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The Experiences and Accounts of Mediums and Sensitives. Since the beginning of the modern
period of interest in psychic matters and survival in the middle of the
nineteenth century, there have been many gifted people - usually called
mediums or sensitives - who have offered their services to help those seeking
information about these subjects. Either to gain knowledge about, and
communication with, those members of their families who have died; or to
further the cause of psychic research so that humanity can gain a greater
understanding about the purpose of life and their place in the universe. Many
of these individuals have written auto- biographical accounts of their
activities or have had books written about their lives as sensitives. Mediums are usually divided into
two groups, ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ mediums. Mental mediums operate through
extra-sensory perception (ESP), a heightened degree of awareness of the
spiritual world, in that they seek to communicate with discarnate spirits
through clairvoyance (inner sight) or clairaudience (inner hearing). Another
manifestation of mental mediumship is that of ‘automatic writing’, where
communications from the other side are transmitted through the hand-writing
of the medium - normally in a script totally unlike that of the individual
sensitive. Physical mediums are those who demonstrate psycho-kinetic (PK)
phenomena; the ability to produce raps and similar noises, the levitation or
movement of objects (often heavy furniture), moving lights, touches by seemingly
‘ghostly’ hands, and apports (the production of objects apparently out of
nowhere). ‘Direct voice’ is a form of physical mediumship where the voices of
spirit communicators are produced, not directly from the medium but from
close by. Materialisation mediums are those who, by production of the
substance ectoplasm, are able to build up semblances of the dead which - in
the best examples - have appeared in a form identical to their original
living counterparts (and often recognised as such by their bereaved
relatives). Mediums may operate in full consciousness or in trance; in the
latter state they are temporarily taken over by a spirit ‘control’ or
‘guide’, or by other entities introduced by the control. The following section consists of
a list of the books giving accounts of the work of a selection of the
better-known sensitives particularly of the mid and later twentieth century. Geraldine Cummins was an author and playwright who was also
a medium with a remarkable gift for automatic writing. Of the 22 books she
wrote 15 were ‘transmitted’ or produced by automatic writing. Amongst many
other writings, she produced a series of scripts purporting to come from
F.W.H. Myers, one of the distinguished scholars who founded the Society for
Psychical Research in 1882 and who, after his death in 1901, was the
instigator of the "cross-correspondences" which provided much
evidence in favour of survival. The present material gives a wide-ranging
description of the conditions after death and many other details, particularly
how the soul may progress up through ever higher spiritual levels or
‘planes’. Miss Cummins produced two sets of material from Myers, during the
1920s and in 1933-4, and these were published as two books:
One particularly useful part of
this book is the foreword in which Sir Oliver Lodge confirms, through an
independent channel, that Myers’ scripts were "... a serious attempt
to give information about a future life and the stages through which earnest
people may expect to pass."
Amongst other books Miss Cummins
also wrote:
And:
Mrs. Willett was the pseudonym of
Mrs. Winifred Coombe Tennant who, during her lifetime, had been a gifted
medium and automatic writer. Together with several other sensitives, she had
been the vehicle for communications of a most remarkable kind, the Cross
Correpondences (see p. 20 above), which apparently came from the surviving
spirits of W.F.H. Myers, Edmund Gurney and other early members of the Society
for Psychical Research. Mrs. Coombe Tennant died in August 1956 and about a
year later she began to communicate through the automatic writing of
Geraldine Cummins. Over a period of two and a half years a series of 40
scripts were produced containing material of considerable evidential
importance. The book consists of a very long
(50 page) Foreword by Prof. C. D. Broad which contains, among other things, a
lengthy synopsis of the main contents of the scripts and a critical analysis
of their content. Then follow the scripts themselves and two short
descriptive pieces by Geraldine Cummins, ‘Personal Background’ and ‘Lines of
Communication’. The value of this book is summarised in the following review: "What is quite certain is
that this is a very important book indeed, and one which should be obligatory
reading for all of the many of us who cannot yet bring ourselves to believe
that human beings experience anything at all after the death of their bodies.
Whatsoever our preconceptions may be, these scripts provide something solid
and incontrovertible which cannot be explained away with the usual facility
of the naturally incredulous" (Philip
Toynbee, in The Observer).
