Sitters witness Spirit fingers during séance

by LEWIS SUTTON

Trumpets levitated and 'dead' father gives convincing personal evidence to sitter at David Thompson and Stewart Alexander séances.

     THE COBER Hill Conference Centre has over recent years been the venue for several seminars on physical phenomena. The Centre, sited just north of Scarborough, overlooks beautiful Yorkshire countryside with the North Sea visible just a short distance away. This seminar, the second to be organised by Alf and June Winchester, featured séances with mediums Stewart Alexander and David Thompson plus lectures, demonstrations of psychic art, psychic surgery together with daily meditations and healing sessions.

The first séance of the seminar was with medium Stewart Alexander and lasted for nearly two hours - but time passed quickly with all the action that took place. Soon two trumpets were flying around up to about 8ft (2.4m) from the medium who was located behind a curtain in a corner of the room. This type of phenomena does not provide direct evidence of Survival, but does show just how flexible and adaptable ectoplasm is. And I don't know how anyone other than our Spirit friends could so accurately propel trumpets rapidly around the room in the dark without hitting anything!

On previous occasions when Stewart's séances have been held in rooms with high ceilings, I have witnessed trumpets flying around way above our heads from nearly one end of the room to the other. This séance was held in a room with a normal height ceiling and it looked to me from where I was sitting that the trumpets just about went over the heads of those sitting in the front row.

Although we were sitting in the dark, we could follow the movement of the trumpets by the clearly visible luminous bands around them. Later on our only other visible evidence came when, what we were told was a partly materialised form, produced light and moved around the room. This light was strong enough for close-by sitters to distinguish the materialised fingers holding it. The light varied in intensity, starting with a dull sphere or circle of maybe 50mm across, down to a much smaller size but of higher intensity.

The partly materialised form, called Freda, (a regular communicator) spoke to us via independent direct voice and told us she was using an ectoplasmic voice box. Apparently this was much more difficult than her usual method of speaking through Stewart whilst in trance. We could hear her voice moving across the room as she spoke and held the psychic light. It is interesting to note that Stewart is now often conscious for short periods and speaks whilst phenomena is occurring.

A regular feature of Stewart's séances is the demonstration of passing matter through matter. This entails a person being selected to hold one of Stewart's hands whilst he is in a trance state, with his main control Walter Stinson speaking through him. On this occasion three times the plastic straps were momentarily dematerialised (or a section dematerialised?) to allow one of his arms to become free. Each time after the witness had touched the strap hanging on the chair arm, Stewart's arm appeared to pass through the strap again to secure his arm to the chair.

The first two times the witness felt the strap come free and was able to retain it in her hand to keep. Each time the spirit control obtained another strap, the first time from a spare within the room and the second time, allegedly apported from outside of the séance room. Each time we could hear the new strap being tightened up around the arm due to the distinctive clicking sound made as the plastic cable tie was applied. The third time the strap was left securing the medium's arm as at the beginning of the sequence.

Of the various personal communications from loved ones who had passed on, perhaps the most significant was that received by Mary Armour. Firstly, Freda spoke to her giving family evidence and also told her to look in a book to find references to a bird and water. The shelf, book position on the shelf, the page number and the paragraph were given.

I spoke to Mary on her return home and she confirmed the information. The only mistake being that the book was the second from the right, not second from the left. We think the mistake was due to the Spirit form standing in front of Mary rather than from the view point that Mary had on returning home. In other words, her left side was Mary's right side.

After Freda spoke to Mary, she was overjoyed to hear her father speak to her and to kiss her hand before departing. He also gave her personal family evidence which Mary later verified on checking with family members.

During the séance several others received touches to their heads or had their hands shaken, clasped or touched by Spirit forms. Malcolm Lewis, in particular, had his hand shaken by the materialised hand of Walter Stinson as Walter spoke to him. Malcolm reported that this hand was much larger than the medium's. Walter also took Malcolm and his wife Anne-Marie's hands, clasped them together with his hand and held them up high as he conversed with them. Malcolm said he was amazed at the size of Walter's hand.

Malcolm, a senior university lecturer, described to me afterwards how Walter's voice descended from 6ft up in the air to floor level as the power rapidly declined at the end of the communication. This account tallies with the many reports over the years of materialised forms sinking into the floor as the ectoplasm returns to the medium.
David Thompson provided the physical mediumship for the second séance at the seminar. As with Stewart, David was tied into a chair with plastic cable ties. However, David was also gagged as all of the verbal communications in his séances are by independent direct voice and not via the medium's mouth and vocal cords.

