Third Man Factor

Geiger John

Description

The Third Man Factor tells the revealing story behind an extraordinary idea: that people at the very edge of death, often adventurers or explorers, experience a benevolent presence beside them who encourages them to make one final effort to survive. If only a handful of people had ever experienced the Third Man, it might be dismissed as an unusual delusion shared by a few overstressed minds. But the amazing thing is this: over the years, the experience has occurred again and again, to mountaineers, divers, polar explorers, prisoners of war, solo sailors, aviators, astronauts and 9/11 survivors. All have escaped traumatic events only to tell strikingly similar stories of having experienced the close presence of a helper or guardian. The mysterious force has been explained as everything from hallucination to divine intervention. Recent neurological research suggests something else. In The Third Man Factor John Geiger combines history, scientific analysis and great adventure stories to explain this secret to survival, a Third Man who - in the words of legendary Italian climber Reinhold Messner - 'leads you out of the impossible.'

Informations

• Publié par: Canongate Books
• Date de parution: 02 juillet 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781847677709
• Langue: English

Extrait

FOR JAMES SUTHERLAND ANGUS GEIGER


JUNE 15–21, 2007


Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road There is always another one walking beside you. Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded I do not know whether a man or woman But who is that on the other side of you?


T.S. ELIOT, ‘ THE WASTE LAND ’

CONTENTS

Foreword by Vincent Lam


CHAPTER 1 The Third Man
CHAPTER 2 Shackleton’s Angel
CHAPTER 3 The Ghosts Walk in Public
CHAPTER 4 The Guardian Angel
CHAPTER 5 The Pathology of Boredom
CHAPTER 6 The Principle of Multiple Triggers
CHAPTER 7 Sensed Presence (I)
CHAPTER 8 The Widow Effect
CHAPTER 9 Sensed Presence (II)
CHAPTER 10 The Muse Factor
CHAPTER 11 The Power of the Saviour
CHAPTER 12 The Shadow Person
CHAPTER 13 The Angel Switch



Acknowledgments
Endnotes
Index
FOREWORD BY VINCENT LAM
John Geiger and I met and travelled together in the Arctic the vast, icy, and beautiful landscape of the explorers. It is one of the places where men and women have sought to make lonely and difficult journeys to discover both the place and themselves. It is in such conditions that the Third Man has often appeared to comfort and assist lonely travellers. When John first told me about the Third Man phenomenon, and that he was writing a book to explore this subject, I recognized the topic immediately. I had experienced it myself.
My encounter with the Third Man occurred during my premedical studies. One winter, over a span of weeks, I faced a succession of daunting exams encompassing a huge range of material. I felt that I must perform flawlessly, and would otherwise ruin my chances of being admitted to medical school. During those weeks, I did nothing but study, eat, sleep, and write exams. Outside, it snowed steadily. Even when I slept, I dreamt of molecular biology and biochemistry, so that I never woke refreshed, only anxious to open the books again. I developed a sort of tunnel vision about my life because on these exams hinged my course grades, upon which rested my prospects for medical school, and that was a great part of my sense of self-worth and hope for my own future.
One evening, after a long day of intensive studying, I was completely exhausted by both the complexity of abstract information and the level of detail that I was trying to absorb. I decided to take a shower. In the shower, I sensed a presence. It did not alarm or frighten me because, like many in this book, I knew immediately that the presence, or Third Man, wished to help me. I felt that my guardian angel had been sent by God to guide me at a difficult time. The angel spoke to me and gave me advice. It offered practical suggestions about how to conduct my daily life, how to learn, and how to manage my emotions. The angel did not promise admission to medical school, but reassured me that things would work out as they should, that I should have faith.
I decided to record some of this valuable advice. I got out of the shower, sat down at the computer, and wrote several pages of guidance that was directly dictated by the angel’s voice. I saved these words on both the hard drive and a floppy disk, went to bed, and had my first restful sleep in weeks.
Strangely, when I went to look for those pages of advice, to review what I had been told, I could not find them. I distinctly remember having saved the file in two separate locations because of its importance. My computer had not crashed. Nonetheless, I could find no trace of the dictation of my angel. As for others in this book, my angel departed when I was back on the right track. The rest of my exam period went smoothly. I continued to study intensively, and felt more peaceful doing so. I scored high marks and went on to medical school.
Humans are inclined to be connected to one another. We seek the company of friends and family, we congregate in towns and cities, and the groups we belong to our communities of faith, our co-workers, and our neighbourhoods form part of our sense of self and place. Yet, despite these social inclinations, there are journeys that humans make that are difficult, and undertaken either alone or in small groups. Some of these challenges are sought voluntarily, as in the case of gruelling, long-distance voyages to remote parts of the world, and in the practice of some traditional spiritual quests. Other such journeys spring unexpectedly upon those involved, precipitated by mishap in the outdoors, or by cataclysms such as the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. What happens to people who are tired, afraid, alone, and have no choice but to address their threatening situation? This fascinating book explores the ways in which some are helped by a welcome presence.
My visit from a Third Man, whom I believe to be my guardian angel, occurred within a personal moment of crisis, rather than in the gruelling physical circumstances described by many of this book’s subjects. This sits well with John’s argument that the Third Man likely occurs more commonly than we recognize, and is not limited to extreme travel and exploration.
As a physician, I am trained to understand and work with a certain biological, empirical reality. In one sense, we are a collection of muscles, bone, neurons, and other bits and pieces that can be measured and observed. Yet, in many ways, knowing the mechanics of the human body reminds me of the reality that the sum of the parts do not make the whole. Our experience as people may occur literally just beneath the surface of our skin, but a simple knowledge of anatomy is not sufficient to explain the everyday phenomena of consciousness or thought.
As a writer and as a person, I know that human experience is very real, and yet anyone would be hard-pressed to weigh or measure the dimensions of love, anger, fear, or pride in the way that the mass of an organ can be measured. Certain complex experiences the quiet pleasure of watching a stunning expanse of sky, the excitement and satisfaction of reading a wonderful book, the strength of religious faith are at once concrete and utterly ephemeral. They are part of the mystery of being human, the wispy territory in which we exist somewhere between our ambitious science and our daily frailties. In the mysterious gap between our knowledge of biological mechanisms and our everyday experience as people, we find that things occur that are not easily explainable, but are no less real for that.
The Third Man is one of these phenomena. It is something that happens when people are placed in difficult circumstances, often when their very survival is at stake. Amazingly, despite the harrowing situations in which it often arises, most judge the experience to be valuable and positive for many, a life-affirming force. The Third Man Factor is an account both of physically amazing voyages and personal discovery at the extremes of human experience. The Third Man speaks to both the ways in which we are fundamentally alone, and to the ways that as humans we always contain the possibility of relationship with others. It reassures us that even in the worst of times, help may come.


