Between the world wars, in what is commonly thought to be the heyday of psychical research, H. Dennis Bradley's séances and experiments with direct voice medium George Valiantine, represent one of the more extraordinary high profile cases of that era.

After eight years of providing personal evidence for life after physical death to hundreds of sitters including, novelist P.G. Wodehouse, entertainer and composer Ivor Novello, Japanese poet Gonnoske Komai, artist Charles Sykes, socialites and others of London's so-called high society, Valiantine was exposed in a bizarre print experiment involving the deceased Arthur Conan Doyle's alleged thumbprint and the medium's big toe.

During those eight years, communications occurred in many languages, including German, Swedish, Danish, French, Hindi, Welsh, Japanese, Chinese dialects and even Labourdin Basque. Valiantine was from Williamsport, Pennsylvania. We are told he was a semiliterate man of average intelligence who worked in manufacturing. He was not known to speak any languages apart from his native English and he was almost certainly no polyglot.

In this expanded edition of Wisdom of the Gods, Michael Tymn delves into the story

in detail and unravels the truth from fiction, fantasy and fraud.