Excerpt from a BBC Southern Television interview on 8 October 1963 on the direct voice recordings with physical medium Leslie Flint. Participants: Peter Williams (presentator), Mr. S.G.Woods, Mrs. B.Greene.
Introduction by Berkeley Smith:
..One of the most controversial subjects that we have had... See if you agree...
Mrs. Fearon: "It seems donkey's years since we spoke, doesn't it?
Michael Fearon: "Yes, I suppose it does, really."
Mrs.Fearon: "Oh, a terrible time, Mike..."
Michael: "But I have been very constantly with you. I mean, I come pretty well every day, that I never feel sort out of touch. Probably you feel out of touch inasmuch as that you don't have the opportunity to speak to me very often, but I never feel out of touch..".
Mrs. Fearon:"It's nicer to speak aloud, isn't it, Mike?
Michael:"Oh, well. It's much more satisfactory. I mean, I love coming to talk to you it's a wonderful opportunity and it means so much to me, as indeed it does to everybody who has the opportunity to come through and speak to those who they love on earth."
Mrs.Fearon:"I know"
Michael:"It would make such a vast difference to people if they understood this and realise that death isn't what they think it is."
Mrs.Fearon: "There is no death, is there?"
Michael: "It's only an illusion. Man has created death in his own mind..."
Presentator Peter Williams: "That was a conversation between a mother and her son. A taperecording as a matter of fact, made in a room something like this one here..... But the recording was taken eleven years after the son died, killed in action three weeks after the D-Day landings in Normandy in France, during the last war. But throughout Britain there are thousands of people who believe implicitly in the authenticity of this conversation, and others like it - talks between the living and the dead. But what about the woman most directly concerned in this conversation? What does she think about this? Mrs.Fearon, as Mike's mother, what makes you so sure that it's your son's voice that you can hear?"
Mrs.Fearon: "Well, Mike was twenty seven when he died and I'd been with him all that time. They were day boys for a long time, and they were my life, and I ought to know at the end of that, oughtn't I?"
Peter Williams: "The voice on the taperecorder and the voice you remember, are they very similar?"
Mrs.Fearon: "Yes"
Peter Williams: "The same pitch, the same inflections?"
Mrs.Fearon: "Just about."
Peter Williams: "Mrs. Greene and Mr. Woods have been at all seances. Mrs. Greene how eactly do you get these recordings?"
Mrs.Greene: "Well, of course we have our taperecorder with us, but one must explain how the spirit voice was made, how it is constructed. In everybody there is a substance called ectoplasm, and this ectoplasm is a lifeforce. And during a direct voice seance those on the other side, they collect this ectoplasm - of course the mediuym has the most amount naturally. He is the power-station. They reconstruct a replica of the vocal organs, which is known as the "voice box", or in some cases we have heard it called the "mask". The spirit communicators transmit their thoughts via the "voice box" and by so doing create an artificial vibration which reaches us as the voice."
Peter Williams: "So the voice does not come through the medium at all?"
Mrs. Greene: "Oh no! That's a very important point to remember. The "voice" is completely independent of the medium, say about - well, if you were the medium about three feet away from you. So many people have got the erroneous idea that the voice comes through the lips of the medium. But in direct voice this is not the case at all. It is completely independent of the medium."
Peter Williams:"Mr.Woods do you make any money out of this?"
Mr.Woods: "I don't make any money of it at all. I do all my work free."
Peter Williams: "Thank you both very much. What do the churches have to say about this matter? Well, the Bishop of Southwark, Dr.Mervyn Stockwood, supports the work of the Churches' Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Study, and his comment on the matter is: Our job is to examine the evidence without presupposition or jumping to conclusions. The weakness of the Church has been its refusal to consider the evidence and discuss it."
As for the Spiritualists themselves they promise that they are on the verge of discoveries, which will even convince the most hard-headed sceptic. We'll have to wait and see."
0 comments