North Van poet's book sales surge after TikToker's 'psychic' dream goes viral

A 20-year-old book by a North Vancouver poet has been propelled to an unexpected resurgence in popularity, thanks to a dream of a New York TikToker who claims to be psychically linked to its contents.

Now online buzz about the poetry book – and conspiracy theories about its rumoured top-secret contents ­– have prompted a small Canadian publishing house to reprint the book while the bemused local author enjoys a moment of viral TikTok fame.

The curious phenomenon began in late December, when U.S. TikTok personality OhMarni, who says she’s psychic, posted a video about a dream she’d had where a man asked her, “Is the Fifth Window open?”

Curious about what it might mean, OhMarni – whose real name is Marni Webb – googled the phrase and found it was a book published two decades ago. “Basically it’s about the psychic and the real world meeting,” she told followers.

Why is book 'so protected,' asks TikToker

But when she found the book wasn’t readily available, except in research sections of libraries, the tale took a decidedly conspiratorial turn. “Now explain to me why his book about the psychic world and the real world meeting is in the reserves, like request section, like, super locked up tight, that's weird, that suspicious,” Webb said. “What is in that book? What is it so protected?”

That was all the popular TikToker’s followers, who viewed the video over 3.4 million times, needed to spark an international hunt for the book. A subreddit dedicated to The Fifth Window under the title “mysteriesoftheworld” was also started up.

The hunt eventually led to North Vancouver poet Russell Thornton and Thistledown Press, a small Canadian publishing house that had originally printed the book.

At first, Thornton – who isn’t on TikTok – had no idea his poetry book was the subject of international intrigue. Then he got an email from writer friend Rob Taylor who said people had been contacting him, asking him where they could get the book.

Poetry book blows up online

He told Thornton his book was “blowing up” online.

Thornton consulted an expert – his 13-year-old daughter – who soon tracked down the video and showed it to her dad. “I thought it was funny,” he said. Eventually, Thornton had his daughter post a comment explaining that her dad had written the book and that it was hard to find because it was long out of print.

Thornton later exchanged emails with Webb, and eventually mailed her one of his two remaining copies of the book. Once she read it, the mystery deepened.

“The woman is a little bit psychic,” said Thornton, noting some of the TikToker’s dreams had an uncanny resemblance to imagery that appeared in his poems. “She calls it divine coincidence,” he said. “There is a little bit of something else that went on here.”

Also fascinating to Thornton was how readily a large number of people were more ready to believe in a vast conspiracy theory than the reality of an obscure book of poetry, long out of print: “The CIA was involved, mysterious ancient energies were at work . . . the government had to be taken to task for hiding the contents of this book. Because if we got hold of this book, we might know how to enter the fifth dimension.”

Conspiracy theories abound

Conspiracy theories have been around for hundreds of years, but in the age of social media, people seem especially vulnerable to them, said Thornton.

"On deeper levels, it points to the insecurity of people and the sense they're powerless in the face of vast forces at work that are beyond them . . . And so they're very vulnerable to needing to blame their senses of helplessness and meaningless on government agencies and groups of people trying to hide special information from them.”

The upside, he said, is that the viral video has shone some light on Canadian poetry.

An original run of the poetry book 20 years ago likely only contained a few hundred copies, he said, and now Thistledown is poised to sell three or four times that with its forthcoming reprint.

Caroline Walker of Thistledown Press said the small company started to get emails earlier this year from people inquiring about the book and whether it was available.

Once they realized what was driving the interest, Walker said the publisher let people know they could order the book and “the orders started to flood in” – mostly from the U.S. but from other countries as well.

Reprint of The Fifth Window is on the way

Thistledown ordered a reprint – then had to increase the print run a couple of times as word of the book spread online. A paper shortage, followed by trucking problems, caused a delay in the delivery date but the book is now about ready to ship, said Walker.

“We’ve been really thrilled to have a chance to promote a Canadian author, a Canadian poetry book from years ago,” she added.

As a small literary publisher “We’re not huge users of TikTok generally,” said Walker, but “We’re going to continue to try to promote this book on TikTok.”

Thornton, who describes his poetry as heavily inspired by the natural environment of the North Shore, is the author of eight books of poetry, and has been a finalist for both the Governor General’s Award for Poetry and the Griffin Poetry Prize. His most recent book published by B.C. publisher Harbour Publishing in 2021 was Answer to Blue. He is currently working on another poetry book, titled The White Light of Tomorrow.