Continuing our ongoing discussion about controversial direct-voice medium Leslie Flint, I'd like to quote some material from Allan Barham's 1982 book Life Unlimited: The Persistence of Personality Beyond Death. The book includes two chapters on Flint, whom Barham knew personally. Barham says he attended many Flint séances, often bringing friends along.
In the first chapter, he quotes from Flint's alleged spirit control, Mickey, who explains why the voices don't always sound quite right:
What one must bear in mind is that all methods of communication, whether it is in this form or any other, is basically a mental thing. And therefore, when a person comes to speak to you – when the scientist whose job it is to build up the voice-box from the ectoplasm supplied by the medium [has finished his work]: when it is all arranged and built up ready for the communicator, the transmission of their thought into sound, via the voice-box, is quite an art in itself. One has to learn how to manipulate it, and you've got to concentrate the mentality on saying certain things – invariably things that really are evidential to the recipient.
And what one has to bear in mind most of all is that all communication is artificial – it must be. You see, the majority of people who go to a séance – to this kind of séance, that is – they say "If that voice speaks to me in so-and-so's voice I'll believe it." And the point is that it doesn't always sound like the identical voice, because what produces the actual voice is, and must be, artificial. It cannot be under any circumstances the identical voice, because they are not using the same physical body or the same vocal organs under the same conditions.
What is actually happening is that they are trying to convert their thoughts into sound via the voice-box; the voice-box being artificial; temporarily constructed from ectoplasm, and kept in being, as far as possible, by the scientist who produces it and utilizes it. And I don't see how you can get the identical voice, the identical tone. Occasionally the voice is reproduced; another time it takes a long time to get anything like the original voice.
Whether or not we find this convincing, it is at least an attempt to explain why the voices often do not sound like the originals and why they sometimes sound too much like one another.
Most of the rest of Barham's coverage of Flint concerns a tape recording allegedly of the deceased George Bernard Shaw, known familiarly as G.B.S. This tape was not produced under anything like controlled conditions. According to Flint, he was having tea with a certain Mrs. Creet, his landlady, in one of her rooms (not the room he rented) when he had the feeling that someone was trying to come through. Barham tells us that a tape recorder was switched on and soon after, Shaw showed up. Barham was not present – the only people there were Flint and Mrs. Creet – but he did go to the trouble of interviewing the landlady. He concluded:
Mrs. Creet believed implicitly in the phenomenon of Direct Voice. She could have been called gullible, but she was certainly a woman of integrity. She confirmed what Leslie had told us, and in particular she confirms that the questions which she had asked G.B.S. were entirely spontaneous.
Naturally, we will have to take Barham's word for this. A skeptic could reasonably assert that Mrs. Creet was in on the trick and simply pulled the wool over Barham's eyes. The transcript of the tape, however, certainly suggests that she was enthralled by the conversation and entirely convinced of its genuineness.
Barham went further in his investigations. He made an effort to play the tape for various people who had known Shaw in life.
The first really impressive evidence for the authenticity of Shaw's communication came from George Bishop, a former dramatic critic of the Daily Telegraph, who had been a friend of G.B.S. for a great many years. It was with some reluctance that he consented to listen to the tape; he had no faith in psychic phenomena of this nature. But as soon as he heard the voice on the tape his attention was riveted, and he sat unmoving for the thirty minutes of the recording. When it was finished it was apparent that he was deeply moved, and he told me, "The mind and the mood are Shaw's."
The only difference that he had noticed, he said, between the voice of Shaw post-mortem and the Shaw whom he remembered was that the latter had a faster delivery than that on the tape. But he was in little doubt that it was Shaw himself who had spoken.
Barham, however, was not quite satisfied with this testimony because "it was an old friend who was concerned, who might have been influenced by the mechanism of wish-fulfillment." To get around this problem, he arranged to have the tape heard by some people who had known Shaw but had not been particularly friendly with him.
Like George Bishop, the writer Lawrence Easterbrook had known Shaw for many years, but was not, I think, a close friend. After he had heard the recording he wrote to me, "I found the G.B.S. recording interesting indeed. The more I think about it, the more impossible it seems for anyone but himself to have been responsible. It brought back to me the sense of infectious gaiety one got with him when he was in the family circle and not showing off. You felt the world with all its follies was tremendous fun, to be laughed at with gentleness and understanding."
