Crossing Over, by John Edward

Crossing Over: The Stories Behind the Stories, by John Edward
Jodere Group, 2001
259 pages, no photos, no index
Library: 133.9 EDW

Description
John Edward is changing the way millions of people think about life after death. High nightly show, Crossing Over with John Edward, has been the talk of the television industry since it first hit the airwaves in June 2000 on the Sci Fi Channel. Now, as Crossing Over becomes nationally syndicated, the first-ever psychic television host takes his millions of fans behind the scenes of his life, his work, and his breakthrough program.

In Crossing Over-the book-John brings his readers with him on the extraordinary journey that has been his life since his New York Times bestselling One Last Time was published in 1998.

In the style of his TV show and personal appearances-poignant, funny, and remarkably candid-John deals head-on with the controversial issues he has confronted on his voyage as a psychic medium. Readers might be surprised to learn that it hasn't always been smooth sailing. On the way to becoming an internationally celebrated medium, , John has had to learn his own lessons about the meaning of his work and about the motivations of some of the people he has met on his path.

The book also tells the powerful stories of the people John has encountered and the spirits that have accompanied them: the songwriter from Tennessee whose famous father comes through, setting off an extraordinary chain of events leading to an amazing discory in a memorabilia show in Dallas.

The science teacher who leaves her dying grandfather in a nursing home to come to a group reading with John-and finds her grandfather coming through half an hour later, saying he wanted her to leave his bedside so she could report back to the family that he had crossed over safely.

The young woman working on a project with John whose murdered boyfriend interrupts a taping session to tell her it's all right for her to move on.

And John's own quest to hear from another medium the words he's waited a decade for: the signs he and his mother agreed she would give him from the Other Side to tell him she was okay.

Through these stories and many others, John brings peace and insight to those who grieve for their loved ones.

Readers of this book will be captivated by the wit, warmth and passion that John brings to his work, and by the stories behind the stories that have riveted millions of viewers of his landmark program.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Prologue
1. Great Expectations
2. My Three Signs
3. The Producers
4. Proving Grounds
5. Six Lies and videotape
6. Legends of Rock
7. Medium Cool
8. Crossing Over
9. Camera One Closes In
10. The Medium and the Media

The Mask of Nostradamus, by James Randi

The Mask of Nostradamus: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Prophet, by James Randi
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990
223 pages plus Appendices, Bibliography and Index, 8 pages of photos
Library: 1333.3 RAN


Description
Here is a classic encounter - today's most celebrated investigator of the supernatural versus the most famous of all prophets, the legendary 16th-century astrologer and physician, Nostradamus.

In The Mask of Nostradamus, James Randi, a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant winner, writes the first in-depth interpretive biography of the man whom some claim predicted such events as the Great Fire of London, the rise of Napoleon and Hitler, even Watergate. His legendary work The Centuries, a unique book of prophecies, has captured multitudes of readers for more than four centuries.

Randi's research and analysis illuminate Nostradamus' historic origins, his bona fide role as a physician, what his amazingly ingenious prophecies forecast, the factual truth of his alleged prophetc successes, and how the rationalizations of Nostradamus' armies of followers have perpetuated his fame through the ages.

Renowned for his exposes of "New Age" charlatans, Randi explains how this cleverest of all astrologers flourished in his own time. He shows how Nostradamus skillfully used ambiguous phraeology and sometimes "predicted" events after their occurrence. But Randi is more understanding of Nostradamus than implacably hostile, and drawing on recent research reveals how Nostradamus risked death in the Inquisition for his genuine Protestant beliefs.

An internationally celebrated magician, Randi is devoted to truth, deploring any victimization of the gullible. His portrait of Nostradamus will stand as the first serious exploration of this complex figure whose life still reverbrates in our times.

