Voices From Beyond: Inside Thomas Lacey's Séances With Dr. Nick Richbell

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This is Thursday.

Evening, September 29th 19160.

We are about to hold a special seance at the home of Autosmith, 362 Frederick St., Kitchener, ON.

2:37

Welcome to Haunted History Chronicles, the podcast that delves into the mysterious encapsulating world of spiritualism and the paranormal.

Today I have an extraordinary episode for you as we explore the fascinating life and mediumship of Thomas Lacey, a trance and direct voice medium whose work spanned continents and decades.

3:02

Thomas Lacey was born on November the 4th, 1895 in Glossop, Derbyshire.

His journey into the spiritual world began early in life, leading to a lifetime of mediumship.

On March the 18th, 1918, he married Edith Emma Lomas in Whitfield.

3:23

Edith, born on September the 28th, 1895, was not a medium herself, but she played a vital role in supporting Thomas's work.

In the early 1920s, the Lacy's made a significant move to Canada, settling in the Kitchener Waterloo Region.

3:42

It was here in 1924 that Thomas began conducting seances, with Edith actively participating.

From this time onwards, Thomas and Edith held seances in the home of Otto and Nelda Smith in Kitchener, with attendees reporting experiencing airports, materializations, automatic writing, and even electronic voice phenomena.

4:08

Thomas Lacey passed away on June the 17th, 1966 at the age of 70, with Edith following in 1993 having lived to the age of 97.

My special guest today is Doctor Nick Richbel, a historian with a PhD from the University of Waterloo.

4:29

Doctor Nick Richbel has extensively researched Spiritualism and is particularly interested in Thomas Lacey's work.

As the Head of Special Collections and Archives at the University of Waterloo Library, Nick has curated significant seance collections including the Thomas Lacey Seances.

4:48

Nick was also a research associate the audio documentary The Ghost of Thomas Lacey.

His insights bring a new dimension to our understanding of Thomas Lacey's contribution to Spiritualism.

So stay tuned as we dive deep into the life seances and lasting impact of Thomas Lacey with Doctor Nick Richbel.

5:27

Hi, Nick.

Thank you for coming back onto the podcast.

Hi, Michelle, and thanks for having me back.

So for those people who maybe haven't listened to the episode that you we recorded a little while ago about Maurice Barbonell where you were able to introduce yourself.

5:43

Do you want to just start by giving a brief overview of you and your background for for those people who again, are just unfamiliar with, with yourself and your kind of interest in this area that we're going to be talking about tonight?

Of course.

So, Nick Richbell, I'm an archivist historian.

6:00

I'm an archivist by profession.

I'm the head of Special Collections and Archives at Clemson University in South Carolina, and I recently graduated with my PhD in history from the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

And it's really at the University of Waterloo where my interest in spiritualism really got going because we had some great seance collections there, one of which we're going to talk about today.

6:25

And you know, going through the PhD program, my focus was on Maurice Barbernell and Silva that we talked about in an earlier podcast.

And but it's really thanks to Thomas Lacey, today's subject.

I credit him with my great interest in spiritualism and seances.

6:44

And, you know, I think it's I think it's incredible that we're going to be able to talk about this gentleman because I mean, we were talking just before the podcast started how I'm not sure how many people will know about him from outside of Canada, certainly.

So I think this will be bringing something very new to them and to be able to share why his seances have such an impact, I think in terms of what they can offer.

7:10

So I think it will be a really interesting one for people who maybe know a little bit about him or nothing at all to discover him, his life and what he was doing and, and the the, the information that you have in the archives that you referenced just a moment ago.

7:28

Yeah.

And I'm really excited to talk about Tom As an archivist, we spend a lot of time with the records of people who we've never met.

But it's, it's interesting how we kind of build these relationships with them, like I said, even though we've never met them just through the records that they've left behind.

7:44

So I'm excited to share what I know about Thomas Lacy with you and and your listeners.

So just to kind of set the scene if you like, and you know, start at the beginning.

I know there's very little in terms of material that really goes into lots of depth about his early life, but you want to just share what you know about his kind of his early beginnings in, in Glossop, in, in Derbyshire and you know, his family background and what you know of him really.

8:13

Absolutely.

So Thomas Lacey's background is still quite a mystery to me as not much information is available about his early days.

What I do know, he was born on November the 4th in 1895 in Glossop, Derbyshire.

He was the eldest child to James and Mary Jane Lacey, and he had five siblings, Samuel, Annie, Emma, Walter and Matilda.

8:37

So keep the name Walter in mind because we're going to come back to him shortly.

So the records I found do show that Tom and his younger brother Samuel, along with their dad, worked in a printworks called the Dintin Printworks.

And what's interesting about this factory is that it was owned by Edmund Potter, who was Beatrix Potter's grandfather.

9:00

And census records show that Thomas Lacey was listed as being an engineer.

So, and I very much doubt that he had any formal education, but he would likely what we would call today a mechanic.

I also think that Thomas Lacey served during the First World War.

9:18

So again, I haven't found records to back this up because if anyone searched in the National Archives, it's quite a challenge to find some information.

But during one of the seances that Tom Lacey was leading, a fellow by the name of Billy Snow comes through to talk to Edith Lacey, Thomas's wife.

9:37

And he talks about how they were in the war together and they were attached to the 9th Scottish Division in the Royal Engineers.

And in fact, Billy Snow says that he saved Tom's life because he saw him lying, maybe in a dip, and he recognised the footwear that Tom was wearing.

9:56

So I find that fascinating and I'd love to be able to prove that Tom was actually serving in the First World War.

Gosh, that would be amazing if you could that would be such a connection to that bit of information in terms of what comes through in the in the seance.

That would be incredible to to make that connection.

10:13

Absolutely.

So is there anything from his early life that you can pinpoint that maybe influenced his later involvement in turning towards spiritualism?

So this is tough.

