In my essay for the Bigelow contest of 2021, I presented a simulated present-day court trial in which The Survival School contends that consciousness survives death in a greater reality, while arguing that the evidence for such survival was overwhelming before 1920. I offered the testimony of 11 pre-1920 scholars and scientists, including three chemists, two physicists, a biologist, a judge, a lawyer a theologian, a philosopher, and a physician. Those interested in reading an abridged transcript of the trial can read it here.
Because the trial judge (contest rules, 25,000 words) placed a limit on the trial, the attorney for The Survival School was unable to call a number of other witnesses to the stand, including Professor James Hyslop, Dr. Gustave Geley, Vice-Admiral William Usborne Moore, and Professor Cesare Lombroso. All of their depositions were taken before the trial and summarized at this blog (Hyslop, December 6, 2021, Geley, September 11, 2023, Moore, December 16, 2024, and Lombroso, April 7, 2025).
Also on the potential witness list for the plaintiff was Dr. John S. King, a Toronto, Canada physician and founder of the Canada Society for Psychical Research. Had the trial judge not imposed a time limit, he would have been the 16th witness for the plaintiff.
A graduate of Victoria College, King qualified as a physician in 1876 and founded the Canadian SPR in 1908. It was merged into the American SPR in 1916. He detailed his psychical research in a 1920 book, Dawn of the Awakened Mind, describing much in the way of veridical physical mediumship.
In 1894, King had four sittings with Effie Moss, a materialization medium, in London, Ontario. After inspecting the cabinet and room and ruling out any kind of trap door or secret entry passage, King took the seat second from the cabinet. A lamp burning on the western wall of the room permitted adequate light to detect movement within the circle of a dozen men and women and three children.
“A few apparently human forms appeared, one at a time at the opening of the curtains, and were presently recognized by one or another of the sitters, as purporting to be that of near relatives or friends,” King reported. One of the forms was that of a young girl who came out to talk with one of the three children sitting in the group. King was permitted to examine the girl from the cabinet, feeling her hair and her head. “This apparition, materialized form, or actual human girl, whichever she was, claimed to be the spirit of an Indian girl. She next permitted me to feel her feet, which were encased in a pair of moccasins; and while I was observing her stature, features, eyes, and mouth, she chatted pleasantly, and gave all present an evidence of her agility, by running and jumping upon the floor, finishing by asking me if I thought the medium could make herself up like a little Indian girl, with small hands and feet like those I felt. I had to admit my disbelief in the possibility of the large and heavy medium diminishing her size and weight in that manner, or to such a degree. The form disappeared by way of the cabinet.”
When another child emerged from the cabinet, the medium also emerged and stood side by side with the materialized form. After this child disappeared in the cabinet a man known to other sitters as a former editor of a London, Ontario newspaper appeared and claimed fraternal brotherhood with King, designating King’s status in the fraternity. King was invited to enter the cabinet with him. “…and to my astonishment he did certainly prove himself a brother. I may add that while this testing and proving was in process in the cabinet with curtains closed, I could see the medium seated on the chair, her eyes closed, and apparently in a deep trance state as was her usual condition during a séance. The form, which proved itself to be a brother, was surrounded by a certain degree of illumination, which made the cabinet as well as the form of the medium distinctly visible to me.”
Materialization dissolved
As King grasped his hand, the form melted away, dissolving as white or grayish smoke or vapor into the carpet. Then a deceased minister, known to some of the sitters, appeared and addressed those present in the manner familiar to those who had listened to his pulpit utterances. The minister admitted that had he known when alive in the flesh what he now knew, he would have been more effective as a preacher. King was allowed to shake hands with him and talk with him briefly before he disappeared into the cabinet.
A former actress then materialized and sang for the group. King also held her hand and saw her features distinctly before she disappeared into the cabinet. Then King witnessed an actual materialization. “I noticed a light upon the carpet, phosphorescent in appearance, about the size of a 25-cent piece or English shilling, which soon became more extensive, and apparently rose as a vapor from which evolved curling flame-like white and purple light, until suddenly it took on tangible form, and developed what all the sitters agreed upon as being beyond doubt a beautiful young woman, clad in draperies of creamy white, bearing supported or suspended above her head a purple ball of light, which, however, seemed physically separate from any connection with the head; and which illumined the entire room and simultaneously the air was impregnated with odor of a most delicate and agreeable perfume, resembling nothing I had ever inhaled.”
