Life After Death, Some of the Best Evidence

Author on psychic phenomena, Dr. Jan Vandersande, will be joining show host Yvonne Perry on Writers in the Sky Podcast August 22, 2008. Today we welcome Jan to our writing blog. He is discussing his book Life After Death: Some of the Best Evidence.

Yvonne: Tell me something about yourself and your writing background.
Jan: I am a physicist by training and have a Ph.D. degree. I have published over 80 scientific articles in scientific journals and conference proceedings. This is my first book.

Yvonne: What is the title of your book? Give us the basic story line so we’ll know what it’s about.
Jan: The title is Life After Death: Some of the Best Evidence. It describes the psychic phenomena my wife and I experienced over an eight year period. We were lucky to experience trance mediumship, direct voice, trumpets flying around the séance room and see ectoplasm. Using my own experiences I was able to critically read much of the literature on psychic phenomena and take some of the best evidence for survival from it. These cases are described in my book.

Yvonne: What inspired you to write this book?
Jan: As I just mentioned, my wife and I witnessed psychic phenomena, called physical phenomena, which are very rare to see, over an eight year period. These phenomena were the inspiration to write this book. These phenomena provided such good evidence for life after death that I wanted to tell the story about what we witnessed. Also, my experiences made it possible for me to critically read much of the psychic literature and take from it some of the best evidence for life after death.

Yvonne: Is this the first book you have written?
Jan: Yes, this is my first book.

Yvonne: How long did it take to write this book? Any interesting tidbits about your writing method or how the book developed?
Jan: It took me about three years to write it. I did a lot of reading of the psychic literature to take some of the best cases providing evidence for life after death.

Yvonne: How did you publish your book? Tell me about your publishing experience and what you learned from it.
Jan: I submitted the book to about ten publishers but all turned it down. Many publishers will not take direct submissions so you have to go through an agent. I tried about five agents that handle New Age books but they turned me down. I believe that the publishers and agents were afraid to touch a book about physical phenomena such as ectoplasm and materializations. As a result I decided to publish the book myself. I used Outskirts Press to publish the book and they have done a great job.

Yvonne: Where is your book available? Do you have a Web site or blog where we can learn more about you or your book?
Jan: The book is available on-line at: Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com. Towerbooks.com, etc. The website for the book is: www.outskirtspress.com/bestevidence.

Yvonne: As far as marketing, do you do more online publicity or print/radio/TV promotion? Tell me some ways you have promoted your book. Give examples and links to any sites you feel might help other authors.
Jan: I have been able to get two psychic websites to recommend the book as well as a critic who specializes in books on the paranormal. I did a radio interview and will give a lecture later this month. I sent out books to try to get reviews but that is not easy. My topic is controversial (materializations) and I think that not to many book reviewers want to touch it.

Yvonne: Have you hired a publicist to help promote this book? If so, what was your experience like?
Jan: No, I have not thought about a publicist yet. I am waiting to see how sales go by doing it myself.

Yvonne: Any other comment you would like to share?
Jan: Writing the book is half the battle. Then there is publishing and promoting it.

Yvonne: I agree! Marketing a book can be a full-time job. Thank you, Jan, for giving us the opportunity to get to know you and learn about your book. I wish you well in your journey as an author.

Summary of Life After Death, Some of the Best Evidence

The author, Jan W. Vandersande Ph.D., has described in considerable detail some of the best evidence that he is aware of for life after death. He has based this evidence on his own experiences which include sittings with trance mediums and channelers, and also sitting quite regularly over an eight-year period in a circle in which he witnessed physical phenomena such as trumpets flying around the séance room, direct voice, and ectoplasm. All his experiences are described in detail.

Additionally, three of his close friends witnessed full materializations numerous times and one of them, Professor Jack Allen, photographed ectoplasm coming from the medium as well as two full materializations. These four photographs are shown in the book.

His experiences have made it possible for him to critically read a lot of the existing literature on psychic phenomena. He has cited numerous cases, which he believes are genuine and are some of the best evidence for life after death. These cases come from channelers, trance mediums, direct voice and materialization sittings. Several materialization mediums are discussed in detail, and some photographs of ectoplasm and full materializations are shown and are compared to the ones taken by Professor Allen. Considerable emphasis is placed on materializations since they are the most impressive evidence for life after death.

The author also considers alternative explanations for these psychic phenomena such as fraud, telepathy and “super-ESP” but in all the cases he documents the survival of life after death hypothesis is the most likely explanation.

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