10:29

So there isn't really anything I that concrete that I, I can guess why Tom turned to spiritualism or found it.

But what I do know is that Walter, his youngest brother, who I, who I mentioned just recently, actually passed away at the age of 7, quite tragically.

10:47

He died.

He must have tipped a pot of boiling water over himself.

And he died from being scolded and he'd suffered from severe convulsions after that.

Quite a sad story.

So I wonder if that's what pushed Tom or, you know, LED Tom to find spiritualism to keep in contact with his younger brother Walter.

11:11

So what is it that you know about his, his motivations and, and the reasons for why he moved to, to Canada?

He, you know, he immigrated to Canada in the early 1920s.

Correct.

So 1923 Tom gets on a ship and sails to Canada.

11:29

Edith his wife who he married in 1918.

Edith Lomas was her name then.

Then Edith Lacey.

She followed a year later in 1924.

Again an assumption.

Either they wanted to start a new life.

TomTom had an aunt who lived in Waterloo, ON, so they joined her when they first arrived in Canada.

11:51

And I also wonder, was he shunned by his family?

You know, we've talked about in the previous podcast how Maurice Barbonell was likely shunned by his family when he turned to spiritualism.

Maybe the same thing happened to Tom Lacy.

I just don't know for sure.

But when they arrived in Canada, life definitely seemed busy for this married couple.

12:10

They moved house no less than 9 * / a ten year period and Tom was listed as continuing to work as an engineer for local manufacturing companies, including companies such as Dominion Rubber and Sutherland Schultz that were big companies in the Waterloo Region in Ontario.

12:29

Did their life change drastically, would you say, by making that move to Canada, was it very different from what they would have experienced, you know, prior to that back in the United Kingdom?

I'm not sure how drastic the change would have been, to be honest, Michelle, I think the fact they didn't have family there, you know, his extended family or his siblings weren't there.

12:50

So that would have been a challenge.

But otherwise, I, I, I don't know, I feel that life would have been very much similar to, to the UK, just a different country and a different culture if you like.

And their careers didn't change too much in in that move, in that transition from one location to the other, did it?

13:09

Correct.

Tom remained an engineer or mechanic.

And as far as I know, Edith didn't work.

She well, she worked in the home.

So she, she kept the house, but she didn't have a, a career outside of the home.

And unfortunately, as is the case with women in history, not, not much is known about them.

13:26

Records don't always speak well to the lives these women left as left as they were supporting their husbands in whatever the husband was doing.

So how is it then that Thomas Lacey becomes involved in spiritualism then?

And mediumship.

13:43

Great question.

No answer to that at this point.

What I do know, though, is that the earliest documented record of Thomas Lacey holding a seance was in 1924, and I think it was one month before Edith Lacey arrived in Canada to join him.

13:59

So, you know, he's been in Canada for, you know, about a year and he's already, you know, performing seances in the region he's living in.

And I, I can't imagine that he suddenly developed this ability from moving from the UK to Canada.

14:16

He must have been involved in Spiritualism and seances prior to leaving England in 1923.

And are there any records or accounts of his particular type of mediumship in terms of what he was, what he was doing as part of his seances or his spiritual, you know, path, his spiritual journey?

14:40

So there are so the University of Waterloo Special Collections and Archives, they have a couple of Thomas Lacey archival collections.

So one of them is a lecture collection.

And this collection is about 450 or so lectures that Tom Lacey gave while in the trance state.

14:59

And he was talking about issues ranging from what it's like to be in the sleep state to kind of talking about religious holidays such as Christmas and Easter.

And these he gave in the basement of a house he lived in in in Kitchener.

15:16

And it was a special sales room.

And sometimes as a stenographer would have been hired to copy down what he was saying or it would have been audio recorded.

So that's one important collection and then the most interesting collection for me personally of the SEANCE records that the University of Waterloo holds.

15:36

So there's maybe 20 TypeScript SEANCE records from 1924 to about 1933.

And then there are about 154 recordings of seances that took place in Kitchener between 1960 and 1966.

15:55

And these are, you know, about 300 hours of recordings of seances that took place in the basement of a house in Kitchener that still stands.

And you can hear Tom's versatility as a medium throughout these recordings.

16:12

Did his career as a mechanical engineer ever intersect with what you know he was doing in terms of his spiritual practices?

Was there ever any connection there or not at all?

So I'm not sure it did.

So there was a woman called Jean Barkley.

16:30

Now, her father, Sid Wright, was a member of the Lacey Seance Circle.

And Jean got to attend a couple of seancees when she was very young.

And I have it on record that she spoke to someone shortly before she passed away to let them know what she remembered about Thomas Lacey.

16:49

And in her words, she described him as being a very simple person with a simple mind was an outstanding channel for contact with the highest spirit.

So, you know, I think, you know, he wasn't educated, but he was aware of what was going on in the world, I'm sure.

17:07

But I don't think his being an engineer had any direct influence on what he did.

And just let listeners know the type of medium that Tom Lacy was.

He was what we call a direct voice or trumpet medium.

So that means that the voice of the spirit that he was channeling would come through a spirit trumpet and not from his mouth directly.

17:29

And during seances, this trumpet would sometimes move around the room.

It could tap sitters on the head.

Items could appear in it called airports and in actually in 1934, it was reported in psychic news no less, that it was not unusual for five or six trumpets to be used at the same time in Lac seance.

17:50

So I find that kind of imagery of five Trump spirit trumpets moving around a room at one time quite fascinating to imagine.

Gosh, can you just picture that on this stage?

It would be quite a sight if you saw something similar to that taking place.

Just absolutely awe inspiring.

18:06

And, and the scene with the, you know, the dimmed lights and the, the atmosphere of it must have just been so compelling if you were part of part of that group.

And that and that kind of environment at the time to see and to listen to would have been incredible.

Absolutely.

