Leslie Flint

Hester

Is anybody familiar with Leslie Flint? He was a direct voice medium who was tested on extensively during his life but was never shown to be a fraud.

From his website:
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.

Hundreds of recordings of these voices were made, samples of which are available on the internet. Link
He claims to have communicated with both ordinary and famous people (Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Chopin!)

I first heard about him when I read a book about the recordings made at his séances that I found lying around, "Life After Death" by Neville Randall. I'm a complete sceptic about such things so I read it with a willing suspension of disbelief I must say, I found it very interesting so I did some research on the internet, but of course most of what I found was a wee bit biased.

I suppose I'm just wondering what people's opinions on this are. I've listened to some of the recordings and wasn't overly impressed. What do you think?

solas

coincidently I stumbled across the same thing recently it was the first I had heard about it and I can't find the site I was reading about it!! (gah)
I don't think it was leslie flint, but the discussion centred on how mediums were able to manifest an ectoplasmic voice box and relay spirit communication through an independant voice. Apparantly it was something well studied at the turn of the last century during the english seance craze and there were reportedly lots of tests done on mediums and ectoplasm at the time.
In one incident the "voice of spirit" was supposedly that of some dead army general (gave his name etc..) who still had living relatives. They said when they heard the messages they automatically assumed it was him speaking on a pre recorded tape.

Don't know enough about it to say really. I do know a trance medium who claims to be able to produce ectoplasm but to be honest I don't think its anything I would like to witness. If it were true (visibly) it would be a great deal of proof for those seeking it.
Will do a little more reading later on.

Hester

As far as I remember, it was claimed that the "voice box" could be seen with an infra-red camera. I saw a photo of it and I think it just looked like a bit of mist!

It does make you think though... These voices were heard around Leslie Flint whenever he was in the dark. He says that people used to tell him to be quiet when he was in the cimema for example.

He was bound, gagged, made to hold coloured liquid in his mouth for the duration of a seance, a microphone was placed next to his larynx and still no explanation for the voices, which could be heard by everybody, was found.

"When first I began to allow myself to be tested I was naive enough to believe that if the tests were successful the scientists and researchers who had carried them out under their own conditions would proclaim to all the world the truth of life after death. All too soon I learned the hard way that many of those who call themselves researchers have immutable values of their own which preclude belief in a meaning or purpose in man's existence or in the possibility of a life after death. Their concern was to disprove the reality of my voices and they would postulate any alternative however far-fetched or absurd sooner than admit the implication of their own successful experiment (Flint 1971: 169)."

solas

y'know, a couple of years ago when I was engrossed with spiritual development, I experienced quite a bit of phenomena but one in particular I'm reminded of. There was a time when I used to make fone calls and a voice would start speaking over mine.
I know it sounds nuts and no doubt people will offer many explanations as to where the voice was comming from, but it used to scare the bejesis out of me.
It went on for about a two week period and happened three of four times, I thought I was just hearing things or it was some interference (land line not mobile) so I asked my friend on the other end did he hear what I was hearing and he said yea but I thought you just had the tv on in the background.
I could never make out what it was saying, it was just a monotone male voice and was uninteligible for the most part. I had to restrain myself from flinging the fone across the room sometimes and I just got to the stage where I couldn't bare to put my ear near the receiver end.
I've never listened to any evp recordings but from what people describe it sounds the same.
Just reminded me of it.

Zillah

Was it one of those phones you can walk around the house with? If not then its quite interesting. There are of course plenty of possible scientific explantions, but the fact that it was the same voice, over just a few weeks and that it was while you were experimenting spiritually; it builds up an interesting if circumstancial(sp?) case.

solas

no, just a regular landline. At first I thought he (friend) had a second line and someone was speaking on the other end, but that was quickly dismissed. I thought maybe some engineer was working on the lines but dismissed that too, didn't fit the scenario. Wasn't tv or radio interference, at least not from my end or his, we both checked. (I turned tv off and asked him to also)...and somehow I doubt the Govt. has my fone bugged..
I'm just glad in a way someone else heard it too, less questioning my sanity

stevenmu

Crossed lines ? We had something similar years ago, for a few weeks we would sometimes hear a low mumbling voice in the background on the line. It freaked my mam out a bit first time she heard it, but it was something we could all hear and people at the other end could too.

I'm not sure exactly what goes wrong, but I think something gets screwed up with two lines going into the local exchange, when both both lines are active they interfere with each other (I think it's at the stage where they get multiplexed to go over a trunk line to other exchanges).

I don't know if that's what happened to you or not, but that's what it reminds me of, the timing does make it interesting though.

solas

was it the same voice on each occasion?
I'm trying to make it fit the scenario, the weird thing was it would only speak when I was speaking, which is why it was difficult to place it, as soon as I would stop it would stop. There was something very freaky about it, and the voice had no particular tone.
I was involved with trance medium(s) at the time and quite honestly it was an intense period.
couldn't really say if it was a crossed line because I haven't had that experience to compare it with.

stevenmu

I think there was two different voices. In my case there was a problem with interference from a particular line, when we used ours at the same time as them using theirs we could hear them, and presumably they could hear us. It would sense for it to be the same voice or same few voices. In my case it was hard to make anything out and it sounded fairly monotonous but that was because it was very faint and kind of muffled, a bit like when you get a really weak radio station but without the white noise. I'd assumed the voice you heard was similarly faint but looking back at your original post you don't mention if it was or if it was fairly loud. The bit about it only speaking when you spoke, and stopping when you did is just plain wierd, I've no ideas about that :eek: