Mediumship is seeking out knowledge about one’s abilities and processes used to communicate with spirits. British Medium Leslie Flint was one of the last psychics to use a process called independent direct voice to allow spirits to directly communicate with him and a sitter.
What are independent direct voice séances?
Independent direct voice séances have strong powers to enable spirit voices to be heard. The medium conjures up ectoplasm — a gas-like substance that comes from the mouth, ears, nose, or lower region — from of the sitter. The sitter’s ectoplasm joins the medium’s positive energy to construct an etheric voice box for the spirits to communicate their thoughts.
If you were to take an infra-red photograph during an independent direct voice séance, you would see cords of ectoplasm emanating from the medium and the sitters and joining up to form what looks like a ball of mist, or the voice box, which we understand to be a replica of the vocal organs. The spirits independently translate their thoughts into words using this voice box—they do not use the medium’s lips to communicate—and the spirit’s voice will reach the sitter.
“The voices of the dead speak directly to their friends or relatives and are located in a space a little above my head and to one side of me,” said Flint.
The voice of the spirit
The spirit’s voice may not sound like the person’s voice while on earth. “Sometimes those who speak from beyond the grave can achieve only a whisper, hoarse and strained,” Flint said. “At other times they speak clearly and fluently in voices recognizably their own during life.”
The sprit cannot be expected to exactly replicate its earth voice, because it is using its thoughts to lower its voice’s vibrations to match the earth’s vibration, and it is using an artificial voice box. Because spirits communicate in the spirit world through thought, they may not even know or remember what they sounded like on earth.
Britain’s best-known spiritualist
While some direct voice mediums go into a trance when performing séances, Flint remained fully conscious. He died in 1994 and was considered one of Britain’s best-known spiritualists.
“I do my work sitting wide awake in total darkness with other people,” he said. “I know I have learned more about life, people, human problems, and emotions by the sitting in the dark than I could possibly have learned in any other way—and those who have taught me the most are people dead to this world, but who are living in the next.”