HEAVEN: A Traveller’s Guide to the Undiscovered Country - Softcover

Stanford has produced and excellent and absorbing study. He writes with a sharp, readable style and, generally speaking, maintains an objective and fashionably skeptical tone throughout. It is easy for this "comparative religions" approach to become bland and slightly lofty, as if the author is confiding to his dinner party hostess, "Of course darling, we're not so ignorant as to actually believe any of this fascinating stuff." Stanford is wise, therefore, to interrupt his study with five juicy and totally different experiences of near death or contact between the living and the dead. These delightfully bizarre stories introduce just the right element of authenticity and put the rest of his book into context. They subvert the objective tone and help explain why the unknown world continues to mystify and fascinate us mortals. --Dwight Longenecker

‘Engaging and elegant. The main thrust of the book is in effect the history of the concept of life after death...fascinating.’ Antonia Fraser, New Statesman

‘Thoughtful...humble, informative and well read...pleading for the re-establishment of the power of the myth.’ Spectator

‘Through cloudscapes and spirit worlds, Stanford is a well-informed and never less than caring guide.’ Sunday Telegraph

‘A thoughtful and thought-provoking book.’ Sunday Times

‘A wise guide to the entire celestial anthropology [which] does elegant justice to the mental geography of heaven and the travellers’ tales of the elect.’ Guardian