April 28, 2023 • 51 mins
Sandra speaks with Physical Medium Stewart Alexander!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And you're here.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost Day
and Paranormal Podcast Network. Your quest for podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural,
and the unexplained ends here. We invite you to enjoy
all our shows we have on this network, and right now,
let's start with Shades of the Afterlife with Santra Shannaplay.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
to Coast AM employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
(00:42):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself. Hi.
I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
on a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
Each episode will discuss the reasons we now know that
(01:03):
our loved ones have survived physical debt, and so will we.
Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. I may title this
episode The Weird and the Wonderful. I want to talk
about physical mediumship. I don't talk about it too much
on this show, but it is one of the three
(01:24):
predominant kinds of mediumship. One is evidential mediumship. That's when
you go to a medium or you see one on
zoom and they tell you about your loved ones, give
you messages and such. The second is trance mediumship, which
you've heard Scott Milligan talking in the trance state with
some very powerful words from here's spirit friend Eric. I
(01:48):
did mention physical mediumship way way back. You can go
back to episode three, which is called Beyond Sherlock Holmes
talking about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and also episode seventeen
called Seances and Ghostbusters exploring physical mediums, seances and ectoplasm.
(02:13):
I think I don't talk about this too much because
it is weird, but it is wonderful Back in the
day talking about the seventeen hundreds, the eighteen hundreds, the
early nineteen hundreds, this was the predominant kind of mediumship
on planet Earth. It is so easy for our skeptical
(02:34):
mind to go this sounds really crazy, Sandra, and I
one hundred percent agree with you. I remember when I
found out about electronic voice phenomena from Tom and Lisa Butler,
and they had sent me an email talking about a
medium by the name of David Thompson who they attended
one of these seances with. My mind was so quick
(02:58):
to throw out the information and not pay attention to
it because number one, the word seance was kind of
weird to me, and what they were describing was even
more weird. A group of people sit in a circle
sing songs. There is a medium, but he is actually
behind a curtain or what's called a cabinet. It can
(03:21):
be made of fabric, or it can be three doors
with a black cloth in front of it. Some people
take a corner of their room and just stretch a
shower curtain rod across and put a curtain in front
of that. They were telling me the story of loved
one's voices seeming to come out of the air, and
(03:42):
people being touched by spirit people and things in a
darkened room with glowing the dark tape on them, all
flying around the room. I took some time and I
googled this David Thompson. It is very hard to find
anything on him. And I think there are some physical
mediums in the world, but their form of mediumship is
(04:04):
so different that a lot of people think it can't
be real, so they don't advertise. There are people sitting
around the world in what's called home circles, singing songs,
inviting loved ones to come through, and there's some amazing
things happening. But again, to you and me, not being
part of it, it's so easy to think, oh, that
(04:26):
can't be possible. After I googled David Thompson, that led
me to a website that no longer exists, and I
started reading some of the stories of things that would
happen in these so called seance rooms and people being
reunited with their deceased loved ones. This substance called ectoplasm
(04:48):
a gas that would come out of the medium, and
the loved ones could step into this gas their etheric
body and become real again. Doesn't this sound like science fic?
That's how it sounded to me. But there was something
that still interested me about it, so much so that
I was digging around this David Thompson's website and he
(05:11):
recommended another physical medium, Scott Milligan. That's the very first
time I had heard of Scott. So what I had
done is I went to Facebook and I found Scott
Milligan and I sent him a friend request. Now he
didn't know who I was, but he accepted it. I
(05:32):
went to his Facebook page and he was sharing about
an event that took place back in Well it was
twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen called Voices of the Past.
David Thompson was there and Scott Milligan was there doing
these seances. I was so scared because one I thought
(05:55):
it was weird. Two, this stuff happens in the dark.
Three I'd have to take a flight from Boston over
to London Heathrow Airport and then get a cab for
an hour and a half drive to beat with people
that I didn't know. But as an afterlife researcher, I
had to know for sure one way or another is
(06:17):
this stuff real or not? Then you know I did
it right. It is real, It is wild, and it
is wonderful. Going back to those episodes I was telling
you about, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Sherlock
Holmes books, actually gave up writing Sherlock Holmes when he
(06:37):
attended many of these seances and he had some experiences
that were so out of this world literally that he
felt it's more important to share with people the reality
of the afterlife than continue writing about Sherlock Holmes. In
episode seventeen, talking about seances and Ghostbusters, I read a
(07:00):
book by Peter Ackroyd, and if that name sounds familiar,
it's because his son Dan wrote and starred in the
movie Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters was a comedy, it was fiction. However,
where did Dan get the idea His grandfather was part
(07:22):
of these home circles, And if you listen to that
episode you'll hear more about that and words from Dan
and his father Peter. There is so much credible information
about the reality of these physical mediums. They were tested
by science at the time, and again we're talking it
(07:44):
was in its heyday over one hundred years ago. So
I think for us living in twenty twenty three, it's
easy to think that somehow or another, somebody was conning,
somebody pretending that their loved ones were around in profiting
from it. That's always been my thought, first and foremost
(08:06):
about most mediums, actually, because there are so many con
artists in the world. But after sitting in these seances
and certainly witnessing the impossible, hearing voices of loved ones
coming out from what seems like mid air, having things
(08:27):
float around the room being touched by children and there
were no children in the room, and other incredible things.
It made me really delve into what's possible. I met
another man named Stuart Alexander who at a younger age
started one of these home circles to see if they
(08:50):
could invite in the spirit world. Stuart Alexander is one
of the most famous physical mediums alive right now. I'm
not sure if he has retired. I think he has,
but he has written a book that was just updated
called Stuart Alexander An Extraordinary Journey, The Memoirs of a
(09:13):
Physical Medium. I want to read a little bit to you,
and I want to also talk to you about these
home circles and if you're wondering, did I thoroughly check
to make sure this wasn't a scam? Yeah, absolutely I did.
One thing that's important to know is it was very
reasonably priced. It was only, oh, I think just a
(09:35):
few hundred dollars for room meals and the workshop. That
happened over four and a half days, so nobody was
getting rich off of this. During the actual seances, the
room is checked by everyone. The medium is actually strapped
down to a chair, and everybody gets to check to
(09:58):
make sure he cannot get out so he cannot manipulate
things and make it seem like things are happening like
a magician would. Also, everyone in the circle had to
hold hands, and if anyone broke the circle, we were
supposed to speak up, because again, how easy would it
(10:18):
be for one of the participants to do something. I
can tell you I got hooked on going to these events.
I attended many of them, and just the year before
COVID hit, I actually put on three of my own
live events and we held many of these seances. It
(10:43):
was the first time Scott Milligan had been to the
United States demonstrating, and people got to witness with their
eyes and their ears the weird and the wonderful. People
got reunited with their loved one. We could all hear
these words coming from loved ones in the afterlife during
(11:05):
these seances, and there was so much personal information that
was shared from the deceased loved one to the person
in the room, which they said no one could know about.
I asked Scott Milligan what would it take to have
physical mediumship be real in the world again, And many
(11:27):
years ago he thought it probably will never happen because
years ago people would get together with families, there was
no TV, there was no internet, they'd get together, they'd sing,
there was a lot of love in the room, and
with that these miracles would happen. I have had this
(11:48):
passion since I met Scott to somehow get this form
of mediumship back in the world. We have been holding
classes online since twenty twenty talking about trance, mediumship and
how to sit for the spirit world. And my secret
little project going on was to work with Scott and
(12:11):
create an at home study course for sitting for the
spirit world and being part of your own home circle,
and we just launched it this past week. I'm so
proud of it. It's not just how to sit in
a home circle, but there's so much of the history
of home circles and bonus materials and videos and pictures
(12:32):
and so many good things, so stay tuned about that.
Next we're going to hear some words from Stuart Alexander's
book and also tell you about some audios from people
who had these home circles and witnessed some absolutely earth shattering,
(12:54):
mind bending, oh my goodness experiences. There's a lot coming
up in this episode. You don't want to miss it,
so we'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of
the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife.
