Dr. T. G.

Hamilton’s Psychic Researches

Videos YouTube, 2011 for Walter Falk:

Dr. T. G. Hamilton’s psychic researches

- Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt7qpNbMehE
Dr. T. G. Hamilton’s psychic researches
- Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeHY5sP314I
Dr. T. G. Hamilton’s psychic researches
- Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtUQNMbIl4s
Dr. T. G. Hamilton’s psychic researches
- Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppMLvgWSQSs
Dr. T. G. Hamilton’s psychic researches
- Part 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTT5vTv0Sgs
Dr. T. G. Hamilton’s psychic researches
- Part 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9phnFh1I4pw
Dr. T. G. Hamilton’s psychic researches
- Part 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiveZYXaMu4
Dr. T. G. Hamilton’s psychic researches
- Part 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oOMt4sMqyw

Web: www.thehamiltonfiles.info

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 Contents

Part 1 4

Part 2 10

Part 3 18

Part 4 26

Part 5 35

Part 6 44

Part 7 61

Part 8 68

La presentación e imágenes añadidas por: www.survivalafterdeath.blogspot.com

(Noviembre 2016)

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 Part 1

Dr. Hamilton’s work did not begin with attempting to prove that
consciousness continues after death. He had heard of the Patience
Worth Ouija board writings from his friend Dr. Allison. Dr. Allison had
spoken in his home church after himself visiting with Mrs. Curran
and seeing first-hand how the writings were being produced.
In October and November of 1918, Dr. Hamilton and his friend
and pastor Dr. McLachlan decided to investigate the possibility
of telepathic communication, and were soon convinced that such
communication did in fact exist.
During those experiments a prophecy came in the form of a voice
that seemed to come from within Dr. Hamilton’s mind that predicted
that he would do work that would echo around the world and prove
the continuation of consciousness beyond death.
He was so shocked by this phenomenon, being a devout Presby-
terian, that he and his friend decided that somehow wicked forces
had entered their work and that this work must be stopped imme-
diately to preserve both their sanity and the future destination of
their souls. He spent the next three days in bed, incapacitated by
worry and doubting his own sanity, while his wife Lillian, a registered
nurse, plied him with sedatives.
He stopped all work for the time being. He was determined that
this was to be the end of his investigations into the psychic realms.
However, early on the evening of October 20, 1923, some people
unexpectedly dropped into the Hamilton home for a chat. They
were Mr. Ernest Court, a well read English assistant secretary of
the Manitoba medical Society and his school-age daughter. There
was also their little Scots friend, Mrs. Elizabeth Poole, who had
long been regarded as a member of the Hamilton family, but who
knew nothing of psychical research or spiritualism; and who had
had very little education, in fact just enough to allow her to do a
little ciphering, read books of the adolescent type, and write legible
letters, although often the words were misspelled and punctuation

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marks were absent.

Elizabeth Poole

During the evening quite by chance Mr. Court introduced

the subject of psychical research, regarding which he knew the
Hamiltons had some interest. He asked if they had ever tried table
tipping, an old parlor game which he had seen done in the old
country, and which he had himself experienced once, and which
now and then, he said, brought to light various mind products not
easily explained along any known normal orthodox lines, and in
some cases even gave out communications evidential of certain
dead people.
Intrigued by Mr. Court’s description of the results sometimes

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obtained by this simple experiment, they brought a small wooden
table, about the size of an ordinary piano bench, into the room.
To their utter astonishment, as they sat on the four sides of the
small table with their fingertips lightly touching its surface, the table
became agitated as if in the hand of a giant. Soon it began to pound
up and down and tilt on two legs in a most aggressive and decided
manner.
Mr. Court suggested that Dr. Hamilton repeat the alphabet. This
he did, calling out the alphabet over and over, with the table tilting
to indicate the appropriate letter. Lillian’s mother, Mrs. John Forster,
took down the indicated letters as the process was repeated. It was
a laborious and time-consuming way to receive messages.
After a few minutes the table stopped. Lights were turned, up
and the message studied. The table had tipped out a message
purportedly from Myers, who claimed to be the chief spokesman.
“Plato ... book 10 ... allegory very true. Read Lodge ... trust his
religious sense ... Myers. Myers and Stead here ... Stead answers
doctor’s questions ...”
The Hamiltons had no acquaintance with the works of Plato. They
did not know at the time of this sitting that ‘The Republic’ had
10 books; but they had read Myers’ “Human Personality and the
Survival of Bodily Death.”
They were the only sitters who realized the significance of the
name, mentally asking “Can this be the Myers?”
Myers appear to be saying that in his new state at this time he
found these teachings to be very true. He also added that he was
being helped to communicate by the famous journalist W. T. Stead,
who had died as one of the passengers when the Titanic went down
in 1912.

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 Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge William Thomas Stead

Silvia Constance Myers, Frederic William Henry Myers, Harold Hawthorn Myers

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 The Hamiltons knew about Lodge and his belief in life after death
and the possibility of communication between the two states under
certain rather particular circumstances. They also knew about
Myers. But of Plato they knew nothing.
Myers had written in the 1890s about dreams, hallucinations,
creativity and genius, hysteria, multiple personality, apparitions,
trance-mediumship, automatic writing, telepathy, and hypnosis.
All of these phenomena involved what Myers called automatisms:
that is, the coming into consciousness of latent supplemental
materials or motor processes, that were allowed to emerge because
the normal waking consciousness barriers were more unstable and
permeable. Myers produced a theory of the subliminal self; and his
theory said that normal waking consciousness is but a small subset
of the larger individuality or self. It is the environment that calls for
the specific aspects of the unconscious that will emerge to respond
to the circumstances of ordinary life.
This interpretation was very different from the conceptions of
Freud’s model of repression. Freud and others viewed the subliminal
phenomena as abnormal or unhealthy. Myers believe that all these
phenomena are the outworking of the basic psychological process:
namely the loosening of the barriers between the unconscious and
conscious areas of mind.
Encouraged by the evidentiality of the so-called Myers message,
Dr. Hamilton and Lillian occasionally held table sittings with the
same little group, the theory being that as this group had functioned
once successfully as a sort of composite medium, perhaps other
important results might be obtained.
There the matter stood in early 19 21. Lillian had found
time to read W. J. Crawford’s book dealing with the phenomena
of materialization. She wondered if possibly little Mrs. Poole
might have a potential similar to that demonstrated by Crawford’s
medium, Kathleen Goligher.

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 Kathleen Goligher

As Mrs. Poole was a most obliging and dear soul, she readily
agreed to sit occasionally with Lillian. About once a month, starting
in February of 1921, the two ladies met and sat quietly in a darkened
room on the second floor of the Hamilton home. Again the table
behaved in that same strange manner, tilting away from Mrs. Poole,
striking the floor in a regular rhythm, up, down, tilt, bang!
At this time, in spite of the demands of a large private practice
and much committee work, Dr. Hamilton’s interest in psychic
phenomena was again growing. Fully aware of the general public’s
attitude of scorn and derision directed towards anyone showing
interest in such matters, and rightly fearful lest his professional
reputation be tarnished if his own interest were to become known,
Dr. Hamilton kept his interest a closely guarded confidence between
very close friends.

