Author Emma Heathcote-James has spent nine years looking into real-life ghost stories, collecting tales from hundreds of people who claim to have seen evidence of an afterlife．The 27-year-old started her research at university and her thesis was turned into a BBC documentary that she re-wrote as her debut bestseller Seeing Angels, The book prompted so many people to write to her with their ghostly experiences that she used them for a second book After Death Communication, which has just been released in paperback.
Her new book They Walk Among Us describes seances with mediums who can summon solid ghosts out of thin air．While working on the book she invited a medium to her home in the Cotswolds to demonstrate a form．of ghostly communication where spirits take over the body．She explained: 'This' medium came to my house, sat in my front room, and went into a trance．An old man's body just appeared over the top of the medium—he turned into an old man right in front of me．I was absolutely terrified at first—his hands became all arthritic and rheumatoid and his voice was old and staggered．The lights in my old cottage were going mad, going up and down by themselves but they had never done it before or since.' Emma added: 'The old man spoke to my boyfriend Paul and asked him to take the medium's pulse．Paul, an army doctor, felt his wrist and said I think he's dead'—but he wasn't, he had let the spirit take him over.'
They Walk Among Us tells stories of people like Nick McGlynn, who was reunited with his wife Marie during a seance．She spoke to him through a medium hours after dying in hospital from multiple organ failure．Nick recalls the moment, halfway through the seance, when he heard his wife for the first time: 'A fairly weak voice said,' Nick, Nick I' m home, I' m home', in the special way I used to announce my arrival to her when I came home.' He says he told her he was happy for her, and that she thanked him for staying with her in hospital and told him: 'I want you to have a ball．Go out and have a good time.'
Emma says these paranormal experiences are 'as natural as the sun and the rain' and since the book' s release last month she' s had hundreds more letters from readers．She adds: 'It's such a huge subject, I feel like I am on the tip of a massive iceberg．'After the first book there were so many letters that the second one wrote itself.'
One miraculous tale retold in After Death Communication is that of Dave Barber, who believes his dead grandmother saved him from drowning．Dave describes the day he almost died swimming with his son:' As neither my wife or I can swim we sat at the side of the pool, watching my son splash about, I decided to climb into the shallows and join in the fun．Almost immediately, I slipped, and fell.' As he lay at the bottom of the pool Dave saw a 'white mist' at the end, which got closer until he saw his dead grandmother emerge from it．'Her arms were outstretched towards me and she was dressed in a white silken gown,' he says．'Suddenly, I was aware that my nine-year-old son had dived in to save me．He was banging my head on the floor of the pool in an effort to lift me．My grandmother, Amelia, was now very close and I knew that if I turned to her, I would die．I looked at my son and knew he needed me．Immediately, the pain returned, I felt myself rising through the water and I blacked-out.'
Author Emma Heathcate-James has at least written ______ books telling real-life ghost stories.