CHAPTER ONE
The Third Man
R ON D I F RANCESCO WAS AT HIS DESK at Euro Brokers, a financial trading firm, on the eighty-fourth floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York when the plane struck the north tower opposite him. It was 8:46 A.M. on September 11, 2001. There was a loud boom, and the lights in the south tower flickered. Grey smoke poured from the north tower. At impact, all the stairwells in the north tower became impassable from the ninety-second floor up, trapping 1,356 people. Some waved desperately for help. Most of those who worked at Euro Brokers started to evacuate the building, but DiFrancesco stayed. A few minutes later, a terse announcement was broadcast over the building’s public-address system. An incident had occurred in the other building, but, "Building Two is secure. There is no need to evacuate Building Two. If you are in the midst of evacuation, you may return to your office by using the re-entry doors on the re-entry floors and the elevators to return to your office. Repeat, Building Two is secure …" 1 DiFrancesco, a money-market broker originally from Hamilton, Ontario, telephoned his wife, Mary, to tell her that an airplane had hit the other tower, but that he was fine and intended to stay at work. "It was tower one that was hit, I’m in tower two," he told her. 2 He tried to focus his attention on the screens of financial data on his desk. Then a friend from Toronto called. "Get the hell out," he said. 3 They spoke briefly, then DiFrancesco agreed. He called a few major clients and his wife, Mary, again, to tell them of his change of plans. Then he began walking towards a bank of elevators.
At 9:03 A . M ., seventeen minutes after the first impact, the second plane hit. United Airlines Flight 175, travelling at 950 kilo-metres an hour, sliced into the south tower, igniting an intense fire fed by 90,000 litres of jet fuel. The Boeing 767, carrying fifty-six passengers, two pilots, and seven flight attendants, had been commandeered by al Qaeda terrorists after taking off from Boston’s Logan International Airport en route to Los Angeles. It struck the building’s south face between floors seventy-seven and eighty-five. The plane banked just before it slammed into the building. The higher wing cut into the Euro Brokers offices, while the fuselage hit the Fuji Bank offices on the seventy-ninth through eighty-second floors.
DiFrancesco was hurled against the wall and showered with ceiling panels and other debris. Brackets, air ducts, and cables sprang from the ceiling. The building swayed. The trading floor he had just left no longer existed. DiFrancesco entered stairway A. The south tower had three emergen