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 Part 2

In May of 1921 the Hamiltons accidentally discovered that it was

Mrs. Poole who possessed the marked incipient powers for the
production of psychical phenomena.
She was at this time forty-nine years of age and previously
unaware that she possessed mediumistic faculties of any kind. The
Hamiltons welcomed the opportunity for first-hand investigation,
and prevailed upon her to allow these faculties to be developed. She
consented, and in August of 1921 they commenced their first series
of experiments in telekinetic phenomena. A few months further
experimentation revealed the fact that she also possessed mental
mediumistic faculties; and from that time on these two phases
developed collaterally, eventually giving brilliant manifestations in
both fields.
In the physical phase they obtained conversational rappings, very
powerful contact phenomena, various forms of telekinesis and wax
impressions of small materialized forms.
In the telekinesis experiments Dr. Hamilton fastened a hook into
his living room ceiling and suspended a small pulley system with a
spring scales in such a way that the change in weight of a small ten
or twelve pound table could be determined.
It was found that if the table were asked to become heavier it
eventually increased up to forty pounds in weight, and if it were
asked to decrease it could easily lose all its weight. This was true
even when no one was touching the table. This clearly was in
contradiction to the debunkers who tend to claim that someone
must be touching an item in order for it to levitate. This allows them
to claim that some sort of unconscious force is being applied by the
mediums or others touching the table.
It was soon discovered that the force, whatever it was, issued from
Mrs. Poole’s abdomen in the form of invisible arms, which gripped
the table from beneath and held it steady for an appreciable length
of time against pressure.

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 This was in line with Crawford’s findings. He had named these
invisible streams of energy pseudopods.
Mrs. Poole often felt pain in the abdominal area when the forces
were struggling with each other; often this pain became so great
that the experiment had to be terminated.
After several months work and many experiments of this sort Dr.
Hamilton concluded that the results of his experiments agreed very
well with the experiments of Dr. Crawford. He had thus confirmed
the Goligher experiments. There was no room for doubt that a
suitable medium could produce kinesthetic effects. Eventually the
table, quite on its own after initial charging by Elizabeth Poole, could
levitate several feet off the floor and do somersaults in the air, quite
without anyone touching it.
Forty planned experiments convinced Dr. Hamilton of the
following: telekinetic energy was a fact; this energy was probably
carried or released by ectoplasm, the two phenomena being
immediately related and perhaps one and the same. The apparatus
that made the raps and moved the table issued from the lower part

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of Mrs. Poole’s body spontaneously: that is, without her conscious
volition playing any part.
Back of it all stood a supernormal intelligence. The table
responded to instructions exactly as if there was some intelligence
guiding it. It seemed unlikely that this intelligence originated with
Mrs. Poole, at any rate not at the level of her consciousness. What
that intelligence was he was not prepared to say: the evidence that
the dead were present was still insufficient for him to advance such
a tremendous hypothesis. It was possible that the dead were the
operators, but it was not proven.

Dr. Hamilton was satisfied with these experiments and decided

to end his studies at this point. He had proved what he had set
out to prove to himself alone. Very few people were privy to
this information; but Lillian Hamilton continued the table tipping
experiments for a time without Dr. Hamilton’s help until he again
began to enter into the experiments and new phenomena appeared.
After a year or two of experimenting the Hamiltons were able
to build a wax apparatus, and purported discarnates were able to

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produce wax fingertips complete with fingerprints inside the tips.
For these experiments Dr. Hamilton took two containers, one
inside the other, with a heating element in the outer one to heat
the wax in the inner one to melting.

Then a purported discarnate would come by and dip a finger or

toe into the melted wax, and immediately dip the same finger into
some cold water in a separate container, and the wax would harden.
Then the ectoplasmic finger was withdrawn and the wax shell was
filled with dental cement by Dr. Hamilton to preserve the fingertips.
The other psychic manifestations with Elizabeth Poole in the men-
tal phase gave many arresting phenomena: veridical clairvoyance,
prevision, trance automatisms, both motor and sensory, the latter
also being of a highly veridical nature. These all developed under
Dr. Hamilton’s guidance over the next years.

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 Elizabeth Poole and Dr. Hamilton

For all these experiments Elizabeth neither asked nor received

any payment whatever. Her time and talents were given simply
as a good friend of the Hamiltons, and she was willing to cooperate
in any manner they desired. In the eventual disclosure of these
experiments she was known as Elizabeth M.
As already stated, she attended the séances held for her
development more to please the Hamiltons, her friends, than
because of any particular desire to do so on her own part.
Apart from that obtained through some elementary schooling
received when a young child, Elizabeth was entirely without
education in the academic sense. This, added to the fact that there
had been no attempts at self- education, gave rise to a mentality
singularly limited and childlike.
In Elizabeth the Hamiltons recognized from the first that they

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had stumbled upon a potential medium of an extremely rare type,
one entirely free from all preconceived notions as to the nature
of psychic phenomena or the manner in which they should be
developed and observed; and it seemed desirable that this data
vacuity, so to speak, should remain unchanged. To this end
a general policy of action was gradually determined: that she
refrain from reading psychic literature, from attending meetings of
a psychic nature, whether public or private, apart from the sittings
held for own development under the Hamiltons’ direction, and that
she refrain from discussing these things with others.
Elizabeth, her personality and life habits being what they were,
added to the fact that she regarded the Hamiltons with feelings of
sincere friendship, cheerfully complied.
But the work proved difficult at times, and in a moment of
reflection upon the work Dr. Hamilton was, after his death, found
to have written the following: the scientific features make this class
of work very tedious and often boring to the experimenters. Results
have to be extremely slow, and consequently repeated experiments
tried, which often fail. The factors being so uninteresting makes it
practically impossible for some to endure with patience. Many who
wish to be entertained give up in disgust.
Nature keeps her secrets well guarded and it does not require
the permission or the effort of official science to discover nor to
pronounce upon them. They are free to all, but the experimenters
must be discerning to check well what they think they have found.
But always let us use to the uttermost our discretionary powers, not
alone to fully examine skeptically and critically what is disclosed,
but also not obtusely refusing to see or consider what others may
consider apparent to them.
At this point, concluding that Mrs. Poole had revealed all
the phenomena of which her mediumship was capable, and his
professional duties still being very heavy, for some time no more
researches were carried out by Dr. Hamilton, the work now
subsiding again for a while to impromptu sittings under Lillian

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Hamilton’s guidance.
This might be a good place to remark upon the work of Lillian
Hamilton. She kept steadily at work, again and again reigniting
Dr. Hamilton’s interest. It is possible to imagine that without
her consistent efforts the experiments would have ceased, and Dr.
Hamilton would not have proceeded. Her very hard work at verifying
the mental products of Elizabeth Poole, and purporting to come from
Robert Louis Stevenson and others, right up to her death in 1956,
deserve formal recognition and the highest praise. She was indeed
the dynamo that made the work a reality.
And soon a new phenomena appeared along with the telekinesis
and wax fingertips and the bell ringing. Mrs. Poole began showing
signs of incipient trance, and out of this incipient trance state there
appeared now and again visions and pictures which at first consisted
of what she described as still life items. Some of these visions were
of a most veridical character: veridical, that is, in regard to the past
of one of those present, and therefore open to be explained solely
on the basis of telepathy between the mind of the sitter and the
subject.

Lillian Hamilton

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 Curiously enough, a progressive movement could be seen here.
Visions, first of flowers, then of faces: then of wayside scenes; then
of panoramic scenes, showing within them human action. Some of
these, as already stated, reminiscent of certain past events known
to the sitters. These began as visions of stills, of scenes in which all
objects were at rest. Then, in the next stage, visions in which some
of the objects showed motion. Then visions in which human beings
appeared. But it was clear that they were more like cutouts rather
than flesh and blood. And finally, visions in which the human beings
took on the appearance and characteristics of life.
In an April, 1922 message by non-contact raps came the
message: “Helping in amity ... prepare ... Myers and Stead ...”

1926, Elizabeth Poole

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 Part 3

In April, 1923, new work was started when, through Elizabeth,

the Robert Louis Stevenson trance personality suddenly began
communicating by means of deep trance scripts and simultaneous
illustrative visions.
As Lillian recorded: “Never had I seen TGH so impressed as he
was by this seemingly simple yet highly mysterious phenomenon. I
remember he said to me with an almost boylike grin, ‘Well, Lillian, I
guess there is more to this than I’ve been willing to admit. Get me
a small group, and we will see what we can do with following these
instructions.’”

