Leslie Flint
Physical Medium
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The following extract was taken from Leslie Flint's autobiography, Voices
in the Dark.
I am a medium, I have a rare gift known as the independent direct voice. I do
not speak in trance, I need no trumpets or other paraphernalia. The voices of
the dead speak directly to their friends or relatives and are located in a
space a little above my head and slightly to one side of me.They are objective
voices which my sitters can record on their own tape recorders to play later in
the privacy of their own homes. Sometimes those who speak from beyond the grave
achieve only a whisper, hoarse and strain, at other times they speak clearly
and fluently in voices recognizably their own during life.
I do my work by sitting wide awake in total darkness with other people. I know
I have learnt more about life and people and human problems and emotions by
sitting in the dark than I could possibly have learnt in any other way, and
those who have taught me the most are people who, dead to this world, are
living in the next.
The following extract was taken from the Leslie flints website and was
written by Alexander Walker of London's Evening Standard Newspaper.
What is Independent Direct Voice?
The process is activated directly by Spirit communicators, and voices can be
almost identical to people's voices before making transition to the Spirit
World.
Depending on the strength the energy, Spirit may be able to build an
ectoplasmic voice box in mid air. Voices are then heard by all present. This is
different from Spirit speaking through the larynx of an entranced medium.
Who is Leslie Flint?
In his heyday, which was before the war and some 25 years after it, Leslie
Flint was one of Britain's best-known Spiritualists. He possessed the rare
distinction of being a direct voice medium. Flint used no trumpets or
paraphernalia. Though sitting in total darkness, he did his work wide awake,
not in a trance. Those who flocked to him could engage, if conditions were
propitious, in fluent colloquial conversation with others, kith and kin,
strangers and well known, all of them "passed over", who manifested themselves
in space, voice only, around Flint's solid if unseen presence - "a little above
my head and to one side of me".
The mood was not at all solemn, still less frightening. Leslie Flint took his
inexplicable gifts sensibly and objectively, sometimes lightheartedly.
Especially when conversing with his "familiar", a child who had been run down
in a street accident in Camden Town back in the 1910s. This perky and
impertinent boy would engage his master in Cockney chitchat and occasionally
turn his sharp tongue on the guests sitting expectantly a dozen strong around
the big Paddington drawing-room in the 1960s or when Flint's health had
permitted him to tour in earlier decades, packing the churches, halls and
theaters in their hundreds and thousands all over Britain, the continent of
Europe and America.
Born in Poverty
In looks, Flint resembled a first-generation union leader: he was short and
square, wore double-breasted suits and heavy framed spectacles: Ernie Bevin's
brother, maybe. Only his silvery hair and a bass voice with an actor manager's
vibrato in it suggested a theatrical dimension. Like many such prodigies, he
was born in poverty - a Salvation Army home in Hackney - and legitimized soon
afterwards, only to "lose" both parents again when they went their separate
ways: his mother to the West Ends bright lights, his father to the trenches of
the Western Front , neither seen again. A grandmother reared him in St. Albans
on broken biscuits and tuppence worth of jam and let the picture palace take
care of his pre-school afternoons, so that from the start he was happier in the
dark than in the light of day.
The dead became a normal part of his world early and enduringly. Aged eight, he
saw the apparently solid figure of a deceased uncle in his granny's kitchen and
around the same time, grew aware that the voices whispering all around him at
the cinema in that silent era hadn't paid for their admission. He was by turns
a cemetery gardener, and impromptu gravedigger, a semi professional dancer up
to trophy hunting standard, a cinema usher and a barmen before he found his
medium, so to speak, and founded a Spiritualist circle in Sydney Grove, Hendon
with the aim of providing evidence of the continuity of life after physical
death by the demonstration of his psychic gift.
From the time, in the mid-1930's, Flint "took off" and was soon filling the
biggest halls in London and answering mailbags of letters. He willingly
submitted to numerous tests to disprove accusations of ventriloquism or other
deceptions.
Measured Quality
In one he held a measured quantity of coloured water in his mouth throughout a
voluble seance. In another, a throat microphone registered no vibrations from
his larynx while the voices continued in full spate. Later, he allowed anyone
who like to do so to tape record his seances.
The "famous" were no strangers to him: Rudolph Valentino often came sounding a
bit like Charles Boyer, which was correct since he had been taught English by a
French governess; others included Leslie Howard, Ivor Novello, Cosmo Lang [the
late Archbishop of Canterbury] and Queen Victoria - an important calling-card
for the invitation for Flint to take tea at Kensington Palace with the Queen's
daughter Princess Louise.
