The Leslie F​lint​ Tr​ust

Flint explains how we can all develop our own psychic faculties and talks about the many misconceptions people have about Spiritualism and mediumship. Finally, we hear Flint's own philosophy about the basic truths of religion and the reality of the life to come...

Note: This enhanced recording was made over 50 years ago, and is not to modern standards.

Read the full transcript below as you listen to the recording...

[Radio jingle plays]

Announcer:

In El Paso, KD1380, sounds like the 70s. KTSM radio.

[1970s music clip plays]

[Pause]

[Fast orchestral music plays]

Announcer:

This portion of 'Lets Talk' is tape recorded, and the tape is played back on KTSM FM at 9.00 at night...but we are on the air live right now on KTSM Radio, and our guest is a world-renowned Spiritualist. He is from London and his name is Mr Leslie Flint.

...and Mr Flint, some time ago I received, in advance of your coming here, some promotion material talking about some of the things that have happened to you and mainly they are séances, and you’ve had some unusual contacts with people from the beyond. This, of course, is the promotion man’s dream. You talked to John Barrymore after death, is that right?

Flint:

We have spoken not only to Barrymore, but to innumerable souls who have passed over, some of them even as far back as 200 years. Of course, in cases such as people who have passed over so long, we cannot obviously confirm the identity of the individual. But whereas with a person, shall we say, like John Barrymore or someone like Ellen Terry the famous Victorian actress or people even more closely linked or closely connected with our time, we have been able not only to make recordings of these voices...and often the voices are full of the personality of the individual and the characteristics and idiosyncrasies of their manner of speech, we have tape recorded these over a period of about eighteen years under test conditions...we have taken, where possible, these recordings to play to people who were connected or related in some way with the individual who was communicating and endeavour to build up a case record, so that we could get absolute 100% confirmation that these were genuinely the people contacting us.

Of course, there are instances where it is quite impossible to obtain sufficient proof or evidence. But, where evidence is possible, by playing back the recordings to relations or friends, waiting for their report and their opinion, we have built up an extraordinary case which I believe is absolutely unique in the history of psychical research. So much so, that it has attracted so much public attention, been publicised, published, in national newspapers in the English-speaking world and even now, just recently, I had a paper from Paris in which it was reported, some of the séances.

This is such a tremendous and such an exciting thing, because over the years of course obviously, there have been many mediums who produce remarkable evidence of survival of a personal nature, to many individuals. But with the coming of the tape recorder we can recapture identically, absolutely, for permanent record all these séances, all these voices and of course you do have a most remarkable collection. I mean over eighteen years, I can’t remember exactly how many séances we’ve given off-hand or how many voices we have recaptured, but the evidence is so staggering that only a person who is tremendously biased and narrow-minded could refute it.

This has really been accepted by people of intelligence and high standing and whose opinions are valid and acceptable to the modern world, to the thinking world.

Announcer:

Now let’s set the scene; I assume you headquarter in London?

Flint:

Yes.

Announcer:

Would you do this in a church, or in someone’s living room, uh...

Flint:

This is interesting, in as much, that you should ask me that, because over this long period of time, for instance when I have been on vacation...living in London, one seeks the sun when one has a vacation, so we usually go to Spain or Majorca where we are assured of good weather. Well, I have often been on vacations with friends who are like myself, interested in psychical research, and we suddenly decide 'oh, well let’s have a séance tonight to see if we get anything through'. Well, with the difficulty of blocking out the light, to the extent to make it possible to obtain certain results that we seek, we just have to sit under any conditions that we could possibly manage, and this has meant sometimes we've even had to sit in the bathroom and I’ve sat on the toilet seat.

Announcer:

[Laughter]

Flint:

And ah, [Laughing] but we still...

Announcer:

Who did you talk to then might I ask?

Flint:

Ah, no one, uh...well you might think you would get low entities, but I can assure you that some of them are extremely and remarkably high intelligences, far removed from the toilet and the lavatory. But seriously, joking apart, we have under the most adverse conditions...you see, what I'd like to point out; it isn’t necessary for a medium at any time, if he is a genuine medium, to have a set place or a set séance room. This is the tragedy of course of Spiritualism. I don’t have to tell you that, over the years, there have been many who have been exposed as being fraudulent mediums. Unfortunately, this is the bugbear of Spiritualism, and there are these unfortunate creatures who batten on the bereaved, and I don’t know that there is much point in discussing that.

But the point is, that I approach this and always have, on a sound, solid basis, if you like; almost a material one. In as much, that I see that to get this over, to give conviction to the world, one has got to do this in, as far as it is humanly possible, under the right conditions with scientifically minded people.

Announcer:

Let’s take a typical situation now. You’re established that you will have a séance, let us say the setting is London. What would you consider the right sized group?