Dame Sybil Thorndike did not agree about the "not showing off." She told me, "It sounds like Shaw putting on an act for people whom he despised intellectually."
J.B. Priestley did not believe that the voice was that of Shaw, but he admitted to me that George Bishop had known G.B.S. better than he had himself.
Barham concludes that the reactions were mixed. As for his own personal view:
I don't know whether Shaw communicated through Leslie Flint or not. Nevertheless I have an opinion about it. First, as I have indicated, I do not believe that Mr. Flint has a mind which is capable of producing the spontaneous conversation that is heard on the tape. I refer here to his conscious mind, as I have learned to know it over the years. What the unconscious mind contains provides one of the largest question marks in the area of psychical research.
It is conceivable that some other mind in an earthly body, capable of Shavian expression, telepathically provided the material that emerged at the séance. It is also conceivable that a mischievous discarnate being personated Shaw deceased. Some people might even believe, I suppose, that the devil was responsible for what took place, in order to mislead the faithful and attract them to Spiritualism. All that can be done is to consider the evidence, and to decide, if you can, where the probability lies.
In the second chapter dealing with Flint, Barham includes the greater part of a transcript of the G.B.S. tape itself. This is too long to quote in its entirety (it runs about ten pages), but it does convey a definite sense of personality and what you might call intellectual joie de vivre. The excerpts below were mainly chosen to highlight the humor of the exchange. Following the book's practice, "Shaw's" remarks are italicized.
Well, my name probably will not convey very much to you. You may have casually heard it mentioned in conversation; or it may be possible that you were one of the very disappointed people who came out of the theater grumbling about wasted money, after having seen one – or more perhaps if you ever went to second time, that is, to one of my plays....
I am very grateful indeed for many of the compensations of the earthly existence; but I have no desire whatever to return, should it be possible, that is; to return to live it all over again, and become, as I believe some people say one does, someone else. The fact of having been George Bernard Shaw is enough for any one person for any time.
Mrs. Creet: Oh, your name will last everlastingly I should think.
What a dreadful thought that is....
Mrs. Creet: You were a wonderful old man, you know. You lived to a very great age.
I don't mind "wonderful"; I rather object to the "old."…
Well, I must admit [the afterlife] was a very great surprise. I think the surprise of finding that I was still alive, and yet I was dead, was in itself a very great disappointment to me.… I could see no point in continuing. After all's said and done, I could see no point in a life after death. I think that an earthly existence such as I experienced was enough for any one man….
Mrs. Creet: The continuation is very much more pleasant than it has been on the earth, isn't it?
You seem to know more about it than I do! May I be allowed to say, madam, since you have not yet arrived here, by what right can you tell me that it's better over here?…
Of course, I realize now that me – or I, if I should speak in the so-called correct English – that I was more than the body. The same as a lot of people said that the preface to my plays was more to the point and more important than the play itself.
Mrs. Creet: That's quite true.
Oh, you agree with that do you?
Mrs. Creet: Oh, I do. I think your prefaces are marvelous.
Well, it's a pity they couldn't act the preface, and just leave the play out.…
[As an aside, I find Shaw's pique at having his mock self-effacing remark taken seriously rather amusing and very much in keeping with the touchy egos of many creative types. - MP]
I've never been terribly keen to be a sinner. In fact, when I tried to be a sinner, I was never very successful – much to my great disappointment. I wanted to sin once or twice with several very charming ladies, but they would only sin by correspondence, which was no satisfaction to me at all!… I was a bit of a sentimental old fool, you know, but I wouldn't let people know it. At least, I tried to avoid them realizing it. I used to put on a brusque manner, you know, and try and waggle my beard and frighten them. I didn't always succeed; I did it much better by postcards. Now I come to think about it, I was much more successful with my pen than ever I was with my tongue.…
Mrs. Creet: When you were passing over… Tell us something about that. I'm always very interested…
I never knew a woman who was so anxious to know about death before! Why don't you wait until you come?… Surely, my dear, it's more interesting to know something about life rather than death.
Mrs. Creet: Yes, but then you can start with death, you see, and as you gradually go on, we will hear a bit more.
