I discovered Bruce Solheim's story while watching his interview on Jeffrey Mishlove's program, "New Thinking Allowed" on YouTube. I actually paused the interview to purchase "Timeless" and then read it all in one sitting. That was earlier today. Yes, it was that interesting. While I've hardly experienced the array of supernatural events that have punctuated the author's entire life, I have had enough unique, inexplicable things happen to be very curious about OPS - other people's spirits - especially when the teller is intelligent, lucid, humble and - doubly extraordinary in a ghost-hunting-reality-show-crazy world - hyperbole-free. And, in my own life, discovering psychic abilities was not necessarily a happy event. After all, the world pretty much responds with eye-rolls and derision. Telling folks you can sometimes pick up messages from "dead" people is a mixed bag. Even when messages are evidential and incontrovertible, people can be dismayed. Perhaps I wanted "Timeless" to be a "how to" book on how to proceed with such an unlikely skill set. Instead, I got something much better - a satisfying, yet cautionary tale for the ages...
Btw, this autobiography would have been compelling enough without any "ghost stories" at all. Isaac Bashevis Singer once said that to tell about one place really well is to tell about the whole world: Solheim's life takes him to different places, but his search for meaning and how to matter on earth is deeply rooted in his Norwegian ancestry and yet, true to our generation - we are the same age: 60 - very much affected by being in the last tech-free age and one who watched the war in Vietnam rage on our TVs and in the bodies and souls of people we loved. Solheim's accomplishments, both because of and despite his intercontinental upbringing, are as numerous as the strange events along the way. In the end, the "place he tells about "really well" is his own spirit; and how he wrangled his personal, intellectual life and career to - eventually and certainly - live in peace.
For entertainment value, the sheer variety of paranormal episodes described in "Timeless" were impressive and surprising. I found myself re-reading every single one of them - and I've read way more than my share of "lives of mystics". For readers who are fervent materialists - ones who come to scoff and worse - I think it's terrific that Solheim doesn't defend or justify a bit of it. Actually, his laconic accounting made it even more believable. Without spoiling the plot, the variety of not altogether pleasant events that unfolded over decades was beyond unexpected. Not since "The Boy Who Saw True" has there been such a genuine accounting of a supernatural life, one that was often experienced reluctantly.
Because those interested in the particulars of the author's work can read about it elsewhere, I won't duplicate his CV here. And I want to close by thanking Professor Solheim for writing this book. I truly believe the veil is thinning and "Timeless" is heartening to many of us who feel certain about an afterlife - not the heaven and hell of religious mythology, but one that's rich and interconnected with what matters most to us while we're in these difficult "skin schools".
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