Contents
Acknowledgments
1. My search begins: A Natural Curiosity about anomalies
2. Genesis of a prophet: Nostradamus' origins and family history
3. The Secret of Success: How to be a prophet - in 8 easy steps
4. The Right time and the right pllace: The Period, the politics and the persons
5. Medicine in the 16th century: The beginnings of medical science
6. When Magic Ruled: An age of sorcerers
7. Just What is astrology?: The idea, the flummery, and the methods, then and now
8. The World WAr II quatrains and their creators: How Nostradamus was drafted into service in World WAr II
9. Contemporary Seers: Nostradamus' fellow oracles
10. The Nostradamians: Interpreters of the Prophecies
11. The Ten Quatrains: Evidence of Imagination gone wild
12. The Legend Begins: The Death of Nostradamus and the Birth of the New Mythology

Appendices
1. the Royal lineage
2. The anonymous document concerning the 1555 edition
3. Important dates in the Nostradmmus' story
4. Some end-of-the-world prophecies - that failed
Bibliography
Index

Life Before Life, by Jim B. Tucker, MD

Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives, by Jim B. Tucker, MD
St. Martin's Press, 2005
234 pages plus Notes and References.No index, no photos
Library: 133.9013. TUC

Description
For the past 40 years, doctors at the University of Virginia Medical Center have conducted research into young children's reports of pst-life memories. Dr. Ian Stevenson, the founder of this work, has always written for a scientific audience. Now, in this procacative and fascinating book, Dr. Jim B. Tucker, a child psychiatrist who currently directs the research, shares these studies with the general public. Life Before Life is a landmark work, one that has the potential to challenge and ultimately change our understanding about life and death.

Children who report past-life memories typically begin talking spontaneously about a previous lifewhen they are two to three years old. Some talk about the life of a deceased family member, while others describe the life of a stranger.

They may recount details about previous family members, events in the previous life, or the way they died in that life. The children tend to show a strong emotional involvement with the apparent memories and often cry to be taken to the previous family.

In many cases, parents have taken their children to the places they named, where they found that an individual had died whose life matched the details given by the child. During the visits, some children, have recognized family members or friends from that individual's life. Many children have had birthmarks that matched wounds on the body of the deceased individual.

Researchers have studied more than 2,500 such cases, and their careful investigations have produced an impressive body of work. The Journal of the American Medical Association stated in a review of one of Dr. Stevenson's scientific books that "in regard to reincarnation, he has painstakingly and unemotionally collected a detailed series of cases...in which the evidence is difficut to explain on any other grounds."

Life Before Life explores the various features of this worldwide phenomenon, describing numerous cases along the way. We meet a boy in Michigan who, after being born with three birthmarks that matched wounds on his deceased brother, begins talking about events from his brother's life; a boy in Turkey who gives a number of accurate details about a man, including his name, who lived five hundred miles away and died fifty years before the boy was born; and a girl in Sri Lanka who is able to recognize the family members of a deceased stranger as they are presented to her one by one, giving specifics about their lives that she could not have known from their appearance.

Dr. Tucker presents his material in a straightforward way, relating extraordinary stories that have been amassed with a scientific approach. He then considers how best to interpret the evidence, and he lets readers reach their own conclusions - which for many, will be profound.

Table of Contents
Foreword by Ian Stevenson, MD
Introduction
1. Children who report memories of previous lives
2. Investigating the cases
3. Explanations to consider
4. Marked for life
5. Remembering the past
6. Unusual behaviors
7. Recognizing familiar faces
8. Divine intermission
9. Opposing points of view
10. Conclusions and speculations

Author's Note
Acknowledgments
Notes
References

Life Among the Dead, by Lisa Williams

Life Among the Dead: Television's Favorite Medium, Psychic and Clairvoyant, by Lisa Williams
235 pages, plus acknowledgments, a few b&w photos scattered throughout the book. No index

Description
When Lisa Williams was four years old, she told her parents anout the spirits in her bedroom. Since those first sightings, Lisa has seen and communicated with thousands of people who have passed over, listening to their stories and delivering messages of comfort to the loved ones they left behind.

In Life Among the Dead, Lisa invites readers into her extraordinary life, from her childhood in Birmingham, England, where her grandmother-also a renowned psychic-encouraged her to respect and nurture her talent, to her decision to move to Los Angeles, where her smash-hit Lifetime television show quickly made her one of the world's beloved mediums.

Lisa shares memories of her earliest psychic experiences and her gradual acceptance of her gift, and recalls many of the amazingly accurate communications she has shared with believers and skeptics alike.

In her compassionate, down-to-earth style, she reveals exactly what it's like to live surrounded by spirits every day, and she recounts the joy she feels in bringing solace to those who have lost someone dear and the insights she has gleaned about spiritual phenomena, hauntings, psychic healing and the afterlife.