One usually starts with birth and ends up with death. But now I've had to reverse the procedure and start with death.… But I must admit that I was very much surprised, and very much perturbed … and at the same time very elated; if one can have three such different emotions all at once. I was elated because I realized that I hadn't lost the opportunity to do something which I had always wanted to do – and that was write a successful play. Because you know although financially my plays were successful, I was never really satisfied with them myself. But I'm just telling you that as a secret. You must never let anyone else know. Otherwise they might think that I wasn't so good as they thought I was!…
Well, I met my own parents, of course. I can't say I was exactly elated about that, but they seemed to be much more excited about it than I was.…
Where were we? Oh, I was talking about Oscar [Wilde]. Of course, you know he was a fool, but then again most of the best people are! Most of the most intellectually brilliant people, as far as the world is concerned, are considered fools; so there's hope perhaps for you!…
[Another rather clever jab at the happily oblivious Mrs. Creet. - MP]
The only people, I think, who really had any affection for me were the children, who were never really frightened of me like the adults. I think children are much more trusting; they have much more faith in human beings. Whereas as you get older you become suspicious; and children are very rarely suspicious, especially of old men, because I think that they realize that old men might be Father Christmas in disguise, and bring them a nice present at Christmas if they treat them nicely.… I probably would have filled the position very nicely, now I come to think of it. In fact I think I'd have made a much better Father Christmas than a playwright!…
I'm just joking; because I realize that you are in rather an invidious position, poor dears, sitting up here in this room in the dark, listening to a voice coming out of the void, and not knowing quite who, what or how. After all, I say I'm G.B.S. You haven't the faintest idea. I might be Jesus Christ for all you know. But there you are; that's a matter of opinion.
[Possibly another witticism, suggesting that it's a matter of opinion whether or not Shaw is the equal of Jesus Christ. If this is a joke, it passes completely over Mrs. Creet's head. - MP]
Mrs. Creet: Oh, but we know you're G.B.S. by what you say.
But you know, when you come to think of it, people do accept things too much on face value.…
I know Oscar's very interested [in producing more plays]; and as for that chappie friend of yours, Chopin, he's rounding us all up.
Mrs. Creet: Isn't he a wonderful soul, GBS?
He's a very fine fellow indeed; but you know there's such a thing as letting the dead rest! And if I know him, he's not going to let anybody rest!…
I don't think there are the artistes of the caliber of the old days [in the theater today]. I think that is partly because there are no great actor-managers. I think it is that in the old days they used to, as you know, tour the provinces; they use to learn their work the hard way. I mean they were trained; they knew every aspect of their art. They weren't fêted and courted by society like they are today. Today the theatrical profession seems more interested in the social register than it actually seems interested in "the boards," which I think is a pity. You can't divide yourself. There are exceptions, of course.
In [Henry] Irving's latter days he was very much courted and fêted; but he always kept his distance, more or less, from the general public. But then again, I think that he had the theater at heart; he wanted to make it respectable because, you know, in my early years the theater wasn't exactly a respectable place. No, it was the sort of place where one went to be entertained, and one admired the actors of the day. One went to see special types of plays and special types of theaters; and the orchestra-pit was put there to separate the public from the vagabonds. That was the only reason they ever had an orchestra-pit, because it wasn't particularly so much the musicians that mattered, because they were just put there with their instruments to keep the two apart. Usually somebody would blow on a trumpet to let people know there was a difference between the angels and the devils.
It can certainly be argued that there is nothing especially evidential in all this, apart from a few references to figures known to Shaw in his earthly days. Still, the quoted comments do not seem out of character or markedly below the intellectual level Shaw attained in life. There is an engaging blend of exaggerated self-deprecation and touchy vanity, a certain amused scorn for his interlocutor, combined perhaps with a touch of pity, and a persuasive nostalgia for the great old days of his youth, when men like Irving (a towering figure in London stagecraft) dominated the scene. If this is merely a performance – and an improvised one, at that – by Leslie Flint, a man of very limited education, then it is a small masterpiece.
Barham concludes:
It is doubtful whether any Irish intonation is discernible in the communication. If this is indeed what it purports to be, the reason for the lack of an appropriate accent may be the artificial method of the production of the voice, as was suggested earlier. Apart from this, I remember what one of Shaw's friends told me, namely that the Irish accent was put on when he spoke on public occasions.
Michael,
This really is impressive. It contains a lot of actual knowledge For example, the preface to "Heartbreak House" is a huge political treatise that is indeed more impressive than the play itself.
