This is episode 9 of Paranormal Stories.

This week the books are;
'THE NEXT WORLD Extraordinary Experiences of the Afterlife' by Gregory Shushan

'UFOs Before Roswell: European Foo-Fighters 1940-1945' by Graeme Rendall

As you may know I produce two podcasts, the past lives podcast and the Alien UFO Podcast and it is here that I combine the two. When I have a guests on my podcasts I read their books to research and work out questions for the episodes.

When reading these books I always find such fascinating information which never makes it into the podcast and here I get a chance to give you a peek into the book.

I did seek permission to record these extracts from the books and the authors kindly said yes.

'THE NEXT WORLD Extraordinary Experiences of the Afterlife' by Gregory Shushan

In The Next World, historian of religions Gregory Shushan explores the relationships between extraordinary experiences and beliefs in life after death. He first shows how throughout history and around the world, near-death experiences have influenced ideas about the afterlife. Shushan also takes a deep dive into the problem of similarities and differences between NDE accounts. Not only do they vary widely, but so does a culture’s way of responding to them and integrating them into their belief systems.

In this book Shushan also compares NDEs with accounts of shamanic spirit journeys to afterlife realms, intermission states between reincarnations from people who remember past lives, and descriptions of otherworlds by souls of the dead communicating through mediums. Accounts of all these phenomena bear striking similarities to NDEs, though also have important differences. Examining them each in relation to the other results in a kind of reciprocal illumination, in which each type of extraordinary experience sheds light on the other.

Drawing on over two decades of research into cross-cultural afterlife beliefs and extraordinary experiences, The Next World presents not only an accessible overview of Shushan’s work, but also takes a bold new step in psychical research. By combining ideas and methods from a variety of disciplines – archaeology, anthropology, sociology, and the study of religions – Shushan’s unique take on the issues leads to new understandings of them. Unlike any of these disciplines, however, Shushan also crosses over into metaphysics, philosophy, and parapsychology, considering the implications of the cross-cultural data for the survival hypothesis: Are NDEs and other extraordinary experiences actually glimpses into another world and a taste of the true spiritual reality? If so, what could this afterlife actually be like in light of all the diversity of accounts?

Bio
Gregory Shushan, PhD, is the leading authority on near-death experiences and the afterlife across cultures and throughout history.

He is a Research Fellow of the Parapsychology Foundation, and was formerly Perrott-Warrick Researcher at University of Oxford's Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion; Scholar-in Residence at the Centro Incontri Umani (The Cross Cultural Centre), Ascona, Switzerland; and Honorary Research Fellow at the Religious Experience Research Centre, University of Wales Trinity Saint David. He has lectured at universities in the UK, Ireland, and Switzerland and has given numerous talks on his research in nine countries, and has appeared on the History Channel.

Dr. Shushan holds degrees in Religious Studies (University of Wales Lampeter), Research Methods for the Humanities, Egyptian Archaeology (University College London), and Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology (Birbeck College, University of London).

His work has been generously supported by grants from the Perrott-Warrick Fund at Trinity College Cambridge, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the International Association for Near-Death Studies, the Cedar Creek Institute, the Alex Tanous Foundation for Scientific Research, the Parapsychology Foundation, the Society for Psychical Research, and by readers like you.

https://www.amazon.com/Next-World-Extraordinary-Experiences-Afterlife-ebook/dp/B09W2Q3GT8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1649499919&sr=8-1

https://www.gregoryshushan.com/


'UFOs Before Roswell: European Foo-Fighters 1940-1945' by Graeme Rendall

During the final six months of World War Two, a strange phenomenon known to US Army Air Force night-fighter squadrons as the “Foo Fighters” was witnessed by crews operating over western Germany. Mysterious lights were frequently reported, following their aircraft or sitting off their wingtips. These lights did not appear to show any hostile intent, although they often frightened aircrew, who thought they may have been German secret weapons. For many years, it has been believed that these mysterious wartime sightings started in November 1944.

However, this is simply accepted wisdom, based on a false premise published in a December 1945 magazine article and then repeated in various books dealing with UFOs published since the 1950s.

The true story of the “Foo Fighters” goes back much earlier than 1944, involving RAF aircrew operating over Germany and Italy. The nicknames for what they encountered were different, but the phenomenon they witnessed was almost certainly the same. Mysterious lights, "rockets" and "jets" were reported on a regular basis, with many of these events being listed in official records. These cases, plus others which may not have been reported to the military authorities at the time, are examined closely in this book.

Various explanations have been suggested to explain the “Foo Fighters” and these are looked at in great detail. In the 1950s, several German “designers” came forward to claim that they had been personally involved with secret Nazi projects that they believed were the source of wartime sightings - and in some cases, post-war ones too. Their claims will also be studied in depth.

The ”Foo Fighters” are a largely forgotten aspect of the UFO subject in the 20th Century, and this book is intended to address that lack of coverage. It also provides a wealth of information and detail on wartime German secret weapons programmes and bombing raids, so should appeal to readers with an interest in World War Two aviation who are looking for stories with a difference.

The foreword to this book has been written by Sean Cahill, one of the witnesses involved in the infamous November 2004 US Navy "Tic Tac" case. I am most grateful to Sean for his contribution to my work.

Bio
I have been interested in aviation for as long as I can remember. Starting off with model kits and books, I moved onto writing about aircraft for a local magazine in my early twenties, and then travelled around Siberia in the summer of 1992 looking for interesting Russian aeroplanes to photograph.

I published my first book, "To the Ends of the Earth: A Snapshot of Aviation in North Eastern Siberia, Summer 1992", in 2021. "UFOs Before Roswell: European Foo-Fighters 1940-1945" was also released in August 2021 to much acclaim. There are some fascinating cases in this book that are being shared publicly for the first time. A third book dealing with the history of RAF Morpeth, a wartime aerodrome near where I live in Northumberland, England, was published in November 2021, and I have also released two volumes dealing with local aviation history in the county.

The second book listed above relates to my other passion, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP). You may know these better as UFOs! I have also written articles for The Debrief, UAP Media UK and Shadows Of Your Mind magazine, and support initiatives to bring more information about UAP into the public eye. I am a also one of the members of UAP Media UK.

https://www.amazon.com/UFOs-Before-Roswell-Foo-Fighters-1940-1945-ebook/dp/B09DRBHH1Z/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1649504412&sr=8-1

https://www.reivercountrybooks.com/

https://www.pastliveshypnosis.co.uk/

https://www.patreon.com/alienufopodcast

https://www.patreon.com/pastlivespodcast