alain rifat

GAME OVER:

A Detective Investigation on Spiritualism and Life After Death.

Through a fictional and entertaining detective investigation, the reader is introduced to the Spiritualist environment: its procedures and its convictions. Science and Spirituality are confronted through a fierce battle between an eccentric French engineer and an old British plumber who is a convinced Spiritualist and a wise humanist. An attractive young woman meets a handsome American, medium himself and traumatised by his war experience in Afghanistan and Irak. They complement themselves in a romantic but weird relation that triggers strange memories in both of them. Are they mere hallucinations? Or rememberings of past lives? Are we responsible in this life for events happened in past ones?

A suspicious death staggers everybody but leads slowly to amazing and unexpected revelations that should trigger the reader's interest in the investigation and in its implications on the most important question of all: what happens after death?! Could modern Science contribute to an understanding of the mediums' claims? Or is there really an unbridgeable gap between matter and spirit? These are some questions that are tackled beside the obvious one in a detective story: Who's done it?!

Everybody, one day or another, thinks about one's life and its ending. And the most important question of all… What comes after?!

Many answers are available, of course… But which one is convenient for you? Maybe your life and thoughts convinced your mind and your feelings of an adequate answer. Maybe you don't yet have one.

The authors of this book met during a workshop in a College dedicated to Spiritualism which is one of the available answers. It states that consciousness survives bodily death but, contrary to most Religions, it looks for experimental evidence to support its claim. Mediums are formed there and learn how to perceive messages and informations supposedly coming from passed spirits. They are trained to give clear and specific informations in order to identify a recognisable individual, then eventually transfer a message coming from this passed entity and emanating from a so-called other world.

We experienced amazing events and analysed them with critical eyes but open mind also. They triggered the idea of this book: an investigation conducted by a down-to-earth police officer fond of Sherlock Holmes and his creator: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was a renown Spiritualist himself! The detective is intrigued and tries to understand how the father of Forensic Science and an analytical genius, could be convinced by the Spiritualist claim!

Conan Doyle wasn't, by far, the only analytical mind open to Spiritualism; many respected scientists — even Nobel Prizes — conducted experiments and worked on these questions. Some of them even created experimental protocols designed to give hard evidence of life after death. Frederick Myers: one of the founders of The Society for Psychical Research, was one of them and his work inspired part of this book.