I think I gave credit where due in the "Our Man Flint" thread in the comment when I wrote,
"Even being able to pontificate at length spontaneously in character is a feat unto itself, and some of the imitations (if they are that) are quite good, so even if it's complete fraud, it's still impressive."
Even if someone were simply to write this whole thing out as an imitation of Shaw as fiction, it would be impressive.
The puzzlement continues, as I really have *not* been impressed by Flint's seance content in general.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | May 23, 2017 at 06:53 PM
Sorry, I failed to note that this was a great post in which you clearly put in a lot of compiling and editing work. Plus, great title!
Posted by: Matt Rouge | May 23, 2017 at 08:37 PM
Although Flint may have had a limited formal education I don’t believe that he was unintelligent. I have listened to his lectures in which he comes off as a very erudite, well-spoken rather ‘posh’ Englishman. Take a listen and see what you think. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Olilver Doyle | May 23, 2017 at 10:33 PM
That was a very interesting post, Michael, not least because it supports my intimations about Flint and his basic sincerity.
The entity that purports to be Shaw in those excerpts is certainly hugely intelligent: far beyond the intellectual scope of Flint's average communicator - and, I believe, far beyond Flint himself.
Someone of the caliber of Shaw could never have withstood the tedium of sitting through the endless evidential-but-mostly-mundane communications that would have been the meat of Flint's day-to-day work. Hence it seems to me that there is very little chance that Flint possessed anything like the intellectual power of Shaw.
It takes one to recognise one. Flint wasn't one. Hence, I believe, he did not have the ability to mimic the nuances of Shaw's customary style of communication.
BTW, I do rather take exception to those who confidently pour scorn Flint's work and upon those who see merit in the evidence he provides. As Shaw intimated, many clever people are routinely regarded as gullible fools. Which rather puts me in mind the following quotation:
"Why do the stupid always think it's the clever ones who are stupid?"
- Euripides (Medea' circa 400bc)
Posted by: Julie Baxter | May 24, 2017 at 11:37 AM
I for one found this rather impressive. As Matt pointed out, even if it's a fraud, it's still impressive (and interesting to read).
It also makes sense that spirit voices would differ from that when they were living, as the physical apparatus for producing voice is long since gone. "The spirits" instead would have to try to imitate their physical voices from years ago, so I wouldn't be surprised that the two types of voices sound different.
Posted by: Kathleen | May 24, 2017 at 02:53 PM
It seems that the 'voice box' produced with ectoplasm from Leslie Flint gives almost all of the voices a British accent, either distinctly pronounced or not. I think I could accept that the voices might not sound exactly as they did in life but it would be difficult for me to accept my mother's Midwestern American voice with an upper-class British accent. So---whatever 'voice box' is used (copied after Leslie Flint's voice box I am told) must taint most or all of the voices with Flint's diction, inflections and intonation, things that all require lips, tongue, teeth and nasal cavities to produce.
If it is "basically a mental thing" as 'Mickey' says, "transmitting thought to sound", why would my mother's voice or any other non-English person sound like an English man or woman unless there was something about the "voice box" that was decidedly British?
After their tea, Mrs. Creet and Mr. Flint in Creet's apartment just happened to have a tape recorder handy or else they proceeded to Flint's apartment into a darkened room (Flint's voices did not manifest in light) where the tape recorder was ready and waiting or there must have been some set-up time required before the tape could be recorded. It is unlikely that this was a spontaneous communication from Shaw in Creet's room as implied by Barham. If it were, why stop the process and make such an effort to record it? Why not just let it happen? Why the need for the recording under these informal circumstances? (Etta Wriedt's voices spoke willy nilly as the mood struck them. Sometimes three of them spoke at the same time as Etta conversed with one or more of them---sometimes reportedly in the light!)
Flint may have been a man of very limited education but Flint knew a lot about theater, "show business", film, acting and movie stars so that everything that Irish playwright 'Shaw' said in the Mrs. Creet recording could have been fabricated by Flint as an impersonation of Shaw---without an Irish accent (sounds more like Winston Churchill to me but I found it difficult to understand). Without an Irish accent how could anyone who really knew Shaw in life think that Flint's recording was of Shaw?