King went on to explain that this materialization differed from the others in that they had a substantial, every-day, solid, life-like physical body and raiment, while this materialization appeared angelic. “She took my hand as if for salutation, held it firmly as if for support, for perhaps half a minute, and apparently until fully materialized, and explained that she had the power to appropriate material from the medium, and from my own and other sitters’ composition, to form a body to occupy, and by aid of other spirits likewise formed the vestures, and draperies worn, of thought creation from particles of matter in textures in the room, and also from the air.” She, too, dissolved into mist or white smoke and seemingly was absorbed into the carpet before King’s eyes.
King was then called to the cabinet. “I beheld the form and features, the perfect physical resemblance, and physiognomy of my own mother, who passed out of the physical life, as the result of an accident in my own and her own home, some nine years previously,” he related. “So natural, so human and life-like was the apparition that it formed a perfect duplicate of my mother – as perfect a view as her mirrored reflection in life, while it possessed tangibility, solidity, weight, moved the eyes as if looking into mine, grasped my hand as really as ever it was grasped, and used the mouth to speak and I heard her breathe.” King’s mother spoke in her characteristic manner and told him that his father was there with her but was still too weak from having recently passed out of the body to manifest himself. King was reasonably certain that no one there knew that his father had died about two months earlier. King also noted a brown spot on the white of the globe of the left eye and a cluster of silvery hair hanging over the left temple to the left ear, both characteristic of his mother. King concluded that there could be no stronger evidential support of the spiritual hypothesis than what he had just witnessed.
Direct Voice
King had his first sitting with Etta Wriedt, referred to by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as the best direct-voice medium in the world, 44 days after the death of his wife, May, during 1911. He was immediately greeted by the voice of Dr. Sharp, Mrs. Wriedt’s primary spirit control. “He pointed out that I could not do much for the departed spirit, but that it could do much for me; that my worrying and fretting, or sorrowing, would only tend to hinder or delay her progress or advancement,” King recorded. “He also advised me to take care of myself, told me that Hypatia, my spirit guide, was with her (May) and would speak with me.”
A deceased physician communicated briefly and then King’s nephew, Jesse, spoke, offering some very evidential information while also telling King that it might be too early for “Auntie May” to speak clearly or distinctly. Jesse was followed by Hypatia, who said that she had brought May. “Johnnie! Oh Johnnie! My dear Johnnie! It is I. It’s May! It’s your ‘Babe!’ I am not dead, I am alive. I told you I would come if I could, and I am here.” King pointed out that the names “Johnnie” and “Babe” were their own private pet names and known to no one else.
May mentioned that she could not have succeeded in communicating without the help of Hypatia and Jesse. She spoke with King for some 15 minutes about personal matters, including some jewelry and personal belonging of hers that King had put in a safety deposit box. King noted that he had placed the items in the safety deposit box two days earlier and considered this strong evidence. There was specific reference to one item and to specific relatives and friends. May asked that her thanks be given to one particular friend for assisting in preparing her body for burial, another very evidential item which King was certain the medium could not have known. “She talked as naturally about these things as she ever conversed with me in her home life, and she was always known as a shrewd business woman,” King wrote. Before ending the conversation, May told her husband that she would materialize for him in Toledo.
The following day, King again sat with Mrs. Wriedt, and May communicated again. As a test, King asked his wife to tell Mrs. Wriedt what she gave him for Christmas last. The voice coming through the trumpet said, “I had a grip made for the Doctor’s instruments, and had his initials, J.S.K., printed in gold letters on the outside; and a Christmas card with printed greetings and written on by myself, which card I placed on the inside of the grip. He found it on the chair at breakfast time.” King recorded that this was “absolutely correct.” King also heard from his old-time friend, MacRoberts at that sitting.
King then left Mrs. Wriedt’s home in Detroit, Michigan and went to Toledo, Ohio that same day to sit with Joseph B. Jonson later in the evening. At Jonson’s, King witnessed 19 separate manifestations, including May, his brother, and his daughter.
