Table Of ContentTRANSFORMATION
THE BREAKTHROUGH
WHITLEY STRIEBER
On February 10, 1987, one of the most star
tling and controversial books of our time
was published: Whitley Strieber's Commu
nion. In Communion, Whitley Strieber de
scribed the shattering effects of an assault
from the unknown-what seemed to be an
encounter with intelligent nonhuman
beings.
Transformation is the chronicle of his effort
to form a relationship with the unknown
reality he has come to call"the visitors."
After writing Communion, Whitley Strie
ber firmly expected that his encounters with
the "visitors" would end. They did not.
At first he was desperate and terrified. He
struggled frantically to push the visitors out
of his life, to prove to himself that they were
figments of his imagination, that they were
anything but a reality separate from himself.
He was finally forced to admit, because of
their persistence and the undeniably intelli
gent structure of their encounters with him,
that they had to be a genuine mystery, an
intelligence of unknown nature and origin.
Whitley began to challenge his fear of the
visitors, to try to confront them with objec
tivity, in an effort to gain real insight into
their impact on our lives. The more he did
this, he found, the deeper and richer his ex
perience became.
Do the visitors represent a force that has
been with mankind throughout history? Has
it played an absolutely central role in alter
ing human culture? Has a conscious force
(continued on backflap)
Book Club Edition
TRANSFORMATION
By Whitley Strieber
As Author:
As Co-Author:
Transformation
Communion
Wolf of Shadows
Catmagic
The Night Church
Black Magic
The Hunger
The Wolfen
Nature's End
Warday
Whitley
Strieber
TRANSFORMATION
The Breakthrough
BEECH TREE BOOKS
WILLIAM MOR ROW
New York
Copyright C 1988 by Wilson & Neff, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Insel Verlag for permission to reprint lines
from the "Second Elegy," from Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Inquiries
should be addressed to Permissions Department, Beech Tree Books, William
Morrow and Company, Inc., 105 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016
Printed in the United States of America
BOOK DESIGN BY JAYE ZIMET
The word''book" is said to derive from boka,or beech.
The beech tree has been the patron tree of writers since ancient times and
represents the flowering of literature and knowledge.
Transformation is dedicated to those who have had the courage to be
named in this book as witnesses to my experience.
Barbara Clagman, Ed Conroy, Denise Daniels, Selena Fox, l.Anette
Glasscock, Annie Gottlieb, Bruce Lee, Roy Leonard, Barry Maddock,
Philippe Mora, David Nigrelle, Dora Ru.ffoer, Jacques Sandulescu, Martin
Sharp, Patricia Simpson, Richard Strieber, Gilda Strutz, Mary Sue and
Patrick Weathers, Yensoon Tfoi, and in memory ofJo Sharp.
I would also like to thank Dr. John Gliedman, whose open mind and
resolute skepticism have led to so many essential insights.
Beth Andreasson, Raymond Cowley, Stanton Friedman, Leonard Keave,
Bruce Maccabee, Dr. Jesse Marcel, Dr. Jacques Vallee, and William
Moore lent me counsel and advice, which was much needed and appreci
ated.
Most of all I would like to thank Anne Strieber, whose objectivity and
courage have sustained me, and Andrew Stn.eber, whose calm acceptance
has been an inspiration to me.
Contents
INTRODUCTION 9
13
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
PART ONE Secret Journeys
The Lost Boy 15
The Golden City 27
Extreme Strangeness 33
The Storm Gathers 43
FIVE
SIX
Lightning 52
The White Angel 70
SEVEN Transfigured Night 78
EIGHT Long-Ago Summers 90
NINE
TEN
PART TWO Lift in the Dark
The Lost Land 107
Secret Knowledge 115
105
ELEVEN The Terror ofthe Real 123
TWELVE Fire of the Question 134
THIRTEEN The jolt ofthe True 141
FOURTEEN Distant Witness
PART THREE
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
147
Beyond the Dark
The Woods
155
157
Passage into Death
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
Fury
163
175
A Soul's journey 186
NINETEEN December 23, 1986 203
TWENTY The Razor's Edge 212
TWENTY-oNE The Visitors Emerge 221
TWENTY-TWO Beyond Nightmare 239
APPENDIX ONE Health
APPENDIX TWO Truth
APPENDIX THREE Gaelic
AFTERWORD 253
Contents
8
245
249
251
Introduction
I have been deep into the dark and found extraordinary things
there.
The visitors did not go away when I fmished
nion.
Commu
On the contrary, they came rushing into my life and
would not stop. My experience has come to include too many
witnesses for me to consider that it is internal to my mind.
I believe that the vivid and startling nature of a number
of the witnesses' experiences, and the credibility of the wit
nesses, all but proves my contention that the visitors are a
genuine unknown and not an outcome of hallucination or
mental illness. Even the most skeptical and vociferous of
my critics has publicly admitted that I am not lying. Short
of actual, physical evidence, I think that I have gone as far
as possible to demonstrate the reality of the visitors. If they
represent' some sort of essentially nonphysical form that we
do not yet understand, then physical proof may never come.
This does not mean that they should be ignored. They are
already having a staggering but largely hidden impact on
our society, and their presence should be taken with the ut
most seriousness.
I do not think that we are dealing with something as
straightforward as the arrival of a scientific team from an
other planet that is here to study us. Neither are we dealing
with hallucinations. This is a subtle, complex group of phe
nomena, causing experience at the very limits of perception
and understanding. It suggests to me that there may be quite
a real world that exists between thing and thought, moving
easily from one to the other-emerging one moment
as a full-scale physical reality and slipping the next into the
shadows.