Flint:

Oh well, I don’t really think this is important. Can I explain this to you?

Announcer:

Yes.

Flint:

That I can sit with one person, or I can sit with a group of seven or eight or ten or twelve. And if they were all sympathetically inclined - this doesn’t mean to say that have by their very nature got to be convinced. In fact, some of the greatest critics have sat with me over the years. But also, quite apart from these smaller groups or individual sittings, in the past I have given séances to as many as two thousand people at a time; the Scala Theatre in London and the Kingsway Hall in London, which seats roughly two thousand people. I have given public demonstrations in practically all the main town halls throughout England. You see, the size of the audience is not so important, providing the atmosphere they create is at least reasonably receptive.

Criticism doesn’t worry me in the slightest. I don’t expect that a person who attends a séance for the first time, who knows little or nothing about it, will necessarily, obviously, be ready to receive. In fact, I think it's quite true to say, that a person can receive at their first séance with a medium an extraordinary communication, but that doesn’t necessarily mean to say they are going to be convinced of survival.

This is something that you must build up, and you may go to many mediums and build up a case. You see, to my way of thinking, this is something that you have to do intelligently. You have to be reasonable about it. You have to be analytical and critical, and I think that any medium who is worthy of his salt* doesn’t mind criticism. He doesn’t mind a person being very materialistic in their approach.

I have given sittings for people who, from the outset, one would have said that their very manner in which they approach the subject, and approach the medium as a human being, possibly even thinking that he is obviously going to be fraudulent - they approach the medium in the wrong spirit one might say. But quite often, in spite of all that, they may receive, I don’t say they always do, but they may receive the most remarkable personal communication.

Announcer:

Now, when we sit down together, I say we; I mean the séance is gathered - all join hands I assume?

Flint:

No, no, no, no. This is another thing you see, people, the general public, the man in the street, who knows little or nothing about psychical research or Spiritualism as it’s generally termed, uh, assumes, uh, that, uh, we call up the dead - which is impossible anyway, no-one can do that - and that we all hold hands and we all go into some sort of trance, and we sing hymns, and we, sort of, do the most strange and peculiar things. All this, of course, is derived chiefly from movies where they see these particularly peculiar and ridiculous so-called séances, which is nothing like the original thing.

But of course, there are, let us face it, there are mediums who do extraordinary things and rather stupid things and, in consequence, discredit themselves and discredit the movement. But, from my point of view, I can only speak for myself, when I sit at a séance I treat the whole thing normally, naturally and I hope intelligently. We don’t hold hands. We just sit there, I don’t go into any trances, I'm quite normal. I converse, often when the voices come through and speak to them, ask questions if necessary. If perhaps some of the sitters themselves are rather, shall we say, are holding back or a little nervous or a little unsure of themselves or they’re not quite 'au fait' with the whole subject - then, if I can help, I might ask a question and say 'well, can you explain this' or 'can you tell us this' or 'can you give us more information' and so on. In other words, I treat it very intelligently and reasonably.

Announcer:

How about voices of the living? How about someone from great distance participating in this?

Flint:

Oh well, this is, this, um, this raises a tremendously interesting issue which will take hours to discuss, um, it has been known at a séance for a person, who is not even dead, to communicate. And this has happened, and we have checked up, and we have found that this person, for instance, has been seriously ill or been in a coma or been asleep or even near to death’s door. And they have obviously been released from their body; their psychic or spiritual body is away from their physical body, and they are in a peculiar sense of neither being in the body or out of it. They're sort of in a weird, sort of, state where they can mentally communicate. Because all communication obviously is mind over matter; communication or thought force demonstrating itself and making itself heard and this can happen. But it’s a very rare thing.

Announcer:

There are famous people that believed in Spiritualism. I think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Houdini. Have you communicated with either these who have expressed...?

Flint:

Well, Houdini...

Announcer:

...when they lived, that they wanted to come back and communicate?

Flint:

...um, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has been back many, many times to his sons, uh, many times through various mediums. Houdini by the way, you know, tried to expose Spiritualism during his lifetime. In fact, he was a great opponent of Spiritualism. He tried to copy and demonstrates certain psychic faculties or imitation of them, on stage I understand. I...know little about Houdini. But I do know that he was very much averse to the subject. But I understand, since his death, he did communicate with his wife and came through with a test, some test questions which he’d arranged before death with his wife and got the correct answers. But this I only know by having read, and I don’t know of any...

Announcer:

I want to ask another question sir, and that is, what form...for example, the communication with John Barrymore, what was said? What did Mr Barrymore say?

Flint:

Well, now you're asking to repeat something that’s been said a long time ago which, admittedly, is on tape and is one of thousands of communications and, uh...What a pity if I’d realised I could have brought a tape along, and you could have played, say, a few minutes of the voices of some of these souls. But, unfortunately, it is rather asking too much of me to remember, identically, what was said by a certain person, you know, at such short notice.

