The Book 4th Edition
“When science begins the study of non-physical phenomena,
it will make more progress in one decade than in all the
centuries of its experience.”
British cosmologist, Dr Fred Hoyle
Another argument that was raised in the early days of psychic
research was that the mediums were getting the information
by telepathy from the unconscious minds of the people who
came to sit with them.
The early psychic investigators overcame this objection
through what they called 'proxy sittings' — where
one person who knew nothing about a certain person took
that person's place and went to see the medium on behalf
of that other person.
The Reverend Charles Drayton Thomas, a Methodist minister
who became a psychic researcher, spent many years as a proxy
sitter investigating the mediumship of Mrs Leonard and recording
his results for the Society for Psychical Research. He would
go to a sitting knowing only the name of the deceased and
the name of the person who desired communication.
In one instance in 1936-37 Thomas went to four sittings
on behalf of Emma Lewis, a person he did not know. Through
the medium, Mrs Leonord, he was able to gain seventy pieces
of information which Emma later felt confirmed beyond all
doubt that it was her father, Frederick William Macaulay,
who was communicating.
The reader has to keep in mind that the Rev Thomas, who
insisted on using scientific method to ascertain what was
being transmitted, thoroughly investigated the medium Gladys
Osborne Leonard, one of the most gifted mediums of this
century. We are informed that he had over 500 sittings with
her over a period of twenty years. After Mrs Leonard's death
in 1945, he joined Leslie Flint, the gifted direct voice
medium and did a great deal of valuable work with him.
The only possible objection a skeptic can make in relation
to proxy sittings is fraud. There is simply no other possible
or probable explanation for the information coming through
the medium about someone who has passed on and who had no
connection whatsoever with any of the sitters who were with
the medium at the time.
But so far in the last fifty years or so, no one has been
able to even suggest fraud in the proxy sittings conducted
by the Reverend Drayton Thomas. Again, psychic researchers
are impressed by the conspicuous absence of criticism of
these particular proxy sittings.
Professor Dodds, the rationalist President of the Society
for Psychical Research from 1961-63 supervised a series
of proxy sitting tests with the medium Nea Walker and was
much impressed. He concluded:
The hypothesis of fraud, rational inference from disclosed
facts, telepathy from the actual sitter, and co-incidence
cannot either singly or in combination account for the results
obtained ( Dodds 1962).
In reference to proxy sittings, the reader is referred to
the Rev Drayton Thomas' Life Beyond Death With Evidence
for direct information about further evidence for surviving
physical death.
On the Internet
Susy Smith, The Mediumship of Mrs Leonard, Chapter 5 Proxy
Sittings http://www.enformy.com/LeonardCh05.htm
Bibliography on Proxy Sittings
http://www.enformy.com/LeonardRef.htm
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