The hand on the mirror : a true story of life beyond death

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First Title value, for Searching:

The hand on the mirror : a true story of life beyond death

First Author value, for Searching:

Durham, Janis Heaphy, author.

ISBN:

9781455531301

Personal Author:

Durham, Janis Heaphy, author.

Edition:

First edition.

Display Publication Info:

New York :

Grand Central Publishing,

2015.

Physical Description:

xiv, 268 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 24 cm

Contents:

Introduction -- The hand on the mirror -- Family matters -- Max -- The valley of the shadow of death -- Strange events unfold -- The journey beings -- A pattern emerges -- Is Max trying to reach me? -- Milestones -- Lessons from a rocket scientist -- Can we travel outside our bodies? -- Ghosts: real or imagined? -- Magic carpets -- Am I going nuts? -- I'm not nuts -- A spiritual awakening -- Near-death experience: evidence of an afterlife -- What's worse than losing your spouse? -- Mediums: real or fiction? -- Challenging the scientific community -- Challenging the media -- Finding my mother -- Reaching out to the other side -- Finding myself -- Afterword.

Abstract:

The author chronicles how--after intense paranormal activity in the wake of her husband's death--she launched into an investigative spiritual journey, interviewing scientists and spiritual practitioners along the way.

Subject Term:

Future life.

Spiritualism.

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Shelf Location	Status
Searching... Plymouth	Book	50000008170705	133.901 DUR	Non-fiction Collection	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

An unbelievably believable story about the afterlife, with documenting photographs from the former publisher of a major metropolitan newspaper.

An unbelievably believable story about the afterlife, with documenting photographs from the former publisher of a major metropolitan newspaper.

In 2004, Janis Heaphy Durham's husband, Max Besler, died of cancer at age 56. The daughter of a Presbyterian minister, she practiced her faith as she struggled with her loss. Soon she began encountering phenomena unlike anything she'd ever experienced: lights flickering, doors opening and closing, clocks stopping at 12:44, the exact time of Max's death. But then something startling happened that changed Heaphy Durham's life forever. A powdery handprint appeared on her bathroom mirror on the first anniversary of Max's death.

This launched Heaphy Durham on a journey that transformed her spiritually and altered her view of reality forever. She interviewed scientists and spiritual practitioners along the way, as she discovered that the veil between this world and the next is thin and it's love that bridges the two worlds.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

When former Sacramento Bee publisher Durham lost her husband, Max Besler, to cancer in 2004, her religious faith and journalism training left her open to the possibility of an afterlife but skeptical about it. She began encountering lights that flickered, clocks stopping at the time her husband passed away, and most astonishingly, powdery handprints on the first, second, and third anniversaries of his death. These experiences launched Durham, daughter of a Presbyterian minister, into conversations with scientists and spiritual practitioners in an effort to understand what she witnessed. She documents her experience and the many interviews she did to pose the possibility that "life does not end with our physical death" and to marshal public support for research into the topic. Durham is credible and sincere in her quest, and her personal insights into how love transcends a human lifetime are moving. However, the book is unlikely to appeal to more theologically conservative Christians who are interested in heaven, because it fails to address how this view of the afterlife coheres with what the Bible says about death and the soul. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal Review

Durham, a former advertising executive at the Los Angeles Times and publisher of the Sacramento Bee, describes an emotional journey through the grief of losing her husband, Max, and the struggle to comprehend the unusual phenomena that followed his passing. The author seeks the expertise of an array of spiritual practitioners and scientists. This is by no means an objective or thorough exploration of perspectives on the existence of life after death-sometimes it's contradictory, not every authority is reliable, and some conclusions are a stretch. But it is an effective story about love, loss, and a universal search for meaning and understanding in life, and for that reason it may be appreciated by readers who enjoyed Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking. VERDICT Spiritually curious readers who have lost loved ones will identify with the author's quest for answers and may appreciate learning new ideas about fringe science and parapsychology. It's similar but more investigative than books such as Eben Alexander's Proof of Heaven, one of the specialists Durham consults. Those looking for a more skeptical book that delves into theories of life after death would do better with Mary Roach's Spook.-Rachel Hoover, Thomas Ford Memorial Lib., Western Springs, IL © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.