Geography of Heaven
On sale
6th August 2026
Price: £22
‘A magnificent, heartfelt love story: a quest both ancient and entirely original’ Jay Griffiths
‘An epic of travel and a rich testament to an enduring love’ Colin Thubron
Five years ago Rory MacLean set out on a path with no idea of where it would lead, of how long it would take or that his life would change forever. When his wife died, he couldn’t imagine living without her. So he set out to find where she had gone.
Over the years he searched, tracing across history and around the globe mankind’s ideas of the afterlife, seeking out places where the veil is thin. Places where our mortal world touched the divine. He spent a night on Jacob’s Rock where the Biblical patriarch had seen a ladder to heaven. In Kerala, he watched gods walk on fire. On the Great Plains, he sundanced with the Lakota. At Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, he laid his hand on the stepping stone to another world. In Delhi, he was told ‘the universe will keep sending you loving souls to guide you on this journey’ and it did, opening doors, revealing wonders beyond his imagination, until – in five truly inexplicable moments – his wife was beside him.
Geography of Heaven: Travels to the Hereafter is the story of that extraordinary journey, of moments of astonishment and awe, of steps taken with hope and love. Hope ‘that leads to blissful end’ wrote Dante. Hope that ‘is of the joy to come’ as the light from many a star. At the same time, his journey through grief is explained by the latest neuroscientific research. The result is a life-enhancing travel book like no other that leads to the realisation that none of us are created for naught.
‘An epic of travel and a rich testament to an enduring love’ Colin Thubron
Five years ago Rory MacLean set out on a path with no idea of where it would lead, of how long it would take or that his life would change forever. When his wife died, he couldn’t imagine living without her. So he set out to find where she had gone.
Over the years he searched, tracing across history and around the globe mankind’s ideas of the afterlife, seeking out places where the veil is thin. Places where our mortal world touched the divine. He spent a night on Jacob’s Rock where the Biblical patriarch had seen a ladder to heaven. In Kerala, he watched gods walk on fire. On the Great Plains, he sundanced with the Lakota. At Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, he laid his hand on the stepping stone to another world. In Delhi, he was told ‘the universe will keep sending you loving souls to guide you on this journey’ and it did, opening doors, revealing wonders beyond his imagination, until – in five truly inexplicable moments – his wife was beside him.
Geography of Heaven: Travels to the Hereafter is the story of that extraordinary journey, of moments of astonishment and awe, of steps taken with hope and love. Hope ‘that leads to blissful end’ wrote Dante. Hope that ‘is of the joy to come’ as the light from many a star. At the same time, his journey through grief is explained by the latest neuroscientific research. The result is a life-enhancing travel book like no other that leads to the realisation that none of us are created for naught.
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Reviews
A magnificent, heartfelt love story: a quest both ancient and entirely original
In an extraordinary enterprise of astonishing scope and moving devotion, Rory Maclean throws himself into experiencing the rituals of worldwide cultures where they engage with the afterlife. The result is an epic of travel and a rich testament to an enduring love
This is an astonishing book. It tells of the determination of love, its capacity to transcend and earth, its refusal to stop before the membrane between the lovers is breached and truth - real, felt, undeniable, unmanufactured truth - emerges. MacLean travels every path available to the interior and has the skill to describe them all