(13:32):
I'm Sandra Champlain and I'm delighted to dedicate this episode
to the wonderful physical medium Stuart Alexander. I'm going to
be reading some from his book An Extraordinary Journey also
to talk about home circles, and Stuart Alexander put together
a compilation of accounts of what people witnessed in the
(13:54):
seance room. I had the opportunity to meet him many
years ago, and also in twenty eighteen, I attended a
workshop with him and I got an opportunity also to
sit in his seance. It's a bit different than attending
with David Thompson or Scott Milligan. They sit in one
(14:16):
of these cabinets that I described in the last segment
where the energy really builds up and this gas gets
produced where loved ones use their etheric body to step
into and become real again. Stuart Alexander certainly knows about
the worry so many people have about sitting in the
(14:38):
dark and could something like this be faked. I told
you earlier that physical mediumship was in its heyday one
hundred years ago. Why it disappeared is because so many
fraudulent con artists got involved after the Great War and
conned people out of their money saying that your loved
ones are here, and all those fake seance as you
(15:00):
see on television all stemmed from that part of history.
Stuart Alexander does not use one of these cabinets. Instead,
he sits in the group with everybody else, but he
has Glow in the Dark tape on him, so you
know exactly where he is at all times. There's a
(15:20):
small red light that gets turned on. I was sitting
way far away from him, but the people closest to
him saw some pretty interesting things. One person saw the
face of their loved one who had passed, which had
transformed over the face of somebody who was in the circle.
(15:42):
There was a small table and a red light was
on while Stuart Alexander was strapped down to the chair.
An ectoplasmic hand formed on this table and people could
actually touch the hand, shake the hand, describe the hand,
and it was warm. A've so many other things happened
as well. These ants went on for I think a
(16:05):
little over two hours, and things floating around the room,
voices coming out of what seemed like nowhere, inspiration from
spirit helpers was amazing. I know this seems so far
out there, and this truly is something to experience to
know the reality of it. But for now you can
(16:26):
get started on reading an incredible book and doing your
own investigation into home circles and physical mediumship. I'd like
to start off by reading a little bit of the
forward by David Fontana, who was a British psychologist, parasp
psychologist and author. He was professor of psychology at Cardiff
(16:48):
University and also the former president of the Society for
Psychical Research. He says in the forward, the literature on
most aspects of medium shire is extensive and informative, but
there is nevertheless a shortage of good first hand accounts
by physical mediums of their experiences in the seance room
(17:10):
and of the development of their gifts. The result is
that we have insufficient knowledge of what it is actually
like to be a physical medium. There are two obvious
reasons for this shortage. Firstly, physical mediums are usually deeply
entranced when phenomena are produced, and therefore often know less
(17:33):
of what takes place than do those attending the seance.
And secondly, there have been all too few good physical mediums.
Thus I warmly recommend and welcome Stuart Alexander's book. Stuart
is not only an outstanding physical medium with a deep
and extensive knowledge of his own gift. He also has
(17:55):
a scholarly interest in physical mediumship in general, and is
a line of information on the subject. I have been
involved in psychical research for more than thirty years and
have been fortunate to have had sittings with Stuart, both
as a member of public circles and as a guest
at his private home circle, and I can therefore speak
(18:17):
of his mediumship from personal experience. Moreover, having known Stuart
as a personal friend for many years, I can bear
witness to his integrity and to the unswerving dedication that
he has brought to his mediumship. A man of great
modesty and humility, he regards his mediumistic gift as a
(18:38):
trust to be used in the service of others, and
as a channel for demonstrating the reality of survival of
physical death, and thus for illuminating some of the deeper
mysteries of the human spirit. As Stuart makes abundantly clear
in the book, he has been very fortunate in having
a close knit and dedicated home circle, and members of
(19:00):
which have stayed together over many years, devoting themselves to
providing him with this essential support and protection. And long
may this happy situation continue. A claim frequently made by
skeptics is that all phenomena seen in physical seances could
easily be duplicated in light or darkness by any good
(19:22):
professional conjurer. The answer to this claim is that any
good professional conjuror is welcome to try, provided he or
she does so under the same controls as those imposed,
for example, on Stuart Alexander. These include no unsupervised access
to the room before the seance in order to hide
(19:44):
conjuring equipment, submission to bodily searches as a precaution against
concealing such equipment on the person, an agreement to be
securely bound by full proof restraints in order to prevent
movement during the In addition, the room must be available
for searches by experienced observers to ensure there are no
(20:08):
hidden entrances or exits, including trapdoors, that the furniture is
restricted to a table and a circle of chairs placed
close together, so that movement anywhere in the room can
be easily detected, and that each chair, together with the
table and any other potential hiding places in the room,
are available for thorough examination by the observers. Finally, the
(20:34):
sitters must all be experienced in the sands room phenomena
and above suspicion. There must be no money or promise
of money involved, and the conjuror must agree to have
the results of the session made public. There's so much
more in the forward about mediums of the past and
other things you'll enjoy reading it. Next, i'll start reading
(20:57):
a little bit of chapter one. This book came out
in twenty ten, forty two years ago. When I first
read Arthur Finley's classic book On the Edge of the Etheric,
I did not suspect that my life was about to
be changed forever. As I turned its first page. I
did so knowing nothing of spiritualism, nothing of mediumship, and
(21:21):
having given little thought to the possibility of a life
after death. Perhaps in common with most people who are
in abject ignorance of such matters, I had always imagined
that spiritualism attracted elderly ladies who sat around tables asking
is there anybody there? However, like many before me, that
(21:44):
book was to introduce me to the movement and presented
most intelligible and compelling evidence in support of the author's
astounding arguments in respect of survival beyond the Grave and
of two world canunication. Stuart goes on talking more about
Arthur Finley's book and that he and his brother read
(22:06):
it and then chose to read it again before finding
a home circle and starting to participate in someone else's
He then talks about being disappointed. I have to be honest,
and you probably know this too. In this world of spirituality,
you can find some people that claim to be spiritual,
(22:27):
but it is more about the ego, and you can
also find some crazies out there, some people doing some
really wild things saying it's coming from the spirit world.
We always want to make sure there is intelligence and
that whatever happens doesn't insult your intelligence. So Stuart continues,
(22:51):
almost two years had passed since I first read Finley's
On the Edge of the Etheric, and I was still
reading and still visiting local churches. Then one day I
decided that I would form a home circle, and because
my introduction to spiritualism and my intense interest had always
been in respect of physical mediumship, it would of course
(23:13):
have to be a physical home circle. Since I was
by then well aware of the necessary conditions required for
such a circle, I would arrive home from work every
Monday evening and then spend two hours achieving a total
blackout in our front lounge with its large bay window.
Anyone who has ever attempted to eliminate all light from
(23:36):
a room will readily understand what a difficult task I
was faced with two hours to achieve it and thirty
minutes afterwards to put everything back as it was. Darkness
we fully understood was an absolute essential since we hoped
to develop contact with the spiritual realms on a physical level.
(23:56):
Such manifestations are believed to be inhibited by the presence
of any form or degree of light. Understandably, this often
leads to suspicion within the skeptical mind. However, irrespective of
how it may appear to some, the fact is that
there are sound reasons for such conditions. In assuming that
(24:18):
all seance rooms harbor fraud, one would be guilty of
making a monumental error. One might as well argue that
the dark room was unnecessary for early photographic development. No
one today would question the absolute fact that light is
fatal to particular microorganisms and to the germination of seeds,
(24:39):
nor would anyone question the fact that the development of
an embryo in the darkness of the womb is essential
for the creation of life itself. Like I said in
the beginning, the world of physical mediumship is weird yet wonderful.
I firmly believe that if this happened one hundred years ago,
(25:00):
say till the early nineteen forties, that we can bring
this alive again. When we come back from the break,
you'll hear some stories of these materializations and also find
out about the Noah's Ark Society. Also a CD set
that Stuart put together of seance room recollections, and if
(25:21):
you're interested in either starting a home circle or sitting
on behalf of the spirit world, what you can do
to get involved. So let's go off to our break
and then we'll be back. You're listening to Shades of
the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast am
Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back, to Shades of the Afterlife.
