Gone West: Three Narratives of After-Death Experiences

Gone West: Three Narratives of After-Death Experiences is a book by J. S. M. Ward, first published in 1917, that presents three detailed accounts of encounters with the world beyond the grave. Ward — writing in the classical spiritualist tradition and working as a medium — gives the narratives in a clear, measured voice, describing trance communications, visions, and reports of the astral plane.

The work treats life after death, after-death experiences and mediumship as serious subjects rather than sensational curiosities, and repeatedly questions easy assumptions about death while offering lucid descriptions of spirit life, reunion, and the moral consequences that follow physical passing. Carefully observed and sceptical where necessary, the book sits at the crossroads of early twentieth-century spiritualism, psychical research, and religious reflection. Readers researching historical accounts of life after death or early mediumship literature will find Ward’s narratives instructive and quietly unsettling, reading more like case studies that invite further inquiry than tidy conclusions.