http://www.wholejoy.com/I/G-H.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TIt0ITM_RM
Listen to Flint's lectures which I think reveal a very knowledgeable fluent British intellectual. http://www.wholejoy.com/I/Lectures.html
I have no problem with the voices coming through Flint's own voice box similar to other mediums. It's just that the voice box of ectoplasm made by a spirit "scientist" is difficult for me to swallow past my own voice box. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | May 24, 2017 at 05:11 PM
Here is another recording of GBS in which he has lost ---on purpose---most of his Irish accent and sounding somewhat more like the Flint version of his voice. This is a very entertaining lecture about "Spoken English and Broken English". I found it to be somewhat relevant to the Flint recording of Shaw and certainly very entertaining. You may want to listen to the whole tape apparently broken into four parts. - AOD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spTC1Dn7Uy8
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | May 24, 2017 at 05:53 PM
As I listen to more and more recordings of the voice of George Bernard Shaw, especially as he grows older, he seems to lose all of his Irish accent sounding more and more like the tape of his voice made by Leslie Flint. I can understand that people who knew him in life as an old man would think that the Flint recording could be the voice of Shaw. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | May 24, 2017 at 06:02 PM
Thanks michael. I do admire my your tenacity with the subjects you tackle. Very very interesting post.
Posted by: Paul | May 24, 2017 at 06:13 PM
"Thanks michael. I do admire my your tenacity with the subjects you tackle. Very very interesting post."
I'll second that!
Posted by: Julie Baxter | May 24, 2017 at 08:11 PM
I have just listened to the voice of Bobby Tracy who identified himself as a 5 year-old boy. I am so sorry to say that I sincerely believe that this is not the voice of a 5 year-old child. This has got to be an adult trying to sound like a child. No 5 year-old speaks with this facility. Without a doubt this is an adult mentality speaking. I just can't take any more of this!– AOD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvLz3uLCqqg
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | May 24, 2017 at 09:33 PM
The british accent can't be explained by the ectoplasmic voicebox ressembling Flint's vocal cords. An accent is a product of how where and when you learned the language (https://blog.linguistlist.org/ll-main/ask-a-linguist-what-is-an-accent/) - so for this reason I don't think it's the dead speaking you hear on those tapes. I must say I also find the picture of Flint with ectoplasm as highly damaging for this case. I wonder if there could be some similarities to contemporary british medium William Roy. Has anyone read his book?
Posted by: sbu | May 25, 2017 at 09:26 AM
I don't know if anyone else here has heard of one Stewart Alexander whose name I've only just come across while scanning through Leslie Kean's latest book, 'Surviving Death'?
Apparently, he's British, still alive and a physical medium who sat with Flint on several occasions during the 1970s. He's also written a book about his life and work:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Extraordinary-Journey-Memoirs-Physical-Medium/dp/0955705061
Posted by: Julie Baxter | May 25, 2017 at 12:50 PM
Thanks for that link sbu about accents. Very interesting - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | May 25, 2017 at 02:27 PM
AOD,
I totally agree about the Bobby Tracy voice. It's terrible.
Now this voice, of a woman named Amy Johnson, is actually very, very good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5tFpl3xxZ8
To me, it has just a hair of the Flint voice in it. But I would definitely think this was a woman. So confusing...
Posted by: Matt Rouge | May 25, 2017 at 10:19 PM
Matt,
I think that a lot of the female voices have a touch of 'Mickey' in them, in tone, inflection and word usage. I have practiced mimicking a female voice and I must say after a while I can get very good at it. I think that the British accent lends itself to a female voice so I think I sound more authentically female if I add a British accent.
Give it a try Matt. See what you can do. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | May 26, 2017 at 07:59 AM
In contrast to Flint's voice of 5 year-old Bobby Tracey Here is a quote from a séance with Etta Wriedt as medium during which a child of a Mrs. E. Murray spoke in 'direct voice'.
"The first to come to me was my son, who had passed into spirit life as a little child; his voice, though that of a young man, did not sound strange to me. I seemed to recognise [sic] tones in it which were familiar."
Now this is what I would expect based on what some spirits say, namely, that they continue to mature in spirit life. Perhaps it may be that spirits actually have no age at all and are able to manifest at whatever age would be appropriate for those who receive them. Flint's 'Bobby Tracey' is a dramatic sorry rendition of a 5-year old child by an adult. If Bobby were in fact an adult now in spirit then better that he come through in his normal voice rather than a fake voice of a child. There was no relative of Bobby at the séance at which he spoke so why the need to try to imitate his little-boy voice?