John Campbell Sloan was a well-known direct-voice medium in
Scotland during the first half of the twentieth century. Between 1942 and
1945 a group of people met in Glasgow together with Sloan for a series of
séances and all the material produced was recorded verbatim by a skilled
stenographer. Subsequently Arthur Findlay edited and prepared for publication
the shorthand records of 19 of these séances, during which many
communications from the ‘other side’ had come through. This material was
published as:
The book contains a large amount
of evidence supporting the concept of survival; there is much detail on the
spiritual world and the conditions of life of its inhabitants. However,
because the material was recorded verbatim, there is no structured account of
conditions in the spiritual world - the information is given in a rather
piece-meal fashion.
Jane Sherwood was a Quaker who died, aged 96, in May
1990. She was drawn, somewhat unwillingly, into psychic investigations
following the death of her husband in the First World War and discovered that
she had the gift of automatic writing.
Using this gift she produced several books which tell us a great deal about
death and the afterlife.
The following review provides a
summary of the book’s content: "Books which have strongly
influenced one’s life can be likened to old friends, rare and beloved, to
which one can turn again and again for truth and wisdom. Such a book, to my
mind, is Jane Sherwood’s The Country Beyond. The author started her
investigations when her husband was killed in the First World War. She could
not accept either that Andrew was no more or that he might survive in a realm
where there was no use for his own energy and enquiring intellect. A valuable section of the book
describes what befell the author when she set out to try to contact her
husband. She was not in touch with anyone who was qualified to advise or warn
her, and throughout many years endured frustrating, misleading experiences
and dangers of which she had innocently been unaware. If for no other reason
the book should be valued for the advice given to all who pursue psychic
investigations. Jane Sherwood came through it all having three supreme
advantages: unshakeable Christian faith, a keen logical mind and sound common
sense. Finally, through unflagging determination she found herself to have
the gift of automatic writing. She achieved her ambition of contact with her
husband, and also with two other communicators. Subject matter includes
descriptions of the active, progressing life ‘beyond’, analysis of the human
entity - ourselves - i.e. descriptions of the four bodies or modes we all
have, reincarnation, and the esoteric order within our solar system. With
characteristic humility the author describes her book as a ‘starting point’
for others to work from." (Jean Snow, in The Quarterly Review of the
Churches’ Fellowship). Of particular value spiritually
are the later chapters; especially the last two which deal in esoteric terms
with the development of the material universe and the evolution and purpose
of the human race.
In the early years of Jane
Sherwood’s work as an automatic writing medium, three communicators helped
her to build up a picture of after-death conditions and how they relate to
life on earth. One of these three called himself ‘Scott’, a pseudonym which
he asked to be used in any published work as he wished to preserve his
anonymity. From the beginning of the communications in 1938, however, he had
identified himself as T. E. Lawrence, or Lawrence of Arabia, who died in
1935. The material that came through from Lawrence helped in the writing of
the two books The Psychic Bridge and The Country Beyond, and
also provided the text for what appears here under the title of Post-Mortem
Journal, a title suggested by Lawrence himself. He ceased communicating
in 1959 and his personal account of the initial stages of life after death
was published five years later. This very interesting account can perhaps
best be summarised in the first paragraph of Chapter 5:
This wonderful little book of 87
pages, intended essentially for the elderly, is one which everyone could
benefit from reading. Based on the author’s researches and earlier writings,
it is a simple, straightforward ‘manual’ to guide one through the later
stages of life, the processes of dying and the opening up of a new life
following the loss of the body. In thirteen short but vivid chapters Jane
Sherwood provides a wealth of practical, spiritual guidance on coming to
terms with life and death - on maturing inwardly and making one’s soul in
preparation for the transition which is death. Particularly
useful aspects of the chapter on dying (Ch. 10) are the four contrasting
accounts of after-death experiences, based on information obtained during
"half a lifetime’s work as a medium".
Frances Banks "was an
outstanding woman in many fields of endeavour" and a deeply spiritual
person. For twenty-five years she was a Sister in an Anglican Community in
South Africa, during which time she was the principal of a teachers’ training
college. She was the author of many books on psychology and similar subjects.
Eventually she left the community and, during the last eight years of her
life, she and Helen Greaves worked together psychically and spiritually.
