The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible Review
Geiger is the editorial board editor at the Globe and Mail and author of Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition. What he is not is a scientist I didn't expect nor receive an in-depth review of the scientific side of this phenomenon. Geiger does give us an intelligent tour of Third Man visitations. This tour includes a serious look at the scientific aspects along with the spiritual elements.
While Geiger never says, I suspect that he comes down on the side of the spiritual aspect. At the end of several of the `laboratory' discussions, he pointed out the flaws and natural short-comings of their investigation. While many were going through extreme physical distress, this does not explain the mass experiences and sightings nor does it explain the vast differences in many of the stress factor situations - i.e., Oxygen deprivation vs sea level events.
The blending of anecdotes and science is never achieved in a smooth fashion. They are of two vastly different worlds. Whether you want to call the phenomenon Guardian Angels or hallucinations will depend on your own personal view of the world. Regardless, this book is a very exciting read and will make you thankful that you are in a warm house with a glass of tea.
I would recommend this book to anyone that is drawn to mountaineering, survival skills or wishes to explore the divine side of life.
I would also recommend: Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality, The Crystal Horizon: Everest - The First Solo Ascentand Surviving the Extremes: What Happens to the Body and Mind at the Limits of Human Endurance.
Great book.
Michael L. Gooch
Author of Wingtips with Spurs
The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible Feature
- ISBN13: 9781602861299
- Condition: New
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The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible Overview
The Third Man Factor is an extraordinary account of how people at the very edge of death often sense an unseen presence beside them who encourages them to make one final effort to survive. This incorporeal being offers a feeling of hope, protection, and guidance, and leaves the person convinced he or she is not alone. There is a name for this phenomenon: it’s called the Third Man Factor.
If only a handful of people had ever encountered the Third Man, it might be dismissed as an unusual delusion shared by a few overstressed minds. But over the years, the experience has occurred again and again, to 9/11 survivors, mountaineers, divers, polar explorers, prisoners of war, sailors, shipwreck survivors, aviators, and astronauts. All have escaped traumatic events only to tell strikingly similar stories of having sensed the close presence of a helper or guardian. The force has been explained as everything from hallucination to divine intervention. Recent neurological research suggests something else.
Bestselling and award-winning author John Geiger has completed six years of physiological, psychological, and historical research on the Third Man. He blends his analysis with compelling human stories such as that of Ron DiFrancesco, the last survivor to escape the World Trade Center on 9/11; Ernest Shackleton, the legendary explorer whose account of the Third Man inspired T. S. Eliot to write of it in The Waste Land; Jerry Linenger, a NASA astronaut who experienced the Third Man while aboard the Mir space station—and many more.
Fascinating for any reader, The Third Man Factor at last explains this secret to survival, a Third Man who—in the words of famed climber Reinhold Messner—“leads you out of the impossible.”
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Customer Reviews
interesting subjct - Gerr-johanne Dansholm - Stonglandseidet, NO
It is a very interesting subject, which is why I ordered the book. He writes well. It gets a little long in places with all the various opinions of other writers and studies. Personally I wonder if some of these studies are made by people who cannot accept that strange things happen - they have to analyze and find an explanation for them that their mind can accept. It takes the greatness out of these experiences to have them explained away like this. Also, I was quite saddened to read how people lost their lives so unnecessarily, putting themselves at risk. When you don't have a choice is one thing, but quite another thing is putting yourself and other people at risk just because you want be the first or the best. Anyway, any chance of having it translated into Norwegian? Would be good for a lot of people to read. Regards, Gerd Dansholm
Repetitive, Poorly Organized - Mary Bast -
This is not about a "man" but rather about a "presence" experienced by people in circumstances where survival is seemingly impossible. Mostly focused on mountain climbers, this book has a fascinating premise but it's repetitive and poorly organized.
one tedious list of ill-connected events - mark johnson - osprey, FL USA
One can say with certainty that Geiger is no sort of scientist (physical, social, or psychologic) at all. He is incapable of disciplined analysis. He doesn't give any even faint understanding of how to analyze or interpret events. At best, this book is a very narrowly-selected and parsed bunch of anecdotes hand-picked to support a very-vague hypothesis. This book is a 300 page list of unconnected experiences or hallucinations recalled by people mainly under dire peril. He has given us a numerator, but there is no suggestion at all of a denominator for the frequency of these experiences. So, if a hundred people had these experiences, did another hundred, or thousand, or million not have them? If they helped the people live, did the many more people who died in each circumstance have similar experiences? Did their experience or lack-of-experience of the "Third Man" impact their final survival? What went wrong such that thousands of other victims of accidents and hardships and tragedies failed to survive in a similar manner? Was it because they weren't sufficiently open or responsive to their own "Third Man?" Were their personal Third Men of poorer quality? If they were guardian angels, why do guardian angels fail so very often to save those they watch over? Millions of people die in accidents and tragedies each year? Was it their angels' day off?
Many of these stories were great. Too bad all the emphasis had to be on the least interesting part of their stories, Geiger's "Third Man."
Even funnier, his suggestion that the voice and presence of this "Third Man" helped his subjects live. We are to presume they had the stamina and resources to live because a tiny voice or presence was whispering to them? Really, was that all it took? I would suggest that most of these adventurers would have been much better served by listening to the much louder and more common "voices" and signals they ignored to get in peril. Perhaps a willingness to listen when their bodies are in extreme discomfort, when they are ill unto death, when their fingers and toes are frostbitten might have allowed they and their companions to have turned back sooner, with a much lesser loss of life. How about a "Fourth Man," who tells you you are going into fantastically needless peril... a "Fourth Man" who speaks with enough authority to trigger a lick of common sense in these adventurers' heads?
People fail to consider that, if certain people live because of their faith and spirit and beliefs... then by implication all the others die because of their failure to have those same beliefs. I prefer not to blame the victims.
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