I think that Etta Wriedt was the quintessential medium extraordinaire. She did it all. She manifested direct voices sometimes using a trumpet and at other times without the trumpet; sometimes in the light but mostly in the dark. Two, three or more voices are reported to have been heard at the same time, sometimes with Wriedt talking to one of them. Various lights appeared during a séance and at times etherializations (apparitions) were visible for a short time. Tables moved, water was sprinkled on sitters and flowers were given to sitters or strewn about the room. All of this was done without producing 'ectoplasm'. William Usborne Moore in his books "The Voices" and "Glimpses of the Next State" documents attestations from many people as to Wriedt's authenticity. I highly recommend these two books by Moore. If Moore's observations and documentation about Wriedt are true then there can be no question about the existence of a spirit life. If Moore and the hundreds of others are lying about Wriedt or Wriedt was deluding them by faking it all somehow, then we could all make better use of our remaining time on earth than spending it listening to tapes by Leslie Flint and reading stories about Etta Wriedt. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | May 26, 2017 at 11:57 AM
when the scientist whose job it is to build up the voice-box from the ectoplasm supplied by the medium
I don't even know what that means. Is he saying that every disembodied voice from the next life has to have a scientist before they can communicate? So this mysterious ectoplasm is just there and useless unless a scientist "build it up?" I really, really want to believe. I really would love to say I can buy this. I'm not an atheist and I'm not one to honestly believe that all that I am is simply a by product of a mass of matter in my skull. But, I really don't know about all this. I have listened to some of the recordings. Youtube is a wonderful tool. But, I find myself very skeptical of physical mediums and solid objects produced out of thin air.
I can't remember just when or where but some years ago there was a T.V. special or something and a medium proposed to channel the spirit of Marilyn Monroe. I think Marilyn Monroe is the absolute zenith of sexuality and glamour. So, I'm a little more interested when someone mentions her. Anyway, this guy starts to speak in a softer voice but it isn't female and he isn't saying he is producing her voice. Now, I have to admit I don't actually believe he was channeling Marilyn. But, it kind of gave me pause because my b.s. meter wasn't exactly going off and he made a statement that just (although, a good actor could also pull it off) caused me to do a double take. He said "It's weird to come through like this in the body of a man." Remember I said Marilyn is the zenith of female grace and sexuality to me? So, to hear her or allegedly to hear her mention the weirdness of using a male body as a vehicle just sounded right.
Anybody else remember or have any idea when or what this show was? I'm drawing a complete blank except for this one incident.
Posted by: Steve Snead | May 26, 2017 at 01:22 PM
AOD,
You may be right, sir! I think your point about the British accent is a good one. I think it's easier (though still hard) for an American to fake a good British accent, since it involves a more exaggerated intonation on the whole, than it is for a Brit to imitate an American accent. Our accent is just more difficult. But note that when they do in cases like these, they tend to do Southern and/or African-American accents for the same reason: they *can* have more extreme intonation that covers up getting the subtle elements wrong. David Thompson no doubt for this reason chose to do a very bad Louie Armstrong, and Flint does Bessie.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | May 26, 2017 at 06:00 PM
This topic seems to me a red herring, since although the voices of a medium sound like those of a deceased, this does not show that it is the deceased who is speaking, because ventriloquism, and although the voices of a medium are entirely different from those of a deceased, it can be an indicator that the deceased is speaking because it shows their memories, personality and identifying traits that only those who lived with her / him could evaluate.
Posted by: Juan | May 27, 2017 at 03:21 AM
Hi Steve Snead,
As I read the comment about a ‘scientist’ being required to build-up a voice box out of ectoplasm I didn’t understand that to mean a one-to-one requirement. I thought that it meant that before any spirits could talk by direct voice in the Leslie flint séances, someone in the spirit realm had to fabricate a mechanism out of ectoplasm that allowed spirits to be heard in the physical realm; like a telephone that everyone can use. I imagine ectoplasm to be something like ‘silly putty’ that can be formed into objects or draped over spirits so that they can be seen in the physical. (That’s not to say that I think there really is such a thing as ectoplasm!)
