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Lord Dowding and God’s Magic, and Margaret Flavell’s Rescue Circle and advice on scientific mediumship.
Air Chief Marshal Lord Hugh Dowding was both the champion of the Battle of Britain and the champion of Spiritualism in the mid 1940s at a time when both the Church of England and the Establishment were still
oppressing, suppressing and imprisoning mediums. However, even Winston Churchill objected to the trial of Helen Duncan, but it took courage for mediums like Margaret Flavell to conduct rescue circles for servicemen killed in action, and it was to her circle that Hugh Dowding came, and which he reported on in his books “Lychgate,” “God’s Magic,” and "The Dark Planet." I will give a few excerpts from those books in later posts, but in this article I want to include some advice from spirit about scientific mediumship from a communicator Margaret Flavell brought through when she came to Canada and the States after the war. Her husband by coincidence served in the Royal Air Force, and worked on the development of the Radar which helped Lord Dowding win the air battle against Germany. He contacted her after his death in as did the father of a close friend of hers in the States, the Lutheran pastor Alvin (A.D.) Mattson.
A.D. Mattson’s communications, together with his on-in-law’s and those of Margaret’s own husband provide a fascinating picture of the afterlife, where each person quite evidently retained his or her personality and lifetime interests. Spirits of their caliber were apparently in no need of "rescue" when they died. The son-in law had been a broadcaster and musician, and on passing was able to continue his musical interests on the other side, meeting former associates such as jazz players Bud Freeman and George Barnes. Bands and orchestras get together over there, and Hal continues to play his double bass and compose. [I look forward to my own future in music among other pursuits when it’s my time to pass. I have many friends and colleagues in music and the theatre to meet again!]
A.D. Mattson continues his theological interests, now on a far wider scale, and he keeps an eye on what is going on in the world. The reason why I am linking him with this discussion is because his instructions to
mediums like Margaret Flavell, who has now spent over 60 years’ in service to Spiritualism, are directly compatible with those of Frederic Myers [which I will discuss in future posts]. I quote a few remarks from his daughter Ruth Mattson Taylor’s book “Evidence from Beyond.”
“I haven’t yet become accustomed to all the words, the jargon, concerning communication, so I am trying to keep it simple. A good receiver is one who, as though winding a skein of wool, keeps one end and
winds it up carefully, carefully, like that tape is winding – listening and not allowing any thought to come in except what is actually being given to her by the communicator. The early mediums did not have the
necessary control of their brain and their mind to clear away all thought and allow the communication to come through. That is why there had to be trance mediumship.
“One of the real reasons for a great deal of frustration is the fact that I can only send a thought to Margaret, and she must translate that thought into words. As you are aware, I have stopped her on more
than one occasion so that she will pick up the right word to interpret what my thought and meaning is. I am projecting my thought to Margaret without using words because it is slow and laborious for me to use
words.
It is vitally important for you to realize that,when you get a message, you should not condemn it and say, “But that’s not his speech. That’s not the way he talks.” I am not talking words. I am sending a
thought from my mind to Margaret’s mind, and her
personality and brain have to interpret it.
“ We have to tell all people who mourn that they must be comforted because unless they are comforted,we can’t get through to them.
There is this stream of life, the Holy Spirit,and it is like a spring coming up. It comes up into the pool of your own consciousness. If your own consciousness is so turbulent, the spring as it comes from the ground is taken up with all this turbulence. If you take a still pool and you place a spring at the back of it, water would come from the spring
and it would move through the pool so that all you would see would be currents moving through the water until they come to the surface.
When we communicate, this is how you should feel – that the Holy Spirit is like that spring in you and you receive through the calmness of your own consciousness.
As I look at you, Margaret, [I see] you have this stillness, and through the spring of the Holy Spirit I am communicating with you. This movement is made spirit to spirit, and these movements impinge on the
brain and the brain coats them in words. It is true that I have my material prepared. I also find that I am inclined to link in a little with
your minds. When you seem to be more interested in one thing, then I enlarge on that, extending the area of information, and widening the scope of the subject.
I can also at times pick up from your minds the questions you want to ask me, and I can also pick up your questions when you write them out on paper.
“When I communicate with you, I have my own little area – a little round circular mushroomlike place. It really IS a very large white mushroom. It has quilting material underneath, which is for the
acoustics, and I do sit there and broadcast my thoughts to you. I can pick up through that crinkle,crinkle, crinkle material of the ceiling. I pick up your responses to me very carefully. They come, and I
pick them up at the back of my neck. There are those with me who are working on this. It’s rather like a recording studio. They know when I’m in full bore [volume], and they turn down the power a bit. They
know when I’m wavering a bit, and when I’m slowly feeling my way in. It’s a new experience to be able to see what people think by the light and thought and colors and emanation that come up from them.
An interesting point has just arisen. I was finding myself so easily projecting to you and receiving your link in reply in a much clearer way
than usual. I remarked on this, and was told that it is raining hard, and we find the humid atmosphere
conducive to good reception on this side.”
Margaret Flavell speaks of her mediumship as follows:
“I relax completely, quiet the mind and brain,hold in “stillness,” and disassociate from the physical. In the stillness, I become aware of a
different vibration that is insistent and continuous
in its feel.
On questing, I become aware of receiving a thought that is foreign. This thought develops and I become aware of a projected personality. On inquiring , a name/personality develops and, as over a telephone, a reciprocal conversation takes place. At times a picture of the person comes, as well as the personality traits. For example, I have seen
A.D. Mattson in various places: under a canopy, which he described; sitting on a chair in various locations,which we also discussed. The first time of meeting I saw him in his favorite checked shirt and flannel
trousers.
A continuous conversation, mind to mind, deepens until A.D. smoothly as in a physical conversation, expresses thoughts and feelings. Sometimes the
feelings received have caused laughter or tears. The latter I can register and feel with him. This may be called empathy.
The whole contact is on a mind-to-mind-basis – no trance – for I never leave my body. I am aware of where I am – in a room or in a car, at the hospital,and this information I wrote down on paper rather than
recording it on tape. It is possible to accept the thought without being aware of the presence of the communicator as a person, but A.D. generally projects his whole personality while sending his thoughts, so that anyone hearing his recorded talk recognizes him. The effect is quite different from the reply one receives in asking a question of the ether, not send
it to any particular personality or mind. Then the reply is in a flash. [In contrast] one may wait for quite a period of time for a communicator to come through.
A.D. can project a thought to me while I’m asleep, and it doesn’t register until later when my brain begins to interpret what my mind has received. He told me that our mind is like a desk with a lot of
pigeonholes. They can put information in, and when our brain is moving along, the mind slips the information in, as it slipped it in this morning just as I was waking.
In Ruth’s home, A.D. enters a vortex of power,which is like a movement of power, like a cone of power. He can come into that power and everything else is cut out for the time being. He is just
himself in what looks to me like a spiral of power. It is going continuously – coming down and going up again – rather like an old-fashioned barber pole of light and power. It’s about four feet across the top as I see it, and it narrows down like a funnel. A.D. is projecting his thinking down through that. It’s very easy to do it here, because this atmosphere is steady and holds the communication. He says that is
one reason why he said to us on the way home this morning that we should not go into the middle of a restaurant to eat lunch, because that confusion
remains in my aura, and then he can’t get through very
easily.”
Reviewed from “Evidence from Beyond” and “Witness from Beyond” both edited by Mattson’s daughter Ruth Mattson
Taylor, both of which are recommended for information about the World Beyond.. Then there are Lord Hugh Dowding’s books based on Margaret Flavell’s and Estelle Robert's earlier work in England, mentioned above.
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