Owen Beattie

John Geiger

A new edition of the timeless story of adventure and exploration traces the ill-fated British Arctic expedition and compares it to other missions of exploration from the same period, presenting research from the author on the strange illness that befell Franklin's men. Original.

The Fate of the Franklin Expedition

Frozen in Time

Examines the shared phenomenon of experiencing a benevolent presence who offers aid during times of great pain or being at the edge of death.

The Powerful Force That Ensures We Are Never Alone

The Angel Effect

The definitive biography of Beat artist and William S. Burroughs collaborator Brion Gysin.

The Life of Brion Gysin

Nothing is True - Everything is Permitted

The third man factor is a riveting scientific and historical analysis of an extraordinary idea: that people at the very edge of death, often adventurers or explorers, sense an incorporeal being beside them who encourages them to make one final effort to survive.

the secret to survival in extreme environments

The third man factor

Alanna Mitchell

The greatest mystery in all of exploration is the fate of the 1845–1848 British Arctic Expedition commanded by Sir John Franklin. All 129 crewmen died, and the two ships seemingly vanished without a trace. The expedition's destruction was a mass disaster spread over two years. With the vessels beset and abandoned, the crew confronted a horrific ordeal. They suffered from lead poisoning, were stricken with scurvy and, ultimately, resorted to cannibalism in their final days. The mysterious fate of the ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, has captured the public's imagination for seventeen decades. Now, one of Franklin's lost ships has been found. During the summer of 2014, the Victoria Strait Expedition, the largest effort to find the ships since the 1850s, was led by Parks Canada in partnership with the Arctic Research Foundation, The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and other public and private partners. The expedition used world-leading technology in underwater exploration and succeeded in a major find—the discovery of Erebus. News of the discovery made headlines around the world. In this fully illustrated account, readers will learn about the exciting expedition, challenging search and the ship's discovery. Featuring the first images of the Erebus, this stunning book weaves together a story of historical mystery and modern adventure.

The Historic Discovery of HMS Erebus

Franklin's Lost Ship

En 1916, tras meses de penurias varados en el hielo en pleno invierno polar, el legendario explorador Ernest Shakelton, empeñado en salvar a su tripulación, decidió buscar ayuda en un puerto ballenero situado en una isla cercana. Tras una agónica travesía en una precaria barca, tuvo que atravesar un glaciar, acompañado de dos de sus hombres menos enfermos. Shakelton explicó después que al límite de sus fuerzas y rodeados por el hielo, tuvo la sensación de que "alguien", una presencia sobrehumana, los acompañaba, velaba por ellos y les daba aliento para seguir adelante. Esta experiencia mística, en la frontera entre la vida y la muerte, inspiró a T. S. Eliot el famoso verso de La tierra baldía: "¿Quién es el tercer hombre que camina junto a mí?" Partiendo de la épica aventura de supervivencia de Shakelton, John Geiger rastrea otros casos similares a lo largo de la historia: Charles Lindbergh en su agotadora travesía solitaria a través del Atlántico, un montañero perdido en el Everest, un submarinista al borde de la muerte en una fosa marina, un ejecutivo atrapado en el World Trade Center el 11-S... ¿Cuál es la explicación de esta presencia sobrehumana de la que hablan personas muy diversas que han vivido situaciones extremas, ¿Alucinación? ¿Protección angélica? ¿Mecanismo de defensa del cerebro ante una experiencia al límite?.... Este fascinante libro indaga en este enigma espiritual y en las posibles respuestas científicas a la aparición protectora de este "tercer hombre" que en palabras del mítico alpinista Reinhold Messner, "te empuja hacia lo imposible". "Con una irresistible mezcla de sobrecogedoras historias y de reflexión científica, John Geiger desvela el misterio de cómo la mente sigue adelante bajo las condiciones más extremas, y al mismo tiempo arroja nueva luz sobre la verdadera esencia del ser humano. Un libro deslumbrante y conmovedor", Carl Honoré, autor de Elogio de la lentitud.

