The seminar commenced after dinner on the Friday evening with the 'Welcome and Introductions' followed by Scottish medium Mary Armour's talk entitled 'Raise the Titanic - The Story of W T Stead' (tape number: Cardiff 8.98.1). This talk was a new venture for Mary as her speciality is the history of Helen Duncan, on which she is a leading expert. Anyway, she had certainly done her homework on W T Stead. The play on words of the title derives from the fact that Stead drowned when the Titanic went down in April 1912. Why he chose to make that sea journey is a mystery. As Mary pointed out, he received many warnings from the Spirit World before setting out. We found out from Mary that Stead was a very gifted man with eclectic talents and interests. His psychic abilities included that of automatic writing.

Saturday's schedule commenced early with a 9.15am start to 'The Great Days of Physical Mediumship' by Professor David Fontana (Cardiff 8.98. 2), the period referred to being the first 50 years existence of The Society for Psychical Research. During this period (up to 1932) many eminent men from the worlds of politics, philosophy and science studied seance room phenomena and vouched for the authenticity. It was fascinating to hear the accounts of materialised forms in broad daylight, some of which would even walk out into the garden! David also pointed out that in spite of the claims so often made by sceptics (and recently repeated on TV), fraudulent mediumship was in fact quite rare.
Next came the chance to see an excellent demonstration of trance mediumship by Gordon Smith (Cardiff 8.98.3). A French nun with a lovely sense of humour spoke to us for about an hour. Dominique told us that she and others were put to death for disagreeing with the papacy. Dominique spoke with great wisdom and compassion and encouraged us to look beyond the phenomena, to understand our own spirituality rather than continually seeking proof. She also answered several questions from the audience. Mary Armour was particularly thrilled when at the end of the session the nun withdrew and Mary suddenly found herself speaking to Helen Duncan. Helen provided evidence as to her identity and promised to speak again to Mary concerning Mary's research into her life.

The morning was rounded off with an illustrated talk by Riley Heagerty from the USA on the mediumship of the Bangs sisters (Cardiff 8.98.4). This talk went with a bang as well due to the mirror on the overhead projector suddenly exploding near the end of his talk! The mirror disintegrated into several pieces with nobody standing near it - most strange.
Riley showed us several slides of wonderful portrait paintings produced by physical phenomena in daylight by Lizzie and May Bangs. They lived in the North Eastern area of the USA and their mediumship was at its best about 1910. Over the years the sisters produced thousands of paintings all of which, apart from a few early ones, showed no signs of brush marks. The paint just seemed to precipitate onto the canvas. (There are two portraits in the Portsmouth Temple S.C.) Riley then showed us a beautiful painting of the three Fox Sisters.

Saturday afternoon gave delegates the option to attend a trance workshop with Colin Fry, ask Stewart Alexander questions on physical mediumship (Cardiff 8.98.5) or to receive spiritual healing. Late Saturday afternoon was time for the usual 'Instructions for sitting' by George Cranley. This is a compulsory session for those attending the seances to ensure participants know how to conduct themselves during the seance. The Society takes its responsibility of ensuring the mediums' safety very seriously and sitters must behave to a strict code of conduct.
That evening saw the first seance of the seminar with the mediumship of Stewart Alexander (Cardiff 8.98.6). Within a few minutes of starting, White Feather greeted us, quickly followed by regular communicator Christopher who spoke to several sitters. He also acted as go-between to give detailed evidence to medium Brenda Sawyer from her father. Next came Walter Stinson who this time selected a lady called Diana to experience his 'matter through matter' experiment. This involves momentarily dematerialising a plastic strap to release Stewart's arm and then a second time to re-secure the arm. Diana was able to verify that his arm had been released and feel the strap still dangling on the arm of the chair. More detailed descriptions of this experiment have appeared in previous reports such as those in the NAS Newsletters of November 1996 and 1997.

Freda Johnson came next and spoke of how difficult the conditions were compared with Stewart's home circle (no doubt due to the problem of harmonising the energies of the nearly fifty sitters present). She said that it didn't matter how much love was sent out it was still difficult. Freda also relayed evidential messages to two sitters and encouraged everyone to speak to others to advance the great work being done to draw the two worlds together.
It was then Christopher's time to return and conduct the trumpet phenomena. At times two trumpets were in the air together with a small handbell. When asked, he confirmed that they were using three ectoplasmic rods to operate the three items simultaneously. The trumpets travelled around the room and reached as far as the second row. One trumpet also displayed a burst of fast manoeuvring for a few seconds. I experienced, for the first time, one of the trumpets touching me. It very gently came to rest on the top of my glasses before moving off again! Christopher also used one of the rods to noisily bang a drumstick on the glass top of a small table in the centre of the circle.
At this stage Stewart woke up and said that he could hear a voice near his left ear. After a while the voice (by independent direct voice) became louder and Stewart went back into deep trance. Those nearby could hear 'we are trying very hard' and '.....hope to perfect this method of mediumship'.