18:22

And I think it, you know, it's important to note here that I guess Tom's mechanic work paid the bills.

Tom Lacy didn't make money from being a medium.

This was a private group.

He wasn't doing public demonstrations of mediumship for money.

18:38

So, you know, he had to work, you know, to keep the house and and allow Edith and himself to eat, which I think is an important piece to for listeners to keep in mind when we talk about Tom Lacy.

And I think it's interesting that, you know, obviously this is something that he was recording.

18:55

There was, there was a, there was something almost progressive in this sense of wanting to catalogue and collect the information being gathered as part of these seances, which I don't know if that speaks to him in terms of what his intention was or hopes certainly were worth it for doing it.

19:17

But I, I think it also suggests, like you said, that this is a man who knew what was happening in the world and was prepared to utilize technology to be able to collect and to record what he was doing, I suppose for for future examination.

19:36

Right.

And I think the important piece here to think of as well is that Otto Smith, who owned the house where the census took place, I think he was really in charge of the technology piece.

And Tom was happy to to be recorded.

And audio Smith actually wrote that they were doing, you know, recording these sounds is either in writing or or on the audio reel to reel tapes because when spirits told them the time was right, then they would publish them and make their, you know, their sessions, you know, out there for the world to hear them and read them.

20:09

So I kind of wonder.

Did we receive that material at the University of Waterloo?

Was that the time when the spirit world was like, yes, now we're ready for all of this work to be shared with the world?

So you mentioned earlier how you you're aware that these first seances were being conducted just before Edith joined Tom Inn in Canada.

20:32

What kind of role do you know that she played in her husband's spiritual practices and these seances?

So Edith was not a medium herself and often in a seance, so you'll have a medium and then someone will be sat next to the medium to kind of oversee that they're OK and no harm is coming to them during the seance.

20:53

And I have to say that Edith is my favorite character amongst the seance sitters and she hasn't received due credit for her role during the seances.

As I said, she would have been watching out over a husband to make sure that he was OK and her voice is heard throughout the sounds recording.

21:11

She has a very specific northern accent if you like, and she was a no nonsense woman.

She did not hesitate to tell spirits to to leave the sounds room to move along when she felt that their time was up and they needed to stop talking and that they needed to let other spirits through to make the most of the sounds time.

21:33

So could you just describe the the different types of seances that Thomas Lacey conducted?

So Tom Lacey conducted three types of seances.

One was called a Masters night, one was a visitors night and one was a rescue night.

21:50

So during the Masters night, this was when the sitters would invite the spirits of men such as Thomas Edison, Mahatma Gandhi, Nikola Tesla, and they would invite these, you know, learned men to come through and have great philosophical discussions about their work that they did on the earth plane and the work they were doing on the other side as well.

22:14

Mohan Das Kai Gandhi Silan.

Great greetings my fellow associates Greedy and it is a pleasure for me to come and have words with you.

22:45

I have not been many times, but when I have come I have always thought there was a purpose in my coming to you.

We have been watching with a great deal of interest the psychological warfare that is in vogue, and I have had the opportunity to analyse each position and clarify the ultimate the outcome of what seems at the moment to be filling the world with fear.

23:37

Now I should not see the world, I should only see part of it.

And so this is important to note about the leasing Sail Circle as well.

They were very much focused on this master's night.

They were focused on the philosophy rather than the evidential mediumship that we've come to know from TV shows that are on today.

24:00

So the visiting night was an evening to catch up with the departed loved ones.

And so often you would hear the spirits of Anna, who was Otto Smith's daughter, who was miscarried.

Otto Smith's father was a regular visitor to the to the seance room during these evenings, so that this was their evidential medium.

24:23

Sheppey, then Rescue Night is probably my favorite.

This is when the circle of sitters would help spirits who were, and I quote, lost in the dark.

Or, in simpler terms, these were spirits of people who didn't actually realize that they were dead.

24:40

On July the 5th, 1962, during a rescue night, seance the Lacy Group talked with a pilot of a crashed Pan Am passenger jet that went down in South America.

The pilot knew he himself was dead, but he wanted the group to help the passengers who did not.

24:58

WT Steed, a very successful journalist, publisher and spiritualist who perished on the Titanic and is the author of The Blue Island, about the experiences of the Spirit as it transitions to the spirit world, appeared in this rescue night as a help to the pilot the.

25:18

Following is from part of that seance.

Now the the crash came so suddenly that most of the people in the plane were not aware that that they had been hit, that they had been transported to Spirit.

25:39

They didn't know that we were aware of its coming.

Of course we could see, we knew what was going to happen.

So there was an awareness on our part.

But for the rest of the passengers, half of them were asleep.

And so it could be hoped that they went very peacefully, painlessly into this new life.

26:09

But the pity of it all is that they don't know they're in this new life.

They think that I'm I'm still piloting them in a machine that isn't there really, but which in their own mind it is there, and I'm still one of the pilots on the plate.

26:28

And that's the predicament.

But I'm in as much as they are.

So the sitters in the seance would help the spirits see the light and crossover to the light and kind of explain to them, no, you're no longer alive, you need to move on.

26:44

So each of these then are very distinct in terms of the aims and the goals and very different in terms of the the structure, if you like, or the intention for each of these different types of seances, it seems.

Correct.

So the bastards night, they would actually invite who they wanted to hear from.

27:04

For example, one evening they had Thomas Edison talking about the spirit telephone he was trying to create when he was still alive.

And I know a former guest of yours, Doctor Callum Cooper, has a book about spirit telephones.

And there's a medium in the United States called Rebecca Fearing.

27:21

And that's a way that she will hear from spirits, not literally.

The spirit will come through a telephone and talk as if you were talking to your your cousin down the road or what have you.

Visitors night.

What I love is that, you know, there's this very personal evening and for those sitting in the circle.

27:42

And there was a regular sitter called Charlie Mazel.