Regarding Marilyn Monroe, I seem to remember some time ago that there were several or many people, including Leslie Flint who claimed to channel Marilyn. I think there were also several people who thought that they were the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. I agree with you that on a male/female scale of 1 to 10 that Marilyn was a 1 (with a 10 being brutishly male). I tend to think of her as an archetypical female, such role being assumed by several blond movie stars spanning several generations e.g. Mae West, Lana Turner, Marilyn Maxwell, Jayne Mansfield, Diana Dors, Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears and many, many others. Apparently each generation of males requires its own ‘blond bombshell’. In my opinion Marilyn Monroe had no equal. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | May 27, 2017 at 10:49 AM
Matt said:
"I think it's easier (though still hard) for an American to fake a good British accent, since it involves a more exaggerated intonation on the whole, than it is for a Brit to imitate an American accent."
"Exaggerated" is an interesting word in this context. Exaggerated based on what standard? Isn't an exaggerated accent simply one that's vastly different from one's own? Doesn't an American accent sound as exaggerated to a Brit, as a British accent sounds to an American?
But if there's going to be an objective base line, the British accent probably has a stronger claim to that, since it came first!
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | May 27, 2017 at 01:34 PM
Steve Snead,
This is it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4XhfDPO0uo
The line about being in a mans' body is at 2:18.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | May 27, 2017 at 06:10 PM
Bruce wrote,
||"Exaggerated" is an interesting word in this context. Exaggerated based on what standard? Isn't an exaggerated accent simply one that's vastly different from one's own? Doesn't an American accent sound as exaggerated to a Brit, as a British accent sounds to an American?
But if there's going to be an objective base line, the British accent probably has a stronger claim to that, since it came first!||
I'm trying to describe an objective difference, not make a judgment about the worth or primacy of the accents. I think the US Midwestern accent (often considered a kind of standard) has flatter intonation that most British accents.
Let me put it another way. I'm fluent in Japanese, which is famous for having flat intonation. It is conceptually not hard to pronounce *except for* that flat intonation, which is very difficult indeed to get right. Any foreign (to Japanese) accent is immediately apparent in it.
I've studied Chinese too. Although it is technically more difficult than Japanese to pronounce, it has very *un*flat intonation. In a lot of ways, it's easier to speak because of this. I feel as though the breath control with Japanese can be quite burdensome, like playing the oboe (which I also did back in the day). With Chinese, you can just blast.
I hope this helps!
Posted by: Matt Rouge | May 27, 2017 at 08:25 PM
Matt said:
"I think the US Midwestern accent (often considered a kind of standard) has flatter intonation that most British accents."
I don't know what you mean by flat intonation. I just googled the phrase, and it's typically described as problematic—speech that varies little in pitch, the way a robot would talk.
Perhaps Julie, or other readers from across the pond could help us out. Was I barking up the wrong tree here?:
"Doesn't an American accent sound as exaggerated to a Brit, as a British accent sounds to an American?"
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | May 28, 2017 at 01:17 PM
Bruce,
Let me put it this way: I think some accents are easier to imitate than others, and, when imitating some accents, it's easier to cover up flaws than with others.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | May 28, 2017 at 03:24 PM
Matt—just to be clear, I'm not trying to give you a hard time on this dialect thing. And I could be totally off base!
But it's always been of interest to me: does my speech sound as distinctive, or "exaggerated" (as you put it), to, let's say, a Cockney-inflected speaker, as his speech sounds to me?
One possibility: maybe it doesn't, because the typical American accent is so common on the world stage, and he will have heard my accent more than I will have heard his. So maybe a key factor is popularity and familiarity.
But again, it does seem to me, that "exaggerated" primarily means "different," based not on true objective standards, but on what we're used to.
In that sense, it would be like so many other of our traits and behaviors.
What do you all think?
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | May 28, 2017 at 05:10 PM
"Perhaps Julie, or other readers from across the pond could help us out. Was I barking up the wrong tree here?"
Sorry, Bruce. I'm afraid I haven't the foggiest idea what Matt is banging on about.
Posted by: Julie Baxter | May 28, 2017 at 05:18 PM
Bruce wrote,
||But it's always been of interest to me: does my speech sound as distinctive, or "exaggerated" (as you put it), to, let's say, a Cockney-inflected speaker, as his speech sounds to me?||
My choice of words has caused confusion and it made it seem as though I was making a judgment. I just meant that some accents have a wider range of intonation and other factors. Compare a Cockney accent to a "posh" London accent.
