Posted on 21 September 2010, 21:32

Sometime in 1892, Edward C. Randall, a prominent Buffalo, New York trial lawyer and businessman, was asked by a friend to accompany him on a visit to Emily S. French, a Rochester woman who, Randall (below) was told, had strange powers and received messages from spirits.  “This was an unexplored world to me,” Randall wrote.  “I went, and found there two others, both men of national reputation.  We sat in a dark room for two hours, and heard what purported to be voices, though they were only faint whispers.  We were not at all satisfied, but could not condemn, because we did not understand…We did not then believe that the whispers came from the great beyond, but, mystified, we determined to know what they were.”

Over the next 20 years, until Mrs. French’s death in 1912, at age 80, Randall would sit with her more than 700 times. “In my investigations, covering many years, in the room in my own home devoted to such work, thousands of men whom I have known personally have talked with me, using their own tongues.  I have recognized their voices; they have recalled and related countless facts and incidents of their daily life and have proved beyond question their identity.”

Emily French (below) was primarily a direct-voice medium. Not to be confused with trance-voice mediumship, in which the spirit takes over the body of the medium and speaks through her vocal cords and mouth, the direct-voice method involves the spirit borrowing a psychic substance, usually referred to as ectoplasm, from the medium and sometimes from the sitters, to form vocal organs.  They then use this artificial larynx to speak.  The voices are usually soft and require a trumpet or cone for amplification, although the voices sometimes come through loud enough that a trumpet is not required.  The voices usually emanate several feet above the medium.  Skeptics claimed that such mediums were expert ventriloquists, but rigid testing ruled this out with Mrs. French and other credible direct-voice mediums.

“Each voice has individuality,” Randall explained.  “When new spirits come for the first time and take on the condition of vocalization, there is often a similarity in tone quality, but this soon passes away, as they grow accustomed to using their voices in this way.  The voices of those accustomed to speak never change, and are easily recognized.  There is no similarity of thought or words.”  Randall further mentioned that the strength of the voices varies greatly, much as they do in earth life.

After satisfying himself that Mrs. French was a genuine medium and that he was hearing from “spirit people,” including his mother and father, Randall turned to asking the spirit people questions about the afterlife. “Hundreds, at my invitation, have participated in the work and with me have heard different voices with different tones, different thoughts, different personalities, and at times different foreign languages,” Randall went on.

Randall was told that a spirit engineer must magnetize his room before he and the others present could hear their voices, and that it was easier for those more advanced to reach them (the communicating spirits) than it was for them to communicate with those on the earth plane.

Speaking with Dr. David Hossack, who had been in spirit life more than a century, Randall asked about the existence of a spirit body.  In reply, Hossack said:

“There is an inner, etheric body, composed of minute particles, of such substance that it can, and does, pass into spirit life.  Your outer bodies are too gross and material to effect the change.  The inner body is but the mind, the thought, the soul of the person.  It is in the semblance of the material body, but whether beautiful or ugly, strong or weak, depends upon the inner life of the person to whom belongs that particular spark of the great radiance called life, or God.

“Some there be who build a fair body, and some there be who come into this life with a body so mis-shapen and sickly it takes much effort to effect an upright, clean one.  They all come with bodies naturally, as all things have minds, after one fashion or another; but the conditions of these bodies are very different. Naturally, the mind, being the reality of man, is that which lives on – beautiful or disfigured by good or evil thoughts, as the case may be.  The only comfort is that every one has opportunity to work out the change in himself, and sometimes those changes are very rapid.”

Another spirit communicated that he was very particular about his wearing apparel when in earth life, but he found himself in “rags” when he arrived in the spirit world. Moreover, his body was distorted.  It took him some time, as time goes in his realm, to realize that it was his spirit body and not his physical body, apparently not recognizing that he was “dead.”  He further explained that it took him a long time to develop and restore his spirit body.

As Randall came to understand it, the physical body is simply the “housing” or “garment” worn by the etheric or spirit body, which is so refined, intense, and so high in vibration that physical eyes cannot see it.  When physical death occurs, the etheric body leaves the physical body and inhabits one of the spiritual planes, depending on the type of moral life he or she has led.

Randall asked communicating spirits what took place at the time of death.  His father, who died at age 76, told him that he felt a weakness come upon him as he was in his horse and buggy headed for a village some seven miles distant.  As he arrived at his destination, the weakness increased but he was able to walk in the house and sit down.  Then he saw his deceased wife standing there and smiling.

