianapolis, Indiana; and the daughter of a Methodist clergyman. She graduated from the Wesleyan Female College in 1850, and Methodist Christianity remained her spiritual home. In 1859, two years before the Civil War, she married William Springer, who went on to become a lawyer, and member of the Illinois General Assembly. They had one son, also called William, but Rebecca's health was never good, and described by one person as 'feeble'. In 1868, the couple went on a two-year European tour to improve her health, but it remained poor until her death. It was amidst ill health that My Dream of heavenA was born.Written in 1898 - It was a vision given to her during severe illness; and she was unconscious for some days as she received the vision - which in the telling, covers a period of years. On reflection, she came to understand the short book as a series of basic truths about heaven, written in a simple and readable style, as if being told to a child. Springer did not bestow the status of 'prophecy' on her work; but rather intended it as comfort. As she said, she wrote the book with 'the hope that it may comfort and uplift some who read, even as it did, and as its memory will ever do, for me. I submit the imperfect sketch of a most perfect vision.

For as long as human history has been recorded, people have been fascinated by their dreams. From the mystical visions in the Bible to Freud, Jung and beyond, we have looked for the meaning and significance of dreams and tried to find the connection between our waking and sleeping thoughts. But how much do we really know about them, and what can they teach us?

In this remarkable exploration of the mysterious world of dreams, Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick gather the latest research to show that by learning how to read the messages our dreams give, we can understand ourselves more fully. They examine the purpose of dreams, demonstrating how they can be experienced on different levels -- sometimes simply mirroring fragments of our lives and at other times revealing aspects of personality, giving us emotional insights and helping us to solve problems.

The Fenwicks also explore the fascinating territory of psi phenomena, such as telepathy and precognition, and its relationship to dreaming. Dreams may be the setting, too, for even more extraordinary occurrences, such as out-of-body experiences or the terror of night abductions by alien visitors. The authors show us how to gain access to the state of lucid dreaming, so that we can learn to direct our own dreams, going through the hidden door to enter a world of virtual reality where anything is possible. But dreams have a darker side, too; nightmares and terrors can make our sleep uneasy, and in their aftermath even murder has been committed.

From the principle behind 'dream machines' to bizarre occurrences of shared dreams, The Hidden Door is an intriguing and revealing exploration of the strange world of our subconscious. Including many never-before-published accounts of bizarre dream experiences from the authors' own research, it provides compelling answers to the questions we all ask ourselves about our sleeping mind.

Former political and war correspondent, Karen Frances McCarthy, was on assignment when she received the news that her partner had suddenly died in New York. Skeptical by nature and numbed by the tragedy, she spiraled into a deep state of grief about never communicating with him again ... until he actually did.

Till Death Don't Us Part is a true, down-to-earth, but transformational story of one woman's extraordinary journey through tragedy to awakening to the knowledge that love and life never dies.

In spite of human prejudice to the contrary, there is but one religion and one truth, and all the great faiths of the world are parts or fragments of the Ancient Wisdom. The Scriptures of the world are the written records devised both to preserve and at the same time to conceal the mystery of Eternal Law. It naturally follows that there is certain interdependence between religious writings. To understand any one sacred book completely it is necessary to also understand all other sacred books. The Christian Bible is the greatest book in English literature. But like most other great books, it must be approached with understanding, gentleness, and a sincere desire to find truth. The Bible as we know it today is a fragment of that truth. How to Understand Your Bible goes a long way to explaining myth and history, spiritual and religious, fact and fiction, and is a must for truth seekers everywhere. The whole motion of the Universe is toward Truth. Truth is growing up in everything, manifesting through all forms and natures. Truth, therefore, may be called the hidden good, the secret God who dwells in the temples that are built for it according to the law. Manly P. Hall

In Reliving Past Lives, psychologist Helen Wambach, PhD, shares the fascinating results of her large-scale past-life group hypnotherapy sessions.

In an effort to rule out false memory, fantasy and wishful thinking often associated with past life hypnosis, Wambach devised a protocol where she chose time-specific periods from 2000 BC to the twentieth century and asked respondents where they were and what they were doing during that specific period. Race, social class, occupation, types of money used and gender were all explored. Mundane questions were asked such as:

What types of utensils are being used?

Describe weaving techniques that are being used.

What foodstuffs are commonly in use during this time?

What color is the brickwork of the houses?

As expected, when taken to a specific period some respondents reported experiences while others reported nothing, prompting the question, did they report nothing because they were between lives?

Wambach reasoned that if she asked a large number of subjects questions about a specific time and place and received a sizable percentage of similar answers from subjects who weren't consciously aware of the information they were reporting, that was something worth investigating further.

Together with her book, Life before Life, the data is compelling reading for anyone pondering the validity of reincarnation and life beyond physical death.

We can be certain that the body does not survive death. Once the heart stops circulating blood, the brain is no longer nourished and begins to decay. On the basis of medical evidence it would seem that, within a quarter of an hour, the personality is irreparably destroyed and the individual ceases to exist. But now there is mounting scientific evidence for a life after death. In At the Hour of Death, veteran psychical researchers Karlis Osis, Ph.D and Erlendur Haraldsson, Ph.D collated compelling evidence that suggests we, as conscious beings, do survive physical death. This book is the product of extensive interviews of over 1,000 doctors and nurses who have been present when cases of post-mortem existence have occurred. Extensive computer analyses of their observations have been made. The results are reported in this first truly scientific investigation of the experiences of the dying at the hour of death. What these doctors and nurses have witnessed cannot be explained away by medical, psychological, cultural, or other conditioning. Yet it may answer the fundamental question of human existence. Finally, a book that probes death and dying with modern research techniques. Osis and Haraldsson present compelling evidence that the deathbed is the gateway to another existence. The visions of the dying appear to be not hallucinations but glimpses through the windows of eternity. -Alan Vaughan, editor of New Realities Magazine A major contribution to the scientific study of the question of post-mortem existence. -Raymond A. Moody, M.D., author of Life After Life

In 2021, the 50th anniversary of the first publication of Breakthrough, What happens after physical death? is still the big question concerning the nature of existence.

In his groundbreaking work, psychologist Konstantin Raudive experimented using a communication method known as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP), whereby deceased communicators appear to send messages and images via computers, radios, televisions and other electronic devices.

In 1959 Swedish artist and filmmaker Friedrich Jurgenson was making a tape recording and during playback he discovered what sounded like a human voice on the tape. He put it down to faulty equipment but when he searched other tapes, he found more voices, which seemed to be messages from his dead mother. Jurgenson recounted the experience in a book titled Voices from Space. The book impressed Raudive and subsequently he and Jurgenson collaborated for a time and encountered more voices.

Later, Raudive undertook his own research amassing a collection of thousands of voice recordings and in 1968 his work was published in German under the title, Unhörbares Wird Hörbar (The Inaudible Becomes Audible).

In 1969 after being approached at the Frankfurt Book Fair, British publisher Colin Smythe asked his colleague Peter Bander to assess Raudive's book with a view to publishing it in English, and, unbeknown to Bander, did his own experiments with positive results.

Since that time Jurgenson and Raudive's experiments have been replicated thousands of times by researchers and enthusiasts all over the world and Breakthrough remains a classic in the genre.

The communicators overriding message? We are not dead!