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Oct. 12th, 2018
Matthew's mother's library contains a lot of books by and about spirit mediums- many of them ghost-written autobiographies (there's a joke in there somewhere.) I sent a couple to my daughter who said it was the kind of thing she likes to read in the bath.
Myself, I'm reading the Autobiography of Gladys Leonard (not ghost-written). My appetite for the lives of psychics is not insatiable- and I won't be bothering with Yuri Geller's- but Leonard was working in a period- the first half of the 20th century- when there was a stigma attached to the work (I suppose there still is- but not as biting) and was trusted and employed by the leading lights of the Society for Psychical Research- and interests me for cultural/historical reasons. Her family were straight-down-the-middle Prayer Book Anglicans and didn't half shout at her when- as a kid- she started talking about the people she could see walking about in the Summerlands. That's about as far as I've got. I'm hoping she is going to cross paths with Arthur Conan Doyle and will have sidelights to shine.
Myself, I'm reading the Autobiography of Gladys Leonard (not ghost-written). My appetite for the lives of psychics is not insatiable- and I won't be bothering with Yuri Geller's- but Leonard was working in a period- the first half of the 20th century- when there was a stigma attached to the work (I suppose there still is- but not as biting) and was trusted and employed by the leading lights of the Society for Psychical Research- and interests me for cultural/historical reasons. Her family were straight-down-the-middle Prayer Book Anglicans and didn't half shout at her when- as a kid- she started talking about the people she could see walking about in the Summerlands. That's about as far as I've got. I'm hoping she is going to cross paths with Arthur Conan Doyle and will have sidelights to shine.