First to communicate was a gentleman with a refined voice and introduced himself as William Charles Cadwell. He said he died in 1897. Next a child control named Timothy Booth spoke in a light hearted cheeky manner to put everyone at ease. Timothy and William claim to have known one another whilst on the earth plane.

Like Stewart's séance, we soon had trumpets whizzing around the room playing intricate patterns without hitting anything. The velocity and distance from the cabinet were again similar and lasted just for a short while, just to prove what is possible.

After the trumpet phenomena Wendy McDougal from Saltcoats in Ayrshire was asked to sit next to the cabinet and soon received direct voice communication from her grandfather. He kissed her head, touched her hair and made a comment about it being sticky! Wendy explained that she had put hair gel on it - a product that no doubt didn't exist during his days on earth.

Hans, a gentleman from Switzerland, received a communication in the German language from his grandfather. However, the grandfather had difficulty communicating and disappointingly spoke only a few sentences to Hans.

After this came a tune played on a mouth organ by regular communicator Timothy Booth who portrayed himself as a young boy. The mouth organ had been left on a small table a few feet from the cabinet housing the medium. The mouth organ was played quite well but I didn't recognise the tune.

Next came three well known gentlemen - Quentin Crisp, Peter Cook and lastly Dudley Moore. Quentin and Peter were rather ribald in their humour and comments, which they said was proof that we don't change into angels when we pass on! The problem with well known personalities communicating is that unless there is someone present who knows them personally, then you just have to take it on face value they are who they say they are. However, their remarks and behaviour were very much in keeping with how I remember them as public figures. I could not possibly quote many of their remarks here!

After this, and in total contrast, came regular communicator known as Honest Jack with what I took to be a cockney accent. He answered a few questions and gave good evidence to two members of a circle whose leader had recently passed to Spirit. This was Beatrice Jackson who had originally planned to be physically at the seminar - not visiting from the other side! When called Beatrice she quickly let it be known that she was called Beatie. Chris, one of her circle members, confirmed that she did not like being called Beatrice by her friends.

Perhaps the most remarkable event of the séance was at the end when a North American Indian apparently materialised and picked up a native traditional rattle that had been left on a small table. It then sounded as if he was dancing around in a circle as he sang and shook the rattle.

The Indian, known as White Soaring Bird, must have been heavy as we could feel the floor shaking and hear his feet pounding the floor. He finished by speaking in his native tongue and saying a few words in English. Afterwards Alf Winchester, who weighs over 13 stone, could not replicate the vibrations we felt through the floor as the Indian danced.

The final physical phenomena after this dramatic materialisation was to find that the medium and his chair had been moved out of the cabinet. David was still bound and gagged and sitting in the centre of the circle when the lights were put back on.

The whole idea of holding physical phenomena seminars is to encourage Spiritualists to form their own home circles in order to develop more physical mediums, as this form of mediumship is very rare these days. So as well as the demonstrations of physical mediumship in the séances, the seminar contained supporting activities that included lectures and a forum.

The first of these events was a talk on Scottish mediums by Mary Armour with accounts of the many physical mediums that her homeland has produced over the last 150 years or so. Many present were amazed at the sheer number of mediums that Scotland has produced. Mary, of course, ended with the most famous of them all - Helen Duncan.

David Thompson gave a talk and demonstration of psychic surgery whilst in the trance state. One of the ladies who volunteered for the demonstration has been reported as walking better and with less pain several days later. I'm told she no longer uses a walking stick. David's talk included details of how he became involved with Spiritualism and of his very interesting meeting with a Hindu master.

Malcolm Lewis's illustrated his talk with computerised slides and titled his contribution 'Mundane to Miraculous'. Malcolm covered the various theories and classification of types of phenomena and made the observation that physical phenomena had often been most abundant where mediums resided near large areas of water. He pointed out that the halcyon days of American mediumship occurred near the Great Lakes in the north of the USA.

Denzil Fairbairn gave us a talk on his late uncle, Jack Webber. He was able to fill us in on much detail that hasn't appeared in print anywhere regarding his uncle's wonderful mediumship. He showed several photos that were omitted from Harry Edward's famous book The Mediumship of Jack Webber, published by The Harry Edwards Spiritual Healing Trust.

An excellent demonstration of psychic art was provided by John Brett with Bryan Gibson providing most of the mediumistic communication relevant to the drawings (John also provided information). They worked well together as a team with the mental mediumship tying in well with the drawings and good evidence was provided with every contact. Although this demonstration did not come under the banner of physical mediumship it did provide balance to the seminar and was no doubt greatly welcomed by all attendees.

I'm sure this seminar will have played its part in helping to encourage more Spiritualists to sit and try to develop physical mediumship. In this scientific age we need hard evidence from both mental and physical mediumship to demonstrate that there is no death.