Announcer:

Well, let us do this, let me ask you this; when you sit together and you organise a séance and you are the medium, is that right?

Flint:

Mmm, yes...

Announcer:

Do you know who is going to visit?

Flint:

Oh no. No, this is something which of course is often...

Announcer:

You don’t ask for a certain person?

Flint:

No, in fact, I would be the last person...in fact, I would be furious, quite frankly if a person attended a séance with me and said I want to talk to John Barrymore or I want to talk to Rudolph Valentino or I wanted to talk with my husband. I would say, 'well of course, this is the wrong approach altogether'. No-one can command or demand who shall come through. I mean, one could have a séance and one may hope within one’s self, if one, for instance, is a widow or one perhaps has lost one’s son, that one’s husband or son may be able to communicate. And, obviously, the average person attending a séance with a medium is naturally anxious if it is possible to communicate with that particular person and they may have that person very much in mind, but it’s impossible to ask that a certain person should come. This is one of the big fallacies that people have about Spiritualism that isn’t so. It’s not possible.

Announcer:

Do they...let me...let us say that the people seated in your group at a particular moment or are all knowledgeable in the English language, but not knowledgeable in any foreign tongue.

Flint:

Uh-huh...

Announcer:

Will the guest always be conversant - I'm talking about the voice from the other side...

Flint:

Yes, I know what you mean.

Announcer:

Will there always be an individual who is conversant in English or will they hear a strange language?

Flint:

No. Can I explain this? That, um, I know no other language, bar English, nothing at all. I know a few odd words in Spanish obviously, or Italian or French but, um, I can’t speak any other language. Now in the early part of the year before I left England to come over here, I had an Egyptian, well actually three Egyptians; a husband, his wife and I don’t know who the other one was, but some relation, and we had a séance. Actually, there were certain other people present, but these particular people had never been to England before, and they had contacted me through a psychical research society and had a sitting with me.

I knew nothing personally about them or their affairs and during the session their son came through who had been blown up by, I don’t know if it was a landmine or what, but anyway he had been blown up and killed during this recent trouble with, uh, in Egypt and, um, Israel. And the boy came through and spoke in Egyptian. Now I can’t speak Egyptian.

Announcer:

Uh-huh...

Flint:

Well I’m not saying this is a common thing. It does happen and sometimes we’ll have two voices speaking together, and we've even had as many as three. But sometimes we’ve had two voices holding a conversation and you can hear them talking to each other, sometimes it's in the distance and sometimes we've have people come through who sing.

Announcer:

Now in the history of the planet, there have been several billion people.

Flint:

Oh, yes.

Announcer:

And if you assume that one soul can communicate then all souls could communicate.

Flint:

Agreed, of course.

Announcer:

So, you have literally a source file of billions of voices out there. What dictates, what causes, what quality of the séance, what power of the séance pulls through one voice? Is it a common intensive thought on the part of those in attendance?

Flint:

Well, I think this is one of the questions which quite frankly if one asks the medium, it is almost impossible to answer. I think it is true to say, that if you have a group of say twelve people sitting with you, they have obviously got their own loved ones; their husband or their father or their son or their daughter, who they're most naturally anxious to communicate with. And therefore they are thinking about those particular individuals and they are therefore most likely, I don’t say they necessarily will come, but they're most likely to come through.

But then again, every medium has what are termed 'guides' or people, who have a special work to do associating with that medium, who control the conditions as best they may and, sort of, allow certain people through that they feel will be of benefit or of help or a comfort - or give some information or give some spiritual upliftment to the people that are sitting.

In other words, there are souls on the other side whose task it is to organise, as best they can, the proceedings.

Announcer:

Does...do all individuals have the capacity to be a medium?

Flint:

I would say the answer to that is yes. Because if you accept the fact that we are spiritual beings here and now; in this material body of ours, in this material world, in embryol - which we are; if we accept the fact that we have a physical body and we have physical abilities, physical talents, gifts which we can develop and utilise and make good with; so we also have, obviously, psychic or spiritual faculties which are dormant within us, which are suppressed, unfortunately, in this material world, almost from childhood.

We are taught how to adapt ourselves to material things and material life; we are sent to college or school to learn certain material things which are essential for our material welfare. We are even taught to like the friends of our relations or our relations, and we are taught even to dislike certain people because our particular relations don’t like them and so on. In other words, we are taught materially in a way, in a sense, but we are not taught psychically and we are not taught spiritually and if we, as I’m sure we have, we have got this spiritual physical, this spiritual body, uh, dormant within us, then we should be able to develop these spiritual gifts and faculties and become psychically and spiritually attuned into these things which are there all around us.

Announcer:

Well, how about your own case, uh, was this a development of your own faculties or was there a revelation to you at some point in time?

