Anthony Peake developed an interest in psychology, consciousness and perception when, in 1966 at the age of twelve, he was seriously ill with viral pneumonia. During the “crisis” phase he experienced a series of powerful hallucinations that made him question the nature of reality. On his recovery he read all the books he could lay his hands on regarding altered-states of consciousness. This subsequently broadened out into a specific interest in parapsychology and related subjects such as UFOs, hauntings and astral travel.
At university he chose courses that would accommodate his wide interests, specialising in the sociology of religion, the theory of language development and the art of the Italian Renaissance. A post-graduate course in management lead Anthony away from his calling as a writer and into a career as a manager in various UK businesses. His interest in the esoteric continued with a growing fascination for quantum physics and neurology developing over the years.
It was in the year 2000 that his life was to change. A fortuitous set of circumstances allowed him to take a year sabbatical from his business career and he decided that he would focus the fruits of all his reading and research in writing a book. Exactly one year later he surfaced with the manuscript of his first book, then entitled Cheating the Ferryman. This book was a distillation of all his areas of interest, quantum physics, neurology, ancient myths, altered-states of consciousness and the mystery of death. However, it was to take five years before this work appeared in print. Thanks to the help of Professor Bruce Greyson of the University of Virginia, an article based upon Anthony’s Cheating the Ferryman hypothesis was to appear in the Winter 2004 edition of the Journal of Near-Death Studies, the academic periodical of the International Association of Near-Death Studies (IANDS). A few months later, in early 2005, British publishing house Arcturus bought the rights to the book and, a year later, and after a substantial re-write, Anthony’s first book, with the new title Is There Life After Death – The Extraordinary Science of What Happens When We Die was published. The rest, as they say, is history.
Anthony has now written many books, all of them developing his Cheating the Ferryman hypothesis into ever-wider areas of application. His approach has always been to apply science to the mysterious and the enigmatic. His book sales in the English language now exceed 175,000 copies with many now also translated into every major, and a number of minor, European languages including French, German, Spanish, Greek and Croatian.
From this has come invitations to speak at conferences around the world including events in The UK, USA, Australia, Italy, Croatia and Switzerland. He has also appeared on National TV in France, Germany and Croatia and is a regular on UK radio stations and has been interviewed on hundreds of international on-line podcasts.
His thirteenth book, an exhaustive review of the history, anthropology and science of the much-discussed Near-Death Experience (NDE), was published in November 2024.