The Angel Effect

John Geiger’s last book, The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible, explored an extraordinary idea: that people under enormous stress, sometimes at the edge of death, experience a sense of an incorporeal being beside them, who encourages them to survive. From the response of hundreds of readers around the world, it became clear to Geiger that explorers and adventurers were not the sole recipients of such interventions.

The Angel Effect is a phenomenon encountered across the world and shared by men and women, the religious and the non-religious, throughout history. When faced with physical assaults; after terrible car accidents or airplane crashes; during events like shark attacks or bank heists; or in the midst of long illnesses or persistent, gnawing loneliness, average people often encounter a benevolent being who can offer advice and provide solace--even save their lives.

The Angel Effect recounts the moving personal stories of everyday people who have experienced this phenomenon and examines its spiritual implications and neurological basis. Geiger also asks whether we can train ourselves to access the effect at will. With a journalist’s eye, and inspired by both his research and his own experience with the Angel Effect during a time of great loss, Geiger creates a gripping account of a very human miracle.