(26:03):
I'm Sander Champlain and this episode is dedicated to my
friend and wonderful longtime physical medium, Stuart Alexander, author of
the book An Incredible Journey. Instead of reading anymore right now,
I want to play some words from Stuart Alexander. I
was lucky enough to find an interview with him on
(26:25):
the great YouTube channel New Thinking Allowed by Jeffrey Mishlov.
If you haven't checked out that channel, please do. Life
after Death is included and so much more so. Let's
listen in to Stuart Alexander, who's been a medium for
fifty two years, talking to Jeffrey Mishlov.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
You persisted for years and years. As I recall, it
took fourteen years before the first direct voice, which was
I think the first this physical phenomena, really phenomenon, really manifested.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Well, I think it was over fourteen years actually, Jeff. Yeah,
on one occasion, very unexpectedly, I entered the condition of chance,
just for a few moments, that's all. But that was
several years after we'd first begun to sit. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
In other words, you were sitting in say answers for
years with zero results.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
The point was that We all believed as friends and
family that if we could gather together once a week
present to the Spirit well the correct conditions, then we
thought that perhaps the Spirit well and in some way
could use the combined energy of all the sitters in
order to enable them to be able to let us
(27:52):
know that they were presents.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
That was it.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
But nobody had any thoughts, any expectations about becoming a definitely.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Not were there in those early years signs or indications
of some glimmer of success.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
None, except I have to say that the resident medium
from one of our local spiritualist churches came along on
several occasions to sit and to give his feelings, his impressions,
and he was always very, very encouraging. He could see
(28:30):
things that we couldn't see, perceive things we couldn't perceive,
sense things that we couldn't sense, but that was encouraging.
I think the important thing here, Jeff, for me to
stress is the fact that, in spite of the fact
that we were not receiving any results whatsoever, it was
(28:51):
just nice for us to gather together once a week,
family and friends, walk into that room, closed the door,
and sit together in love. And it's wonderful that you
can do that and shut the outside world and all
the problems outside. They don't belong within the sea on Zoon.
So that was just nice. But the highlight of those nights,
(29:13):
as I've said many times, was after we used to
sit for an hour and then after the hour we
would have a cup of tea a cup of coffee cakes,
and that was the highlight of the night, the tea,
cakes and coffee.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
You would sit for an hour in a darkened room
I guess pitch black actually, and in silence or were
you praying or singing or talking during that time?
Speaker 4 (29:40):
No, we had background music playing, very nice gentle background music,
no words or anything, just nice, soft, gentle music. Now,
as I always say to people, you know you can
go within the music. You know, it's very difficult to
do to clear the mind totally and just become as
(30:03):
one with the music, But it can be achieved, but
it takes time. But as I say, none of us
had any thoughts of personally developing mediumship. We just thought
that by being together creating the correct conditions for the spirit,
well perhaps in some way they could let us know
of their presence, that they were there, and they never did.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
But after a few years you eventually fell into a
trance state and your spirit guide White feather manifested.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
I can tell you the story, Jeff, very quickly. This
is all in the book, incidentally. But I used to
work as the senior design engineer for a large international
engineering company. But each evening, when I left the office
at four o'clock, I would travel to a local garage
which was owned by a friend of mine, and then
(30:58):
I would take over the running of the I had
to allow him to go home to have his evening meal,
and then he would come back with his wife at
eight o'clock and I would go home. And one particular night,
it would be about probably seven forty five, go to
eight on the telephone. Then I picked it up and
it was my brother and he said, do you fancy
(31:20):
coming round tonight for a sitting. We're thinking of having
a sitting if you'd like to come. And my exact
words were, well, listen, I'd love to come, but I've
had such a stressful day, a hectic day in the office.
I said, I just can't you know, But I said,
do ring me tomorrow and let me know if anything happened.
(31:40):
Where nothing used to happen in those days, and he
said to me, yes, I will do. So we talked
for a little while, put the phone down, and then
about five minutes later I thought it started to come
into my mind. I thought, well, if I don't go,
I know what's going to happen. It'd be ringing me
tomorrow morning saying, guess what. We've had a breakthrough. I thought,
(32:02):
a better girl. So I telephoned him and I said, look,
I will come, I said, but obviously I'll be a
little late. Anyhow, I arrived at their home an hour
or so later, and we just sat round the table
with our hands resting on the top, music playing in
the half light. It wasn't dark in the half light,
(32:23):
and we sat for we used to sit for an
hour in those days. And I supposed them in like
fifty five minutes past, and my man was starting to
turn towards the tea, the coffee, the biscuits, the cakes,
and suddenly, and it's the first time it ever happened.
Yet suddenly in my left here I very clearly heard
(32:43):
a voice say, turn the light out, continue to sit,
turn the light out, continue to sit, And it was
like a loop on a tape, just the same words
again and again and again. And you know, for some reason,
I wasn't shopped by it. I was just sat there
listening to this voice. And after a short while my
brother said, well shall we Shall we bring it to
(33:05):
and then put the kettle on. I said, no, just
a minute, I said, just turn the light out, and
without asking any questions, I reached up switched out the light.
And then the most extraordinary thing happened, which I always
have the greatest difficulty in explaining. Suddenly, something, something from
behind me came quickly towards me. And the only similarly
(33:30):
I can use here is if people have seen the
film Ghost will whoop it go back against the medium
is suddenly entranced, that mischievous spirit jumps into hair. What
it was like that, except it wasn't mischievers came towards me.
Next moment he was inside me and I was outside,
(33:50):
and I was watching myself, and my mouth opened and
these words came out, I come speak, brother, sister. And
no sooner had the word has been said, it was
out and I was back in. And that's how it
began that night, That's how it all began. Just one
short sentence. But that was beginning. That was the beginning, and.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I gather the other people in the room were able
to report to you what had happened, or were you
conscious of it?
Speaker 4 (34:22):
I was conscious of it because I heard the words
very clearly, Jeff, very clearly. I saw my mouth open
and the words come out. Yes. There was just my
brother and his wife and myself, and after it all finished,
we drank our tea and coffee and so on. As
(34:42):
strange as it may sound, we didn't really talk that
much about it. But the next morning, walking into my office,
the phone was ringing, and when I picked it up,
it was my brother and he said, do you want
to come down tonight for another sitting? And my exact words,
pardon my French, was not bloody lightly because I have
(35:03):
to say, I have to say that it really did
fight me. But it would be the only term that
I would ever be nervous within the sea on Zo
just that one occasion, and it all started from there.
Probably it took about ten years before any other spirit guide,
you know, came in and introduced himself, and slowly over
(35:26):
a long long period of sound that we refer to
them as the spirit Team and that began to expand
and grow. But each one of them have their own
individual responsibilities.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
I have Stuart's book open now, and he says, fourteen
years after my discovery of spiritualism, thirteen years after my
first sitting in a circle, and two years after Missus
Kath Matthews specifically created a circle for my development, the
long awaited and eagerly anticipated breakthrough finally came. And that's
(36:01):
the story you just heard. So if you think by
sitting in a home circle things will immediately happen, it's doubtful.
But like Stuart spoke about, it's a great time with
family and friends to be together, to sit with that
music on the anticipation of working with the spirit world.
(36:27):
Even if you can't see anything happening, things are happening
behind the scenes. You heard Stuart just mention about his
spirit team. I'm closest, obviously to Scott Milligan, who you've
heard on this show several times speaking in the trance state.
Same thing happened for him. He got an initial few
(36:50):
words coming through the trance state, and it wasn't till
another two years when more fluid conversation came about Scott
started when he was sixteen years old and May second,
twenty twenty three, we celebrate twenty six years of him
being a medium. I've sat in seance with Stuart Alexander,
(37:15):
with David Thompson, and probably over twenty times with Scott Milligan.
Plus for the last over three years, every Friday I
spend being the moderator of an extraordinary conversation while Scott's
in the trance state and having people ask questions of
(37:35):
Scott's spirit friend Eric on life, death and the afterlife.