El Tercer Hombre

Shackleton, Stefansson and the End of the Heroic Age

Polar Opposites

Laura J. Hoptman

During his lifetime Brion Gysin (1916-1986) inspired an array of artists, writers, poets and musicians, notably the Beat Generation. Since his death Gysin's own work has only increased in popularity, yet his radical approach to art defies categorization. Dream Machine is the first detailed study of Gysin's œuvre in both art-historical and contemporary contexts. A devotee of invention, Gysin created paintings, drawings, photo-collages, installations, poetry and sound experiments. He produced the cut-up collage novel The Third Mind (1965) with William Burroughs, and with Ian Sommerville developed the Dreamachine (1961), a kinetic sculpture designed to induce visions by playing flickering light on the closed eyes of the viewer. This exciting new book, featuring incisive texts, a photo essay, and appreciations by contemporary artists, captures the remarkable daring of an artistic visionary.

Dream Machine

Brion Gysin

Chapel of Extreme Experience is an engrossing look at flicker potentials -- a visual phenomenon which became the basis of scientific studies into how the visual brain works. In the 1960s the Dream Machine was developed to reproduce this phenomenon, emitting pulses of light and projecting patterns that produced kaleidoscopic images and even hallucinations. This book follows the interest in flicker, from its scientific underpinnings to its role in the countercultural art scene. This is a fascinating look at the Dream Machine and its influence on major cultural figures like William S. Burroughs, Aldous Huxley, and Allen Ginsberg who all experienced and wrote about the "flicker effect." Photographs are featured.

A Short History of Stroboscopic Light and the Dream Machine

Chapel of Extreme Experience

Le mystère de la survie dans des environnements extrêmes L’Ami invisible offre un extraordinaire compte rendu de la perception par certaines personnes, à l’orée de la mort, de la présence à leurs côtés d’un être incorporel qui les encourage à faire un ultime effort pour s’en sortir. Cet ami invible s’est manifesté à d’innombrables reprises : à des survivants du 11 septembre, des alpinistes, des plongeurs, des prisonniers de guerre, des navigateurs, des aviateurs et des astronautes de Shackleton à Messner. Tous ont surmonté des traumatismes pour rendre compte, en termes étonnamment semblables, de la présence auprès d’eux d’une aide ou d’un ange gardien. On a voulu y voir à peu près tout et n’importe quoi, depuis de simples hallucinations jusqu’à une intervention divine. De récentes recherches neurologiques suggèrent cependant une autre piste. L’Ami invisible associe l’histoire à l’analyse scientifique et à de remarquables récits d’aventures dans une tentative de révéler le secret de la survie, cet ami invisible qui, pour reprendre les mots du légendaire alpiniste Reinhold Messner, « vous entraîne au-delà de l’impossible ». Traduit de l’anglais par Marie Boudewyn

L'ami invisible

This account of excavations at Marble Island ('Dead Man's Island')near Rankin Inlet in Hudson Bay, attempts to provide an explanation of the disappearance of the forty members of James Knight's expedition of 1719 to discover the Northwest Passage. It includes discovery of their submerged ships, and of evidence of a winter camp.

The Greatest Mystery in Arctic Discovery

Dead Silence

A beautifully illustrated account of the thrilling expedition that recovered a ship lost to time—now in paperback Since the disastrous and fatal end of the Franklin Expedition nearly seventeen decades ago, the mysterious fate of the ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror has captured the public’s imagination. The Victoria Strait Expedition, the largest effort to find the ships since the 1850s, was led by Parks Canada in partnership with the Arctic Research Foundation, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and other public and private partners. The expedition used world-leading technology in underwater exploration and succeeded with a major find in the summer of 2014—the discovery of the Erebus. News of the discovery made headlines around the world. The excitement and curiosity have only increased since the Erebus’s sister ship, the Terror, was finally located in September 2016. In this fully illustrated book, readers learn about the exciting expedition, the challenging search and the ship’s discovery. Featuring the first images of the Erebus, this stunning book weaves together a story of historical mystery and modern adventure.

