Beyond Communion | The Key | Whitley Strieber announces the release of The Key

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Notice: This website does not generally reproduce news articles from Whitley's World. However, since our intention is to archive the writing process, the following excerpt appears here in that context.

Whitleysworld News
3 January 2001

I have finally finished The Key, and it is ready to ship. I am autographing the first 2000 copies, and those of you who receive Whitleysworld News are getting early news of this.

I have gone down a long, hard road with this book, which at first seemed as if would be an easy one to write.

In June of 1998, I had an intruder in my hotel room in Toronto at three in the morning. I almost threw him out, but ended up having the most incredible conversation of my life with him instead. I took some notes, and afterward thought that I would transcribe what I remembered and publish it in a few months.

Instead, I went through three years of hell trying to remember and get it right. The reason was that some of the ideas are so incredible and so far beyond our normal patterns of thought that I found it almost impossible to record them with accuracy. But the struggle is now over.

I have produced this book myself and am selling it through my own company, Walker & Collier (named for two characters in my novel Catmagic). I did this because I wanted total control. I wanted a beautiful book that would do justice to the stunning words of this
marvelous man.

Louis Steiner, who is our webmaster, created a terrific full-color cover. I selected and set the type myself. So the book is truly my own effort, and when you read it, you will see why I did not feel I could trust it to the usual publishing channels. Also, it will not be sold in stores, but only over our website and through our 800 number. It is meant for people who care and understand, and are open to something truly new.

After I finished the book, I was stunned to find, while reading my missal at mass this last November 19, a prophecy from the book of Daniel (Dan. 12:1-3) that seemed directly related to the Key. It even mentioned the name that the man had called himself, Michael. It spoke about the central theme of his words, which is how to make our souls radiant in the light of God. So I rewrote my afterword to incorporate this, and dedicated the Key to Daniel.

The Master of the Key also said things that had striking scientific and environmental pertinence. One of his statements was the inspiration for Superstorm. Another told of the coming of machine intelligence and what it will mean to the future. But what he mainly offers is a key to making a new and better world, and some really new ideas about how to go about this. For example, he points out that the soul is part of nature, and the souls of the dead can be contacted. He shows how this can be done using existing scientific instruments, and not even expensive ones. AND I found scientific work that has already been done in this direction.

He touches on religion, morality, the future, the lost past, science, and, above all, shows how we can gain a totally new and rich relationship with God and our own dead.

You can look at some more information about the Key by going to Whitley's World. You can also order it from there, or call 1-800-898-0284 between 8 and 6 Pacific. It's $19.95 plus $3.50 S/H.

Frankly, I think that this is the most important thing I have ever published. Reading it over, I just can't believe that it exists. But the man was there, and he said what he said.

Whitley Strieber ~