Throughout his life, Lincoln consulted oracles; at age 22, he was told by a seer that he would become president of the United States. In his dreams, he foresaw his own sudden death. Trauma and heartbreak opened the psychic door for this president, whose precognitive dreams, evil omens, and trance-like states are carefully documented in this bold and poignant chronicle of tragic beginnings, White House séances, and paranormal eruptions of the Civil War era. Aided by the deathbed memoir of his favorite medium, Lincoln's remarkable psychic experiences comes to life with communications from beyond, ESP, true and false prophecies, and thumbnail sketches of the most influential spiritualists in his orbit. Surveying clairvoyant incidents in Lincoln's life from cradle to grave, the book also examines the Emancipation Proclamation and the unseen powers that moved pen to hand for its historic signing.

A nuanced psychological portrait of Abraham Lincoln that finds his legendary political strengths rooted in his most personal struggles. Giving shape to the deep depression that pervaded Lincoln's adult life, Joshua Wolf Shenk’s Lincoln’s Melancholy reveals how this illness influenced both the President’s character and his leadership. Mired in personal suffering as a young man, Lincoln forged a hard path toward mental health. Shenk draws on seven years of research from historical record, interviews with Lincoln scholars, and contemporary research on depression to understand the nature of Lincoln’s unhappiness. In the process, Shenk discovers that the President’s coping strategies—among them, a rich sense of humor and a tendency toward quiet reflection—ultimately helped him to lead the nation through its greatest turmoil. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice SELECTED AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Washington Post Book World, Atlanta Journal-Constituion, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette As Featured on the History Channel documentary Lincoln “Fresh, fascinating, provocative.”—Sanford D. Horwitt, San Francisco Chronicle “Some extremely beautiful prose and fine political rhetoric and leaves one feeling close to Lincoln, a considerable accomplishment.”—Andrew Solomon, New York Magazine “A profoundly human and psychologically important examination of the melancholy that so pervaded Lincoln's life.”—Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., author of An Unquiet Mind

This essay forms a continuation of American historical themes already explored from a phenomenological and symptomatic perspective. It is added to the portraits of Franklin, Washington, Pocahontas, Black Elk, Martin Luther King and others. The book tries to explain why scholars and historians from the ‘40s to the present consistently rank Lincoln as the best president in American history. It seems his success rested on a unique individuality, aided by personal connections, fortuitous events, synchronicities without which the nation would have ceased to be what it once was. Lincoln achieved the feat of rescuing the soul of America, without weakening its Republican institutions. In Lincoln we can surmise an initiate of old. His spiritual beliefs went beyond anyone of his time, equal or second to Emerson, Thoreau and the Transcendentalists alone. He wanted no less than to reconnect the nation to its original impulses, in fact rededicate it and reconsecrate it. This endeavor looks at the best of existing scholarship. It assembles all the facets of a personality—the frontier man, the lawyer, the politician, the writer, the orator, the humorist, the Commander in Chief and leader, the thinker, the Christian and spiritual leader—until it can bring back to life his indomitable spirit and offer a full portrait.

This is the true story about a phenomenal woman with an incredible life who found herself deeply involved in the Civil War, even though she tried to avoid the encounter. When she realized she had a reason to meet Abraham Lincoln without any idea why, she discovered she had a purpose that no other person did. The book begins when Nettie is a child and she seems to be surrounded by spiritual psychic events. It follows her youth as she seems to begin developing psychic medium abilities and her experiences with them. By the time she was twenty she discovered she was a trance medium with the ability to channel spirit voices through her own body while seemingly unconscious. While attempting to get a furlough for her injured brother while he was in the Civil War field hospital, Nettie happened to meet Mary Todd Lincoln at a "circle" in Washington, D. C. in December, 1862. The rest is history and all contained within the book. This book was written to celebrate Nettie Colburn for who she was and what she did to help save the American Union. After discovering that my gr-gr-grandmother Nettie Colburn had written a book about Lincoln and her experiences in Washington during the Civil War, I was determined to find an original 1891 printing. I discovered her book had also been copyrighted in Canada and without thinking, I wrote the author to see if I'd be able to rewrite or add to the story. I was quickly given written permission to rewrite Nettie's book. At the time I didn't know why I was compelled to do so, but I inevitably discovered I had records, insights and other information that would fill in the story of Nettie Colburn. After reading her 1891 book I discovered she had embedded family history information within its pages that helped me determine her family story where nothing was known. I also was able to determine Nettie was more deeply involved in the White House planning and actions in the Union's fight against the rebels in the Civil War. I took Nettie's story and was able to expand upon it to bring her story back to life. I believe I made this book a much fuller version of a biography of Nettie Colburn. She was an important person in the Civil War and appeared to have been over-shadowed by history.

This book provides readers with a fascinating insight into the relationship between President Abraham Lincoln and the Freemasons. It offers a unique perspective on Lincoln's life and legacy. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

A story of faith and fraud in post-Civil War America told through the lens of a photographer who claimed he could capture images of the dead