Unsurprisingly, Flint was a conscientious objector, and served in a non -
combatant regiment for part of the Second World War and was assigned to the
Bomb Disposal Unit. Later, he worked briefly in the coal-mines, though he much
preferred the sedentary darkness of his psychic occupation. Celebrity voices
with a show-business emphasis evoked understandable suspicion - compounded by
Flint's presidency of the Valentino Memorial Guild and the fact that his last
London residence-a gloomy mansion off the Charles Addams drawing board in
Westbourne Terrace road that had been the actor George Arliss's one-time
home-accomodated a private cinema for a dozen of so guests who this time, were
not disturbed by spectral whisperings.
Spirit Voices
Yet the famous where vastly outnumbered by the spirit voices of anonymous,
ordinary people speaking messages of hope, comfort or occasional clairvoyance
to their friends and relatives. I attended several sittings. They were always
held in pitch dark, Flint explaining that he extruded ectoplasm which formed
the "etheric voice-box" for the dead to relay their words and any sudden
intrusion of light would send it recoiling back to him, "like a kick in the
midriff" potentially very dangerous. The company chatted in a desultory way
until, very suddenly and dramatically the room grew cold; then on a good day
for reception, Mickey came through, introducing the "speakers". Though
tolerantly sceptical, I had to concede that those which addressed me, claiming
acquaintance with a recently deceased parent, answered test questions about
childhood, family and pets with fluency and total accuracy. They did not seem
to need to pause for breath.
Extracts taken from Leslie Flint's autobiography
In this compelling autobiography which tells of Leslie's astonishing
independent direct voice gift, a gift which has not only brought him fame and
acclaim, but occasionally heartache and hardship.
Leslie describes his early difficult years and though originally holding the
view that "death was a pretty final event", Leslie subsequently developed his
superb mediumship.
He tells of his friendship with Rudolph Valentino - after the silent screen
star's death - and the evidential way in which it began.
"Voices in the Dark" also contains quite astounding evidence of survival after
death, evidence that simply cannot be explained away. No one who reads this
volume will ever or can ever reasonably doubt that the afterlife exists and is
a reality for all, be they known or unknown.
This is the Foreword to the new edition of "Voices In The Dark"
Leslie Flint came into this world in 1911 and left it in 1994. While here, he
became the finely tuned instrument transmitting countless thousands of messages
from the world he now inhabits.
Leslie Flint
Voices in the dark
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No intellectual, but a plain speaking man, Leslie was born into poverty and
raised amid family disarray. Yet, through dogged determination and single
mindedness, he became one of the most celebrated independent direct voice
mediums of the twentieth century. Through his remarkable gifts, he brought
consolation and hope to the bereaved and understanding and inspiration to the
many as well as shedding light on many strange corners of history.
Fortunately, today the public is, in parts, more open and receptive to the
reality of the spirit world and more understanding of the crucial link between
this world and the next in the endless chain of human life.
With the advent of Mickey, his much loved Cockney alter ego in the world
beyond, there began decades of service as a voice medium. Leslie gave sittings
to those of every rank and degree, every profession, enabling the bereaved to
learn of the great truth of human survival beyond physical death. Leslie's
mediumship was also a channel for famous men and women whose spirit
communications were on an elevated and inspiring plane, often throwing
fascinating new light on the accepted annals of history.
Sceptics attended sittings, but left convinced
Others tested Leslie's genuineness in every way. Truly, he could comment, "I am
the most tested medium this country has ever produced." People traveled from
all over the world to sit with him. Leslie also demonstrated abroad,
particularly in the United States, where he was in great demand.
The final chapter in his life came with his retirement to Brighton, where he
enjoyed years of peace and happiness before he passed on, at the age of
eighty-three.
Leslie acknowledged he "had no education to speak of," yet words of the highest
wisdom and most profound knowledge, often in a variety of languages, emerged at
sittings. He was an upright, simple man, with little financial ambition or
perception, but whose service to mankind was of inestimable worth. I have read
many letters written to him from all over the world, expressing not only
gratitude and friendship, but also love and affection.
In the sixteen years I knew him, from 1978 until his death, as a friend and
professional adviser, I was struck by his simplicity of soul, his sheer
innocence of material matters, and his honesty and integrity in his chosen
career.
As much of the world sinks into a morass of materialism, commercialism and
tribalism, it is now more important than ever that mankind learns to appreciate
the spirit world's reality, of survival of the soul, of the vital importance of
good deeds and good thoughts to prepare the way ahead, and that, whatever our
colour or creed, we are all spiritual beings expressed in physical terms.
Leslie Flint displayed a rare dedication to his calling as a significant avenue
linking two worlds. We salute him as one of the outstanding mediums and
dedicated servants of this disappearing twentieth century.
By Aubrey Rose, CBE