Thy Son Liveth: Messages from a World War I Soldier to His Mother from the Afterlife

By Grace Duffie Boylan and Gary E. Schwartz

A message of comfort for grieving readers, this remarkable story recounts a mother's supernatural contact with a son who perished on a Flanders battlefield during World War I. Its simple message, as expressed in one of the soldier's communications, is that "There is no death. Life goes on without hindrance or handicap. The one thing that troubles the men who come here is the fact that the ones that loved them are in agony."
Originally published anonymously, this incredibly moving and insightful book served as the basis for the 2000 movie A Rumor of Angels, starring Vanessa Redgrave. This edition features a new Introduction by Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Jul 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9780486797229

Book preview

Thy Son Liveth

Thy Son Liveth

Messages from a World War I Soldier to His Mother from the Afterlife

Grace D. Boylan

Introduction by

Gary E. Schwartz, PhD

Dover Publications, Inc.

Mineola, New York

Copyright

Introduction to the Dover Edition Copyright © 2014 by Gary E. Schwartz All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2014, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published in 1918 by Little, Brown, and Company, Boston. Gary E. Schwartz has provided a new Introduction to this edition.

International Standard Book Number

eISBN-13: 978-0-486-79722-9

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

78185201 2014

www.doverpublications.com

Contents

Introduction to the Dover Edition

Foreword

Thy Son Liveth

Introduction to the Dover Edition

Mother, be game. I am alive and loving you. But my body is with thousands of other mothers’ boys near Lens. Get this fact to others if you can. It’s awful for us when you grieve, and we can’t get in touch with you to tell you we are all right. This is a clumsy way. I’ll figure out something easier. I’m confused yet.

Bob

C

OULD THIS BOOK

be true?

In 1918, a book was issued anonymously and published by Little, Brown, and Company claiming to contain Morse coded messages transmitted by wireless telegraph. By itself this is not controversial. What is controversial is that the messages, written in the form of letters, were allegedly composed by a deceased soldier named Bob— an electrical engineer trained in Morse code—and initially sent to his grieving mother using the wireless telegraph.

According to the mother, The use of the wireless telegraph was soon abandoned for the better-known automatic writing simply as a matter of convenience.

The mother goes on to acknowledge, This will, of course, make skeptics say that these are the writer’s subconscious emanations— nothing more or less.

In response to the publisher’s queries about the authenticity of the letters, the author who ultimately compiled the mother’s letters replied: I ask you to regard the book as truth, unaccompanied by proofs of any sort, making its own explanation and appeal.

It is almost 100 years later, and this collection of allegedly wirelessly transmitted as well as automatic handwritten letters from the other side is being republished by Dover Publications.

The editor from Dover Publications discovered the following information on the internet (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0102161/bio). The website claims that a person named Grace Duffie Boylan was the mother who wrote the book and had it initially published anonymously. It states that Boylan would later insist that her story was true and that she was the dead soldier’s mother. The website goes on to state that "Years later, ‘Peter O’Fallon’ would base his film A Rumor of Angels (2000) on Boylan’s touching story."

The question arises, is there any reason to take this book seriously?

Can we read these beautiful and inspiring letters and conclude that they are anything more than creative fiction?

There are two primary reasons why I believe we should treat this book as reflecting more than early 20th century science fiction or the unconscious delusions of a grieving mother. Before I explain these two reasons, let me briefly explain who I am so you can decide whether my reasons for taking this book seriously deserve your serious consideration.

I am a senior academic scientist who has conducted research on the survival of consciousness after physical death hypothesis for almost two decades. I have written four books containing extensive experimental and applied research which carefully address the possibility of life after physical death. These books are: The Living Energy Universe, The Afterlife Experiments, The Truth about Medium, and The Sacred Promise.

Briefly, I received my PhD in psychophysiology and personality psychology from Harvard University in 1971. I was an assistant professor at Harvard University and a tenured professor at Yale University before moving to the University of Arizona in 1988. I have published more than 450 scientific papers and chapters, including six papers in the journal Science, and co-edited 11 academic books. I have directed numerous laboratories and centers including the Yale Psychophysiology Center, the Human Energy Systems Laboratory, the Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science, and the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health. I am currently a Professor of Psychology, Medicine, Neurology, Psychiatry, and Surgery at the University of Arizona. I share these details of my academic history so you can better appreciate how and why my reasons for taking this book seriously are grounded in substantial professional training and experience.

Reason number one is that many of the statements allegedly received from Bob in the early 20th century are consistent with state-of-the-art evidence obtained in 21st century research on life after death. Below are examples of statements attributed to Bob (indented and in quotes) which are consistent with contemporary research:

"But it seems we acquire the ability to hear anything addressed to us, personally, through any amount of space. That is how you reach us. And what we are trying to do now is to have you hear us as well as we hear you. Please italicize this when you print what I say."

Every genuine research medium I have tested under controlled laboratory conditions—and the number is now more than two dozen—claims that some version of Bob’s statement is true. Moreover, many of our experiments involve research mediums performing readings over distances of hundreds or thousands of miles, and their readings are typically highly accurate.

Our use of the terms here and there is likely misleading. At this stage, as I have explained, we are not separated from you; I mean that we are not removed from the influences and conditions of the earth.

This statement, worded in different ways, is typically reported by research mediums. The subtitle to The Sacred Promise is How Science is Discovering Spirit’s Collaboration with us in