Some US accents definitely stand out as different to non-native English speakers who might not be able to distinguish between similar accents. For example, a Southern accent is going to be more easily identifiable vs. what is perceived as standard as compared to, say, a California accent vs. what is perceived as standard.
||But again, it does seem to me, that "exaggerated" primarily means "different," based not on true objective standards, but on what we're used to.||
I think you'll find in every language there are accents that are perceived as standard/prestige. For example, in Japan, the speech of people in the country can be seen as course and unrefined, etc. etc. And there are different regional accents as well, including dialects with grammar varying from slightly different to widely different from standard.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | May 29, 2017 at 01:21 PM
Matt, I was thinking more about this, and I've decided you're probably on to something after all. :)
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | May 30, 2017 at 02:17 AM
I have a fair amount of experience with three direct voice mediums, and have been watching this thread develop over the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to contribute. So more later, maybe.
In the meantime, though: The extremely sceptical illusionist, David Abbott (inventor of the floating ball illusion and critic of the Bangs Sisters), had an extremely interesting encounter with the little known direct voice medium, Elizabeth Blake, early last century. I think it would be fair to say that Abbott found himself stumped. You'll find an account of it below, and Abbott's own book about the case is available on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Strange-Case-David-Abbott/dp/1542924057/
[link updated - MP]
Posted by: Steve Hume | May 30, 2017 at 08:17 AM
Here's a link to Abbott's book on the US Amazon site:
https://www.amazon.com/History-Strange-Case-David-Abbott/dp/1542924057/
Here (again) is the UK Amazon link:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Strange-Case-David-Abbott/dp/1542924057/
Posted by: Michael Prescott | May 30, 2017 at 01:00 PM
AOD said "I have just listened to the voice of Bobby Tracy who identified himself as a 5 year-old boy. I am so sorry to say that I sincerely believe that this is not the voice of a 5 year-old child. This has got to be an adult trying to sound like a child. No 5 year-old speaks with this facility. Without a doubt this is an adult mentality speaking."
My five year old friend Masato can talk circles around Bobby Tracy, and do so with equal facility in English and Japanese. And, I've listened to the Bobby Tracy audio with and without my Michael Shermer approved Black Skull earphones (with enhanced critical bias), and I was charmed both times. I don't think we fully understand how deeply personal and subjective our interpretations of sensory input are. Statements such as "this sounds like a man's falsetto rather than a woman" are biased by the fact that our prime suspect for fraud is a man and not a woman. Were Leslie Flint female, I believe that claims of a male falsetto would vanish. And, were she American, we would complain how "fake" the accents of British speakers were.
None of us can possibly be objective in listening to the Flint audios. We are like the witness to a mugging, called in to view a photo gallery while the detective slyly puts his finger on the suspect in custody. We know too much to listen with totally open and unbiased ears. Listening to the supposed dead speak goes strongly against the grain of everyday experience. Our common sense naturally rebels. We want to resolve the cognitive dissonance between our desire to keep an open mind and the conviction born out of decades of experience that voices simply don't speak out of thin air.
To bring truly objective ears to this content, would likely involve concealing some facts from the listeners, such as the sex of the medium, the precise type of mediumship employed, etc. And, it would be good to have ears listening to content where the context of "voices from the dead" is not obvious, to get clear of the strong bias that kicks in as to the presumed impossibility of such a thing in the first place. Also, having someone with a developed ear for accents, like the expert coaches who train actors, would be helpful for teasing out precisely which regional accent is being employed.
A voice claiming to belong to Oliver Lodge said something that I think relates to this:
"We want people to enter into this truth, seeking truth with an open mind and an open heart, cooperating as best they can to the best of their ability, making it possible for us to link with them in the right way. A way in which we know we can achieve success. But we don't ask you to be nincompoops and accept everything as gospel, we expect you to use that common sense that you have. But if you receive something that does not make sense, or does not seem at the moment to be acceptable, we don't necessarily think that you should discard it. We should say put it in reserve. It may be that at some later date that which makes no sense at the moment may become a real thing to you in the future."
This advice squares with my experience. I don't know how many times I've listened to one of these audios, and went away more baffled then intrigued. It's only now after the passage of a few years that I feel openhearted enough to be interested in looking into this further.
Those who formed a conviction of positive belief with respect to Flint's mediumship had years to formulate an opinion. Binge listening to Flint recordings does not necessarily grant one a godlike perspective. The opposite may be the case instead.
Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
Posted by: David Chilstrom | May 30, 2017 at 08:14 PM