And one night in 1962, he received a visit from his uncle, and his uncle was Doctor John Het.

Now, Doctor John John Het was quite well known in the Waterloo Region because he was mayor of Kitchener in 1915.

28:02

But he was probably most famous for something he wrote in 1943.

It was kind of a book called Cancer, Its Causes and Prevention and New Treatment.

And what Doctor Het had done, he'd created a serum that he claimed was a cure for cancer.

28:18

Of course it wasn't.

He was struck off from being a medical doctor.

However, he was later reinstated because the College of Physicians and Surgeons tested the serum and discovered that it was actually harmless, even though it had no medicinal value.

So Doctor Head comes through and talks to his nephew Charlie, kind of with some regrets about what he'd done in his life on Earth.

28:42

This is Dark, Ed.

And yeah.

Oh, I've got a lot of regrets, but I've had a lot of help, Charlie, too.

You, you've helped me quite a bit in the attitude you've taken.

29:00

And I want to thank you for that.

I want to thank you because you do the best I can.

Oh, yes, I know.

But I didn't.

I, I, I failed.

I, I, I came very short of doing what I should have done, but it's only now that I see it clearly.

29:20

I kept telling you and I think I'll go on and yes, yes, yes it.

But now, now I do want to explain, Charlie.

There was nothing deliberate, you know that.

29:37

I know.

I was thinking in terms of a good many years yet to to settle things properly, you see.

And I should have taken a little more notice of you.

I don't know what the clinics doing now.

29:53

Well, it's come under some control, Charlie.

Yeah.

And that was one of my great mistakes.

Of course.

I I should have.

I should have opened it out.

I should have opened it out and there would have been a lot of advancement made in that particular area or on the right track.

30:16

With the wrong way of doing it.

Yes, that's right, Charlie.

Well, we're inclined to be a little possessive.

And yeah, I think I fell into that trap a little bit.

And this fellow Dr. Head is actually quite well known in Spiritualism in the United States because he was a regular at Camp Chesterfield in Indiana, and the art gallery is actually named after him.

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So who were some of the the typical participants in these seances and and what were their roles, if you like?

33:53

So Otto Smith, I've mentioned, he was, you know, the kind of the MC of the evening Smith, he owned the house where the census took place for for many, many, many years.

And he was born in 1884.

Smith was once a teacher, and then he stopped that career, actually as a vice principal in elementary school.

34:15

And he turned his attention to the insurance business that was, you know, just becoming so popular and lucrative in the early 1900s.

So he formed his own insurance company and he was at the forefront of writing automobile liability insurance of all things.

34:34

Smith was also an avid organist and he played the organ at a local Lutheran Church in Kitchener.

He also had his own radio show where he would play the organ, and the organ, you can hear it throughout the recordings of seances because obviously music is important to a seance because it raises the vibration and helps spirits to come through.

34:55

And Otto's wife, Nelda, was there for a period before she sadly passed away.

And actually to her children, her daughter, sorry, Evangeline, was a very regular seance sitter along with her husband Garnett, who was actually a Lutheran minister.

35:11

But I think it's interesting.

And this shows that spiritualism, although a religion on itself, also welcomes people from any other religion to join in and attend services or seances.

You don't have to necessarily be a committed spiritualist to attend these, and I think it's interesting to note that it was an elder that got Otto Smith interested in spiritualism.

35:35

They'd visited Lilytail and Camp Chesterfield, they'd had sittings, were actually friendly with notable mediums such as William Cafuser, Mabel Riffle and Edith Stillwell.

And then Otto was introduced to Thomas Lacy by a mutual friend not long after he became interested in psychic phenomena from my research.

35:58

And then they started having regular sittings with Lacey.

And so this is how they started.

As for other sound sitters, there were regulars that would come, you know, and they would sit weekly and then sometimes they would invite, you know, guests to come in and join in the sounds as well.

36:16

But these are unknown people.

Their names won't mean anything to anyone because they're not, you know, they were just regular, everyday people who were very interested in seances and Thomas Lacey's mediumship.

So did Otto and his wife have a particular role as part of of being in attendance or was their role just to observe, would you say?

36:38

So Otto was there, like I said, he he kind of ran the show, if you like.

He, he was, he owned all of the technology that they were using to record the seances.

He would, you know, plead the organ, as I said.

And you know, I guess he would just keep things going.

36:55

He would ask the questions and, you know, make sure that everything was was running as they would want it to.

Almost a bit like a compare I suppose, in that sense of conducting it, as you said, keeping it going.

Absolutely.

And Otto Smith from, you know, people I've spoken to, including his grandson, who now owns the house where these seances took place in.

37:18

Otto Smith was a character, and everyone in town knew him.

Sadly, you know, as years went by, he lost his sight and he would be seen walking around Kitchener with his white cane, you know, just crossing the street and stopping cars.

What kind of spiritual entities did Thomas claim to channel, and did they have any particular messages that they were conveying?

37:43

So there were many well known spirits that would come through.

The great spiritualist, former journalist and businessman WT Steed would come through quite a lot.

And Steed, your listeners may know, perished on the Titanic and wrote a book through automatic writing as relate to his daughter about his experiences of dying on the on the Titanic.

38:07

You know what happened when 1000 plus people died at the same time and went on to the spirit world they had Mahatma Gandhi would come through.

Nikola Tesla was a regular, as was John Wesley and even Jesus made an appearance at one time.

38:24

And the messages, what there wasn't any kind of typical common message would come through.

It was whatever the sitters wanted to ask them about what was happening in the after World or about what they did on on the planet.

Sometimes there was a lot of conversation about engineering topics and physics.

38:45

So I'd love to have a physicist listen to some of these and tell me, you know, what this means.

Does this make sense, what's being said?

Because I, you know, I'm not a physicist, so I don't know.

It sounds fascinating, but I'd love to know what was going on.