The table previously mentioned played a part in the next experiment when Walter requested a lady by the name of Blanche to sit next to the table. She and others nearby were able to see a hand materialise on the glass table top which was illuminated from below with a dull red light for this experiment. They could discern four fingers slowly forming. From where I was sitting in the second row only the general shape of a hand was discernible due to the low light level (like many older people my eyesight is not so good in low light conditions). Blanche was then asked to put her hand down on the table top. She saw and felt her hand being stroked and finally patted by the materialised hand which Walter said was his hand. After a lady received a short message from her mother and a relative called Jack, the final communication came from Noah Zerdin via Walter who sent his best wishes to us all. So the Society's namesake is still keeping an interest in what is going on.

Another 9.15am start on Sunday produced some sleepy heads by those who had stayed up to gone 3am in the bar! However, the early start was well worth it to hear 'A Fresh Look at the Mediumship of Jack Webber' by David E. Edwards (Cardiff 8.98.7). David gave us a wealth of interesting detail about Jack and his background. For instance, Jack married into a family of mediums and it was not unknown in the home circle to have two mediums in trance simultaneously. Furthermore, guides had been known to converse to one another in a foreign language! David projected several photos showing ectoplasm taken from Harry Edwards' book The Mediumship of Jack Webber. Harry, by the way, was Jack's manager after Jack's father reluctantly relinquished the job in the early days of Jack's mediumship due to ill health.
The final event of the seminar in the later part of the morning was the seance with Colin Fry (Cardiff 8.98.8). The seance started with the usual singing and within a few minutes Frances (Judy Garland) joined in, singing incredibly loud. Next came Charlie who normally portrays himself as a young cockney boy. Charlie was his usual cheeky self bringing much laughter to the sitters - no doubt in order to keep the atmosphere right for phenomena. He spoke to many of those present and several felt his touch or had their hand held by him. Next came the sound of a materialised form shuffling around followed by short bursts of powerful singing by an unknown lady. She sang excerpts from popular opera pieces but would not say who she was.
Next Magnus spoke to us and tried to place a contact from a young man called Graham who passed through an accident in a Morris Minor at Chipping Norton (Oxon) in 1969. Graham said he wanted to send his regards to his mother and three sisters. This message could not be placed but someone reading this may know what it is all about. Well-known medium Al Cattanach received the next message which contained much detailed information from her sister in spirit. This was followed by an exceedingly frank conversation between Al and Ivor Davies who came through in a loud whisper with his Welsh accent clearly heard. Although Ivor passed on a few years ago, he still showed considerable awareness of present day conditions in his old church in Brighton. He spoke in his usual forthright way displaying a lively ongoing interest in the church.

Our old friend, the slightly outrageous female impersonator called Dolly, came through next and chattered to several present. He established a link from a Dorothy to a David in the seance room. Dorothy then was able to communicate directly and gave much family detail which the recipient will have to verify as most of the facts conveyed were unknown to him. If he can verify this information as correct what excellent proof this will be. Of the other contacts made, the most evidential was perhaps that by Mona Van der Watt who held George Cranley's hand whilst communicating. George said the contact was extremely evidential and that her hand was just as he remembered it to be 'much more slender than the regular male communicators or, for that matter, to that of the medium's hand.
The last communication was for our American friend Riley Heagerty. We heard the spirit form shuffling up to Riley and he felt his hand being held by a loved one. Like the communication received by George, the subject matter was of a personal nature and not reported here. The seance was brought to a close by regular communicator Daphne who stressed the point that it is now time for others to come forward and play their part in demonstrating physical mediumship to members of the Society. Other spirit friends have also expressed this point recently as well. So looking back over the seminar, another very successful well attended event with stimulating lectures and seances that we hope will further encourage members to strive harder to pursue their own circle work with renewed vigour. As regards the seances, things did not go quite as well as usual with energy levels fluctuating at times. I and others sensed that our friends in spirit were having problems with harmonising the energies provided by the sitters. We must remember that it is not just a question of harmonising on a emotional or friendship level. It is also a question of harmonising and balancing the psychic energies that the sitters all contribute to the seance. Sitters often do not realise how much their energies influence the seances.
Tapes of seminar activities are available to NAS members where a reference number has been shown in the text.

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