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Book Review by David Lorimer

Programme Director, the Scientific and Medical Network and

Editor, Paradigm Explorer

Surgeon from Another World

George Chapman and Roy Stemman

First published in 1978, this book provides some of the best documented evidence for survival in the literature. George Chapman was a healer and trance medium, who for 50 years enabled the ophthalmic surgeon William Lang, who had died in 1937, to conduct consultations and operations through him, sometimes as many as 40 a day. The skill and knowledge exhibited by Lang were way beyond Chapman’s background and education, and close members of his family - including his daughter and granddaughter - were absolutely convinced of his identity and continuing work. The book documents many cases of diagnosis, operations and healing, often in circumstances where conventional treatment had nothing more to offer. Fascinatingly, Lang claimed to be operating on the spirit body with a consequent effect on the physical body. The unbiased reader could not fail to agree with the book’s statement that it provides irrefutable evidence that the spirit of the dead surgeon continued to heal the sick, thus proving life after death and the reality of spiritual healing at the same time. Many qualified scientists and doctors investigated the Chapman/Lang collaboration and indeed conversed with Lang himself. Fascinatingly, the original edition reports a Network Conference (p. 185 ff.) on Science, Mind and the Spirit of Man held at the Royal Society of Medicine in May 1977. The Network is reported as a group open to spiritual reality, and I imagine many members read the original edition of this book. This new edition contains important new information about identities and further corroborating evidence (William Lang’s deceased son Basil continues his work with George Chapman’s son Michael) – nearly 40 years on. I can thoroughly recommended to readers with an interest in survival and spiritual healing.

David Lorimer

Programme Director

Scientific and Medical Network

Editor, Paradigm Explorer

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