Pioneer: Volume 4

•  Britain’s Greatest Seance Room Photographer – Two Worlds
  
•  Looking back at infra-red in Psypioneer
  

• Emma Hardinge Britten address to the ‘National Conference of British Spiritualists’
  
• Education News - Lyceum Banner edited by George A. Mack
  

• Sir Oliver Lodge
  
• J. Arthur Findlay
  

• Medium in TV debate with surgeon over healers in hospitals
  
• Why Does Healing Work—And Fail?
  

WHY I BECAME A SPIRITUALIST
SIR OLIVER LODGE

You ask why I became a Spiritualist. It is not a title that I use for myself, because I don’t belong to any Spiritualist body, nor attend any Spiritualist Church. But if the name is intended to signify a belief in the spiritual world and in our access to it and communion with it, I may say that I was introduced to the subject in the ‘70’s’ of last century  by Mr. F. W. H. Myers, Edmund Gurney and Professor Barrett. In ‘83 or ’84 I became convinced of the reality of experimental telepathy, by verifying the direct transmission of ideas and pictures at Liverpool. And in ’89 I became practically convinced of survival and communication through experiments conducted with Mrs. Piper in my house. Since then the evidence has gone on increasing in cogency, so that the fact of possible communication became a scientific certainty early in the present century. I have expressed this in several books, and am glad to think that they have been a help to people in distress. The knowledge was a great help to me and my family in the war-time, when Raymond was killed.

OLIVER LODGE
9 February, 1935

MR. J. ARTHUR FINDLAY

Spiritualism to me stands for the knowledge I have obtained in the Séance Room that mind, life and substance exist beyond the range of our physical sight and touch. Before one obtains this direct evidence the natural conclusion is that only what we hear and see exists in the universe.  Spiritualism, therefore, stands for an addition to our knowledge of the universe and in no way upsets or contradicts the knowledge so far acquired by physical science.

This addition to our knowledge opens out before us a wonderful vista because we can now obtain such an extended view of the universe that our philosophy undergoes a complete change. Instead of feeling that we are solely material creatures with our short lives bounded by the cradle and the grave, we have opened out before us an enlarged panorama in which we see ourselves playing a part throughout the ages. We seem to go from strength to strength, to increased heights of wisdom and understanding and what seemed to be death on earth and the end of all things, is nothing worse than a door through which we enter to a larger and fuller life. Instead of death being the end it is just one of many similar experiences we shall have to go through in our journey through the spheres until the time comes when we shall reach at-one-ment with the Infinite, where time and space cease to be and we have reached Reality. We shall have BECOME.

All this I have learned from conversations I have had with friends who have spoken to me from the next order of existence. I have therefore no need for creeds and dogmas as I have a complete philosophy without them, which to me is called Spiritualism, though the name is of little importance, what is of importance are the facts.

J. ARTHUR FINDLAY.

• 114 - The President's Badge – Robert Owen 1925-1928 – David Bruton 2010 – Robert A. Owen – “National Spiritualist” September 1929
  
• 118 – Helen Duncan Seized at a Séance in 1956 – Police searching for beards, masks and a “shroud”
  
  
  
  • ---- Medium grabbed and searched after cabinet is torn down  *
    
  • ---- Police Use “Gestapo Methods” To Break Up Seance?  *
    
  • ---- Helen Duncan's husband to sue police for damages – She dies five weeks after they raided séance
    
  • ---- Editor's endnote
    
  
  
  
  
• 130 – 2018 Research – Study dates now available to book
  
• 131 – “Dorchagraphs” known today as “Skotographs”
  
  
  
  • ---- Andrew Glendinning – a pioneer of Psychic Photography
    
  • ---- Estelle Roberts’ “Album of Red Cloud Pictures and Script in Skotographs by Madge Donohoe”.
    
  
  
  
  
• 140 – British Spiritualists’ Lyceum Union – Lyceum Archives Moved to Stansted Hall
  
• 141 – Spiritualist Healers of the Past - James (Jimmy) Richards
  
  
  
  • ---- James Richards – Appointed SNU Minister
    
  
  
  
  
• 148 – Leslie Price has decided he will not continue to publish Psypioneer
  

“Shocking methods”
I WAS so shocked by the inhuman treatment meted out to Helen Duncan by the Nottingham police that I feel the matter must not be allowed to rest there.
The police acted illegally, and overstepped the bounds of their duty in manhandling a woman, who is presumably innocent until proved guilty. They also apparently accused her of fraud.
These shocking methods on the part of the police should rouse the whole Spiritualist world to action.
If illegal and brutal methods such as these are to be tolerated there will slowly be no freedom in anything.
Heaven knows what will be the results on Mrs. Duncan’s health, through shock.
—J. Allen, l5 Sunderland Terrace, London, W.2.

• 181 – The “Old Bailey” comes to Stansted Hall: – A spectacular re-enactment of the events of the 1944 trial, which would bring about the imprisonment of Helen Duncan
  
  
• 192 – An extraordinary secret was held in the Spiritualist movement for over three decades: who is Silver Birch’s medium?
  
  
• 197 – 2018 Research – Study dates now available to book
  
  
• 198 – Arthur Findlay College “Christmas Week” – Murder Mystery
  
  
• 201 – Spiritualist Healers of the Past – Leah Doctors When Doctors Fail – Philip Paul
  
  
• 203 – Early Spiritualist Sunday Services – continued… An Ideal Religious Service for Spiritualists and Inquirers – E. W. Wallis, 1895