Fisher, Joe 1947-2001

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FISHER, Joe 1947-2001

PERSONAL: Born June 18, 1947, in Bristol, England; committed suicide, May 9, 2001, in Fergus, Ontario, Canada; son of Graham (a Baptist minister) and Monica (a guest house proprietress; maiden name, Hilton) Fisher. Education: Wolverhampton College of Technology, certificate in journalism, 1969.

CAREER: Journalist, novelist, and author of nonfiction. Staffordshire Advertiser, Staffordshire, England, reporter, 1969-71, news editor, 1972; Toronto Sun, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, reporter, 1973-74, assistant city editor, 1977-79, feature writer for Sunday edition, beginning 1979; freelance writer, 1974-77, 1981.

AWARDS, HONORS: Leask Award, Spiritual Science Institute of Canada, 1987.

WRITINGS:

Skin Dive (novel), General Publishing, 1977.

Predictions (nonfiction), Van Nostrand (New York, NY), 1980.

The Case for Reincarnation, preface by the Dalai Lama, Granada (New York, NY), 1984, revised edition, with new preface by the Dalai Lama, Carol Publishing (Secaucus, NJ), 1992.

Game Wardens: Men and Women in Conservation:Celebrating 100 Years of Service, 1892-1992, Ministry of Natural Resources (Ontario, Canada), 1992.

The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts: A Riveting Investigation into Channeling and Spirit Guides, Paraview Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Also author of Cotopaxi Visions: Travels in Ecuador and Life between Life. Contributor to periodicals in Canada, including National Post, Outpost, Showcase, Equinox, Ocean Drive, and Life and Soul.

SIDELIGHTS: Joe Fisher was a Canadian journalist and investigative reporter who wrote most frequently on matters of the supernatural. Fisher's works include books on reincarnation, predictions, and spiritual mediumship, and as an author he took care not to err either on the side of cynicism or the side of unquestioning belief. A world traveler, Fisher became a freelance writer in 1981 after a decade as a newspaper reporter. His books therefore achieved a level of reportage not often found in works on mysticism.

Perhaps Fisher's best-known book is The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts, published in the United States in 2001. Using his own life as a starting point, he delved into the world of channeled spirit guides and the people who claim to speak for these spirits. Fisher became convinced that a spiritual soul mate from a previous reincarnation was communicating with him through a medium. It was when he attempted to quantify that belief by consulting other mediums and by researching name and date records that he became skeptical of the motives and messages of mediums. The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts warns readers not to make life-altering decisions based on advice from the spirit world.

Despite his own writings on the spiritual dangers of suicide, Fisher took his own life in the spring of 2001 by leaping off a cliff near his home in rural Ontario. The Anomalist Web site reported that in one of his last communications with his publisher, Fisher stated that the spirits were angry with him for writing The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts.

Fisher once wrote: "Predictions was written in four months, four months of full-time writing, seven days a week. It made me appreciate how important self-discipline is to a writer. I have traveled to Europe, Malaysia, South and Central America, and North Africa. I always keep a journal when traveling, because for me journals are a never-ending resource. Skin Dive was written in a ladies' washroom in a disused bowling club in Harrow, England, and on the Greek isle of Siphnos. Travel stimulates this writer's pen like nothing else."