Albert Best

[i]This account was given to medium Gordon Smith by a Catholic priest who lives just outside Glasgow:[/i]

I was invited, along with some friends of mine who had joined together to form an ecumenical group to study and discuss religious matters, to attend a session of mediumship given by the late Mr Albert Best. The group met in Glasgow at the home of my friend who was hosting this session. I had been told by many members of the group who were familiar with the medium and his work that he could be quite phenomenal, but none of us could have ever expected what we were about to see.

Albert Best was a man of Irish origin, small in stature, who appeared, in my view, very shy. He seemed to be intimidated by the gathering of men and women in our group who were either of a religious or scientific background. Soon after the formal introductions, Mr Best sat in a large and very heavy-looking armchair at the far end of the well-lit sitting room, whilst the rest of the group were seated around the room in a sort of circle formation. Mr Best closed his eyes and fell into a sort of trance and a voice spoke through him in an accent which was hard to dintinguish as any exact nationality. He began to give what I believe was a message from the spirit on the other side to one of my colleagues, who was confirming what he was hearing when, without warning, the chair on which Mr Best was sitting began to shake furiously. Mr Best snapped out of his trance state and began to protest to unseen forces around him, saying, 'Stop that!' and 'Put me down!'.

If I had not been in the company of people who I consider sane of mind, I would not have believed my eyes, as the chair, along with Mr Best, lifted up till the little man's head was near ceiling height. No sooner had this happened that voices could be heard, which I can say came from no one seen sitting in that room. The chair slowly returned to the floor with Mr Best still calling out to the invisible forces around him and the session ended soon after. The medium explained that he was unharmed and never in any danger, but he did not like it when they played games like that just to impress people. He said that the spirits who had played this prank on him were men who had been part of his squadron during the war and who had died in Africa in 1943. This was Mr Best's account; quite honestly, I, along with the most of my group, even those among us with a background in physics, have absoluety no explanation for what we experienced.

[i]Another story:[/i]

Ann Kennedy was the wife of a Church of Scotland minister called the Rev. David Kennedy.

Ann Kennedy died while she was still in her forties.

Before Ann had died she had promised to try to find a way to contact her husband from beyond the grave.

Although it was against his religion, the Rev. David Kennedy contacted a medium called Lexie Findletter. Lexie told David that Ann was trying to communicate with him.

A week later David was asleep at home. He was awoken by the sound of the phone ringing. He looked at the clock on the wall. He realised that he only had five minutes to prepare his sermon and find a clean collar. He lifted up the phone.

"Your wife Ann is with me," said a voice. "She tells me that your clean collars are in a bottom drawer of your wardrobe and the speech you prepared last year for this service is in the top drawer of your desk. Incidentally, my name is Albert Best."

David looked in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe and found the three clean collars.

Albert went on to say that Anne told him to tell David that he (David) needed to send to the laundry the 23 soiled collars which he had already accumulated in a special box where he kept his collars. When David counted the number of collars in his box, there were 23 in all.

More messages reached David in the days that followed. On one occasion Albert said that Ann had asked him to tell David to phone Ann’s sister and ‘ask about the ballet shoes’. When David did so, Ann’s sister was astounded that he knew about the private joke that had been a secret between Ann and her sister.

Albert Best was a postman and a world famous spiritualist medium. He was also the uncle of footballer George Best.

Born in Belfast on the 2nd December 1917. He had his first mediumistic experience at seven years. Albert told of the man standing at the top of the his grandmother's stairs the man was carrying a lit lamp and the thing that stood out for him was the man had string tied around his legs just below the knees. He told his Grandma what he saw, which she replied you've eaten too much cheese tonight. But Albert than heard his Grandmother say "father go away, you are frightening the boy". It was the grandfather Albert saw, but he had never met him as he had died before Albert was born. He said from that day on he was never frightened of spirit.

When World War Two started, Albert was 22 then so he decided to join the Enniskillen Fusiliers. When he was in Africa, his wife Rose their three children perished in a massive bombing raid on Belfast.