Robert Louis Stevenson David Livingstone

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 And with that, Dr. Hamilton embarked upon the most important
work of his life.
On April 15, 1923, during the second trance of the séance,
Elizabeth’s hand slaps spelled “R. L. Stevenson ... Margaret ...”
Elizabeth awakened from trance and said she had seen a
lighthouse while in trance. A new phenomenon of importance had
made its entry into the experiments. On this day thus began and
continued side-by-side with powerful movements of material objects
by psychic force, the so-called Stevenson communications.
These communications were to go on for some six years, and
always to conform to this one pattern: manually delivered message
by slaps, or later on by writing and channeling, and the companion
vision.
Eventually Stevenson gave details of his early conflicts with his
father, of his marriage to a divorced woman, of his illnesses, and his
death. He also gave a great number of references to his writings.
None of these facts Elizabeth Poole had any knowledge of, nor did
any of the sitters, and these facts were painstakingly verified by
Lillian Hamilton.
Then another entity came in, identifying himself as David
Livingstone, the African explorer. Again a large number of verifiable
facts were given.
Slowly the table tipping gave way to arm slaps on the table by the
medium, and eventually she saw and heard visions, and then began
to channel Stevenson or Livingstone, and eventually also Charles
Haddon Spurgeon and others, including W. T. Stead.
Unfortunately the abridged treatment of this part of the work due
to the immense amount of material put in evidence, is not truly
indicative of the planned, unique, and complex evidence moving
slowly from point to point, conclusively revealing cumulative growth
from the simple to the more complex, with intelligence and literary
acumen ruling overall.
Suffice to say that there are more than a thousand pages of

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verifiable information given by Stevenson and Livingstone over the
years of the Hamilton experiments. It became impossible to ignore
the claims by these communicators that they were indeed still
conscious and thinking beings. Stead was so very right when he
had said to them there was indeed much more ahead.

During the time that the deep trance phenomena were beginning,
the telekinetic phenomena were also becoming more powerful. On
July 4, 1923, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made a visit to Winnipeg.
Doyle later wrote: “On our first night in Winnipeg we attended
a circle for psychical research which has been conducted for two
years by a group of scientific men who have obtained remarkable
results. The medium is a small, pleasant-faced woman from the
western highlands of Scotland. Her psychic gifts are both mental

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and physical. The circle, which contained ten persons including
my wife and myself, placed their hands, or one hand each, upon
a small table, part of which was illuminated by a phosphorus source
to give some light. It was violently agitated, and this process was
described as charging it. It was then pushed into a small cabinet
with an opening in front. Out of the cabinet the table came clattering
again and again, entirely on its own with no sitter touching it. I
stood by the slit in the curtain in subdued red light, and I watched
the table within. One moment it was quiescent, a moment later it
was like a restless dog in a kennel, springing, tossing, beating up
against the supports, and finally bounding out with a velocity which
caused me to get quickly out of the way. Many of Crawford’s Belfast
experiments have been duplicated by this group of scientists.”

Dr. William Jackson Crawford

Dr. Hamilton now wrote: “So far the visions presented are those
which brought to mind only facts of the distant past. Now we are
to encounter one that the recipients believed had to do with facts
true at the time. It will be apparent that these examples of psychic
picturization of past scenes, as revealed to the medium, Elizabeth,
disclosed a number of interesting and informative facts. First, that
the memories aroused by an Elizabeth vision might belong to a

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regular sitter, to an occasional sitter, or to a guest. Second, that
the memories thus invoked might belong to a past near at hand,
or to a past in time quite distant. Third, that the memories thus
represented might be based on the sitter’s own experiences, or on
facts which the sitter knows about through hearsay only. Fourth,
and finally, that where the fact to be recalled could be represented
by a symbol, there that symbol was sometimes used.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

“All of this being so, it will be evident that we were bound to ask
ourselves a number of important questions. How did the medium’s
supernormal faculties reach out and lay hold of these, tonight,
tomorrow night, the next night, and so on? Who or what decided
that this or that fact or event would be represented by a still picture,
certain other images by means of moving pictures, and still others
by way of a symbol? Who was this intelligence, selecting and
arranging these programs with such skill and attention to detail?
To say that through the thoughts of the medium alone came these
phenomena, and that her subconscious mind arranged these in
so challenging a manner, was a far from adequate explanation to

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our queries. On the other hand, to suggest that the minds of
the dead were perhaps back of these events, and the evidence
in many cases pointed in that direction, was also far from being
a satisfactory explanation, for the very good reason that this was
largely speculative, not positive. By themselves these phenomena
appear to be satisfied by one explanation: they apparently were
due to the functioning of the medium’s own crypt-aesthetic powers,
operating on a plane of consciousness and knowledge as yet closed
to us.
However, when we met the vision phenomena of the deep trance,
the opposite hypothesis offered the more logical explanation:
namely, that outside autonomous personalities were engaged in
purposive action by way of trance script and trance vision. For now,
the communicator was telling us that he was the director of the
visions, which contained puppets of Stevenson’s past. As director,
he might place in the scene a puppet which was the image of himself
as a young boy or as a child. For example, we find the medium
stating that she saw Stevenson as a child and playing in the pool of
water, or helping a lamplighter, both ideas being taken from a book
he had written in life with the title ‘A Child’s Garden of Verse’; or she
saw Stevenson as a young man on board the ship with a number of
ruffians. In this case the puppet Stevenson was identified with Jim
Hawkins, the hero of ‘Treasure Island’. Thus the director might show
Stevenson in puppet form as a boy, a young man, as a student, a
writer, in France, in America, or as an ailing man in Samoa.
A medium could not distinguish between the puppet which
represented Stevenson in relation to his past and the puppet which
merely represented one of the characters in his novels. Long John
Silver, of treasure Island, was as real to her as any Stevenson
puppet actor, but there are clues in her speech which show the
distinction between the Stevenson director and the Stevenson
puppet. She might say “Stevenson was there but he stood off a bit”,
thus showing that he appeared to the medium as someone who was
bringing about the performance.

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 Treasure Island, Bobby Driscoll: Jim Hawkins, Robert Newton: Long John Silver

One should note here that to Elizabeth there were always two
Stevensons and two Livingstones: there was the one who was in
the picture, and one she recognized as a picture only, that is, a
hallucination; then there was the one who was real, the spiritual
entity who had a form like a man, whom she saw at times enter the

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room, come near her, smile at her; and she would remark “This is
the real Stevenson, the real Livingstone.”
Elizabeth maintained this attitude throughout; and gradually, on
fair evidence, we came to believe that her distinction rested on
more than only a hallucination which was passed on to her by her
communicators. This opens up a vast field for original study

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 Part 4

After Dr. Hamilton made his transition he came back to report

similar experiences on the other side.
He also reported on his work in the physical.
Now and again a violin, contacted by the medium, left her hands
and was carried up into the air above our heads. Elizabeth, in
the meantime with her hands held, was sitting in the chair beside
me. While in the air the violin was repeatedly heard to thrum.
These pluckings of the strings occurred both spontaneously and on
request, thus giving evidence that the materialized form possessed
something in the shape of fingers, able to perform this task, and the
ability to interpret verbal requests and respond to them.
Again, the responses might originate with Elizabeth, but that still
did not explain how the violin strings could be plucked with no one
touching them. Sometimes Dr. Hamilton, acting as spokesman,
asked questions of the intelligences operating the raps, which they
endeavored to answer. The following are some examples of the kind
of question asked.
“Are the sitters in proper position now?” Answer “Yes” three raps.
“Are there other forms of mediumistic phenomena that we may
hope to get?” “Yes”.
“Can we get the direct voice? “No”.
“Can we get materialization so that all may see it? “No”
“Can we get bigger and better molds yet? “Doubtful” Two raps.
“Can we get them like they obtained them in France?” “No.” One
rap.
“Is that because that medium is particularly adapted to that work?
“Yes.” Three raps.
“Can we hope to get photographs?” “Yes.”
“Do you wish us to use flashlight? “No.”

