Author(s): Sam Knight

History | Psychology

Premonitions are impossible. But they come true all the time.You think of a forgotten friend. Out of the blue, they call.But what if you knew that something terrible was going to happen? A sudden flash, the words CHARING CROSS. Four days later, a packed express train comes off the rails outside the station. What if you could share your vision, and stop that train? Could these forebodings help the world to prevent disasters? In 1966, John Barker, a dynamic psychiatrist working in an outdated British mental hospital, established the Premonitions Bureau to investigate these questions. He would find a network of hundreds of correspondents, from bank clerks to ballet teachers. Among them were two unnervingly gifted "percipients". Together, the pair predicted plane crashes, assassinations and international incidents, with uncanny accuracy. And then, they informed Barker of their most disturbing premonition: that he was about to die. The Premonitions Bureau is an enthralling true story, of madness and wonder, science and the supernatural - a journey to the most powerful and unsettling reaches of the human mind.

Review: 'A riveting exploration of a 60s psychiatrist's nationwide search for people who can see into the future to predict catastrophes.' - i News

'For the ultimate poolside experience you need to pocket yourself the punchiest of the season's page-turners. The Premonitions Bureau by Sam Knight recounts the true story of a 1960s maverick psychiatrist who researches whether or not somepeople can predict the future.' - GQ

'Strange and gripping.' - Guardian

'An elegant and illuminating work of cultural history.' - TLS

'Knight combines a flair for American narrative non-fiction in the tradition of David Grann, Janet Malcolm and Joan Didion, with an absurdist lens on British life . . . his gin-clear prose . . . seems to have the freedom of fiction.' - Sunday Times

'It is a story both elegant and eccentric, cleanly capturing that brief moment in the 1960s when extrasensory perception verged on mainstream acceptance. It is also quietly terrifying, a reminder that even those who can see the future have no hope of getting out of its way.' - New York Times