Sometimes his spirit friends act as mediums and bring through
loved ones to me. This is the miraculous. Is it
worth it dedicating this time for development having no guarantee
that something's going to happen in the future. Absolutely, So
(37:59):
let's go to the break and we'll be back. You're
listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and
Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to
(38:33):
Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain, and just to
be sure we're on the same page, we are talking
about physical medium seances. That is, deceased loved ones being
able to cloak themselves with a gas or vapor that
emanates from the body of a physical medium called ectoplasm,
(38:55):
and be able to speak and sometimes tout and even
hug their loved ones again and on rare occasion now,
but quite often in the past, they could be seen
by all who were in the room. The home circle
is the first step of this, and Stuart Alexander, who
(39:16):
has spent fifty two years now as a medium, discusses
it in his book An Extraordinary Journey. I'd like to
recommend that you visit his website, which is Stuart Alexander
medium dot com. You'll find the new and revised version
of the book. There some CDs that'll tell you about
(39:38):
in just a moment in a link to the Noah's
Arksociety archive dot org. Let me tell you about that.
In nineteen ninety the Noah's Ark Society for Physical Mediumship
was launched and it quickly spread and attracted members from
all over the world who created these home circles. Now,
(40:00):
prior to its launch, physical mediumship had virtually disappeared. The
Nozark Society's intention was to encourage people to form home circles,
as it would help support and encourage people and advise
them what to do and not to do, and that's
(40:20):
what it did. Stuart Alexander subsequently became its very first
member and was privileged to be appointed its archives officer
and later its president. His articles about physical mediumship of
the past were published in its monthly newsletter. Stuart says,
had the Society not have been launched, then it was
(40:43):
a distinct possibility that I would have remained solely within
my long running home circle and almost certainly not have
emerged to occasionally hold public seances. Sadly, for various reasons,
the society only lasted from nineteen ninety to two thousand
(41:03):
and four. Its monthly newsletters would have disappeared forever had
it not been for this member of the Society named
lou Sutton, who took the time and trouble and he
put them all online. So literally you can go to
Noah's Arcsociety archive dot org and read monthly journals from
(41:28):
nineteen ninety to two thousand and four of people's home circles.
Now the CD set it was created by Stuart Alexander.
Elderly spiritualists who had sat with legendary physical mediums sent
Stuart their cassette recordings talking about their experiences. And these
(41:50):
materializations that they witnessed in the seance room. These people
are all now in the spirit world themselves, but Stuart
and myself a committed that their stories live on. If
you're interested, and I highly recommend them. You can order
the CDs directly from Stuart's website, which is Stuart alexandermedium
(42:12):
dot com, or you can find the digital copy on
my website, We Don't Die dot com. On the store page,
just look for physical seance room recollections also when you're
on that store page. Scott Milligan and I just launched
a guide to home circles. Whether you are sitting alone,
(42:34):
or you wish to start a home circle, or perhaps
you want to experiment with a virtual home circle, you'll
find some great instructions. There are questions and answers with
Scott Milligan and also questions and answers on home circles
asked to his spirit team while he was in the
trance state. We've included a seance that you can listen to.
(42:57):
You can find out about Book X Mediums other home circles.
We have five hours of music that you can sit to.
All in all, there is over twenty hours of material
for a low price, and of course you have a
money back guarantee. You can't beat that. As I said earlier,
(43:19):
this type of mediumship is almost extinct from our planet.
I do believe, however, that there are groups of people
that remain silent that continue to do this. There is
a small group of people, myself included, committed that by
embracing the past, we can have these experiences again and
(43:40):
so much more in the future. My friend, we are
living in twenty twenty three right now, with all the
technology and all the advances we have. Can you even
imagine what might be possible blending the past with all
that we currently have at our fingertips. I think it
truly is possible that the tipping point of afterlife communication
(44:03):
on a regular basis will occur in our lifetimes, and
what we now believe is the miraculous communicating with loved
ones after they have passed can be regular, everyday conversation
and just perhaps we won't need to go to a
medium to communicate. This all starts with our development in
(44:26):
the home circle. I want to read one more thing
to you from Stuart's book. He received correspondence from Bradley Harris,
who is the son of one of the most famous
physical mediums called Alec Harris. Like I said earlier, this
cabinet that the mediums sit in builds up the energy
(44:47):
the spirit. People step out of the cabinet, but their
energy only lasts so long. So Bradley says, on numerous
occasions when witnessing forms slowly deemity realizing by melting into
the floor, I personally found it to be an amazing
experience also to see a white piece of ectoplasm on
(45:09):
the floor just outside the cabinet rise up to form
a head shape which in a matter of seconds rows
into a fountain of ectoplasm to form a fully materialized
spirit form which steps forward into the room and experience
one never forgets, and it was beautiful to behold. However,
(45:32):
I can understand that a person could feel distressed when
a loved one that they had been embracing would start
to dematerialize outside the cabinet before stepping back into it.
Sometimes the spirit would hold onto the loved one's hands,
not wanting to go, but in being unable to hold
the power, they would melt into the floor. I want
(45:55):
to share a few more words from Stuart Alexander and
if you hear a few taps, he's so passionate that
he's hitting the table in front of him.
Speaker 4 (46:05):
For over one hundred and fifty years, I'll go so
far as to say that spirituals have looked up at
the stars. As you know, it was born in America,
and then like a forest fire, it traveled throughout America,
through Europe into England, and men and women of letters, aristocracy, royalty,
(46:26):
scientific people, men in the street, people were alsouccumbing to
this wonderful new movement that promised to be able to
prove conclusively that this life is merely a precursor to
what happens afterwards, that the worst survival for every sort
you know. And we were on track to do that.
(46:48):
But we've got to remember that for one hundred and
fifty years, the Home Stable stood at the very center
of spiritualism. It was almost the heartbeat of the movements.
And it is within those home sabers that these wonder
mediums of the past developed their gifts before eventually some
(47:08):
of them, not all of them, came out to work
before the public. Within the home saclep, there's no pressure
to perform. People just sit together in love and in
harmony to make that contact with the spirit. Well, these
days many people believe that by attending a few courses,
then in some way development can be accelerated. Well, I'm sorry,
(47:32):
but I think that is nonsense. A knowledgeable tutor can
help advise, inform, support, encourage a potential medium, but you
cannot shortcut the development of mediumshire. I firmly believe that,
and everything that I say is based on over fifty
years of experience and study and research, you know. So
(47:56):
I'm not just talking sort of at the top of
my head because I've been invoked over the three years. No,
not at all. So that's my field. I don't wish
to offend anyone at all. And I'm sure there's some
wonderful tutors out there, some wonderful courses. But for people
to believe that they can shortcut the developments of mediumship,
M sorry, it's nonsense. And if you look at the
(48:18):
general and I underland the word general Standard of Mediumship
of yesteryear, and then compare it with the general standard
of mediumship today, well, I think that speaks volumes. That
saves everything. To me, spiritualism has gone backwards, and I
think that in some respects innocently. We have betrayed the
(48:40):
hopes and aspirations of these men and women of the past,
many with unrisked their academic standing, their social standing, you know,
to stand up for what they believed in. They were
prepared to do that, and they did do that. They
put it all on the line. And what have we
done with it? Spiritualism is a shadow of its former self.
(49:03):
I'm sorry, but that's how I see it, and I
don't wish to offend anyone, but to me, that is reality.
The home circle is vitally important. And I remember a
past editor of The Psychic News, which is spiritualism's all
time well it's been around longer than any other journal,
(49:25):
the Psychic News. The editor a number of years ago
wrote an article in The Psychic before the Psychic News,
and it was an account of his visits to sit
with Alec Harris, the materialization medium who lived in South
Wales at the time, and it was absolutely wonderful to
(49:46):
read this. But the one thing that stuck in my
mind was the editor saying that he believed that down
every road, every street, every avenue in South Wales there
was probably a home circle sitting and that was it
home settles existed in considerable numbers. Now today very few,
(50:11):
very few, And I think we've lost our way, and
we've stopped listening to the spirit. Well, and when you
stop listening to them, then the way we'll always be lost.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
We can find our way again. Come visit me at
We Don't Die dot com. If you have a question,
email me Sandra Champlain at gmail dot com, and don't
forget to come join our weekly Sunday gathering. I'm Sandra Champlain.
