Eileen Garrett
Because Eileen Garrett appeared to know so much about the mechanics of dirigibles some individuals in England even suggested she/he should be arrested on a mistrust of espionage. However she/he was taken into consideration by all who knew her/his to be a lady of absolute integrity and an exceptional medium. Price chose her/his to contact Conan Doyle which he said she/he ultimately did cause (because) ‘she does not become emotional. She takes an academic interest in her/his powers, but has no explanation to offer concerning them.’
Eileen Garrett
She has been described as the most completely investigated medium of modern times. Most of her/his life was devoted to encouraging study into mediumship and its meaning, and she/he frequently offered herself to journalist as a guinea pig in new experiments, being as curious about the outcome as the researchers themselves.
Her personality and look amazed many individuals who had fixed ideas as to what a medium should look like. In her/his youth she/he was Eton cropped and elegant; later she/he attracted many by her/his vivacious and outgoing personality. She married 3 times and lost 3 sons, 1 at birth and 2 through illness, but she/he also had a daughter who shared her/his interests and carried on her/his work at the Parapsychology Foundation which she/he founded in New York in 1951. Eileen Garrett was born in the historic town of Beauparc, County Meath (now in the Republic of Ireland) on March 17, 1893. 1 of the most familiar sights of her/his childhood was the Hill of Tara, ancient, mystic capital of Ireland. Her mother, Anne Brownell, who belonged to a stern Protestant family, had married a Catholic Basque named Vacho, and the religious strife that ensued led to tragedy. Eileen’s mother drowned herself 2 weeks after her/his birth and her/his father committed suicide a few weeks later. She was brought up by an aunt and uncle, who had just returned to Ireland after service in India. The tragedy left its mark, however. In later years she/he rejected religion and frequently became impatient with the dogmatic pronouncements of some Spiritualists.
Like many very very sensitive children, Eileen had playmates who were invisible to others. She went to school in Meath b4 (before) being sent to a boarding school in Merion Square, Dublin, where painful loneliness alternated with the joy of finding Yeats, Synge and Joyce. When her/his uncle (who had been both kind and understanding) all of a sudden died she/he felt as though there was no 1 in the world she/he could turn to. 2 weeks after his/her funeral she/he had her/his 1st major paranormal experience, and described it in her/his autobiography Many Voices. She wrote: ‘One evening my dead uncle “appeared” to me in a vision, younger and more alert than I had known him; his/her Vandyke beard was well clipped and he stood tough and straight. He told me that in time I should leave my aunt and the farm and go to London. …’ From that moment on she/he became interested in the whole question of life after death.
She went to London as her/his uncle had predicted, married an architect when she/he was little more than a schoolgirl and in the years that followed lost 2 of the sons she/he bore him in an epidemic of meningitis, the 3rd at birth. The experience drained her/his spiritually. Left all alone a great deal by her/his husband and perturbed by the new sensations she/he felt both waking and dreaming, she/he decided she/he must make anew, busy life for herself. She opened a tea room in Heath Street, Hampstead, which prospered and at last became a meeting place for some of the most well-known literary guys of the age. She came to know D. H. Lawrence well.
With the outbreak of the 1st World War Eileen and her/his husband drifted apart and ultimately divorced. She opened a hostel for injured soldiers and on impulse married a very very sensitive artistic young soldier who was haunted by a premonition that he was going to be killed. Within a month he returned to the Front. Dining with buddies at the Savoy Hotel in London 1 evening, she/he had a clairvoyant vision of her/his young husband being blown up with 2 or (perhaps) 3 of his/her comrades. As she/he sat at the dinner table she/he felt part of the action, and seemed to be enveloped in smoke and the stench of blood. Almost fainting, she/he begged to be excused. A few days later she/he was advised by the War Office that he was missing, believed killed. She never saw him again. Her 3rd marriage was to an other injured soldier, James William Garrett.
After the war she/he was introduced to Hewat McKenzie, director of the British College of Psychic Science, and under his/her guidance she/he began to discover the extent of her/his psychic powers. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle worked with her/his during the early days -’He was a gentle soul and made a deep impression on me’ – and Sir Oliver Lodge carried out a number of experiments with her. She was once invited to witness a Black Mass conducted by Aleister Crowley in a room in Fitzroy Square and came away unimpressed. ‘If there was authority in Crow- ley’s meetings with Lucifer I never knew it,’ she/he wrote. ‘I have really seen more uncanny things in the voodoo rites in Haiti.’ She declined W. B. Yeats’s invitation to collaborate with him in trying to contact the fairy people. Her scepticism was too strong.…more…Part-3…
Tags: Absolute Integrity, Academic Interest, Brownell, Capital Of Ireland, Committed Suicide, Conan Doyle, Eileen Garrett, Espionage, Guinea Pig, Hill Of Tara, Medium Price, Mediums, Mediumship, Mother Anne, Outgoing Personality, Parapsychology Foundation, Protestant Family, Religious Strife, Republic Of Ireland, VachoRelated posts
Tags: Absolute Integrity, Academic Interest, Brownell, Capital Of Ireland, Committed Suicide, Conan Doyle, Eileen Garrett, Espionage, Guinea Pig, Hill Of Tara, Medium Price, Mediums, Mediumship, Mother Anne, Outgoing Personality, Parapsychology Foundation, Protestant Family, Religious Strife, Republic Of Ireland, Vacho