One Foot In The Stars

Many years ago I saw a television documentary featuring a young Matthew Manning. He was demonstrating automatic writing. It blew me away. He was such an intense and sensitive person and even though I never caught his name, his performance haunted me for many, many years. He stated that he obviously believed in spirits, but he, himself, was not a particularly religious/spiritual person. I was so happy to see this book and realize that this was the man I remembered. This book chronicles his life - from the age of 11 when he began to experience poltergeist activities around him - up until 1999, at which time he was devoting himself to the art of healing. If anyone thinks that having psychic abilities makes for an easy life, prepare to be disillusioned. The author faced amazing resistance and even hostility from many who felt threatened by his work. And if anyone thinks that having these abilities puts you on a moral pedestal, you need only read about Manning's drunken binges. The author was very open and honest regarding his personal and professional life. But something was missing. He mentions how he began doing automatic writing to stop the poltergeist activity. He made it sound rather matter-of-fact and not at all exciting. If it were me, I would have been half terrified and half in a state of shock. He MUST have felt that way at least for a while, and yet it didn't come through in this book. I also wish that he had spent more time sharing his views on life and the afterlife. While it was interesting reading about his various tests and experiments, and while they were impressive, they took up too much of the book. I read a review somewhere that said that all of the books about Matthew Manning have been by Matthew Manning, and perhaps it is time for someone else to write a book on the man. I'm waiting for that book.

As I am a receptive reader in psychology and psychic material, I guess it is fairly likely I will write a favorable report on a book like One Foot in The Stars, but this is quite an outstanding biography I believe on many levels. It began with Matthew Manning's early life as a teenager at home and school experiencing extreme Poltergeist activity, which is the subject of an earlier best selling book, called "The Link" that Matthew had published in 1974 that began his life in the media. The poltergeist activity formed a dramatic and highly interesting section at the beginning of this book. Matthew progressively finds he has the ability to channel the energy in many forms such as automatic writing and painting He later goes through a period of his life very similar to that of Uri Geller, where he produces quite startling results under laboratory conditions. Eventually Matthew finds this life is not totally fulfilling, due to the reluctance of the scientists mentality and of having to prove it over and over to each group while all the time looking for reasons after experiments to discredit results when he himself does not understand how he does it? Basically no matter how good the laboratorial results this does not prove conclusively to the world that psychic ability exists, and Matthew thinks he is not producing any thing really positive with his powers. He tries to find him self and with a peak experience finds his path as a healer. Matthew takes us through his life in healing and explains his technique telling of many startling results accompanied by letters from his patients but also at the same time he gives us his inner feelings expressing his humanity in his doubts about life and pointing to failures as well to give balance. The aspect that is refreshing is that Matthew is human just like the rest of us and he tells it as it was for him at that time in his life going through relationship and drinking problems, and he has all the doubts that every one has about life in some ways. In my personal opinion the guy deserves a slap on the back, because taking an overall view he has produced so much good from his psychic talents and his mentality I think is admirable, as he only wants to promote something in a positive fashion that produces results through whatever means. Many scientists and doctors close the door when it cannot be explained "how"?, but Matthew point out it works that's surely good enough and should be used along side traditional medicine for patients that want benefit from healing. The book is intelligently written and extremely interesting coming as it does from the horses mouth, a must read for any open minded readers interested in the subject, buy it. Alan