And you briefly mentioned earlier the the importance of his younger brother Walter.

39:06

Do you want to just kind of go into some of these other, shall we say, more controlling spirits and of course within that, Walter as well in terms of the role that they played in terms of Lacey's mediumship?

Of course.

39:22

So, you know, as we've talked about before, Maurice Barbonell worked with his spirit guide called Silver Burr.

And so Thomas Lacey was not terribly different from that in the 1920s.

Lacey's spirit guide was called a Buddha Khan and was a Hindu and then over time a Buddha Khan disappears and the spirit guide called Amira appears and Amira becomes Lacey's principal control for many years and he seems to have taken over from a Buddha Khan from the 1920s.

39:55

The following is the principal control amira.

Guy tings my fellow travellers greedy.

Once again, I have the privilege and pleasure of taking my place with you here in this your temple, and as I come through into the consciousness of this earth, I know that most of the thoughts are directed to space and the unique adventures of an individual who traversed these areas in the upper atmosphere.

41:27

And Amira is always there when the seance is open.

He has a very distinct voice, a very slow cadence.

It can actually quite be quite painful to listen to him because he's so slow that you know, and you're just like, please, come on, let's get on with it.

But he's very, he wants to be very clear in what he's communicating through Lacey and Walter, we said Lacey's brother, who was in spirit, was actually what we call a doorkeeper.

41:54

So he's kind of like a bouncer at nightclub, if you like.

Walter was the spirit who would allow spirits to come through and participate in the seance.

And similarly, he would prevent some spirits from coming through who he didn't want to.

And he would also help on rescue nights to make sure that those spirits that were lost made it over to the light and to the other side.

42:18

And also, there's another spirit that is worth mentioning.

Her name was Violet.

Now Violet, you might think, was one of Laci's doorkeepers, but she wasn't.

She just had the character and acted like she was in charge and she would often appear with Walter.

42:34

And what was interesting is that in 1960, Otto Smith said that Walter was assisted by Violet, an Indian guide who is usually very entertaining.

And what I find interesting about that comment is that when Thomas Lacey has channelled Native American spirit guide or spirits, his accent changes to that mimic stereotypical cowboy and western sounding voice that we've heard in so many movies.

43:03

But Violet never has the accent, she just sounds like a regular British person speaking.

Hello.

Yes.

I I was once a little girl.

Yes.

What's your name?

I guess she was a little girl too.

43:19

What?

That My name is Violet.

Yes.

Violet.

Yes, I was a little Violet, a flower that nobody ever, hardly ever sees.

Yeah, and I've been.

43:36

I was speaking a long time.

A long, long time.

I have been speaking.

Yeah.

I'm Mr. Smith.

Yes, you know, do you know that I out threw out of death at at Lilydale's?

43:55

Yes.

And you know that I, I, I really took over the floors.

And you sure.

Did.

That for you there, there wouldn't have been anything on no.

I know.

You know that.

Yeah, well, I hope you do.

Well, if you and I did have all that something.

44:15

Yeah, Walter has something to do with it, but he's a big man now.

I don't always like to be a little girl.

Well, not always.

Sometimes I like to.

44:34

Well, I like to come like I I really am.

But then it's funny.

It's a funny thing.

I can't.

I can't always understand why when I come through this door, when I come to this door into work, I, I, I always seem to be a little girl.

44:56

So when I go back again, I, well, I'm, I'm a lady.

I'm a girl like this.

Yeah, I've been to school and everything.

You'll be a five year woman, I should say.

Yeah.

And obviously, you know, you've touched on briefly earlier the, the volume of records that the university holds in, in their archives in terms of these seances and the documentation and the recordings for those that exist there.

45:27

Do you want to just kind of describe the the content and quality of those recordings, you know, the different types of of information that you get from them for example, and maybe the significance of some of them that you think in particular should really be known about?

45:45

So I think just the fact that they exist is very important that people know.

The more people know they exist, they can be used and studied and, you know, talked about as we're doing today.

But as you know, the condition is, I'd say excellent.

46:03

Obviously the sound quality, sometimes, you know, you would need some boosting because you know, you're listening and the spirit voice is actually coming through the spirit trumpet.

So it sounds quite tinny and you can tell it it's not coming from Tom's mouth exactly.

46:19

So you have to listen carefully.

You know, like I said, the the rescue night for me is just fascinating.

And there was one, one in particular where I believe it was a Pan Am plane that crashed in South America.

And the pilot of that plane comes through.

46:38

He knows he's dead because he was flying the plane.

So he knew what was happening.

But as he explains, the passengers in the back were either asleep, half asleep.

They had no idea what was happening.

So these spirits don't know what's happened to them.

So they're in a state of confusion.

46:54

And he's come through to ask the sound sitters to, you know, help these spirits find the light.

And once again, it's Edith Lacey who leads this effort.

She explains to the best just as what has happened to them.

And if they just follow the light, they will be all right.

47:11

And she does eventually manage to persuade the spirits to go with Walter, who then takes them over to the light.

And it's, it's really quite touching to hear that they want to help these lost spirit.

I think they're incredible.

I mean, the quality of them in terms of the ones that I've been able to listen to via, you know, you being able to share them with me.

47:31

I mean the quality is incredible.

And it is almost like being able to hear them in that moment.

And I think it gives so much insight on so many different levels in terms of you really do you do understand the space.

I think that the soundscape of it enriching environment that is being created to like you said raise the raise the vibrations, you get a real sense of how powerful that was.

47:57

But I also think you get a very clear understanding of the interests and the motivations of this particular time frame, time frame, this period of what was in people's minds, the questions that they had.

Because again, you see it coming through not only in the different types of seances that I think are particularly evident him, Thomas Lacy, these different, these different nights, these different evenings where different aspects are explored, but also in the types of questioning the experiences themselves.

48:30

It's so informative.

And like I said, I think you just learn.