Albert moved to Ayrshire, Scotland in 1944, took on a job as the local postman and later became friendly with a Spiritualist family, Mr George and Mrs Olive Williamson. He was invited with the Williamsons to join the home circle of Mrs Maggie Haffety in Irvine, and later invited to join for development with the Kilmarnock Church. He sat with this church circle for sometime into the mid 1950's before being introduced to Maurice Barbanell, the editor of Psychic News, who helped him to work further afield.

Albert was well known for his wonderful accurate mediumistic evidence during demonstrations. Having worked previously as a postman it seemed natural that the Spirit world would prove survival by giving details such as names and addresses along with other private details.

Albert Best passed to the higher life 12th April 1996. He was an extremely hard working Medium and admired and loved by many.

I highly recommend the book:

'Best' of both worlds; a tribute to a great medium by Rosalind Cattanach

You can also read about Albert Best on this forum here:

http://spiritualismlink.forumotion.com/t494-albert-best?highlight=albert+best

The Rev David Kennedy had first gone to 'see' Albert at his house in Glasgow's Mount Florida under an assumed identity. He received information of such evidential quality that it led to him writing a book on the subject: 'A Venture into Immortality' in which he describes his uplifting communications from both Albert and Lexie Findlater of Grangemouth. I had the humbling privilege of Chairing meetings for both on different occasions.

On one such memorable evening, Lexie's work was even greater than usual, in that she spoke in a different language to a member of the congregation - a vistor - who understood and replied in kind. Lexie had no personal knowledge of the language, nor did she know her recipient.

hiorta wrote:The Rev David Kennedy had first gone to 'see' Albert at his house in Glasgow's Mount Florida under an assumed identity. He received information of such evidential quality that it led to him writing a book on the subject: 'A Venture into Immortality' in which he describes his uplifting communications from both Albert and Lexie Findlater of Grangemouth. I had the humbling privilege of Chairing meetings for both on different occasions.

On one such memorable evening, Lexie's work was even greater than usual, in that she spoke in a different language to a member of the congregation - a vistor - who understood and replied in kind. Lexie had no personal knowledge of the language, nor did she know her recipient.

Thanks for sharing that.

It's amazing hiorta, Helen Hughes was the same when in an altered state she would speak in languages she had no knowledge of, one language being Indian. Helen The Beloved as she was known to the spirit people was truly a remarkable medium. Many people witnessed her trance and also testified that the spirit communicator who was speaking through her would often be seen transfigurating her face.

Azur wrote:

hiorta wrote:The Rev David Kennedy had first gone to 'see' Albert at his house in Glasgow's Mount Florida under an assumed identity. He received information of such evidential quality that it led to him writing a book on the subject: 'A Venture into Immortality' in which he describes his uplifting communications from both Albert and Lexie Findlater of Grangemouth. I had the humbling privilege of Chairing meetings for both on different occasions.

On one such memorable evening, Lexie's work was even greater than usual, in that she spoke in a different language to a member of the congregation - a vistor - who understood and replied in kind. Lexie had no personal knowledge of the language, nor did she know her recipient.

Thanks for sharing that.

It's amazing hiorta, Helen Hughes was the same when in an altered state she would speak in languages she had no knowledge of, one language being Indian. Helen The Beloved as she was known to the spirit people was truly a remarkable medium. Many people witnessed her trance and also testified that the spirit communicator who was speaking through her would often be seen transfigurating her face.

"The Mediumship of Helen Hughes" by Bernard Upton is the book to read.

zerdini wrote:

Azur wrote:

hiorta wrote:The Rev David Kennedy had first gone to 'see' Albert at his house in Glasgow's Mount Florida under an assumed identity. He received information of such evidential quality that it led to him writing a book on the subject: 'A Venture into Immortality' in which he describes his uplifting communications from both Albert and Lexie Findlater of Grangemouth. I had the humbling privilege of Chairing meetings for both on different occasions.