Flint:

No, well as a child and I think this applies to many, many children. As a child, I was extremely sensitive, extremely psychic. I would see things and experience things which I thought were common to everybody and it was only after repeating, uh, one particular incident that happened to me; to my grandmother actually, who brought me up as a child. As I came in from school, I was about the age of nine, and as I went into the room where she was sitting I saw a woman standing beside my grandmother, and I could hear the conversation of this woman’s voice.

And as I got into the room the woman disappeared. My grandmother was just sitting in her chair as she normally did and I said, ‘well what’s happened to the lady?’ And she said, ‘what lady?’ I said, ‘the lady that was standing there talking to you.’ She said, ‘there wasn’t any lady,’ I said ‘there was a lady.’ And I described her and I gave the name that I heard mention and she said ‘Oh you mustn’t talk like that. You’re imagining things,’ you see. Well it wasn’t until many years later, in discussion with my mother actually, talking about this incident ‘oh’ she said ‘well that woman that you saw and the name that you got was your grandmother’s sister who died before you were born,’ you see.

Now this, I believe and I maintain, is perfectly true, not of myself, but of innumerable children. And animals, of course, have this instinctively. I mean you've only got to watch the animal, a pet animal, and you’ll see its eyes going around the room, travelling around the room as if it sees what we do not see and obviously, they hear what we do not hear. These are natural faculties dormant, latent, which in childhood are often, to some extent, apparent; which we lose as we become more materialistic and more sophisticated, as we think more of material things, more of making a living, more of building up a banking account - we lose the spirituality, the dormant talents that we possess and, in consequence, we cease to realise them, and we become more hardened and more materialistic and lose the spiritual faculty.

Announcer:

Let me pause here to say that Mr Leslie Flint is here in El Paso under the auspices of the Spiritualist Church; the First Spiritualist Church which is on Rio Grande Street.

Lady:

Uh, Grant...

Announcer:

Grant Avenue, excuse me. And tomorrow night he will speak in Bassett Centre at 7.30, is that right?

Flint:

That is correct I understand.

Lady:

That's right.

Announcer:

Now, is this associated with, uh, religion or this psychic phenomenon that you explore are separate and apart from it?

Flint:

There are two answers to this really. I think there are definitely two answers. I speak for myself obviously. I do not necessarily approach this as a religion. I believe it is the very basis of all religions, of all truth. If there is no life after death, there is no point in religion. Religion ceases to matter. In other words, what we are trying to do; what such people as myself are trying to do, is to prove the reality of the life to come, that we do exist beyond the grave.

This is what all religion is about, all true religion. All religions base their teachings on the life to come; whether it is Christian or Mohammedan or whatever it is. And therefore, as I approach this from the point of view of psychical research, as a researcher, I approach it, in a sense, from the non-religious point of view. But I do realise the religious implications, and I do appreciate that there are many people who feel that, to them, it is their religion and their way of life. I appreciate this and I sympathise and I harmonise in them with them in this, but, um, there is always this fear that I have that in doing this, in other words, making it into a religion, you are separating, in a sense, man from man.

What I mean by this is, that there are so many different branches of religion and I think that, if one may or dare say this; that if religion has failed in the world and it certainly appears to have failed desperately, is because religions have made barriers between themselves. There are so many different branches and if we get back to the basic truths of all religion, this ‘true Spiritualism’ and I use the term true Spiritualism with a true realisation and a true understanding, the realisation that death is not the end, that we are all brothers, irrespective of race, colour or creed. When we realise this, then we are going to do something in the right direction, we are making a step forward. And this is the tragedy; that religions, unfortunately do not harmonise, they separate men.

This we have proven century after century. It’s being proved today in Ireland where we have the...which is really a religious war between Catholics and Protestants. It's nothing more or less than a religious war, and therefore I think we must get rid of ‘isms’. We have got to get down to the basic truths which all great teachers throughout the ages gave to man: the truth of life eternal, that we are all brothers and sisters, irrespective of whatever our colour or our race.

Announcer:

Very good. Thank you very much, Mr Leslie Flint. He is a spiritualist, comes from London; your accent gives you away...

[Laughter]

Announcer:

And tomorrow night at Bassett Centre at 7.30 Wednesday evening, the public is invited to a lecture. Will there be a collection?

Lady:

An offer, a donation...

Announcer:

A donation will be collected at the door, thank you very much for coming.

Flint:

Thank you very much sir.

[Fast orchestral music plays]

Announcer:

'Let's Talk' is a daily feature on KTSM, here each day, Monday through Friday. Be with us again tomorrow as we present KTSM...

END OF RECORDING

 * worthy of his salt = someone of value, integrity or usefulness.

This transcript was kindly created for the Trust by Karyn Jarvie - August 2017