26
 “Shall we use daylight?” “No.”
“Do you wish the camera to be focused and left open during a
seance?” “Yes” Very emphatic.
“Is this the W. T. S. control rapping?” “Yes.”
“Can we make any instrument along the radio line that will set up
communication? “No.”
“Is the human brain, then, the only mechanism through which
communication can be set up?” “Yes.”
“Will you rap out the number on your side who are helping us?”
Raps given seven times in succession.
“Is there any mechanical means that can be used? “No.” One rap.
After the raps ceased a tambourine hanging suspended in the
cabinet was heard to jingle several times in the most unmistakable
manner.
January 12, 1925, the notes report that there was an event
approaching of major importance to the Hamilton sittings.
The three sisters of Mr. Broad, William Oliver Hamilton’s law
partner, were giving an evening party for some of their friends, and
by way of entertainment had invited a Mrs. Mary Marshall, who
gave readings by cards merely as an amusement and for which he
received a very small fee, usually a couple of dollars.
When the elder Miss. Broad came to have her fortune told, Mrs.
Marshall suddenly said “There is a short fair man who comes to this
house. His name is Oliver”, and Miss. Broad replied, “Yes, that is
correct. He is my brother’s law partner, William Oliver Hamilton, a
very fine gentleman.”
William Hamilton was an older brother of Dr. Glen Hamilton. Mrs.
Marshall went on “Well, his days are numbered. He will die very
suddenly, either in his office or in his home. He will die so suddenly
that he may have no relatives or friends with him. I see it all.”

27
 Mary Marshall

Next day, around noon, William Oliver Hamilton died of a heart

attack in his home, a boarding house, in his room, and nearly
alone. Someone heard him groaning, went to him, and phoned Dr.
Hamilton, who was with him about three minutes before he passed
on.
The forecast had been fulfilled almost 100%.
All this, of course, made a deep impression on the Broads,
who later phoned Dr. Hamilton and informed him about the
prognostication and followed this up with the full signed statement
by Miss. Lena Broad, the lady who had been the recipient of the
pre-vision.
Their attention thus directed, for the first time, to Mrs. Marshall,
the Hamiltons took steps to meet her. They learned that she was
aware that she possessed unusual faculties, which she tried to
suppress for fear of people’s ridicule and criticism. She was not

28
a spiritualist, although she had attended a few meetings of this sort
in the old country, and in Winnipeg now and again. But she had
refrained from allowing her gifts to develop because some sort of
inner fear kept her from doing so.
However, they asked her to join the Elizabeth group as a sitter in
hopes that they might see her precognitive faculty at work, record
her utterances verbatim, and watch for the fulfillment, if such should
come to pass. They had no idea at this time of the staggering impact
Mrs. Marshall was to have on their work.
On January 25, 1925, Elizabeth saw Arthur Hamilton clairvoyantly.
He had died in 1919 at age three. She said he was larger than his
twin, Jimmy.
This seems to be the first time that Arthur appeared and he
continued to contact his family through the next few years.
By October 8, 1925, W. T. Stead gave instructions for trying
to get photographs by influencing a photo-plate in darkness by
supernormal means. These experiments, which had worked for
Stead during his lifetime, did not work after his death, possibly
because Elizabeth was not the right kind of a medium. Stead gave
up the attempt after about six months.
There were also occasions when events occurred that prompted
Dr. Hamilton to consider the possibility that normal sleep was
the gateway to trance. He thought the apparitions seen were
hallucinations, subjective experiences; but it suggested to him that
dreams, all through the ages, might at times be based on external
stimuli. He concluded that people may well have been correct in
assuming that their deceased friends live on in consciousness and
could communicate with them in this way.
Stead had already begun to predict the coming of materializa-
tions, the discovery of a second medium, and the photographing
of these materializations by the camera in light. At the séance on
May 5, 1927, Mrs. Mary Marshall was present as a guest. Strong
perfume filled the room. She went into trance and spoke in Parsi, a

29
Hindu dialect, to W. B. Cooper, who had grown up in India.
She had no knowledge of this language.

W. B. Cooper

At Harvard, in the early 1920s, Dr. Hamilton had met and become
friends with Dr. Leroy G. Crandon. Mina Stinson and her mother had
moved to Boston, where Mina found a position as a secretary in a
large church. She was most attractive, witty and charming, and she
met and married Dr. Crandon, then an outstanding surgeon on the
staff of the Harvard Medical School.
In late December of 1926, Dr. and Mina Crandon had visited
Winnipeg, giving three séances there. Mina was by now known
as the Boston medium, Margery. Walter became Mina’s control, or
guide when her mediumship developed in the early 1920s.

30
 Dr. Leroy G. Crandon y Margery Walter Stewart Stinson

Walter Stewart Stinson was born in Canada about 1885. Like

many young men of his time he traveled from the eastern part of
Canada to the western prairies and for a time worked as a farm hand
thresher at harvest time on a farm near Minnedosa, in Manitoba.
Then he got a job as a helper, or stoker, on a steam locomotive.
When he was about twenty-seven he was injured in a collision,
scalded with live steam, and lived only a few hours. His death date
is August 8, 1912.
Walter was five years older than his sister Mina, but there was a
close bond of affection linking them, which was to manifest in this
unusual way some eleven years after his death.
Around 1927, Walter began to to appear clairvoyantly to Elizabeth
Poole and to Mary Marshall. He began to hint that they would
soon be able to photograph what he called pictures, by which he
meant ectoplasmic masses shaped so as to resemble the faces of
discarnates that could be identified.

31
 The transference of their main interest to the new phenomena
seemed in no way to inhibit or prevent the appearances of their
older friends from before, Stead, Stevenson, Livingstone and
others. Spurgeon, who had also repeatedly manifested through
the Elizabeth mediumship, still spoke and wrote through her on
occasion; and Myers, who now appeared for the first time since
1921, wrote in conjunction with Stead that on no account must they
eliminate Mrs. Poole from their sittings. Her great powers were still
needed for the new phenomenon of pictures.
White light was excluded as effectively as possible from the
séance room, as it was found by experiment, in the case of the Poole
mediumship, that its presence hindered the collecting and amassing
of the psychic energy necessary to produce results.
Mrs. Poole, who was quite plump, but short, around four foot eight
inches, was strapped to the chair and her legs tied to the two front
legs, and she wore luminous arm and ankle bands and buttons on
her sweater.
Dr. Hamilton found that the state of Elizabeth Poole’s health,
physical and emotional, had a bearing on the trance depth and the
quality of the trance products. The deep trance was found to be
an attunement process. It was noted that too much expectancy
created a block; however, pleasant music provided a diversion.
Mental quietude on the part of all the sitters was important. This
mental quietude was a state of relaxed openness of mind, even
while the séance room at times was noisy with talk between the
participants on both sides of the veil and the mediums.
Flammarion became the fourth regular communicator to utilize
the Elizabeth Poole trance. Elizabeth complained that she could not
understand him. He appeared to be speaking twisted, and that he
was badly pockmarked, so much so that she called and spotty. Some
years later they found that his face had been disfigured by smallpox,
although at the time of his manifestation this fact was unknown to
any of them.

32
 Camille Flammarion (1842-1925) Charles H. Spurgeon

On October 23, 1927, Elizabeth had a vision. She described

the wreck of a grain train east of Winnipeg, forty minutes before
it actually happened. All main points were later verified. Many
witnesses heard her report.
On October 30, 1927, Stead came by and stated: “I was with
my little friend when she was in the train wreck. It was before it
happened on your side. It was well done.”
Mary Marshall had become a regular member of Dr. Hamilton’s
group.
On February 12, 1928, Mary Marshall, after returning to normal
state, told the sitters that just before she became entranced she had
seen a young man come into the room. He had laughing blue eyes
and a girlish complexion. He was playing on a tin whistle. It was
her first clairvoyant experience of the young man in the Hamilton
séance room. She described him as handsome. She said he was
funny and he made her laugh.