Warm, witty, and suprising, Life Among the Dead is a wonderfully intimate account of Lisa's life as a medium, healer, wife, mom and TV star who has already won the hearts of millions, a woman with an astonishing gift for seeing beyond the ordinary and into a mysterious and fascinating realm.

Table of Contents
1. The Uninvited
2. The Gift
3. Men
4. Working Mother
5. Talking to the Dead
6. Meeting the Hipster
7. A New Start
8. The American Adventure
9. Wedding Bells
10. America
Epilogue
Acknowledgments

Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, by Rupert Sheldrake

Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: and other Unexplained Powers of Animals, by Rupert Sheldrake
Crown Publishers, 1999
317 pages plus notes, references and index. A few graphs and b&w photos scattered throughout the book.
Library: 133.89 SHE

Description
Many people who have ever owned a pet will swear that their dog or cat or other animal has exhibited some kind of behavior they just can't explain. How does a dog know when its owner is returning home at an unexpected time? How do cats know when it is time to go to the vet, eveb before the cat carrier comes out? How do horses find their way back to the stable over completely unfamiliar terrain. And how can some pets predict that their owners are about to have an epileptic fit.

These intriguing questions about animal behavior convinced world-renowned biologist Rupert Sheldrake that the very animals who are closest to us have much to teach us about biology, nature, and consciousness.

Filled with captivating stories and thought-provoking analysis, Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, is a ground-breaking exploration of animal behavior that will profoundly change the way we think about animals, and ourselves. After five years of extensive research involving thousands of people who own and work with animals, Sheldrake conclusively proves what mant pet owners already know-that there is a strong connection between humans and animals that lies beyond present-day scientific understanding.

With a scientist's mind and an animal lover's compassion, Sheldrake compellingly demonstrates that we and our pets our social animals linked together by invisible bonds connecting animals to each other, to their owners, and to their homes in powerful ways.

Sheldrake's provactive ideas about these social, or morphic fields explain the uncanny behavior often observed in pets and helps provide an explanation for amazing animal behavior in the wild, such as migration and homing.

Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home not only provides fascinating insight into animal, and human, behavior, but also teaches us to question the boundaries of conventional scientific thought. This remarkable book deserves a place next to the most beloved and valuable books on animals, such as When Elephants Weep, Dogs Never Lie About Love, and The Hidden Life of Dogs.

Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Part 1: Human-Animal Bonds
1. The Domestication of Animals

Part II: Animals that know when their people are coming home
2. Dogs
3. Cats
4. Parrots, Horses, and other animals

Part III: Animal Empathy
5. Animals that comfort and heal
6. Distant Deaths and Accidents

Part IV: Intentions, Calls and Telepathy
7. Picking up intentions
8. Telepathic calls and commands
9. Animal-to-animal telepathy

Part V: The Sense of Direction
10. Incredible Journeys
11. Migrations and Memory
12. Animals that know when they are nearing home
13. Pets Finding their people far away

Part VI. Animal Premonitions
14. Premonitions of Fits, Comas, and Sudden Deaths
15. Forebodings of Earthquakes and other disasters

Part VII. Conclusions
16. Animal Powers and the Human Mind

Appendix A: How to take part in research
Appendix B: Experiments with Jaytee
Appendix C: Morphic Fields

Notes
References
Index of Names
Index of Subjects
About the Author

Ghost hunting termilology part 11

reading - a session with a medium or psychic for the purposes of receiving information through super-normal channels. (In England, it is called a "siiting."

Seance - The French word for sitting. Here people gather in a darkened room for the purpose of communicating with a spirit.

Spirit art - Images or portraits produced by a medium through a spirit guide or the use of clairvoyance.

Spirit cards - Cards, usually 3 X 5 index cards, on which the spirit draws or precipitates pictures and names of spirits.

Spiritualism - the science, religion and philosophy that believes in life after death and the ability to communicate with spirits.

Synchronicity - events that are coincidental in nature

table-tipping - The ability to move or tip a table by psychokinesis (pk) or spirit energy.

trance - a deeply relaxed state of mediumship which can range from a light state of induction to full or "dead" trance.

Trumpet - the cone usually made of aluminum approximately three feet high used in trumpet seances.

