Somewhere My Love

The Zerdin Fellowship is a UK-based organization which promotes physical mediumship, and publishes a magazine that’s quite interesting — the “Buzz Sheet” – with detailed reports and photos of modern séances and results, as well as historical reviews and analysis of past physical mediums. I’m also one of the few American members of the fellowship. Recently they informed me that they will be publishing my report about the precipitated are séance I attended in New York City, complete with scans of my card of my Spirit guide, Boris Pasternak (the Russian poet and novelist noted for writing Dr. Zhivago) as well as the Native American image of Chief Eagle Feather on a friend’s card (see previous postings for the images.) The Fellowship is planning their first U.S. visit, hoping to be able to bring David Thompson, an “independent voice medium” to the East Coast on a touring séance program. For information about independent voice, or direct voice mediumship, see The Direct Voice online.

I had reported earlier about the astounding detail, especially in the eyes, when examined closely with magnifying glasses. A few weeks after the séance I was blessed to come across the recently published Precipitated Spirit Paintings, by Ron Nagy, an historian and tour guide at the Lily Dale Assembly in New York. Ron is said to be the leading authority on Spirit art in the United States. There are some fine colour reproductions of precipitated art by the Bangs Sisters and the Campbell Brothers. Opinions are offered by art experts and the mysterious pigments used and their continued fresh appearance after many decades. There are also the results of a professional examination by a certified iridologist, who analysed large digital images of several sets of eyes of precipitated portraits. The iridologist notes that the components of the eyes are so highly detailed and lifelike that she can easily diagnose the health of the person in great detail. It is commented on the unlikelihood that any artist, especially in the early 19th century, would include such miniscule physical minutiae, which can’t be seen without the help of modern technology.

An especially validating but odd detail that Ron shares with the reader is that he had determined that one can verify the authenticity of a Spirit image by the absence of eyelashes! Sure enough, my picture of Boris Pasternak shows him to be without eyelashes. Another interesting fact that has been noted in many Spirit renditions is that under magnification, the pupils of the eyes may show a reflection of another person’s image – usually a different person in each eye! I can’t see anything like this in my image, but I will keep looking, you can be sure.

As I was walking to work today and thinking about some last changes for this report before sending it off to the editors, I was immersed in mental conversation with Boris, who was advising me about certain things. As I rounded a corner, I passed a street vendor who was selling trinkets from his cart, which had music playing from it. I was startled out of my deep reverie by the song playing: “Somewhere My Love” (or Lara’s Theme) from the movie, Dr. Zhivago.


Reference:
Nagy, Ron. Precipitated Spirit Paintings. Lakeville, MN: Galde Press, Inc., 2006.