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Joan Grant (April 12, 1907 – February 3, 1989) was an author of historical novels and reincarnationist. Her first and most famous novel was Winged Pharaoh (1937). Grant shot to unexpected fame upon publication. The New York Times hailed it as "A book of fine idealism, deep compassion and a spiritual quality pure and bright as flame'" a sentiment echoed in countless reviews the world over. What her readers did not officially know for almost another twenty years, was that Joan claimed to have recalled the events in Winged Pharaoh while in a hypnotic or trance-like state, dictating piecemeal the lifetime that she believed herself to have lived. The book is still considered a cult classic by believers in the New Age religion. It was followed by other historical fantasies, or as Grant called them, "Far Memory books," or "previous life autobiographies".

Grant strove to disabuse herself and her readers of preconceptions, to eschew what she called 'group-think'. She was not interested in blind faith and blind belief, but in what could be perceived as true by the five senses. She claimed to have an unusual gift of "far memory" -- the ability to remember previous lives, and something she referred to as "sensory awareness". She said that she experienced many realities that are not available to most people.

A collection of previously unknown writings by Grant was published as Speaking from the Heart: Ethics, Reincarnation & What it Means to Be Human in 2007 by Overlook Press in the USA and Duckworth Press in the UK. It was edited by her granddaughter Nicola Bennett, with anthologist Jane Lahr and Joan's closest friend Sophia Rosoff. The book contains poetry, essays and a series of lectures she gave at Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach. She had a reputation for talking and writing with clear certainty about her belief in other realities, past lives, and death. She said that for her, the veil between the "worlds" simply did not exist.

With her third husband, Denys Kelsey, she wrote Many Lifetimes, in which she explained how she supposedly remembered her own and others' past lives.

She also wrote several children's books which contain stories she claimed she was told in past lives.

Some of her books were published under the names Joan M. Grant and Joan Marshall Grant.

Her books have been translated and published in many languages.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Joan Grant", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0