You can learn so much from it.

It is.

And you know, I was just thinking there was one seance where Gandhi comes through in the early 1960s, and it's around the time, you know, the Cold War is starting Berlin or, you know, Germany is separating the East from the West.

48:53

They're starting to build the Berlin Wall.

So Gandhi's coming in to talk about that and Khrushchev's motives, if you like, for what's going on in the world.

So the skeptic in me does kind of ask myself, you know, is this coming from Tom's, his own consciousness, or is this really Gandhi coming through?

49:13

Like I said, when I think back to what Gene Barclay said about him being, you know, a simple person, a simple mind, you know, I think he knew what was going on in the world, but he likely wasn't, you know, that educated to have such deep and meaningful conversations about it, which, you know, I find simply, simply fascinating.

49:34

And you mentioned earlier how during some of these seances things would appear, so our ports would appear.

Do you want to just share some of the other notable types of phenomena that would occur during these seances?

Sure.

49:50

So you know, I think it's really important to recognize that Tom Lacey's mediumship was versatile.

If nothing else, you know, during a 2 hour seance, he could be channelling, you know, 5-6, seven different people from different areas in the world.

50:07

And then, you know, we've got spirit trumpets moving around, airports happening.

You know, one of my favorite seances that I heard is that one of the sitters was called Katherine Falconberg.

She was a nurse and her boyfriend Carl actually died during the Second World War.

50:28

And in this particular seance, she's there and Karl comes through.

You can hear his voice coming through the trumpet.

And then he's being helped by the spirit of masculine.

And masculine was a British conjurer who when he was a lie, was very anti seances, anti spiritualism, a debunker, if you like, just like Harry Price.

50:50

But now he's come back to help spirits.

And Thomas Lacey's voice goes from this very, you know, slowly speaking spirit of Karl, who passed away, to masculine with a very proper British accent that's coming through.

51:06

And then Catherine is asked to put a hand in the trumpet, which she does.

And then in there is a rose.

So Karl has left her a rose as a sign of his love for her.

And she's bewildered.

You can hear it in her voice.

The whole group is just amazed that this is happening.

51:24

And what's equally fascinating is in the next seance after this one, Nurse Falkenberg still has the Rose in her possession.

Hello.

Hello.

51:42

Hello.

Hello.

Hello, Catherine.

Yes.

Hello.

Who is your conference?

Hello.

Yes.

Here I am.

Yes, just just the woman.

Yes, I have a surprise.

52:01

Sorry you have a surprise for me.

Yeah, that's all right now.

You.

Yes, yes, yes.

You just approach it, all right?

Yes, I see it now.

Be very careful.

Be very careful.

Hello, girlfriend.

Yes.

52:17

Can you cook your hand in the drunk it?

Yes.

Yes, there's something we're fine to talk about.

Put your hand out.

Put your.

Hand out.

Put your hand on this.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes, thank you.

52:34

You.

Yeah, I have it now.

Well.

Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you.

52:53

Now.

It came and.

Yes, I did not want to bring one that was open to watch because you could.

You can revive it to the booth.

53:10

I.

Think.

That's just, I mean, like you said, I think it just displays the versatility in terms of his mediumship.

But again, just a very powerful moment that is captured I think as part of these recordings.

This evidence that this is something that that happened during one of these settings that otherwise we would not know about.

53:31

We wouldn't know about this this person and her story and her personal loss and obviously what she was seeking by by coming to this seance.

And at the same time, then, what transpires during the process of this seance, with this materialization of this rose in the trumpet for her is just, yeah, it's incredible that that's been captured as a record of that moment.

53:54

And then she, she actually died shortly afterwards.

And then she comes back in spirit form in later seances, which I think is again touching and incredible that she wanted to do that after, you know, her physical life ended.

But again, like you said, just this very rich variety in terms of his mediumship from airports, materializations, automatic write writing, just a whole host of different things being come that are coming through and being captured as part of this.

54:25

This evidence that we have from the recordings and from the transcripts again, is just incredible as a means of of how we can learn and analyze what was happening during these seances.

And you know, just kind of coming back to that.

54:41

I don't know if you have any particular thoughts about how you feel this sits in terms of our understanding of of mid 20th century spiritualism.

So, you know, I think there's been, you know, we know there's been fraudulent activity in spiritualism and mediumship since the days of the Fox sisters.

55:02

And then I look at the Lacy circle and, you know, and they were sitting for, you know, 40 years, if not more weekly.

And why would they be doing this fraudulently for all of that time?

So this, you know, this tells me, you know, these people were genuine.

55:19

Thomas Lacy's mediumship was genuine, which I think is very important considering the amount of skepticism and disbelievers there are in in this aspect of the world and life.

And I think you raised something really important earlier when you said this was a private gathering, this wasn't being done for money.

55:41

And again, I think that adds another note to to this understanding of of what he was doing and maybe some credence to the fact that these experiences were genuine.

I think, I certainly think it adds more, adds more weight to the possibility that these were genuine and like you said, not fraudulent.

56:04

And you know, Michelle, I think I'd add also that, you know, these seances are very much we're noting because they are recorded.

You know, we're hearing the actual voices when so often, you know, records of sounds as it's handwritten or typewritten.

Of course there's the medium Leslie Flint, who was in the UK.

56:23

There are recordings of his seances that are available to listen to, but I'm not sure there are many more whose whose work in this field has been recorded that way, considering the time frame that we're talking about.

No.

And, and I tried looking, I tried thinking how many of that I was aware of and I really couldn't think of many.

56:42

And, and then to come back to the collection that sits in the University of Waterloo, the archive there, you know, we're not talking about a small number either.

We're talking about a large body of recordings and work that were that were given to the university, which again, I think is just incredible and really does deserve analysis and further study because I can't think of another collection of that same kind of of number.

57:13

I mean, it's voluminous when you really think about what you have sitting in the archive there, you know, the types of evidence that that gives is just incredible.