33
 This new control refused to give his name, so that during this time,
and for some weeks after his appearance, he was referred to as
‘the fair young man.’ He appeared at both regular and impromptu
sittings, and spontaneously at times to Mary. During this period,
he appeared eighteen times, dividing his attention almost equally
between Elizabeth Poole and Mary Marshall.
In these appearances he used the various psychic faculties of both
mediums, clairvoyance, clairaudience, trance visions, trance script,
and trance speech.
On March 4, 1928, following the sitting, Mr. Cooper informed Dr.
and Lillian Hamilton that just at the close of the sitting, he had heard
a voice whisper near his right ear “Goodbye, you old rascal. It’s a
secret. It’s Walter. A hell of a looking bunch you are.”
In this way Walter introduced himself to the group.

34
 Part 5

Mary Marshall also heard and reported that Walter was asking Dr.
Hamilton to make a bell-box similar to the scientific American bell-
box used in the Crandon test experiments in Boston in 1923.
By April, Dr. Hamilton had made a bell-box. The bell-box used was
similar in construction to the scientific American bell-box used in the
Margery experiments of Dr. Crandon.
It is sufficient to say that it was an ordinary wooden container, six
inches deep, holding an electric bell with one or more drive batteries
to ring it. The bell circuit could only be closed by depressing an
overlid, hinged at one end to the lid proper and supported by a
spring. It required a pressure of ten grams to depress the overlid.
This bell-box was placed on the séance room table. The bell-
box rang combinations of long and short on request. There again
appeared to be an intelligence behind these phenomena, but this
intelligence could again be ascribed to Elizabeth Poole. But how she
could ring the bell without touching any part of the apparatus was
not clear.

Bell-box

On April 1, 1929, Mary came out of trance and told the group that
she seemed to have been on a train, a kind of switchback. She said
she was up at the front where the coal was, looking out of a window

35
on the engine. She saw fair young man. He was singing something
about ‘when I get there I’ll see my girl.’ She saw him wave to the
people beside the gate, shouting to two girls, calling to someone
named Matilda. Mary, entranced, gave the numbers 78 and 16,
twice.
On April 2, 1928, Mary was home in bed. The young man
appeared to her, standing by the bed. He told her that he was
brother to Mrs. Crandon, the Margery of Boston. He showed her
a picture of Dr. Crandon’s séance room. It appeared larger than Dr.
Hamilton’s, and had a bigger and stronger cabinet. She felt that it
was a still picture.
Walter said again and again that Stead, Stevenson, Livingstone,
and Myers were the architects and designers of all that the Hamilton
group would obtain with Mary Marshall. Back of them, he said, were
great scientists: Crookes, Geley, Schrenk-Notzing and later, Lodge,
studying the laws of intercommunication, of which there were many
types.
He said he acted only as their servant, their messenger. He
claimed, in fact, to be their main medium, and to act for the most
part under their mental control.
April 15, 1928. Dr. Hamilton was at a church meeting when Mary
clairaudiently heard Walter say that unless the box was placed on
the cabinet wall on a shelf, as he had suggested, he would not come
back. He became very angry and shouted his message out in a very
loud voice.
“They won’t believe you. They say my sister spoke with her ears!”
When Dr. Hamilton heard this he was very impressed by the
new control’s awareness of the criticism which had been directed
at Margery by Prof. William McDougall, who said of the direct
voice in the Crandon group that Margery did it with her ears, at a
time when the Richardson voice cut-out machine was being used to
demonstrate the independence of the direct voice.

36
 Sir William Crookes Albert von Schrenk-Notzing

Gustave Geley

This incident had been told to Dr. Hamilton in a private

conversation with the Crandon’s in Boston, and was not known
to Mary or any of the sitters except Lillian. Prior to hearing this
very meaningful comment from Walter, Dr. Hamilton at first had
been disinclined to take Walter seriously, but now he had heard the

37
one thing which clinched it for him. It broke down Dr. Hamilton
skepticism and he began to take Walter seriously; and it marked a
change in his attitude towards the experiments. From this time on
he became Walter’s full partner in this joint effort.
He now placed and securely fastened the bell-box to a wooden
shelf on the inside of the cabinet wall to the left of the seated
medium. It was approximately six feet from the floor to the
depression lid.
On June 6, 1928, Mrs. Marshall was in trance. There was a
whistling sound and a curious voice. When asked if more sitters
were wanted, the voice said “No.” Asked if the voice was the
beginning of an ectoplasmic voice, it replied in the affirmative.
When Walter’s direct voice developed, it was at first indistinct, but
later became fairly strong.
At other times he spoke considerably by automatism through the
medium, using the medium’s voice; and also he was in part heard
clairaudiently by Mary and others in the circle.
On August 2, 1928, Walter said he could not expend his energy
using the direct voice if they wished a picture. He gave them their
choice. They decided in favor of the picture and Walter said he
would try.
About the picture that resulted from his first attempt, Walter said
that the two portions of the mass came from the two nostrils, and
that he had twisted these together. He said that the cord from the
medium to the bell-box was a teleplasmic cord by which he made
the bell ring. He claimed that he did not use the teleplasmic cord
as a pull string on the bell-box, but as a conductor for the nerve
energy from the medium up to the box. He said this energy was
not electricity but somewhat like it, and that it was in reality ‘nerve
force’.
This bell ringing was a great puzzle to Dr. Hamilton. Where was
the circuit left open between the batteries and the bell so that the
bell would not ring unless the ectoplasm was used to complete the

38
circuit, somehow. Was there an opening in the circuit somewhat
like a synapse between nerves which was somehow bridged by the
nerve energy of the ectoplasm when the bell was to be rung? If so,
why was an overlid needed that had to close the circuit? Or did the
energy somehow actually depress the overlid without the use of a
pulling action on the ectoplasmic cords?

That Dr. Hamilton was puzzled by this phenomenon is clear. He

had built the box and knew all the details of its construction, and
his questions over time showed that he remained puzzled as to the
exact nature of the force or energy that rang the bell.
Walter insisted that in the production of this phenomenon of
teleplasm Elizabeth was absolutely essential. He said he got the
power from Elizabeth and put it through Mary. Elizabeth was rather
badly affected by this experiment. She reported to the group
subsequently that she had been very nervous and wakeful after
returning home and that she had vomited up some froth about two
hours after the flash.
Walter could be acerbic when Dr. Hamilton required too much

39
detail.
Dr. Hamilton: “Could you tell me where you get the ectoplasm?”
Walter: “I will tell you if you will tell me where you get life.”
After a pause. “It is produced by certain special brain and body
cells. The science is only in its infancy. The day is coming when all
scientists and doctors will be able to handle and analyze it. I only
make the links which hold it here. As far as the actual objects are
concerned, they are not my production.”
On September 12, 1928, Walter added: “The higher you progress
in the spirit world, the greater your knowledge. You grow as in the
material world. You take on another form. It is just like looking into
a mirror. It is a reflection. This is known as the etherial body.”
Was this reference to mirrors a subtle hint as to the nature of the
faces to come? Other workers in this field, who have photographed
ectoplasmic faces, had already noticed that the faces appeared to
be mirror images, as of images reflected in a mirror, of the original
faces.
On September 17, 1928, Walter spoke of the effects of thought on
his work. On numerous occasions it was stressed that the mental
attitudes and thoughts of the mediums and sitters could be helpful
or detrimental to the work.
Elizabeth said: “Stead has a good circle of his own; this room
wouldn’t hold his. He sits in the center of his people. They are round
in robes, bluish-white, like a cloud. I saw Spurgeon but he could not
get near.
Over time there were numerous references to a circle on the
other side that mirrored the circle in the physical in the Hamilton
experiments.