Ghost Hunting Termology Part 10

Materialization - This occurs when a spirit appears during a seance or other circumstance. During a materialization, the spirit can be seen with the outer eye.

Meditation - A relaxed state in which one goes inweard for development, healing or guidance.

Medium - a person who is sensitive to the vibrations from the other side of life and therefore able to communicate with the other side.

Mental mediumship - Use of the inner senses of clairsentience, clairaudience, and clairvpyance to communicate with the other side.

Orbs - Circular white lights which indicate spirit presence. Sometimes Spirit faces or other details are seen in the center of the orb.

Precipitated pictures - A rare form of mediumship in which images that are literally impressed or precipitated onto cards or canvas by spirits.

physical mediumship - mediumship in which some form of physical phenomena is produced that can be detected by the outer senses.

Psychic - a person who intuits information. A psychic is not necessarily receiving information from a spirit.

psychic surgergy - a rare form of medical mediumship in which the spirit doctor actually performs a form of surgery. Unlike regular surgery, there is little if any pain.

Maine Ghost Hunters discuss their experiences

WLBZ2 News: Maine Ghost Hunters discuss their experiences

PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Maine is full of history, and apparently full of paranormal activity, that's according to the group, Maine Ghost Hunters.

The crew answers calls from people experiencing strange phenomenons in their homes. They investigate and try to scientifically prove or disprove a ghost inhabitance.

NEWS CENTER spoke to the group about some of their experiences.

The video from this page is not embeddable, so if you want to see and hear it, you need to go to the link below:
http://www.wlbz2.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=815705635001

Ghost Hunting Terminology Part 9

Ectoplasm - A cloudy substance which is extruded through orifices of the medium for the prpose of physical manifestation of spirit.

Gate-keeper - A particular spirit guide who stands at the threshold between the two worlds to protect the entranced medium. The gate-keeper acts as a master of ceremony for the other spirit who wishes to come through the medium.

Guides - Spirits of deceased loved ones, advanced teachers, and sometimes angels who offer their encouragement and assistance.

Inspirational writing - Information which is given directly through spirit through the inner faculties, especially the heart or fourth chakra.

Laying on of the hands - Method of healing in which the healer places his or her hands, usually over the head, shoulders and heart of the person seeking healing.

Bibliography
Seance 101 by Medium Elaine M. Kuzmeskus, Schiffer Publishing, 2007

Ghost Hunting Terminology Part 8

Afterlife - life beyond the change called death.

Astral travel - Condition usually during sleep where thespirit leaves the body and travels into the higher dimensions or other places on earth.

Aura - Emanations from the spirit body, usually seen as colored lights above the head.

Billet - Small note or card used in billet seances on which requests or questions for a spirit are written.

Cabinet - An enclosed space with a curtain in the front. Here a physical medium sits for the purpose of gathering ectoplasm needed for trumpet and materialization seances.

Chakra - Sanskrit word for wheel. The Hindus believe there are seven etheric energy wheels with the human body.

Circle - A group which forms a circle for the purpose of communicating with a spirit.

Clairaudience - The ability to hear spirit voices with the inner ear or fifth chakra.

Clairgustance - The ability to taste and smell spirit through the inner senses.

Clairsentience - The ability to sense spirit through the solar plexus or third chakra.

Clairvoyance - The ability to see spirit with the third eye or sixth chakra.

Bibliography
Seance 101 by Medium Elaine M. Kuzmeskus, Schiffer Publishing, 2007

Ghost Hunting Terminolgy Part 7

Paranormal
The realm of occurrences and phenomena removed from those to which people are exposed in every day experience.

Phantom Smell
Any scent through which asupernatural entity is attempting to express itself. Typically, phantom smells are remoniscent of flowers, cigarettes, or perfume, but they don't come from any identifiable source.

Poltergeist
A ghost that manifests its presence through noises, rappings, the moving of objects, and the creation of disorder. The relo
cation of furniture is an indication of paranormal activity.

Possession
A situation in which a hostile spirit enters and takes control of a human body, causing noticeable changes in behavior.

Bibliography
Seeking Spirits: The Lost Cases of The Atlantic Paranormal Society, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson with Michael Jan Friedman, Pocket Books, 2009