The author of this book is deceased

"You cannot die" by Ian Currie was one of the first books I've read on paranormal phenomena, written by a "true believer". It's not clear exactly who Ian Currie might have been, but some of his ideas sound Theosophical-inspired. He also mentions Edgar Cayce. The author claims that "science" has "proven" the existence of life after death, a somewhat contentious angle even among people who are religious or spiritual.

The book is a popularized compilation of anecdotes about meetings with the spirits of the dead, sprinkled with references to psychic research, Stanislav Grof, Ian Stevenson, Kenneth Ring, etc. This is the kind of book you might want to read on a train trip, at the airport or over a weekend. If you already have read countless of books in this genre, you might actually find it boring!

My own reactions when reading the book the first time (it must have been over ten years ago) were pretty mixed. I found the early chapters on ghosts, OOBs and NDEs intriguing, but got progressively more sceptical - and frankly annoyed - the longer I kept reading it. Grof's LSD research proving that humans were plants in a previous life, I considered ultra-crackpot. The last chapter ends with the statement that humans evolve and eventually become...gods.

It took another ten years before I broke with materialism, LOL.

In fact, for a long time, I considered this book to be very extreme, together with Dannion Brinkley's "Saved by the Light" and a Finnish book on the supernatural by one Rauni-Leena Luukanen. They were a kind of lunatic three, blocking my path to supranaturalism. Today, I consider Ian's book pretty conventional. Perhaps I'm becoming a god?

For old times sake, I'm giving "You cannot die" four stars...