Two days later, King returned for two more sittings with Mrs. Wriedt, the first with a group and the second a private sitting. Again, May communicated and spoke in detail about private matters. But King was in for a big surprise this time as Martha, his first wife, who had died 37 years earlier, communicated.
In concluding his report on this series of séances with Wriedt and Jonson, King, who had studied hypnotism, ruled that out as a possibility and then asked if there is any trickster clever enough to duplicate the natural voice, facial expressions, and mannerisms of close friends and family relatives while also obtaining intimate personal knowledge. He felt certain he had not been deceived.
Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I. and No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife. His latest book Consciousness Beyond Death: New and Old Light on Near-Death Experiences is published by White Crow books.
Next blog post: March 23
What an astonishing report, Michael, that I had not read previously. And what a shame that material of this quality could not be included in the 25,000 word allowance you had available to provide evidence of survival. Thanks a lot. It must have been a difficult decision to make to leave this out.
Keith, thanks for the comment. In retrospect, I should have included it, but it would have been difficult to leave one of the original 11 out of it. They were all better known researchers.
Hi Michael
I have been familiar with DD Home since the 70’s . Re reading your abridged version of his time with Crookes I still find the results astonishing. A few years ago somebody wrote a new book on Home that purported to explain how he managed to achieve such feats by trickery including the occasion when he left the hotel room through the window in the presence of Lord Adair ! I didn’t bother with that one !
Hi Michael,i m always astonished with physical and direct voice mediumship.As an Asian whose culture full of supernatural stories but rarely i heard about physical or voice medium ship…yes mediumship is very common here,but mostly mental or channelling.Ppl always go to medium to fix their worldly problem but not to learn about after death realm,this is the biggest flaw in Asian culture.
For the past almost 20 years i been doing research on After Death topic but The Bigelow Contest (which u won prizes with Jeffrey Mislove and others) was the biggest thing for me because authentic genuine researchers were grouped up for the first time and their research paper strictly checked and verified.Thank you sir,pls update me with your latest research time to time.Thank you.
what’s depressing about this, of course, is not only that physical mediumship of this quality is almost unheard today, but also that the anti-spiritual “dumbing-down” of our consumerist Western cultures means that there is little or no encouragement or support for the development of mediumship generally, and few would know about it even if if did exist.
One interesting aside is whether or not the “Hypatia” who was allegedly Dr King’s spirit guide is the same Hypatia (AD 370-415), a Pagan Neo-Platonist philosopher of Alexandria, Egypt, who was brutally murdered by misogynist Orthodox Christian monks in Alexandria in AD 415. If so, then it seems she is alive and well in some afterlife dimension, because more than one medium claims to have brought her forward. This also raises questions about reincarnation, because if Hypatia has kept her ancient identity in the spirit world for more than 1,500 years, then the question arises as to why she has not reincarnated into a different identity. Frankly I’m no fan of reincarnation as a concept, so it is heartening to see somebody in spirit who has kept her own unique identity for more than 1,500 years.
Rex,
Reincarnation appears to be one of these topics debated in the afterlife as much as here. Some communications, for example, the Padgett messages, particularly the communication attributed to Jesus, deny that a soul will ever inhabit a physical body twice, and people such as children who report past-life memories may well be reporting past lives, just not theirs. It’s an open question.
As you probably know, they also report not experiencing time as we do. Perhaps this is what is meant by Psalm 90:4:
“For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.”
So whether it’s 1,500 years or 15 minutes as we experience time might ultimately be a moot point.
If NDErs almost universally don’t want to come back here, often put up a fight when told they must return, why would people still in this vale of tears look forward to reincarnating? The irony is that the source of the idea of reincarnation, Eastern religion, viewed it as a huge negative, a great wheel of futility going round and round, and the goal in life was to find a way to stop reincarnating, to finally move on. This is a far cry from New Age cafeteria-style spirituality, where in one’s first life you sample this, in one’s second life you work on that, in one’s third life you try something new and different, etc., each go-round being precisely planned out ahead of time so as to increase your spiritual experience and thereby ramp up your vibration. Am I alone in hoping that this New Age take on reincarnation is as wrong as it is unappealing, at least to me?