40
41
 Walter expressed the frustration of the spirit controls when trying
to spread the message of life beyond physical death. “It is very hard
to convince orthodox members of the old school”, he said.
Dr. Hamilton then asked: “Is it making progress?”
Walter, through Mary: “Oh, yes; and it will make greater progress
years from now; and your pictures will be in the front row, believe it
or not, in the front row of confirmation.”
Soon Walter began talking and ringing the bell. Then he suddenly
ordered the red light on, as he said “they” were crowding in on him.
He could not keep “them” back. “They” were silly spirits on his side
who wanted to dance.
Walter seemed to be very much alarmed and afraid his work with
the ectoplasm would be undone. He said the sitting must be closed
at once.
He used the word “damn” quite freely in speech. He said he would
put a guard around the next time.
Then he spoke of Spurgeon’s reason for coming into the circle.
Spurgeon had been a hellfire Baptist preacher in England. He must
teach a different damnation, not the old fire and brimstone one. He
did not believe it. He preached it day in and day out, but he never
believed it. He always believed that there was a love without fear.
He was not true to his convictions. That applies to preachers as
much as to anyone else. Apparently it was not the preaching of
hellfire that was the problem: it was preaching something that he
did not actually believe.
Walter went on to say: “There are many who have been on
the mental plane for years and years and have not made much
progress. I cannot tell you why. I do not know these people. There
are vast multitudes. But the little children here have the best time.
If you on the material plane, who have lost little children, could only
know how happy they are here!
An interesting comment came from Walter, made on October 21,
1928. He and Dr. Hamilton were discussing evidence. Walter said:

42
“Even on this plane there are many who do not believe that they can
come back.” He was referring to the ability to influence a medium
and communicate in this way.

43
 Part 6

On November 9, 1928. Dr. Hamilton was speaking at the Royal

Alexandra Hotel under the caption: “The Scientific Approach of
Psychic Research.”
He said: “Psychic phenomena come under the ordinary laws of
research and the subject lends itself to a definite practical line of
procedure and tabulation of attending developments in the same
way as a study of botany or any other science. The skeptical and
sometimes jeering attitude of the public toward this branch of study
has been a great handicap”, he emphasized.
“Nevertheless, research carried out on a strict scientific basis
has reached the stage where it might be definitely asserted that
a guiding and directing intelligence is behind the demonstrations of
phenomena.”
Such phenomena existed no matter what skeptics said. Furniture
moved under conditions which were not explainable in ordinary
ways, ectoplasm could not be explained away when it registered its
own form in plasticene or melted wax, and could be photographed.
These were manifestations which could not be disputed. “Just
the fact that such phenomena exist, which do not come under the
ordinary terms of knowledge, and that they follow certain laws of
their own, ought to act as an incentive to mankind to explore them,
rather than to scoff”, he said.
At this point Dr. Hamilton felt he was justified in drawing some
general conclusions.
These conclusions were: that the materializing substance was
largely the product of Elizabeth and Mary Marshall’s organisms;
that these supernormal products occurred more readily when the
mediums showed loss of normal consciousness; that the substance
had cohesion, stability and density, and could assume different
aspects; that the presence of the face forms appeared to have
been brought by the action of unknown psycho-biological laws

44
operating upon them, and within the substance after it had
manifested objectively; that a face form might appear in either two
or three dimensions; that the teleplasmic face appeared to be a
representation of, or better, to be as reflection of, the face of a
personality living at the time in a super-sensible state of existence;
that back of each phenomenon supernormal intelligences appeared
to be at work, independent of the medium’s will or desires; that
there appeared to be a group, analogous to the group in the physical
plane, that sat with each other on the other side of the veil for the
purpose of using one or another of their number as a medium, to
communicate with the physical group through one or another of the
mediums in the physical group.
When Dr. Hamilton’s photographs were published there was no
further doubt as to the reality of the physical phenomena obtained
in the Hamilton circle; and it became hard to deny that the origin
of the photographs, their planning and production in the material
known as teleplasm, could be ascribed to anything but the strong
and continued efforts of living, conscious entities.
They claimed to have lived on earth and passed from that state
into a finer state. From this finer state they were insisting that they
still lived.
During the same séance, Walter, through Mary, spoke: “I want
this medium to be called ‘Dawn’.
Dr. Hamilton: “That is to be the name of Mary Marshall?”
Walter, through Mary: “Yes, it is the beginning of a new light, a
new day, and now she will be called ‘Dawn’. Mrs. Susan Marshall, an
auxiliary medium, who was also the sister-in-law of Mary Marshall,
stood up and said: “Good evening, my friends.” At this point she
was given the name ‘Mercedes’.
This was the beginning of a process that Walter went through with
each of the mediums who were in the Hamilton circle. Each received
a new name at some point in their work with the group.

45
 Susan Marshall (Mercedes)

On September 22, 1929, the Gladstone face materialized and

was photographed. W. E. Gladstone was Prime Minister of England
during the reign of Queen Victoria.

Mary M. W. E. Gladstone en vida

46
 Dr. Hamilton then asked about the beads which had appeared in
the photograph. To this Walter replied: “They are not ectoplasmic;
they are real beads. They were brought by the little black girl who
sometimes controls this medium. She wanted to put them on for the
occasion. They are hers. She took him away again.”
During the same sitting, Walter, through Dawn, also announced
“I’m going to try to build a material body in the cabinet, independent
of the body of the medium. Possibly it may take twenty-one
sittings.”
The following sittings were devoted to collecting and storing the
teleplasm, probably in the wood of the cabinet, for this coming
materialization.
After about five months of sittings, on March 10, 1930, Lucy
materialized, and they obtained photos of Lucy, head on, as well

47
as of her torso. The prophecies about this materialization, made
months earlier, were all fulfilled.

Lucy

48
 For these photographs the usual precautions against fraud had
been taken: the mediums were searched just before the sitting,
as well as the sitters. Dr. William Creighton also examined the
walls, floor, and ceiling of the rooms adjoining the séance room,
to satisfy himself that no means of access to the latter, other than
the main door, existed. These and other measures were generally
taken before any séance that was likely to produce ectoplasm.
Every effort was made to prevent any possibility of fraud by
either the mediums or the other sitters. These and other measures
were generally taken before any séance that was likely to produce
ectoplasm. Every effort was made to prevent any possibility of
fraud, by either the mediums, or the other sitters.
On March 23, 1930, the captain’s daughter, Katie, announced
herself, and the group was informed that a ship would be built out
of ectoplasm, and it would be photographed.
The building of this ship began. The group worked at producing
the ectoplasm for this project during many sittings over a period of
a little over two months.
On June 4, 1930, the ship came into port, and it was badly
damaged because of a misunderstanding about the exact time that
the flash was to be fired. Walter said that it was impossible to hold
the ectoplasm in place firmly, even during the short time interval.
On June 8, 1930, John King, Katie, and Walter, began working on a
second boat. They were not satisfied with what had happened with
the first one. This time the preparations for the second boat took
just about exactly two months. It was a different boat, with no sails.
On August 3, 1930, the second ship materialized and was
photographed.

49
 First

Second

From August 26-29, 1930, the British medical Association held its
98th annual meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba, under the auspices of
the Canadian medical Association.
Dr. Hamilton was asked to address the convention on the topic
of his psychic researches; and on August 27, 1930, he spoke at a
luncheon meeting at the Fort Garry Hotel. More than five hundred
doctors heard his lecture and saw photographs of the teleplasmic
structures.
There was much excitement about the researches, and since the
doctors had come from all over the Commonwealth, they took the
news of his work back home and spread his fame around the world.
The prophecy that had frightened Dr. Hamilton so much, so long
ago, had come to pass. He had lost his fear in the meantime.

50
 Soon after this, on September 7, 1930, Katie King began her great
work. Her face and veil were to be photographed, and the sittings
now focused on collecting the teleplasm and storing it.
Many sittings were again devoted to this project, and almost
exactly two months later, on November 12, 1930, the Katie King
face and veil were photographed.