You've been listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the
(50:41):
iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast Day and Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost
Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iheartrad Yo dot com.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
M
And you're here.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost Day
and Paranormal Podcast Network. Your quest for podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural,
and the unexplained ends here. We invite you to enjoy
all our shows we have on this network, and right now,
let's start with Shades of the Afterlife with Santra Shannaplay.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
to Coast AM employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
(00:42):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself. Hi.
I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
on a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
Each episode will discuss the reasons we now know that
(01:03):
our loved ones have survived physical debt, and so will we.
Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. I may title this
episode The Weird and the Wonderful. I want to talk
about physical mediumship. I don't talk about it too much
on this show, but it is one of the three
(01:24):
predominant kinds of mediumship. One is evidential mediumship. That's when
you go to a medium or you see one on
zoom and they tell you about your loved ones, give
you messages and such. The second is trance mediumship, which
you've heard Scott Milligan talking in the trance state with
some very powerful words from here's spirit friend Eric. I
(01:48):
did mention physical mediumship way way back. You can go
back to episode three, which is called Beyond Sherlock Holmes
talking about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and also episode seventeen
called Seances and Ghostbusters exploring physical mediums, seances and ectoplasm.
(02:13):
I think I don't talk about this too much because
it is weird, but it is wonderful Back in the
day talking about the seventeen hundreds, the eighteen hundreds, the
early nineteen hundreds, this was the predominant kind of mediumship
on planet Earth. It is so easy for our skeptical
(02:34):
mind to go this sounds really crazy, Sandra, and I
one hundred percent agree with you. I remember when I
found out about electronic voice phenomena from Tom and Lisa Butler,
and they had sent me an email talking about a
medium by the name of David Thompson who they attended
one of these seances with. My mind was so quick
(02:58):
to throw out the information and not pay attention to
it because number one, the word seance was kind of
weird to me, and what they were describing was even
more weird. A group of people sit in a circle
sing songs. There is a medium, but he is actually
behind a curtain or what's called a cabinet. It can
(03:21):
be made of fabric, or it can be three doors
with a black cloth in front of it. Some people
take a corner of their room and just stretch a
shower curtain rod across and put a curtain in front
of that. They were telling me the story of loved
one's voices seeming to come out of the air, and
(03:42):
people being touched by spirit people and things in a
darkened room with glowing the dark tape on them, all
flying around the room. I took some time and I
googled this David Thompson. It is very hard to find
anything on him. And I think there are some physical
mediums in the world, but their form of mediumship is
(04:04):
so different that a lot of people think it can't
be real, so they don't advertise. There are people sitting
around the world in what's called home circles, singing songs,
inviting loved ones to come through, and there's some amazing
things happening. But again, to you and me, not being
part of it, it's so easy to think, oh, that
(04:26):
can't be possible. After I googled David Thompson, that led
me to a website that no longer exists, and I
started reading some of the stories of things that would
happen in these so called seance rooms and people being
reunited with their deceased loved ones. This substance called ectoplasm
(04:48):
a gas that would come out of the medium, and
the loved ones could step into this gas their etheric
body and become real again. Doesn't this sound like science fic?
That's how it sounded to me. But there was something
that still interested me about it, so much so that
I was digging around this David Thompson's website and he
(05:11):
recommended another physical medium, Scott Milligan. That's the very first
time I had heard of Scott. So what I had
done is I went to Facebook and I found Scott
Milligan and I sent him a friend request. Now he
didn't know who I was, but he accepted it. I
(05:32):
went to his Facebook page and he was sharing about
an event that took place back in Well it was
twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen called Voices of the Past.
David Thompson was there and Scott Milligan was there doing
these seances. I was so scared because one I thought
(05:55):
it was weird. Two, this stuff happens in the dark.
Three I'd have to take a flight from Boston over
to London Heathrow Airport and then get a cab for
an hour and a half drive to beat with people
that I didn't know. But as an afterlife researcher, I
had to know for sure one way or another is
(06:17):
this stuff real or not? Then you know I did
it right. It is real, It is wild, and it
is wonderful. Going back to those episodes I was telling
you about, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Sherlock
Holmes books, actually gave up writing Sherlock Holmes when he
(06:37):
attended many of these seances and he had some experiences
that were so out of this world literally that he
felt it's more important to share with people the reality
of the afterlife than continue writing about Sherlock Holmes. In
episode seventeen, talking about seances and Ghostbusters, I read a
(07:00):
book by Peter Ackroyd, and if that name sounds familiar,
it's because his son Dan wrote and starred in the
movie Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters was a comedy, it was fiction. However,
where did Dan get the idea His grandfather was part
(07:22):
of these home circles, And if you listen to that
episode you'll hear more about that and words from Dan
and his father Peter. There is so much credible information
about the reality of these physical mediums. They were tested
by science at the time, and again we're talking it
(07:44):
was in its heyday over one hundred years ago. So
I think for us living in twenty twenty three, it's
easy to think that somehow or another, somebody was conning,
somebody pretending that their loved ones were around in profiting
from it. That's always been my thought, first and foremost
(08:06):
about most mediums, actually, because there are so many con
artists in the world. But after sitting in these seances
and certainly witnessing the impossible, hearing voices of loved ones
coming out from what seems like mid air, having things
(08:27):
float around the room being touched by children and there
were no children in the room, and other incredible things.
It made me really delve into what's possible. I met
another man named Stuart Alexander who at a younger age
started one of these home circles to see if they
(08:50):
could invite in the spirit world. Stuart Alexander is one
of the most famous physical mediums alive right now. I'm
not sure if he has retired. I think he has,
but he has written a book that was just updated
called Stuart Alexander An Extraordinary Journey, The Memoirs of a
(09:13):
Physical Medium. I want to read a little bit to you,
and I want to also talk to you about these
home circles and if you're wondering, did I thoroughly check
to make sure this wasn't a scam? Yeah, absolutely I did.
One thing that's important to know is it was very
reasonably priced. It was only, oh, I think just a
(09:35):
few hundred dollars for room meals and the workshop. That
happened over four and a half days, so nobody was
getting rich off of this. During the actual seances, the
room is checked by everyone. The medium is actually strapped
down to a chair, and everybody gets to check to
(09:58):
make sure he cannot get out so he cannot manipulate
things and make it seem like things are happening like
a magician would. Also, everyone in the circle had to
hold hands, and if anyone broke the circle, we were
supposed to speak up, because again, how easy would it
(10:18):
be for one of the participants to do something. I
can tell you I got hooked on going to these events.
I attended many of them, and just the year before
COVID hit, I actually put on three of my own
live events and we held many of these seances. It
(10:43):
was the first time Scott Milligan had been to the
United States demonstrating, and people got to witness with their
eyes and their ears the weird and the wonderful. People
got reunited with their loved one. We could all hear
these words coming from loved ones in the afterlife during
(11:05):
these seances, and there was so much personal information that
was shared from the deceased loved one to the person
in the room, which they said no one could know about.
I asked Scott Milligan what would it take to have
physical mediumship be real in the world again, And many
(11:27):
years ago he thought it probably will never happen because
years ago people would get together with families, there was
no TV, there was no internet, they'd get together, they'd sing,
there was a lot of love in the room, and
with that these miracles would happen. I have had this
(11:48):
passion since I met Scott to somehow get this form
of mediumship back in the world. We have been holding
classes online since twenty twenty talking about trance, mediumship and
how to sit for the spirit world. And my secret
little project going on was to work with Scott and
(12:11):
create an at home study course for sitting for the
spirit world and being part of your own home circle,
and we just launched it this past week. I'm so
proud of it. It's not just how to sit in
a home circle, but there's so much of the history
of home circles and bonus materials and videos and pictures
(12:32):
and so many good things, so stay tuned about that.
Next we're going to hear some words from Stuart Alexander's
book and also tell you about some audios from people
who had these home circles and witnessed some absolutely earth shattering,
(12:54):
mind bending, oh my goodness experiences. There's a lot coming
up in this episode. You don't want to miss it,
so we'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of
the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife.