Right.

And I've only listened to a small percentage of them.

I haven't listened to all of them by by any means.

57:31

So one of the things that I think is, is rather incredible about the, the, the material that you have is a particular EVP recording.

Do you want to just share the the significance and the weight of that material?

Sure.

57:46

So EVP for listeners who may not know what that is, is electronic voice phenomena.

And so spirits obviously do not have a body form like we do, so they have no voice box.

So over time, as technology has has been created, spirits have learnt that they can connect themselves to do technology so they can be heard.

58:07

So instead of coming through the voice of a physical medium, they will come through a recording after the fact.

So I'll set the scene.

Back in 2020, the world had stopped because COVID had hit.

Lockdowns were happening while I'm working from home in my kitchen.

58:25

And I think this is a great time to listen to the digitized sales recordings of Thomas Lacy, just to do some quality control and make sure that what the tapes say they are because Otto Smith would write on the boxes and sometimes things got mixed up.

58:42

And just so we could fix any of those issues.

So I'm sat there in my kitchen working away, and this particular recording was not as what it said on the box.

It was literally Otto Smith playing the organ, so I'm quite enjoying it.

And then all of a sudden the organ stops and then you hear these distorted voices of children.

59:05

So that was fairly alarming because I wasn't expecting it.

And then as that recording goes on, it goes on just for a couple of minutes, maybe 3 minutes, and the children are actually singing over Otto Smith playing the organ.

So it's actually quite a beautiful example of EVP that I've heard, and I love playing it for people to listen to so they can learn what EVP is.

59:30

It's a real tangible example of what it is.

And there's actually another second one that we discovered, and it's some Russian sounding voices that come through over a conversation that's being recorded.

59:45

And interestingly, that episode happened just a couple of months after Mahatma Gandhi seance, where he's talking about the building of the Berlin Wall and Khrushchev.

So I think that was quite timely as well that those spirits decided that was the time to attach themselves to an autosmith recording.

1:00:59

So how did the the recordings come into the possession of the university itself?

So this is a great story.

So there was a professor called Stan McMullin who was a professor at Saint Jerome's University, which is affiliated to the University of Waterloo.

1:01:17

Back in the day.

He helped broker the the archives, receiving another seance collection.

I've mentioned earlier the Mains Pinkle collection and then Stan's, you know, research, you know, he said he was very eclectic in what he was interested in.

1:01:33

And he was at a conference and they were talking about William Line, Mackenzie King.

And of course, Mackenzie King, the longest serving Prime Minister of Canada, is a well known person involved in spiritualism.

And so he, you know, he wanted to explore that.

1:01:50

And as he started, you know, people talk and he was in his office one day, a knock at the door and there were three senior ladies, as he said there stood at the door and they handed him the Thomas Lacey lecture collection that I mentioned earlier.

Then Fast forward to 2015.

1:02:09

I've been at the University of Waterloo for a few months and Stan McMullen offered the the audio reels of the soundses that were in his possession.

So that's how how we took them.

I mean, that's quite a gift, isn't it?

Just a knock on the door and there you are.

1:02:25

Here we, here we go.

It's over.

You know, handing it over to someone that is just mind boggling.

But incredible story, an incredible story, a detail that you just wouldn't imagine would be, would be there really.

But I think it adds to the charm of it.

It's quite endearing.

1:02:41

And, and I'm so happy that I said yes to that donation for a few minutes.

I, you know, there was a hesitation there, you know, do we take them?

Do we not?

But I'm so glad that we did and that the University of Waterloo has done a fantastic job in preserving these.

Do you know of any reasons as to why they wanted to share them at that moment and and gift them in that way?

1:03:02

Were there any anything that they said that indicated the motivations for doing it then?

There, there isn't actually.

I may have reached out to Stan.

I may have had questions about the other donations that we've taken.

And that may have sparked his mind to think, oh, you know, I need to to get these into somewhere where they can be kept forever and be accessed by people.

1:03:25

Because so often, right, we're keeping stuff in our basements, in our spare rooms and we're not thinking about them.

Then there comes a time when donors, you know, look back on their life when they're getting to a certain age and we're making plans and estate planning.

And then we, you know, we have to think, you know, what do I do with this stuff that I've got?

1:03:43

And that's why I love the archivist in me.

And I get to work with so many amazing donors and we get to take their legacy, if you like, and store their legacy for generations to come.

And I, and I love that detail that you mentioned earlier of was this just the right moment when they were supposed to come out into the light, if you if you like, and be shared more?

1:04:07

Was this the moment when they were ready to be heard?

I mean, I think that's just a lovely way to think about it.

And I think it, you know, again, it's just part of the charm of the story of how you were gifted them.

If if as say that's where my mind goes so.

That's it.

1:04:23

Mine too.

I think it's just a lovely touch to it that just makes sense.

And you know, I think something that you said and something that we've talked about is just how, you know, obviously unique, how credible, how valuable these really are in terms of the ability to be able to hear the voices, to experience these moments, to get this wider understanding.

1:04:48

I mean, it's just an incredible body of work and evidence that can be explored.

I suppose the natural question is to ask of of you as as to whether that has happened if if you know of scholars or researchers that have evaluated or interpreted this material.

1:05:06

So Stan McMullen, who I just mentioned, he actually wrote a book called Anatomy of the Sale and that was a history of spirit communication in Central Canada.

So he did write a chapter on Thomas Lacy in there.

So not based on the audio reels, but based on the type scripts and types that are in existence.

1:05:29

And then about 2018, I started, you know, talking to friends.

And then that led to another friend producing an audio documentary called The Ghost of Thomas Lacey.

It's A2 parter, maybe 40 minutes.

1:05:46

And much is like we're doing today.

I'm talking about Tom's career.

We go behind the scenes at the archives of the University of Waterloo.