“Startled, I arose to my feet, and my last earthly sensation was falling – and as I now know, I did pitch forward on my face.  I do not recall striking the floor, or pain in my death change.  When the separation came, I was like one in sleep.

“The next I recall was awaking in the same room, with the leader of your spirit group holding my hand, helping me up.  I had heard his wonderful voice many times when I was privileged to come into your work, but it took me some little time to realize what happened to me.  I saw my body on the floor.  This startled me, for the body I then had was to my sight and touch identical with the one lying so quiet.  I saw people hurrying, and heard the anxious talk, not yet comprehending my separation from the physical body.”

Randall was told that in the afterlife everything in the physical world is a poor imitation of what is found in the spirit world, that all things exist first in the spirit world before they can be produced in the physical world.  One spirit explained it:

“We have often told you, and tell you now, that your earth and all things of your earth have their exact counterparts in the spirit world, just as real, just as tangible, just as substantial, to the inhabitants of this world, as material things and forms are to the inhabitants in mortal form upon your earth.”

One spirit likened the difference between his plane and the earth plane as much like the difference between living on land and living in the sea, pointing out that people on land could move with greater freedom than life that exists in the oceans because the material conditions become higher in vibration as we ascend the scales of motion, or, to look at it from the other end, there is more resistance the lower we descend Numerous other spirits referred to the planes or spheres in the afterlife and said that there were seven of them. One had this to say:

“I know what we all know – that there are seven spheres.  I have just reached the third.  Sometimes a spirit can speak from his sphere to the next higher, as you do while in the body, but only in the same way.  I mean that there is no mingling together.  When a spirit goes from one sphere to another, it is quite unlike dissolution in earth life.  He is warned that the change is near and has time to put his mind into a higher plane of thought so that he will be prepared to meet the new life.  He says farewell to all his friends.  They join in a general thanksgiving and celebration, all congratulating and helping him on his way by some strong uplifting thoughts.  When the time comes, he is put quietly to sleep, with the thought dominant in his mind that he is to make the change.  When he awakes, he is in his new home in the next higher sphere.”

The communicating spirit went on to say that each new change is more difficult to explain than the preceding one, but, as she understood it, each one is essentially a higher life in which one better prepares him- or herself for advancement.  She (the spirit) added that she had not been to the fourth sphere and only knows of higher spheres based on what teachers from those spheres have told her.

“In the lower sphere, one sees such suffering among those still earth-bound.  They, too, are busy working out past faults and they are often heavy-hearted.  Generally speaking, the first sphere is the one where restitution must be made, and where the final wrenching away from earth conditions takes place.  The second is one of instruction, a period of study, during which the spirit gains knowledge of self and natural laws.  The third is one of teaching those in the lower spheres, as I have said.  The fourth sphere is one of trial and temptation.  The fifth is truth, where error and falsehood are unknown.  In the sixth, all is harmony.  In the seventh, the spirits reach the plane of exaltations and become one with the great spirit that rules the universe.”

But she was quick to add that she had been informed that in becoming one with the great spirit in the seventh sphere that we do not lose our individuality or personality. However, it was all well beyond her comprehension or appreciation and therefore she could add no more.

Randall wrote that he heard from many earthbound spirits, those in lowest plane or sphere, or the one nearest the earth plane.  He came to understand that this sphere has various stages.  “There are some in total darkness, others in something of a twilight zone between the spiritual and physical worlds.  Some are in a condition of slumber, some in a deep sleep.  The majority knows that they have left the body, but there are still many who are not conscious of the fact that they are “dead.”  While missionary spirits from higher spheres attempt to enlighten spirits in the dark world, these lower spirits are no more open to truth and enlightenment than they were while in the flesh.

During one sitting, Randall heard from an old business acquaintance who had died at the age of 70 some five years earlier.  While considered a good citizen, the man, referred to as Mr. W— by Randall, had the reputation of being a “pennypincher.”  Both Mrs. French and a visiting clairvoyant could see the man and described his appearance, which fit Randall’s recollection of him. More evidential, however, was the man’s voice, which Randall clearly recognized.  Mr. W— told Randall that he was trapped in a wall of money and that it shuts out the light.

Another spirit friend explained to Randall that each sphere is divided into six circles or societies in which congenial people live together based upon the law of attractions.  While the members of the circles generally think alike, there are differences, much like there are in different societies on the earth plane. Each society has teachers from higher spheres who impart knowledge, which is in turn transmitted to those on lower spheres.

