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A Review of Psychical Research - Part Seven. Researchers from the Past. Alfred Rayner, Reginald Lester
Reginald Lester was a journalist and serviceman who was encouraged by :Lord Dowding to look into psychical research, after the death of his wife on Boxing Day, 1948. She had been a professor of piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where at the turn of the century my great aunt Ruth Weatherhead obtained her dipoma in piano performance. . My music teacher and choir master Derek Gaye at Dean Close School went on to teach at Bradfield College before becoming Registrar of the Academy a few years later, whereas after playing in the Band and Orchestra of the Royal Artillery (which was Mr. Gaye’s regiment), I graduated at the Royal College of Music with Thea King. The principal there at that time was the conductor Sir Adrian Boult. For the next decade or two both he, Sir Thomas Beecham and Sir Malcolm Sargent continued to be active on the London concert scene. I mention this because later some of these musicians were to return from the other side to speak through Leslie Flint’s mediumship, while Rosemary Brown was beginning to receive compositions from the classical composers. London between the 1940s and the 1970s was very active spiritually, although not much was made public at that time beyond Spiritualist circles and organizations. Since the 1970s however, mediums have been beginning to catch the public’s attention through radio and television coverage and now there is a renewed interest in both psychical research and the work of mediums. As part of this movement, my writing has the object of showing that the present-day work has roots in the past, and we can still learn much from the records of earlier times. They should not be neglected, and certainly not forgotten. We need the perspective history provides.
Reginald Lester visited many mediums in and around London in the 1940s and 1950s, and attended home circles and formed one himself, and in 1953 became a founder member of the Churches' Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies.
His wife Marjorie came through on many occasions, giving much evidential information. Then those on the other side were concerned that his psychical research should take on a more scientific and philosophical approach, now that the personal contact had been made with his loved ones. This is evident in the following transcript of a sitting he had with Alfred Rayner, a trance medium visiting from Australia.
London, England. October 1950.
Medium: Alfred Rayner.
Sitter: Reginald Lester, accompanied by a stenographer to record what was said.
The medium goes into trance, and his control, Paddy greets Reginald, talking in a deep Irish brogue. He then withdraws to allow an entirely different individual to speak, a scientist who calls himself Ronald.
RONALD - My name is Ronald. I am very happy to come to speak to you.
REGINALD LESTER - It’s very good of you to come.
RONALD - As you probably know, there are many difficulties in communicating from our side. There are many things which even we on our side cannot fathom, just as you cannot on your side. You, have more than one body. When you leave the physical body behind you function in an etheric body, which vibrates to colour. Colour enters into everything. It is really your thoughts that colour your etheric body. The thoughts you have here on earth are reflected in your etheric body. These colour vibrations are really the main link between communications with those on earth and ourselves. If you wish to communicate with those on earth you cannot always do it unless there is a colour which tunes in with a corresponding ray here You are trying for the direct voice in your own Circle?
REGINALD LESTER - Yes
RONALD - In your little circle you have many types and mentalities, so that is why you are getting the colours and power brought into the right perspective there. The colours are so varied and complicated as to bring many rays there. When we return from our side to talk to you, we have to use so many cells of the brain. But we are limited to using only one hundred for this purpose. If only you had mediums on your earth plane who had university educations, then how vast would the scope of your knowledge be!
LESTER - Why?
RONALD You will have noticed that most of your mediums have not advanced mentally. We are limited to the knowledge we can transmit through them. There is in your little Circle the intellectual power needed. From the colours I can see, you should get amazing results. There are various types of mind in your circle, who are wanting knowledge – and not only wanting knowledge, but also who are developing their own intellectuality. Colour plays such a big part in communications. The average spirit over here is not able to see you as you are, you know.
LESTER - Do you not see our physical bodies, then?
RONALD - Not always. To do that we have to go to school again. We have to learn what each colour represents. That enables us to get closer to the person we wish to contact, and draw physical magnetism from each person. By so doing we can then see that body physically.
LESTER - Do I understand that you were a scientist when on earth ?
RONALD - In some things, yes. But I had a terrific shock when my wife passed over giving birth to my daughter, and I did not therefore develop as much as I should have done otherwise. I still study here. At present, in your world, you are living in a very material age. Every rate of vibration is used only according to the rate of humanity, therefore you find the higher side has not been advanced for the past fifty years.
LESTER - In what way do you mean ?
RONALD - In art and the creative things. The creators have been too limited.
LESTER - Is there a higher intelligence than ours in other planets ?
RONALD - Definitely, yes. Great life. You will find that later on there will be intercommunication between the planetary systems.
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