Because of this close relationship, after her death in 1962 Frances Banks was
able to communicate, "by telepathy and inspiration", with Helen
Greaves resulting in the series of scripts which have been published as The
Testimony of Light. In the scripts, transmitted over a period of two
years, she recounts her experience of death "... and the change into a
new conception of living, ...". As Helen Greaves says: "She gives
us freely of her further knowledge of the progress of the soul outwards,
upwards and forwards into Divinity." This book is a classic of
communication across the barrier of death. Frances Banks published her own
last book in 1962, just before she died. It was an account of her researches
into psychic and mystical phenomena and discusses many of the subjects
associated with the survival of death. It is:
Fifteen years after The
Testimony of Light Helen Greaves published a sequel containing further
communications from Frances Banks:
The Dissolving Veil is Helen Greaves’ autobiography. In the
first, main, part of the book she describes how, from childhood to maturity,
she developed both psychically and spiritually and includes her own personal
experiences of contact across the divide of death. The second part consists of
a series of cases in which she was able to help individuals by developing
contact with dead relatives on their behalf. Her experience with ‘Moya’
particularly is a remarkable story of real and purposeful communication with
the dead. The very brief Introduction
probably best sums up the contents of this book. It is:
Helen Greaves describes how,
because of her spiritual gifts, she was used "... by Higher Powers as a
means of bringing the light of understanding to earthbound souls imprisoned
by their own ignorance and selfishness. Little did [she] realise, when she
first came to live in [her] cottage, that she would be deeply and personally
involved in an emotional, psychic and spiritual sense, in the life of a
former inhabitant of the cottage, technically ‘dead’ but quite unaware of the
fact, as are so many souls today. The story tells of a triangle of
human relationships, with its roots in the tragic life of this world, and its
dramatic working out of the consequences in the Shadow Lands of the next
world. The arrogant, domineering mistress, hating her idiot bastard son, and
enslaving and despising the old woman who was her maid, is the apex of a
human triangle of love-hate relationships." (Rev. K. G. Cuming in the
Foreword). This book is a valuable account
of the interactions between how we live our lives in this world and the
consequences we reap in the next world. It is an important source of
information for those seeking to learn more about life after death. 8 Leslie Flint was probably the best known and most
widely-tested direct voice medium of recent times. He described his life and
experiences in his autobiography:
Here we have a frank and detailed
account of the life and development of a very gifted medium, from his early
childhood up to his sixtieth year. He gives many accounts of his sittings
with numerous people, from the lowest to the highest, and describes in detail
the evidence he provided them with which convinced them of the survival of
their ‘dead’ relatives. Often the communicating voices of the deceased
entered into long and complex conversations with the sitters, where personal
details known only to the individuals concerned were recounted between the
living and the dead. He also describes the mechanism by which the apparently independent
voices were produced and gives details of the tests which he underwent to
check the reality of his gifts. He was never demonstrated to have been
fraudulent in his communications.
A book of fascinating automatic
writing by Cynthia Sandys with the spirit help of her daughter Patricia and
Rosamond Lehmann’s daughter Sally. It is a more substantial sequel to Letters
from our Daughters, published earlier by the College of Psychic Studies
in two small booklets. This book contains ‘letters’ from a variety of friends
in Spirit, among them Wellesley Tudor Pole and Zed Adamski. They give
fascinating information about the amazing possibilities in the afterlife,
including space exploration and future development of our planet.
Rosamond Lehmann published eight
novels and is one of the most distinguished British writers of the last
century. In this autobiography she recreates her childhood and the
experiences which made her the woman she became, moving on to tell of the
birth of her beloved daughter Sally and the tragedy of Sally’s death at the
age of twenty-four. But the real purpose of the book is to relate the totally
unexpected psychic and mystical experiences she underwent after that terrible
loss. The meaning of such events, their message of hope and comfort to others
she then, through a letter to her granddaughter, passes on.
There are many books by people
who are both mediums and healers but those by Betty Shine are
suggested here because she has gifts and experiences even more extraordinary
than usual in her field. The books are easy reading and full of remarkable
stories of clairvoyance and healing. Betty is described as cheerful,
down-to-earth and full of humour; she has the clairvoyant ability to diagnose
medically. She is able to see the inner three layers of the aura, the energy
field around the body, in which, she says, disease manifests before physical
problems become apparent. Betty Shine also describes a system of training she
has devised for developing "mind energy" in a positive way.
Shine, Betty (1991). Mind Magic. The key to the
universe. On to section 6. The Experiences of Doctors,
Scientists and Others in the Study of Death and Dying |
