''The All Souls' Waiting Room'' is a 2002 half fiction, half non-fiction,

autobiographical novel An autobiographical novel, also known as an autobiographical fiction, fictional autobiography, or autobiographical fiction novel, is a type of novel which uses autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fictive elements. The ...

from

Paki S. Wright Paki may refer to: *Paki, California, former settlement in Butte County *Paki (slur), a derogatory term for a person of Pakistani or South Asian background *Pākī (1808–1855), Hawaiian high chief during the reign of King Kamehameha III See al ...

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Johnnine Hapgood, the woman who is the hero of the novel, had been born into a family that lived in the milieu of Reichian psychoanalysts in the 1940s in New York City. During a suicide attempt with alcohol and pills in 1962, she has a

near-death experience A near-death experience (NDE) is a profound personal experience associated with death or impending death, which researchers describe as having similar characteristics. When positive, which the great majority are, such experiences may encompa ...

, leading her to the All Souls' Waiting Room, which is a copy of the city of Vienna, where

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...

had been born, especially

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...

's counseling room, the Bibliothek (Library at the Hofburg), the Hotel Sacher and so on. During the experience she is shown a film about her life, and learns things about spiritual development and about reincarnation and the female principle, represented through a person named Xofia. She meets Freud,

Wilhelm Reich Wilhelm Reich ( ; ; 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian Doctor of Medicine, doctor of medicine and a psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst, a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. The author of several in ...

, and

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of Carl Jung publications, over 20 books, illustrator, and corr ...

, and is then returned to her apartment. While the events and persons in the Waiting Room, for example Xofia and The (Akashic) Recorder, are fiction, there are other things and persons, such as Wilhelm Reich and Carl Jung, who are real, and with respect to Reich's UFO sightings during the work with the

Cloudbuster A cloudbuster is a device designed by Austrian Psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957), which Reich claimed could produce rain by manipulating what he called "Orgone, orgone energy" present in the atmosphere. The cloudbuster wa ...

, and some other events, it is not easy to tell if the story is fiction or not.

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See also

Further reading