On one such memorable evening, Lexie's work was even greater than usual, in that she spoke in a different language to a member of the congregation - a vistor - who understood and replied in kind. Lexie had no personal knowledge of the language, nor did she know her recipient.

Thanks for sharing that.

It's amazing hiorta, Helen Hughes was the same when in an altered state she would speak in languages she had no knowledge of, one language being Indian. Helen The Beloved as she was known to the spirit people was truly a remarkable medium. Many people witnessed her trance and also testified that the spirit communicator who was speaking through her would often be seen transfigurating her face.

"The Mediumship of Helen Hughes" by Bernard Upton is the book to read.

I agree, fantastic book i've one of the original copies which Jean Bassett MSNU kindly gave to me. There is a new printed verision available at www.snui.org and features 9 pictures not in the original print. Highly recommended.

.

The extra-ordinary courage of Lexie Findlater and her trust in her Mediumship are very revealing. How many mediums would stick their neck out this far?
When it is remembered that Spiritualists in general and Mediums in particular - at that time - were regarded as folk who had lost their marbles and for an ordinary lady, as Lexie was, to find the phone number of a Reverend gentleman likely to be somewhat hostile to Spiritualism, then proceed to relay what a dead wife was anxious to convey to him.
This episode also offers some insight into how we are perceived by those who have made their transition, in that their choice of messenger did seem to be seen as being 'sound'.

Journal of Scientifi c Exploration, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 167–193, 2009
Super-Psi and the Survivalist Interpretation of Mediumship
http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_23_2_sudduth.pdf
Typically complex psychical researcher piece but some great examples of Albert Best and Lexie Findlater's messages to Rev Kennedy are given.

Jim

hiorta wrote:The extra-ordinary courage of Lexie Findlater and her trust in her Mediumship are very revealing. How many mediums would stick their neck out this far?
When it is remembered that Spiritualists in general and Mediums in particular - at that time - were regarded as folk who had lost their marbles and for an ordinary lady, as Lexie was, to find the phone number of a Reverend gentleman likely to be somewhat hostile to Spiritualism, then proceed to relay what a dead wife was anxious to convey to him.
This episode also offers some insight into how we are perceived by those who have made their transition, in that their choice of messenger did seem to be seen as being 'sound'.

Well pointed out, hiorta.

It is easy to forget the hostility and no-win situations that mediums and survivalist proponents faced in those days. I had this starkly reminded when I read the Eddy children traumas in America in the late 1800s.

Either you were considered deranged or a warlock/witch.

When he (Eddy's father) realized that he couldn’t stop the weird antics, he grew furious. Each time the boys fell into a trance, he would berate and verbally abuse them. He would try to rouse them by pinching and slapping them until they were black and blue. Once, on the advice of a sympathetic Christian friend, he doused the boys with boiling water. When this didn’t work, he also allowed this friend to drop a red-hot coal into William’s hand. He had hoped to "exorcize his devils". The boy never awakened from his trance, but he bore a scar on his palm for the rest of his life.

On occasion though, the spirits would attempt to defend the boys, appearing in front of Zepaniah and scaring him from the house. Needless to say, these eerie and frustrating happenings were more than the man could stand. So, tiring of the boys but realizing their money-making potential, he sold the Eddy brothers to a traveling showman, who for the next 14 years, took them all over America, Canada and Europe. As part of the performance, he would challenge audience members to try and awaken the boys from their trances. These audiences made their father’s abuse look tame. The Eddy’s were locked into small wooden boxes to see if they could escape and hot wax was poured into their mouths to see if they could produce “spirit voices” when they were unable to talk. The skeptics poked, prodded, and punched the sleeping brothers, leaving them scarred and damaged for the rest of their lives. On several occasions, they were even stoned and shot at by angry mobs. William Eddy bore a number of bullet scars on his body. According to writer John Mason, “They were mobbed in Lynn, Massachusetts and stoned at South Danvers. On a second trip to Danvers they were shot at. They were ridden on a rail out of Cleveland and barely escaped a coat of tar and feathers.”

The Eddy Children