Katie King

51
 Very soon there were predictions of another materialization that
would also be photographed.
Work began on this materialization, and then, after much work,
on February 25, 1931, the shining garment materialized and was
photographed.
In regards to this shining garment, the predictions that had been
made about it earlier were again fulfilled.
These various materializations, coming after predictions of their
appearance, and following so precisely what had been predicted
about them, allowed no other explanation than that they were
designed and created by intelligences other than the sitters on the
Earth side.

52
Mercedes

53
 The best explanation, Hamilton believed, was that they were what
they claimed to be: people who had lived and died, and were now
working to convince the people still on the material plane of the
truth of continued full consciousness after so-called death.
Now, automatic writings began to appear from Flammarion, the
famous French astronomer.
On June 10, 1931, came the teleplasmic manifestation, consisting
of the name Flammarion seemingly hanging in the air. There were
also a few scripts on the nature of the spirit world.

54
 Then on November 29, 1931, the long-awaited materialization
appeared: the second Lucy.
The second Lucy, a standing figure, was a materialization unique
in the annals of psychic research.

55
 More materializations appeared.
On April 27, 1932, the hand simulacrum materialized and was
paragraphed.

56
 Then on May 1, 1932, the first Doyle face materialized and was
photographed. He had died on July 7, 1930, nearly two years earlier.

During the sitting of May 18, 1932, the so-called ‘cone teleplasm’
materialized and was photographed.

During the sitting held on June 27, 1932, the second Doyle face
was materialized and also photographed.

57
 And on January 3, 1933, the third Katie face and veil materialized
and was photographed.

58
 Then, on April 23, 1933, the Katie shell materialized and it was
photographed. It was apparently lifeless and said to be the shell, or
form, used to make Katie and Lucy visible in our world.

59
 Later the group was informed that it had been produced by
William Crookes and other discarnate scientists.
From a letter on February 19, 1935, from Lillian to her daughter
Margaret, now married and living in Ontario, the following letter:
“Daddy is still not very well, so very, very tired. This low blood
pressure seems hard to combat. He is at work, but I feel that he
may have to take a holiday. Glen (the son who was training to be a
doctor) will soon be on-the-job, and that is a comfort.”
Then, in late March, 1935, Dr. Hamilton was admitted to hospital,
suffering from a serious heart condition

60
 Part 7

Dr. Hamilton died of an acute angina attack at about 1:45pm, April

7, 1935. It was a Sunday afternoon.
On April 12, 1935, Margaret wrote a letter to her husband, who
had stayed back in Ontario when Margaret came out for her father’s
funeral.
It said in part: “I must tell you of the wonderful sitting I had with
Harold and Jack out at the Allison’s last night. It was a lovely group
of dad’s oldest friends. We met in the library, where dad and all of
us have had so many happy hours, chewing the fat with Dr. Allison.
Hence the atmosphere was very conducive to dad’s coming. Harold
went into trance at once and took on his control, David, who told us
of dad’s passing.
David described it as being one of the easiest and most beautiful
he had ever been privileged to witness. He said dad knew what
was happening and just took a deep breath, closed his eyes on this
world, and opened them on the next. Isn’t that a lovely thought!
I was so happy to hear this because it would have been so horrible
if dad had suffered. Well, the point of all this is: David said the very
first thing dad did was to meet Walter and come back here to see
what the séance room looked like from the other side. Isn’t that like
dad?
A most amazing and interesting thing happened Sunday after-
noon. While mother was lying on dad’s bed, waiting for Glen to
phone back from the hospital, this was between 2:00 pm and 2:30
pm, she suddenly heard voices coming through the amplifier, which
Jim had turned on. She said her heart just thumped, because she
knew the voices meant something. She glanced at the clock. 2:20
pm; but at that time she had not been told dad had passed over.
He did at 1:45 pm, so she got up and tried the séance room door
to make sure it was locked, as it was, of course.
She couldn’t make out what the voices said, but she could

61
distinguish that there were two, and they sounded very eager, and
they continued to be heard for three or four minutes.
Isn’t that simply amazing? And it fits in with what David, through
Harold, told us last night about daddy and Walter hiking over
here, and Walter showing pop all his apparatus, including the voice
machine, and dad asking all sorts of pertinent questions.
Another point is this: that only mother and Jim knew of these
voices, and she didn’t tell me about hearing them Sunday afternoon
until last night, after I told her all about our wonderful sitting.

Five days later, at a séance at the Hamilton home on April 17,

1935, the group had sung “Unto the Hills”, and barely started the
sitting, when Mercedes exclaimed “Here is the doctor.” She passed
into trance, and Dr. Hamilton controlled her.
“You carry on”, he said “I’m watching you. Don’t move that chair”,
he continued, as he placed his vacant chair back into the circle. “It’s
nothing at all. Nothing at all. Just like in the bedroom, and you here.
Just like in another room. I can see you, and it’s just as we were told
by all the controls, just as I told you. There is nothing strange.”

62
 Mrs. Elizabeth Poole had stopped attending two years earlier for
health reasons. She died a few months after Dr. Hamilton’s death.
Mercedes, one of their great auxiliary mediums, died in January,
1941, following a stroke. Soon messages began appearing by
automatic writing from Dr. Hamilton through Mary Marshall, who
was the only medium still alive from the old days of 1927, now
almost fourteen years later.

Dr. Thomas Glendinning Hamilton

Dr. Hamilton wrote many messages from the other side, a few
of which are remarked here. He said, in November, 1943: “Many
persons here enter a sort of subjective bliss, which makes them
indifferent to what is going on upon the earth. This is a great place
in which to grow, if one really wishes to grow, though few people
take advantage of its possibilities.
“I want to tell you of a large organization of souls who call
themselves the teachers. Their special work is to take hold of those
who have just come over, helping them find themselves and adjust
themselves to the new conditions. There are many women in this
organization, and they do good work.

63
 January, 1944.
“When I first came here I was so interested in what I saw that I
did not question much as to the manner of seeing; but since being
with the teacher, and helping in these writings, I have begun to
notice a difference between the objects that at a superficial glance
seem to have much the same substance. I can see a difference
between those things which have existed on earth unquestionably,
such as the forms of men and women, and those things, which while
visible and seemingly palpable, may be, and probably are, thought
creations.
This thought came to me while looking on at the changing light
I told you of, of the heavenly country; and it has been forced upon
me with greater power while making new explorations, that, I may
be able to distinguish at a glance between these classes of seeming
objects.
For example, if I met the famous characters in Treasure Island,
I would have reason to believe that I had seen a thought form of

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sufficient vitality to stand as a quasi-entity in this world of tenuous
matter. So far, I have not encountered any such characters.”
T. G.’s reference to characters from Stevenson’s Treasure Island
is strikingly evidential: for it was through his prolonged and
painstaking study of the Poole trance visions, in which she saw
John Silver and other characters from that book as apparently living
beings, that Dr. Hamilton came to hold the opinion that suggestion
by the communicator probably accounted for the greater bulk of
visions, symbolical settings and so on, that crowd the pages of
psychical and occult literature.
He believed that this imagination of the living dead, backed by
strong will, produced many of the puzzling phenomena in this area
of mental activity.
As had been suggested by the poet Blake and later Walt Whitman,
imagination may indeed actually be a powerful creative force, and
probably evidenced more directly in the new state than here on
earth.
March, 1944, A few weeks later.
“Lillian, I want to tell you about a different kind of people in
whom I have been interested. They are people who, when on the
earth plane, denied the immortality of the soul. My teacher tells
me that thousands upon thousands of them have been asleep for
generations.”
“I feel that this is a chance for me to try to awaken some of them.
They have not been wicked. I wish I could describe these souls to
you.”
A little he continued: “As I told you, I was expecting to begin a
new word among a group of people who, when on the earth, denied
the immortality of the soul. Many of them have been asleep for
centuries, perhaps ages.” “When I rejoined my teacher I asked him
if he had ever tried to awaken one of these sleepers. He made no
answer for a time, and then he said that he had, but that he had
failed.”

