The Dennis Wheatley 'Museum' - Champions of Reincarnation: Dennis Wheatley & Joan Grant

Joan's other writings and later life

Joan's other books

Click on the images to enlarge

The inscription in Joan's
elder sister's* copy of
'Time Out Of Mind'

The inscription in Joan
and Dennis's copy of
'Time Out Of Mind'

Click on the images to enlarge

Away from works on Far Memory, in the post-war years, Joan wrote two books on travel - 'Vague Vacation' (1947), which was described as a 'light-hearted record' of two thousand miles by car in France and Switzerland during the autumn of 1946, while Europe was still enduring post-war hardship, and 'A Lot to Remember' (1962) which carried further reminiscences of an adjoining region of France she became very familiar with, the Lot.

Both books, while mainly about travel, contain segments about the supernatural experiences that Joan had en route.

'The Laird and the Lady' (1949) is perhaps Joan's most curious work; it is a novel with a Scottish backdrop.

'Time Out Of Mind' (1956) is Joan's only book of pure autobiography, telling her story up to the writing and publication of 'Winged Pharaoh'. Iris's copy above suggests that it was written at the suggestion of her elder half-sister Iris.

In the 1960s, Joan realised part of her dream, and set up with her third husband Denys Kelsey a clinic in the idyllic French village of Collonges-la-Rouge in the Corrèze region of France, where they used a combination of hypnosis and Joan's insights in order to resolve patients problems - which they often diagnosed as coming from unresolved issues arising in past lives. 'Many Lifetimes' (1968) was the joint fruit of this work, and is part autobiography, part explanatory of how Joan saw reincarnation work, and part clinical.

From time to time they lectured in the U.S.A., and from what I gather this was a labour of love rather than a money making scheme, and they made many friends there. England was however very much Joan's home.

'Speaking from the Heart' (2007) is a posthumously published compilation of some of Joan Grant's hitherto unpublished works. As well as giving details of some of Joan's psychometry readings, it discloses other lifetimes Joan recalled, including one as a Mary (possibly Mary Magdalen) who was a friend of Jesus. The compilation was assembled and edited by Joan's grand-daughter Nicola Bennett along with Jane Lahr, a publisher, and Sophia Rosoff, a concert pianist Joan had been close to for the last twenty years of her life.

*The dedicatee would appear to be Iris Marshall, the younger of Joan's two elder half-sisters. There is a slim possibility however that it is Iris Sutherland, the youngest sister of Joan Grant's secretary Vera Sutherland, who worked as Dennis Wheatley's secretary for part of World War Two.

References : Drink and Ink p 212 (on Iris Sutherland)

Provenance: Private collections