(13:32):
I'm Sandra Champlain and I'm delighted to dedicate this episode
to the wonderful physical medium Stuart Alexander. I'm going to
be reading some from his book An Extraordinary Journey also
to talk about home circles, and Stuart Alexander put together
a compilation of accounts of what people witnessed in the
(13:54):
seance room. I had the opportunity to meet him many
years ago, and also in twenty eighteen, I attended a
workshop with him and I got an opportunity also to
sit in his seance. It's a bit different than attending
with David Thompson or Scott Milligan. They sit in one
(14:16):
of these cabinets that I described in the last segment
where the energy really builds up and this gas gets
produced where loved ones use their etheric body to step
into and become real again. Stuart Alexander certainly knows about
the worry so many people have about sitting in the
(14:38):
dark and could something like this be faked. I told
you earlier that physical mediumship was in its heyday one
hundred years ago. Why it disappeared is because so many
fraudulent con artists got involved after the Great War and
conned people out of their money saying that your loved
ones are here, and all those fake seance as you
(15:00):
see on television all stemmed from that part of history.
Stuart Alexander does not use one of these cabinets. Instead,
he sits in the group with everybody else, but he
has Glow in the Dark tape on him, so you
know exactly where he is at all times. There's a
(15:20):
small red light that gets turned on. I was sitting
way far away from him, but the people closest to
him saw some pretty interesting things. One person saw the
face of their loved one who had passed, which had
transformed over the face of somebody who was in the circle.
(15:42):
There was a small table and a red light was
on while Stuart Alexander was strapped down to the chair.
An ectoplasmic hand formed on this table and people could
actually touch the hand, shake the hand, describe the hand,
and it was warm. A've so many other things happened
as well. These ants went on for I think a
(16:05):
little over two hours, and things floating around the room,
voices coming out of what seemed like nowhere, inspiration from
spirit helpers was amazing. I know this seems so far
out there, and this truly is something to experience to
know the reality of it. But for now you can
(16:26):
get started on reading an incredible book and doing your
own investigation into home circles and physical mediumship. I'd like
to start off by reading a little bit of the
forward by David Fontana, who was a British psychologist, parasp
psychologist and author. He was professor of psychology at Cardiff
(16:48):
University and also the former president of the Society for
Psychical Research. He says in the forward, the literature on
most aspects of medium shire is extensive and informative, but
there is nevertheless a shortage of good first hand accounts
by physical mediums of their experiences in the seance room
(17:10):
and of the development of their gifts. The result is
that we have insufficient knowledge of what it is actually
like to be a physical medium. There are two obvious
reasons for this shortage. Firstly, physical mediums are usually deeply
entranced when phenomena are produced, and therefore often know less
(17:33):
of what takes place than do those attending the seance.
And secondly, there have been all too few good physical mediums.
Thus I warmly recommend and welcome Stuart Alexander's book. Stuart
is not only an outstanding physical medium with a deep
and extensive knowledge of his own gift. He also has
(17:55):
a scholarly interest in physical mediumship in general, and is
a line of information on the subject. I have been
involved in psychical research for more than thirty years and
have been fortunate to have had sittings with Stuart, both
as a member of public circles and as a guest
at his private home circle, and I can therefore speak
(18:17):
of his mediumship from personal experience. Moreover, having known Stuart
as a personal friend for many years, I can bear
witness to his integrity and to the unswerving dedication that
he has brought to his mediumship. A man of great
modesty and humility, he regards his mediumistic gift as a
(18:38):
trust to be used in the service of others, and
as a channel for demonstrating the reality of survival of
physical death, and thus for illuminating some of the deeper
mysteries of the human spirit. As Stuart makes abundantly clear
in the book, he has been very fortunate in having
a close knit and dedicated home circle, and members of
(19:00):
which have stayed together over many years, devoting themselves to
providing him with this essential support and protection. And long
may this happy situation continue. A claim frequently made by
skeptics is that all phenomena seen in physical seances could
easily be duplicated in light or darkness by any good
(19:22):
professional conjurer. The answer to this claim is that any
good professional conjuror is welcome to try, provided he or
she does so under the same controls as those imposed,
for example, on Stuart Alexander. These include no unsupervised access
to the room before the seance in order to hide
(19:44):
conjuring equipment, submission to bodily searches as a precaution against
concealing such equipment on the person, an agreement to be
securely bound by full proof restraints in order to prevent
movement during the In addition, the room must be available
for searches by experienced observers to ensure there are no
(20:08):
hidden entrances or exits, including trapdoors, that the furniture is
restricted to a table and a circle of chairs placed
close together, so that movement anywhere in the room can
be easily detected, and that each chair, together with the
table and any other potential hiding places in the room,
are available for thorough examination by the observers. Finally, the
(20:34):
sitters must all be experienced in the sands room phenomena
and above suspicion. There must be no money or promise
of money involved, and the conjuror must agree to have
the results of the session made public. There's so much
more in the forward about mediums of the past and
other things you'll enjoy reading it. Next, i'll start reading
(20:57):
a little bit of chapter one. This book came out
in twenty ten, forty two years ago. When I first
read Arthur Finley's classic book On the Edge of the Etheric,
I did not suspect that my life was about to
be changed forever. As I turned its first page. I
did so knowing nothing of spiritualism, nothing of mediumship, and
(21:21):
having given little thought to the possibility of a life
after death. Perhaps in common with most people who are
in abject ignorance of such matters, I had always imagined
that spiritualism attracted elderly ladies who sat around tables asking
is there anybody there? However, like many before me, that
(21:44):
book was to introduce me to the movement and presented
most intelligible and compelling evidence in support of the author's
astounding arguments in respect of survival beyond the Grave and
of two world canunication. Stuart goes on talking more about
Arthur Finley's book and that he and his brother read
(22:06):
it and then chose to read it again before finding
a home circle and starting to participate in someone else's
He then talks about being disappointed. I have to be honest,
and you probably know this too. In this world of spirituality,
you can find some people that claim to be spiritual,
(22:27):
but it is more about the ego, and you can
also find some crazies out there, some people doing some
really wild things saying it's coming from the spirit world.
We always want to make sure there is intelligence and
that whatever happens doesn't insult your intelligence. So Stuart continues,
(22:51):
almost two years had passed since I first read Finley's
On the Edge of the Etheric, and I was still
reading and still visiting local churches. Then one day I
decided that I would form a home circle, and because
my introduction to spiritualism and my intense interest had always
been in respect of physical mediumship, it would of course
(23:13):
have to be a physical home circle. Since I was
by then well aware of the necessary conditions required for
such a circle, I would arrive home from work every
Monday evening and then spend two hours achieving a total
blackout in our front lounge with its large bay window.
Anyone who has ever attempted to eliminate all light from
(23:36):
a room will readily understand what a difficult task I
was faced with two hours to achieve it and thirty
minutes afterwards to put everything back as it was. Darkness
we fully understood was an absolute essential since we hoped
to develop contact with the spiritual realms on a physical level.
(23:56):
Such manifestations are believed to be inhibited by the presence
of any form or degree of light. Understandably, this often
leads to suspicion within the skeptical mind. However, irrespective of
how it may appear to some, the fact is that
there are sound reasons for such conditions. In assuming that
(24:18):
all seance rooms harbor fraud, one would be guilty of
making a monumental error. One might as well argue that
the dark room was unnecessary for early photographic development. No
one today would question the absolute fact that light is
fatal to particular microorganisms and to the germination of seeds,
(24:39):
nor would anyone question the fact that the development of
an embryo in the darkness of the womb is essential
for the creation of life itself. Like I said in
the beginning, the world of physical mediumship is weird yet wonderful.
I firmly believe that if this happened one hundred years ago,
(25:00):
say till the early nineteen forties, that we can bring
this alive again. When we come back from the break,
you'll hear some stories of these materializations and also find
out about the Noah's Ark Society. Also a CD set
that Stuart put together of seance room recollections, and if
(25:21):
you're interested in either starting a home circle or sitting
on behalf of the spirit world, what you can do
to get involved. So let's go off to our break
and then we'll be back. You're listening to Shades of
the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast am
Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back, to Shades of the Afterlife.