The Third Man Factor tells the revealing story behind an extraordinary idea: that people at the very edge of death, often adventurers or explorers, experience a benevolent presence beside them who encourages them to make one final effort to survive. If only a handful of people had ever experienced the Third Man, it might be dismissed as an unusual delusion shared by a few overstressed minds. But the amazing thing is this: over the years, the experience has occurred again and again, to mountaineers, divers, polar explorers, prisoners of war, solo sailors, aviators, astronauts and 9/11 survivors. All have escaped traumatic events only to tell strikingly similar stories of having experienced the close presence of a helper or guardian. The mysterious force has been explained as everything from hallucination to divine intervention. Recent neurological research suggests something else. In The Third Man Factor John Geiger combines history, scientific analysis and great adventure stories to explain this secret to survival, a Third Man who — in the words of legendary Italian climber Reinhold Messner — ‘leads you out of the impossible.’

Surviving the Impossible

The Third Man Factor

The multimedia artist, poet and novelist Brion Gysin may be the most influential cultural figure of the twentieth century that most people have never heard of.Gysin (1916–1986) was an English-born, Canadian-raised, naturalized American of Swiss descent, who lived most of his life in Morocco and France. He went everywhere when the going was good. He dabbled with surrealism in Paris in the 1930s, lived in the “interzone” of Tangier in the 1950s and traveled the Algerian Sahara with Sheltering Sky author Paul Bowles before moving into the legendary Beat Hotel in Paris. Gysin’s ideas influenced generations of artists, musicians and writers, among them David Bowie, Keith Haring, Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, Genesis P-Orridge, John Giorno and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. None was touched more profoundly than William S. Burroughs, who said admiringly of Gysin: “There was something dangerous about what he was doing. ”It was Gysin who introduced the Rolling Stones to the exotica of Morocco and took Stones’ guitarist Brian Jones to Jajouka where he recorded the tribal musicians performing the Pipes of Pan. It was Gysin who provided the hashish fudge recipe published in Alice B. Toklas’ cookbook, promising “ecstatic reveries and extensions of one’s personality on several simultaneous planes.” It was Gysin who introduced Burroughs to an automatic writing method called the cut-up, a literary progenitor to sampling. And it was Gysin who developed—with Ian Sommerville, the Dream Machine—a device that allowed people, with the flick of a switch, to access altered states of consciousness without drugs.Working with the authorization of Gysin’s literary executor, William S. Burroughs, John Geiger has produced the first-ever biography of the painter, poet, piper Brion Gysin.

Nothing Is True-Everything Is Permitted

I den här boken samlar John Geiger en mängd andlöst fängslande berättelser om det fenomen som benämns just upplevd närvaro. En kvinna är med om en allvarlig bilolycka och känner den övertygande närvaron av en mystisk nunna, en missionär som under massakern i Rwanda 1994 upplever ett överjordiskt skydd från änglar, ett ungt par som på en förrädisk nattlig körning i snöstorm guidas av en medelålders tant i städrock. I samtliga fall väcks både förundran och tvivel var deras hjälpare på riktigt, eller ett resultat av fantasin, eller kanske något övernaturligt? John Geiger yrkar på att den upplevda närvaron otvivelaktigt kan hjälpa oss, även rädda liv, och öppnar för frågeställningen om fenomenet helt enkelt är en mental förmåga som medvetet går att träna upp och använda sig av för att hantera pressade situationer. John Geiger kan – genom sin översikt att fenomenet genom historien, och genom noggrann genomgång av möjliga psykologiska och neurovetenskapliga förklaringar – avslöja fascinerande slutsatser om den mänskliga hjärnan, om den utomsinnliga världen runt oss, och om styrkan i vår obändiga förmåga att hoppas.

Upplevd närvaro

Shelley Tanaka

Probes the tragic and mysterious fate of Sir John Franklin's failed expedition to find the Northwest Passage in 1845.

John Geiger

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