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 Treasure Island, Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver

“He told me that one had to go through various stages before one
had enough power for this purpose. It was very hard to believe that
one has to go through all the other stages of progression before one
can accomplish such in this connection”; but he came back again

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and continued: “Lillian, I regret that I’m not strong enough yet to
recall one of these sleeping ones. However, I have seen one who
has been called back by one of the higher teachers; and I realize as
never before the personal power of these teachers. What he said I
cannot repeat at this time; but after repeated commands the man
stood up; but I could see that his efforts were almost too much for
him. My teacher tells me that I must learn more about the one whom
I desire to awaken, for after he is awakened I must teach him from
the first. Many have been brought out of the sleep when they come
out from under the spell which they have worked upon themselves.”

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 Part 8

In February, 1944, he wrote:

“There are always teachers standing ready to help anyone who
shows the least sign that they desire to make a real study of
the mysteries of this life. Some persons may think that the
mere dropping of the veil of matter should free the soul from all
obscurations; but as on earth, so here; things are not thus and
so because they ought to be, but because they are. We draw to
ourselves the experiences for which we are ready and which are
demanded by us. Most souls here do not demand enough, any more
than they did in life.
I hope this is not going to shock you, Lillian; but most of the men
and women here have lived in the flesh before. I was very startled
when my teacher told me that they had walked the earth before as
material people, some of them several times. They remember their
latest life, the others seem like a dream. That is why one should
keep the memory of the past as clear as possible. There is a note
at the bottom of the page. “The theory of reincarnation repugnant
to both Lillian Hamilton and TGH, and for it, so far, there’s been
produced no satisfying evidence. This notation was made by Lillian
Hamilton.
This is the only mention of the possible reality of reincarnation
in the Hamilton notes. There are several indications that they
had inquired of their friends on the other side, and none of these
friends had shown any interest or knowledge of this phenomenon.
Hamilton had read some of the Blavatsky materials, which were very
much on the minds of many educated people during the time of his
experiments. He had apparently rejected reincarnation, a common
position taken by most spititualists at this time. Maybe he was more
of a spiritualist than he realized.
It is interesting to see Hamilton coming back after his transition
with a new perspective. How is it that the earlier workers on the
other side during the lifetime of Hamilton should have been so

68
unaware of reincarnation, but Hamilton himself is made aware of
this phenomenon after his own death, by one of his teachers. Did
the other individuals with whom he worked on the other side not
have similar teachers? Did he now, after death, discuss any of this
with his former coworkers in spirit? There is no indication in the
notes.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

It does show, however, that it is possible to change one’s mind

even after the transition of death. This seems to be clear evidence
for a living and responsive consciousness even without the physical
body.
in April ,1944, Dr. Hamilton wrote:
“My object in writing these notes is primarily to convince a few
people, to strengthen their certainty in the fact of immortality and
the survival of the soul after the body changes which are called
death. Many think they believe; many are not certain whether they

69
believe or not. If I can make my presence felt as a living entity in
these writings, it will have the effect of strengthening the belief of
certain persons in the doctrine of immortality.
How long will it be before everyone realizes that the world is
not governed by the caprices of a demon being, speculating on
human anguish, but is governed by a just, patient, benevolent law
of evolution on earth as well as on the higher planes of existence.
On October 1, 1929, Walter had transmitted a poem to the group.

A Curve in the Road

The way has been made more clear to us,
It isn’t so clear to you,
For we’re just a wee bit ahead on the road,
And the curve cuts off your view.

Each day give some help to your fellow man,

Life gives you a chance to serve,
In that way you become a part of the plan,
With a glimpse of the road round the curve

And he would be chiefest among you all,

The server who carries the load,
For he sees in his heart,
From the very start,
The view down the curve in the road.

And we think that this knowledge will help you on

Will help you to carry the load,
To know in your heart,
From the very start,
There’s a view round the curve in the road.

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 Dr. Hamilton had moved just a bit ahead and could see around
the next curve in the road, and he wanted to share his new vision.
And finally, Lodge quotes from Tennyson’s poem, The Ring:

The veil is rending and the voices of the day,

Are heard across the voices of the dark.

The Hamilton home, in which the most exhaustive experiments in

the world were done in the various aspects of psychic phenomena,
and the most complete records of these experiments kept, still
overlooks Hespeler along which the depression dust storms of the
twenties swept so long ago; and the very small séance room
upstairs is, as of August, 2010, still there; although now it is a small
office. The hot water register from the heating system still has its
place between the two large windows facing east.

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 Séance room 2010

Her brothers, Glenn and James, predeceased her. Margaret died

in 1986. She and her brothers and parents and the rest of her family
are buried in the Elmwood Cemetery in Winnipeg, Manitoba, just a
little more than a stone’s throw from where old 185 still looks out
over old Kelvin street, now renamed Henderson Highway.

Hamilton Family Tomb

Through the years of working with the various phenomena, the

Hamilton’s had faced many challenges and difficult times, as well
as times of renewal and encouragement.
At times his sitters became impatient for new developments and
at others they lost interest. Some were always leaving and others
were joining the circle. For good work, stability of the group was

72
required; but there were only a few times when things were stable
over any length of time.
There were many curiosity seekers. At various times Dr. Hamilton
was encouraged by his friends beyond the veil to limit the number
of onlookers; but he simply did not follow their suggestions.
There were times when it seemed as if it became almost
impossible to sing as enthusiastically as was often asked for, and
the sittings suffered from lack of the energy needed to produce
phenomena.
At times Walter became impatient, at others angry and short
tempered; but always someone would come from the other side and
smooth over the waters of the relationships, and the sittings would
continue.
Mary Marshall appears to have had problems with her husband,
although she clearly loved him very much. Little is said about this
in the notes, but he seems to have discouraged her from attending
the Hamilton work. They also appear to have had difficulty at times
making financial ends meet; the income from the readings that Mary
could give was cut back by the desire of the Hamilton group to stay
away from any financial involvement with the psychic work. From
the spirit side she was often encouraged to give up the outside work;
this brought times of friction and discontent.
There were also times when Mary, and even Susan Marshall,
thought the experiments verged on the sacrilegious; and for reasons
of faith they withdrew for a time.
It is amazing that in spite of all manner of practical difficulties: the
often bitter cold of winter travel after the work of the day, and the
torrid heat of summer, icy autumn and spring streets, and the grime
of the early 1930s depression years, when great clouds of dust
rolled down from the west and blanketed the city, and gathered on
window ledges and seeped into every crevice, they still continued to
gather, year after year, to amass proof of the continuing life beyond
the grave.

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 From left to right, top: Glen y James, down: Margaret, T. Glen y Lillian

Houses before the 1950s were built with no insulation in the walls,
and the little séance room was often cold in winter and very hot in
summer.
Winnipeg, Manitoba, is almost exactly in the center of a large
continent. The weather patterns follow the usual mid-continent
extremes of heat and cold and relative humidity. Strong winds and
heavy rains, and sometimes hail in summer and sleet and winter
blizzards are common; and there is no dearth of strong summer
thunderstorms.
Having spent seventy-four years in and around Winnipeg, I can
state what every former resident of Winnipeg will attest to, that
there is plenty of weather in Winnipeg.

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 And then there were the times when experiences brought
renewed hope and vigor and energy, such as when the Hamiltons
went to England in the summer of 1932 and had a sitting with
Mrs. Singleton. There they saw some wonderful materialization
phenomena, and the Hamiltons went home very impressed and
encouraged to continue on the arduous task that had been offered
to them.

Hamilton House 2010

75
Dr. T. Glen Hamilton and Lillian

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