(26:03):
I'm Sander Champlain and this episode is dedicated to my
friend and wonderful longtime physical medium, Stuart Alexander, author of
the book An Incredible Journey. Instead of reading anymore right now,
I want to play some words from Stuart Alexander. I
was lucky enough to find an interview with him on
(26:25):
the great YouTube channel New Thinking Allowed by Jeffrey Mishlov.
If you haven't checked out that channel, please do. Life
after Death is included and so much more so. Let's
listen in to Stuart Alexander, who's been a medium for
fifty two years, talking to Jeffrey Mishlov.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
You persisted for years and years. As I recall, it
took fourteen years before the first direct voice, which was
I think the first this physical phenomena, really phenomenon, really manifested.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Well, I think it was over fourteen years actually, Jeff. Yeah,
on one occasion, very unexpectedly, I entered the condition of chance,
just for a few moments, that's all. But that was
several years after we'd first begun to sit. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
In other words, you were sitting in say answers for
years with zero results.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
The point was that We all believed as friends and
family that if we could gather together once a week
present to the Spirit well the correct conditions, then we
thought that perhaps the Spirit well and in some way
could use the combined energy of all the sitters in
order to enable them to be able to let us
(27:52):
know that they were presents.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
That was it.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
But nobody had any thoughts, any expectations about becoming a definitely.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Not were there in those early years signs or indications
of some glimmer of success.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
None, except I have to say that the resident medium
from one of our local spiritualist churches came along on
several occasions to sit and to give his feelings, his impressions,
and he was always very, very encouraging. He could see
(28:30):
things that we couldn't see, perceive things we couldn't perceive,
sense things that we couldn't sense, but that was encouraging.
I think the important thing here, Jeff, for me to
stress is the fact that, in spite of the fact
that we were not receiving any results whatsoever, it was
(28:51):
just nice for us to gather together once a week,
family and friends, walk into that room, closed the door,
and sit together in love. And it's wonderful that you
can do that and shut the outside world and all
the problems outside. They don't belong within the sea on Zoon.
So that was just nice. But the highlight of those nights,
(29:13):
as I've said many times, was after we used to
sit for an hour and then after the hour we
would have a cup of tea a cup of coffee cakes,
and that was the highlight of the night, the tea,
cakes and coffee.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
You would sit for an hour in a darkened room
I guess pitch black actually, and in silence or were
you praying or singing or talking during that time?
Speaker 4 (29:40):
No, we had background music playing, very nice gentle background music,
no words or anything, just nice, soft, gentle music. Now,
as I always say to people, you know you can
go within the music. You know, it's very difficult to
do to clear the mind totally and just become as
(30:03):
one with the music, But it can be achieved, but
it takes time. But as I say, none of us
had any thoughts of personally developing mediumship. We just thought
that by being together creating the correct conditions for the spirit,
well perhaps in some way they could let us know
of their presence, that they were there, and they never did.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
But after a few years you eventually fell into a
trance state and your spirit guide White feather manifested.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
I can tell you the story, Jeff, very quickly. This
is all in the book, incidentally. But I used to
work as the senior design engineer for a large international
engineering company. But each evening, when I left the office
at four o'clock, I would travel to a local garage
which was owned by a friend of mine, and then
(30:58):
I would take over the running of the I had
to allow him to go home to have his evening meal,
and then he would come back with his wife at
eight o'clock and I would go home. And one particular night,
it would be about probably seven forty five, go to
eight on the telephone. Then I picked it up and
it was my brother and he said, do you fancy
(31:20):
coming round tonight for a sitting. We're thinking of having
a sitting if you'd like to come. And my exact
words were, well, listen, I'd love to come, but I've
had such a stressful day, a hectic day in the office.
I said, I just can't you know, But I said,
do ring me tomorrow and let me know if anything happened.
(31:40):
Where nothing used to happen in those days, and he
said to me, yes, I will do. So we talked
for a little while, put the phone down, and then
about five minutes later I thought it started to come
into my mind. I thought, well, if I don't go,
I know what's going to happen. It'd be ringing me
tomorrow morning saying, guess what. We've had a breakthrough. I thought,
(32:02):
a better girl. So I telephoned him and I said, look,
I will come, I said, but obviously I'll be a
little late. Anyhow, I arrived at their home an hour
or so later, and we just sat round the table
with our hands resting on the top, music playing in
the half light. It wasn't dark in the half light,
(32:23):
and we sat for we used to sit for an
hour in those days. And I supposed them in like
fifty five minutes past, and my man was starting to
turn towards the tea, the coffee, the biscuits, the cakes,
and suddenly, and it's the first time it ever happened.
Yet suddenly in my left here I very clearly heard
(32:43):
a voice say, turn the light out, continue to sit,
turn the light out, continue to sit, And it was
like a loop on a tape, just the same words
again and again and again. And you know, for some reason,
I wasn't shopped by it. I was just sat there
listening to this voice. And after a short while my
brother said, well shall we Shall we bring it to
(33:05):
and then put the kettle on. I said, no, just
a minute, I said, just turn the light out, and
without asking any questions, I reached up switched out the light.
And then the most extraordinary thing happened, which I always
have the greatest difficulty in explaining. Suddenly, something, something from
behind me came quickly towards me. And the only similarly
(33:30):
I can use here is if people have seen the
film Ghost will whoop it go back against the medium
is suddenly entranced, that mischievous spirit jumps into hair. What
it was like that, except it wasn't mischievers came towards me.
Next moment he was inside me and I was outside,
(33:50):
and I was watching myself, and my mouth opened and
these words came out, I come speak, brother, sister. And
no sooner had the word has been said, it was
out and I was back in. And that's how it
began that night, That's how it all began. Just one
short sentence. But that was beginning. That was the beginning, and.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I gather the other people in the room were able
to report to you what had happened, or were you
conscious of it?
Speaker 4 (34:22):
I was conscious of it because I heard the words
very clearly, Jeff, very clearly. I saw my mouth open
and the words come out. Yes. There was just my
brother and his wife and myself, and after it all finished,
we drank our tea and coffee and so on. As
(34:42):
strange as it may sound, we didn't really talk that
much about it. But the next morning, walking into my office,
the phone was ringing, and when I picked it up,
it was my brother and he said, do you want
to come down tonight for another sitting? And my exact words,
pardon my French, was not bloody lightly because I have
(35:03):
to say, I have to say that it really did
fight me. But it would be the only term that
I would ever be nervous within the sea on Zo
just that one occasion, and it all started from there.
Probably it took about ten years before any other spirit guide,
you know, came in and introduced himself, and slowly over
(35:26):
a long long period of sound that we refer to
them as the spirit Team and that began to expand
and grow. But each one of them have their own
individual responsibilities.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
I have Stuart's book open now, and he says, fourteen
years after my discovery of spiritualism, thirteen years after my
first sitting in a circle, and two years after Missus
Kath Matthews specifically created a circle for my development, the
long awaited and eagerly anticipated breakthrough finally came. And that's
(36:01):
the story you just heard. So if you think by
sitting in a home circle things will immediately happen, it's doubtful.
But like Stuart spoke about, it's a great time with
family and friends to be together, to sit with that
music on the anticipation of working with the spirit world.
(36:27):
Even if you can't see anything happening, things are happening
behind the scenes. You heard Stuart just mention about his
spirit team. I'm closest, obviously to Scott Milligan, who you've
heard on this show several times speaking in the trance state.
Same thing happened for him. He got an initial few
(36:50):
words coming through the trance state, and it wasn't till
another two years when more fluid conversation came about Scott
started when he was sixteen years old and May second,
twenty twenty three, we celebrate twenty six years of him
being a medium. I've sat in seance with Stuart Alexander,
(37:15):
with David Thompson, and probably over twenty times with Scott Milligan.
Plus for the last over three years, every Friday I
spend being the moderator of an extraordinary conversation while Scott's
in the trance state and having people ask questions of
(37:35):
Scott's spirit friend Eric on life, death and the afterlife.