Still another spirit told Randall that they do not get their light from the sun, but rather it is radiated from the atoms.  He explained that their light is very different from sun light and that sun light is grosser than theirs.  Their light is soft, radiant and much more brilliant.

Many other spirit messages were recorded by Randall’s stenographer, including:

“At dissolution, each sense is quickened, and all that fills space is visible to the spiritual senses and tangible to spiritual touch and brain.  Space must then take form, substance and reality – a world of thought, boundless and endless.”

“Our life is merely the condition of mind which each one has.  We create images in thought, and have the reality before us, just as tangible as your houses and buildings are to you.  You do not have any conception of the great power and force there is, or may be, in thought.  It dominates all conditions and makes us what we are.  One who realizes this may control his destiny.”

“Make yourself attened to the most harmonious vibrations, so that your impulses will be good, and then obey them.  They are apt to be the suggestions of a fellow soul working out his salvation.”

“There are sounds that our ears have never heard; there is light that our physical eyes can never see; there is an invisible world filled with people that few have ever imagined.”

Photos courtesy of N. Riley Heagerty.  See his website and information on how to order his book about the mediumship of Emily French at http://thefrenchrevelation.wordpress.com/

Edward Randall’s book, Frontiers of the Afterlife, is available from White Crow Books.

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.

Posted on 07 September 2010, 12:48

As Roy Dixon-Smith, a British career military officer serving in the Indian army, came to see it, the marriage vow, “till death do us part,” does not apply to everyone.  After the death of his wife, Betty, he continued to hear from her, communicate with her, and even see her. He told of his continuing romance with Betty in his 1952 book, New Light on Survival.

Suffering from a condition called bacterial endocarditis, Betty passed into spirit in India on August 23, 1944, during her early 30s, after some five years of marriage to Roy. “Exhortations to prayer and faith and assurances of a future reunion in a vague sort of heaven, supported by biblical texts, were of no use whatever to me,” Dixon-Smith (Roy and Betty below) recorded his initial despair, adding that at the very most religion offered him nothing more than a gray tinge to his black despair.

After returning to Scotland and depositing their four-year-old daughter, Cherry, with her aunt in Falkirk, Dixon-Smith went to London and began exploring mediumship. Over the next five years, he had numerous evidential sittings in which Betty communicated.  They came through clairvoyance, automatic writing, trance voice and even the direct voice, but as of July 1948 he had not yet experienced the materialization phenomenon he had read so much about.  He therefore sent a letter to Psychic News requesting information on a genuine materialization medium.

The letter resulted in being invited to the home of a Mr. and Mrs. Patterson of Buckie (Scotland) for a July 31 sitting with a medium, who for privacy purposes, he refers to in his book as “Mrs. ‘D’.”  Dixon-Smith took with him a dark red rose and Betty’s wedding ring.  A minute or two after the members of the small circle took their seat and a red light was turned on, a male voice (the medium’s control) addressed the circle and began introducing materialized figures before they emerged from the materialization cabinet. “The first few visitors were for other sitters,” Dixon-Smith wrote.  “They spoke clearly, naturally, and intelligently, and were apparently recognized; each only lasted for about a minute, sinking swiftly to the floor as he or she withdrew within the curtains.”

The male voice then announced that he had a lady present for the “gentleman by the door” and asked him to call her out.  Dixon-Smith responded by asking her to come out. “A tall slim figure thereupon emerged from the left edge of the curtains, stretched out a hand, picked up my rose, crossed the floor to my chair, walking outside the curtains and in full view of the circle, and threw the rose in my lap,” Dixon-Smith continued the account. “I stood up to peer into the face dimly seen in the enveloping ‘cowl’ whereupon Mrs. Patterson exclaimed, ‘Don’t touch her!’”

The materialized figure stepped back toward the curtains and “said in a voice and accent exactly resembling Betty’s, ‘He won’t do that.  He knows better.’”  While the voice seemed like Betty’s and the shape of the head and face appeared to be hers, Dixon-Smith could not make out her features well enough to confirm that it was Betty. He was certain, however, that it was not “Mrs ‘D’ masquerading as Betty as she was a much shorter and stout woman. As the materialization lasted only about a minute, Dixon-Smith deemed it inconclusive.

