Gail Godfrey is the author of A Paranormal Reader. Here she answers questions about her own experiences and how she came to write her book.

She writes, “ Listening to the wounded cry 150 years after a battle has ended, seeing solid-as-you-and-I dead people, mediums that spill family secrets, voices without bodies, spirits who drop by, precognition, remote viewers, mystic visions, near-death experiences, out-of-body travelers, negative entities, spirit rescuers, animal communicators, higher selves, orbs, angels, shadow men, columns of light, and a lily in the snow. They defy rationality, but they happen. A Paranormal Reader places its real-life stories alongside science, medical research, secret government programs, and paranormal history.”

Q What prompted you to write this book?

A I’ve always been empathic, but became much more so later in life. I believe that everyone is born with ‘extra senses.’ In my case, because my parents taught me that ghostly visits and precognition are to be expected, and that it’s possible to see and speak to the dead, from early on, I made an effort to analyze and expand my perception.

After a lifetime of my own experiences, and hearing accounts from others, the paranormal is business-as-usual to me. So I find it incredible that so many people are still closed to the idea of mediumship, ghostly encounters, precognition, out-of-body-travel, spirit rescue, negative entities, and even the idea of an afterlife. By creating a concise, easy-to-read book, recounting solid experiences with the dimensions beyond, we might open just one person’s mind. Then for the initiated, A Paranormal Reader, shares some compelling associations that I made while writing this book.

Q You refer to ‘feats of mediumship.’ Can you give an example?

A I’m still impressed by a simple incident that brought me to the door of mediumship. One Sunday I happened upon a Spiritualist Church. I’d never heard the term before. I knew of mediums, but not the Spiritualist Church per se. I sauntered in, and sat down in a pew. Lo and behold, the medium at the podium pointed to me and said, ‘Olive sends her greetings. She says that an important anniversary has just passed.’ I thanked her, but was baffled. I didn’t know anyone by the name of Olive, alive or dead.

That evening my then-husband and I went to see his parents, who were visiting from England. As they overheard me recounting my day, they both became pale and quiet. Finally, my mother-in-law looked at my husband and said, “Darling, you do know that you’re adopted?”

“Yes, of course,” he replied.

“Well, we never told you this. But your real mother’s name was Olive, and it was exactly thirty years ago this week that we picked you up. Olive had nursed and cared for you since giving birth to you two weeks earlier. She quietly left in that morning, and we arrived to pick you up in the afternoon.”

Consider the statistical probabilities of a stranger pointing at another stranger and then pinpointing such bittersweet circumstances so precisely.

Q What is your favorite story?

A Well, it’s not a story. It’s a photograph — of a woman, with the unmistakable contours of an angel floating above her head. When I first got the image (from a cousin) I was skeptical. It seemed too perfect. I told her that I thought it was a fake. But she swore that a graphic artist had simply color-corrected the original and that was all. So I asked her to please download the image from her camera again, and send me the file. Lo and behold, when I selected ‘lighten,’ an angel appeared to me too.

Gail Godfrey lives in New Jersey, near old battlefields, historic places, and footpaths of the dead. As a child, her parents taught her to see the world beyond, and today she loves nothing more than to gather tales of the true but unexplained. Most of her professional life was spent as a financial analyst, and today she’s involved in the field of education.

To learn more, or to order the book, go to:

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