IFF Books, Winchester, 2023; ISBN 978 1 80341 228 3. 321 pp.

The title is a bit of a mouthful but pretty much sums up the content: this is indeed a large-scale (1004 respondents) survey of English- French- and Spanish-speakers reporting alleged communications with the deceased via every sense (excluding taste) or through a ‘sense’ of presence. Testimony-driven, it seeks to examine a detailed selection of issues pertaining to After-Death Communications (ADCs) including possible ‘triggers’ and contexts of such experiences, messages from the deceased, a wide range of demographic issues and the impact of ADCs on the lives of experients.

It may seem odd to begin a review by quoting from the Dedication page but in this case it’s entirely appropriate because here the author cites Raymond Edwin Wolfinger’s oft-cited assertion that ‘The plural of anecdote is data.’ It’s a contested assertion, of course, but it goes unchallenged in the book for the simple reason that to do so would be to saw off the branch upon which the whole study rests. Indeed, the most striking thing about the content on offer here is the overwhelming mass of testimony-data – or ‘data’ – presented and which more than justifies the price of admission alone. Much analysis there is, but such is dwarfed by the sheer number of testimonies included, quoted both in full and in part.

Inevitably, investigation of such a large amount of material is a job for more than one person and a whole team worked to produce Spontaneous Contacts with the Deceased: a team consisting of Elsaesser, Team Leader, Chavannes-de-Bogis, Switzerland, Chris Roe and Callum Cooper from the University of Northampton and David Lorimer from the Scientific and Medical Network. A ‘Scientific Committee’ was included as well, consisting of J. Kim Penberthy, Peter Fenwick and Kenneth Ring. All told, this is an impressive line-up and one which does full justice to the material provided by examining it from a wide variety of angles with overall objectives of description, analysis (both qualitative and quantitative) and dissemination. The testimonies kick in more-or-less straight away and remain a constant presence virtually up to the very end.

One thing that I found particularly striking about the study was the sheer variety of the accounts included. ADCs, it turns out, shade into other types of anomalous experiences too, including Near-Death Experiences, encounters with ghosts, crisis apparitions, lightforms, visions, End-of-Life Experiences and the Sense of Presence. So, for example, at times I found myself reading an account of an ADC which would not have been out of place in an anthology devoted to testimonies of ghostly encounters: a further example of the richness of the material to be found between the covers of this absorbing study.

I used the word ‘anomalous’, above, but this wouldn’t be a word that the study’s participants would necessarily want to use of ADCs. Early on, Elsaesser certainly contests its use with respect to ADCs, arguing that one of survey’s key findings is that such experiences are so overwhelmingly common that they should be seen not as odd or even rare but simply as part of widespread, lived, human experiencing. Having finished the book I feel inclined to agree, although I’m still wondering why it is that the vast majority of us don’t seem to have such experiences just as the vast majority of people who come near death don’t have Near-Death Experiences. These sorts of issues, revolving as they do around what might be called the ‘selectivity question’ have always seemed to me to offer vital clues as to the processes involved in out-of-the-ordinary experiencing and whilst Spontaneous Contacts with the Deceased presents another perspective from which to view the question it makes no attempt to answer it. Which is fair enough, really, given the sheer number of questions it does seek to answer.

Overall, this fine and detailed study is both informative and deeply moving. I could only read about twenty pages at a time, not because I felt bored or disengaged but because of my emotional reaction to what I was reading. Many subjects experience ADCs in the middle of deep grief and are grateful for the ‘reunions’ they are granted, even if such are usually only of very brief duration. But some don’t seem to have had an ADC in such circumstances and could not in any way be said to have been expecting them: let alone invoking them. And, intriguingly, 12% of the Spanish respondents appear to have had encounters with figures they didn’t recognise, just as 12% of subjects across the study reported negative or frightening encounters. This is the thing about this book: there is so much to explore. I recommend it to anybody interested in the phenomenon of after-death-experiencing or, indeed, out-of-the-ordinary experiencing in general. It would be a fine addition to the bookshelf of anyone curious about these – and related – phenomena.

This review first appeared in Fellowship Review, No 260, Winter 2024, pp. 21 – 4