It was pointed out that the heat of the evening made for less than ideal conditions. The group met again the following night when conditions were cooler. “After a few visitors had come and gone, the guide asked the sitters to sing, ‘I’ll walk beside you,’ [Betty’s favorite song],” Dixon-Smith wrote. “At the close of the song, the same slim figure as before emerged from the left edge of the curtain, groped for the ring (which he had placed on a sideboard), and in doing so, knocked the torch (i.e., flashlight) off the sideboard on to the floor.” Mrs. Patterson picked up the ring and gave it to the materialized figure, after which the materialized figure slipped it on Dixon-Smith’s little finger. “I felt the touch of her fingers as she put it on, and they were warm and seemed as normal in all respects as any physical ones.”

A torch was then permitted by the guide. “I was standing up within a few inches of Betty’s form, and I peered closely into her face which was on a level with my own,” Dixon-Smith continued.  “My critical faculties dominated my emotion as I took in every detail of the features; yet it was not till the following day that the full wonder and joy of this experience came over me.”

Dixon-Smith further explained that the “ectoplasmic wrapping” made it difficult to clearly distinguish the features, but he was now certain that it was Betty. “Speech combined with materialization is very rarely possible, since the ‘power’ is generally used up in the forming of the figure,” he explained what he later came to understand. “That is why materialized people can say so little, and the more they talk the shorter the time their forms can last.”
                 
Soon after the Buckie sittings, Dixon-Smith arranged a sitting with Minnie Harrison (below) at the home of Sydney and Gladys Shipman in Middlesbrough.  “For evidential reasons I revealed no details of my private life before the séance was over, and for the same reason they would have refused to have listened to them, since they were just as anxious as I for genuine evidence,” he explained his approach to such sittings.

His first sitting with Mrs. Harrison took place on October 9, 1948 with 10 people, including himself and the medium, present.  Tom Harrison, Minnie’s son,, was one of those present and confirms the Dixon-Smith sitting in his 2004 book, Life After Death – Living Proof.

The first phase of the sitting was the “direct voice” in which a trumpet hovered in front of the sitter to be addressed.  Some voices came through loud and clear, while others were difficult to understand.  When the trumpet settled in front of Dixon-Smith, the circle guide gave an “excellent description” of Betty and then allowed her to speak directly. “Betty then attempted to speak to me,” Dixon-Smith recorded.  “After prolonged and seemingly painful effort and a few exclamations to the effect that she couldn’t do it, she managed to say, ‘I am your Betty’.”

At the conclusion of the direct-voice phase, the red light was turned on and the room was well illuminated, so that Dixon-Smith had no difficulty in observing forms and faces. Minnie Harrison,  (below) who had been in the circle and not in trance during the direct-voice phase, then took her place behind the curtain.

Dixon-Smith observed a half-dozen materializations of friends and relatives of the other sitters.  “I rose from my chair, walked up to them and shook them by the hand, and we made conventional remarks to each other just exactly as everyone does when first meeting a stranger,” he wrote.  “They were swathed in white muslin-like draperies and cowls…They were solid, natural, and except for their apparel, exactly like ordinary living people.  In fact, had everyone been dressed similarly, it would have been quite impossible to distinguish these materialized forms from the rest of the company. Their hands felt perfectly natural and life-like in every respect and their handgrips were very firm.  They smiled, laughed, and chatted to me and the others; all their features, complexions, and expressions being perfectly clear in that ample light…There were mutual cheery good-byes as they departed, sinking apparently through the floor in precisely the same manner as the forms at Buckie.”

Then the guide announced the coming of Betty and asked them to sing, “I’ll walk beside you.”  As they sang, Betty emerged from the curtain and stood silently in full view.  “I rose from my chair and walked up to the figure, taking the extended hand in mine,” Dixon-Smith further recorded the experience.  “I examined the hand, and it was just like Betty’s and quite unlike the medium’s.  I stared into the face, and recognized my wife.  We spoke to each other, though what we said I cannot remember, for I was deeply stirred and so was she and her voice was incoherent with emotion.”

One of the sitters asked if Dixon-Smith could kiss her and Betty responded in the affirmative.  “I then kissed her on her lips which were warm, soft, and natural,” Dixon-Smith went on.  “Thereupon she bent her head and commenced to weep, and in a moment or two she sank. I watched her form right down to the level of the floor at my feet where it dissolved, the last wisp of it being drawn within the cabinet.”

In concluding his book, Dixon-Smith wrote that he realizes that the reader will find it difficult to believe such amazing accounts of life after death as he has related. “Yet why should these accounts be so incredible when all professing Christians must believe in the similar materialization of Jesus to His mother and disciples, as I can now quite easily do?”

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.