Sometimes his spirit friends act as mediums and bring through
loved ones to me. This is the miraculous. Is it
worth it dedicating this time for development having no guarantee
that something's going to happen in the future. Absolutely, So
(37:59):
let's go to the break and we'll be back. You're
listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and
Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to
(38:33):
Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain, and just to
be sure we're on the same page, we are talking
about physical medium seances. That is, deceased loved ones being
able to cloak themselves with a gas or vapor that
emanates from the body of a physical medium called ectoplasm,
(38:55):
and be able to speak and sometimes tout and even
hug their loved ones again and on rare occasion now,
but quite often in the past, they could be seen
by all who were in the room. The home circle
is the first step of this, and Stuart Alexander, who
(39:16):
has spent fifty two years now as a medium, discusses
it in his book An Extraordinary Journey. I'd like to
recommend that you visit his website, which is Stuart Alexander
medium dot com. You'll find the new and revised version
of the book. There some CDs that'll tell you about
(39:38):
in just a moment in a link to the Noah's
Arksociety archive dot org. Let me tell you about that.
In nineteen ninety the Noah's Ark Society for Physical Mediumship
was launched and it quickly spread and attracted members from
all over the world who created these home circles. Now,
(40:00):
prior to its launch, physical mediumship had virtually disappeared. The
Nozark Society's intention was to encourage people to form home circles,
as it would help support and encourage people and advise
them what to do and not to do, and that's
(40:20):
what it did. Stuart Alexander subsequently became its very first
member and was privileged to be appointed its archives officer
and later its president. His articles about physical mediumship of
the past were published in its monthly newsletter. Stuart says,
had the Society not have been launched, then it was
(40:43):
a distinct possibility that I would have remained solely within
my long running home circle and almost certainly not have
emerged to occasionally hold public seances. Sadly, for various reasons,
the society only lasted from nineteen ninety to two thousand
(41:03):
and four. Its monthly newsletters would have disappeared forever had
it not been for this member of the Society named
lou Sutton, who took the time and trouble and he
put them all online. So literally you can go to
Noah's Arcsociety archive dot org and read monthly journals from
(41:28):
nineteen ninety to two thousand and four of people's home circles.
Now the CD set it was created by Stuart Alexander.
Elderly spiritualists who had sat with legendary physical mediums sent
Stuart their cassette recordings talking about their experiences. And these
(41:50):
materializations that they witnessed in the seance room. These people
are all now in the spirit world themselves, but Stuart
and myself a committed that their stories live on. If
you're interested, and I highly recommend them. You can order
the CDs directly from Stuart's website, which is Stuart alexandermedium
(42:12):
dot com, or you can find the digital copy on
my website, We Don't Die dot com. On the store page,
just look for physical seance room recollections also when you're
on that store page. Scott Milligan and I just launched
a guide to home circles. Whether you are sitting alone,
(42:34):
or you wish to start a home circle, or perhaps
you want to experiment with a virtual home circle, you'll
find some great instructions. There are questions and answers with
Scott Milligan and also questions and answers on home circles
asked to his spirit team while he was in the
trance state. We've included a seance that you can listen to.
(42:57):
You can find out about Book X Mediums other home circles.
We have five hours of music that you can sit to.
All in all, there is over twenty hours of material
for a low price, and of course you have a
money back guarantee. You can't beat that. As I said earlier,
(43:19):
this type of mediumship is almost extinct from our planet.
I do believe, however, that there are groups of people
that remain silent that continue to do this. There is
a small group of people, myself included, committed that by
embracing the past, we can have these experiences again and
(43:40):
so much more in the future. My friend, we are
living in twenty twenty three right now, with all the
technology and all the advances we have. Can you even
imagine what might be possible blending the past with all
that we currently have at our fingertips. I think it
truly is possible that the tipping point of afterlife communication
(44:03):
on a regular basis will occur in our lifetimes, and
what we now believe is the miraculous communicating with loved
ones after they have passed can be regular, everyday conversation
and just perhaps we won't need to go to a
medium to communicate. This all starts with our development in
(44:26):
the home circle. I want to read one more thing
to you from Stuart's book. He received correspondence from Bradley Harris,
who is the son of one of the most famous
physical mediums called Alec Harris. Like I said earlier, this
cabinet that the mediums sit in builds up the energy
(44:47):
the spirit. People step out of the cabinet, but their
energy only lasts so long. So Bradley says, on numerous
occasions when witnessing forms slowly deemity realizing by melting into
the floor, I personally found it to be an amazing
experience also to see a white piece of ectoplasm on
(45:09):
the floor just outside the cabinet rise up to form
a head shape which in a matter of seconds rows
into a fountain of ectoplasm to form a fully materialized
spirit form which steps forward into the room and experience
one never forgets, and it was beautiful to behold. However,
(45:32):
I can understand that a person could feel distressed when
a loved one that they had been embracing would start
to dematerialize outside the cabinet before stepping back into it.
Sometimes the spirit would hold onto the loved one's hands,
not wanting to go, but in being unable to hold
the power, they would melt into the floor. I want
(45:55):
to share a few more words from Stuart Alexander and
if you hear a few taps, he's so passionate that
he's hitting the table in front of him.
Speaker 4 (46:05):
For over one hundred and fifty years, I'll go so
far as to say that spirituals have looked up at
the stars. As you know, it was born in America,
and then like a forest fire, it traveled throughout America,
through Europe into England, and men and women of letters, aristocracy, royalty,
(46:26):
scientific people, men in the street, people were alsouccumbing to
this wonderful new movement that promised to be able to
prove conclusively that this life is merely a precursor to
what happens afterwards, that the worst survival for every sort
you know. And we were on track to do that.
(46:48):
But we've got to remember that for one hundred and
fifty years, the Home Stable stood at the very center
of spiritualism. It was almost the heartbeat of the movements.
And it is within those home sabers that these wonder
mediums of the past developed their gifts before eventually some
(47:08):
of them, not all of them, came out to work
before the public. Within the home saclep, there's no pressure
to perform. People just sit together in love and in
harmony to make that contact with the spirit. Well, these
days many people believe that by attending a few courses,
then in some way development can be accelerated. Well, I'm sorry,
(47:32):
but I think that is nonsense. A knowledgeable tutor can
help advise, inform, support, encourage a potential medium, but you
cannot shortcut the development of mediumshire. I firmly believe that,
and everything that I say is based on over fifty
years of experience and study and research, you know. So
(47:56):
I'm not just talking sort of at the top of
my head because I've been invoked over the three years. No,
not at all. So that's my field. I don't wish
to offend anyone at all. And I'm sure there's some
wonderful tutors out there, some wonderful courses. But for people
to believe that they can shortcut the developments of mediumship,
M sorry, it's nonsense. And if you look at the
(48:18):
general and I underland the word general Standard of Mediumship
of yesteryear, and then compare it with the general standard
of mediumship today, well, I think that speaks volumes. That
saves everything. To me, spiritualism has gone backwards, and I
think that in some respects innocently. We have betrayed the
(48:40):
hopes and aspirations of these men and women of the past,
many with unrisked their academic standing, their social standing, you know,
to stand up for what they believed in. They were
prepared to do that, and they did do that. They
put it all on the line. And what have we
done with it? Spiritualism is a shadow of its former self.
(49:03):
I'm sorry, but that's how I see it, and I
don't wish to offend anyone, but to me, that is reality.
The home circle is vitally important. And I remember a
past editor of The Psychic News, which is spiritualism's all
time well it's been around longer than any other journal,
(49:25):
the Psychic News. The editor a number of years ago
wrote an article in The Psychic before the Psychic News,
and it was an account of his visits to sit
with Alec Harris, the materialization medium who lived in South
Wales at the time, and it was absolutely wonderful to
(49:46):
read this. But the one thing that stuck in my
mind was the editor saying that he believed that down
every road, every street, every avenue in South Wales there
was probably a home circle sitting and that was it
home settles existed in considerable numbers. Now today very few,
(50:11):
very few, And I think we've lost our way, and
we've stopped listening to the spirit. Well, and when you
stop listening to them, then the way we'll always be lost.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
We can find our way again. Come visit me at
We Don't Die dot com. If you have a question,
email me Sandra Champlain at gmail dot com, and don't
forget to come join our weekly Sunday gathering. I'm Sandra Champlain.
You've been listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the
(50:41):
iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast Day and Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost
Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iheartrad Yo dot com.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
M
Host
Sandra Champlain
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