They talk to a spiritualist pastor at the local spiritualist church in Ontario, and they talked to Otto Smith's grandson, and they were actually holding a seance in the original seance room in Kitchener where Thomas Lacey spent many an evening channeling spirits.

1:06:14

And what was really interesting at the time that the audio documentary was being produced, a local museum in Kitchener called The Museum was planning an exhibit on the afterlife.

So we were able to work together and the podcast was launched during before the exhibit was launched at the same time, actually.

1:06:34

And the museum recreated Otto Smith's living room.

They recreated the science room, and they hired an actor to portray Thomas Lacey.

And then we all sat around the sounds table as Tom Lacey was talking to us and trying to get sports to come through.

1:06:52

In a theatrical way of course.

But this was the most popular exhibit the museum had done the the afterlife, so that was quite fun to be part of.

Well, I think it's a good indication that there's public interest in the recordings.

1:07:08

And again, this is still something that interests people.

I would say that's certainly something you can see.

If it was the most popular exhibit, what would you say you would like to see happen next in terms of what would you like to see people doing in terms of looking at Thomas Lacy's recordings and the transcripts?

1:07:27

Is there anything you wish would would kind of come from this next in terms of next steps?

Yeah, I'd love someone to be able to go in, listen to the recordings and do some background research and try and match up with what was being channelled to what was happening in the world.

1:07:45

You know, like I said, you know, these Nikola Tesla's of the world, you know, talking about stuff that I don't understand.

We need to get people there who do understand physics and engineering and to be able to say, yeah, this, this does make sense what they're talking about.

1:08:02

So that's what I would love, love to either myself to do it or work with people.

Have someone do that.

You know, I'd also really love to see Thomas Lacey be acknowledged and recognized for the work he did.

It was interesting as I was preparing to talk to you today, Michelle, looking at my research, I'd forgotten that in the 1930s there was a bit of a flurry of publicity around Thomas Lacey in the Spiritualist press.

1:08:30

So in 1931, Thomas Lacey, he appeared in the Two Worlds Spiritualist Journal in an article that was called a Spirit typist.

So there was a man called James Skelton, who was the general secretary of the Spiritualist National Union of Canada.

1:08:49

He wrote an article or, you know, a column about a seance.

He had experience with Thomas Lacy where they put a typewriter on the table in the middle of the room with a blank sheet of paper in it.

And the guides, spirit guides, promised to, to get a message through to the group.

1:09:07

And then 10 minutes later, Skelton reported, and I'm quoting here, there came a noise as if fifty hands were working on the keys of the typewriter.

In about 8 seconds from the time the noise started, a message, actually a prayer, consisting of 139 words was completed.

1:09:27

That equates to an outstanding rate of typing 1000 words a minute.

End Quote.

So you can imagine that would have been quite something to see.

Not only are there spirit trumpets whizzing around, there's a typewriter being typed on by the spirit world.

1:09:43

Yeah, I mean it, it baffles the mind, doesn't it?

But I think you get a sense of that when you listen to some of the recordings.

Just the, the inviting nature of it all.

It's just so atmospheric.

It's the, it's the hair on the back of the moment, you know, the hair on the back of the neck moment.

1:10:00

It's just very, very consuming, I think.

I think it hits every sense.

You know, it's something that you can hear and feel almost viscerally.

And I think that's the power of these settings.

And I think also the draw that was part of this, this community in this field during this time, this time period that for those who went and attended lectures or seance tables, you know, science afternoons, whatever it was, it really did draw them in.

1:10:33

It was, it was all-encompassing.

It was the whole body, mind and soul I think.

It was it was Michelle, you know, and to go back to Maurice Barbonell, I can't imagine that Maurice Barbonell was not aware of Thomas Lacy because a couple of articles appeared in Psychic News and as we know, Barbonell was the editor of Psychic News.

1:10:55

So he would have had to have read those article in 1933.

And they reported that Tom Lacy materialized an Egyptian looking man into the into the seance room, which was reported in Psychic News.

1:11:12

And then three years later in 1936, Thomas Lacey actually gave the first seance live on a Toronto radio station, which of course caused quite a bit of commotion on the BBC at the time because they were actively boycotting spiritualism.

1:11:30

And I've tried to track down if there was a recording of this sounds, but I haven't been successful.

But that would be something quite interesting to hear.

So, you know, he was known in the 1930s, but I don't know what happened, you know, 1940s onwards.

1:11:45

He he, he doesn't appear in the spiritualist press again.

But I think it's interesting that he does have that moment because you might expect that his his narrative, if you like, or his appeal, what may have only been known within the spiritualist community within Canada.

1:12:02

But I think it speaks of this international awareness.

And again, I think that says an awful lot about what it was that he was bringing that he was he he was making the the press all the way back in the United Kingdom and being published and written about and known about.

1:12:21

And, and I think that kind of again adds that awareness to just how noteworthy therefore and recognized he was within the field and within the community.

And so again, it comes back to what we were saying.

It's, you know, it's a shame when individuals like this, when more hasn't been done, when more awareness hasn't been made of their work or who they are.

1:12:45

Because clearly there were these ripple effects at the time, however long that lasted, where they were very much being felt within, within the field itself.

Well, that's it.

And you know I think Michelle, we should also note that he was tested by Herwood Carrington.

1:13:03

So Carrington was a well known psychical researcher in the United States and and Carrington in the late 1930s tested 3 trumpet mediums, one of which was Lacey.

So they went to Toronto and he conducted tests including lie detector test.

1:13:20

And Carrington concluded that the fundamental sincerity of the medium seemed to be borne out by these tests, meaning he believed in Lacey's mediumship.

And Carrington went on to say that Lacey was instrumental in producing enough sufficiently interesting phenomena, both physical and mental, to make his case worthy of further investigation.

1:13:44

So that was quite high praise from someone like Hairwood Carrington to talk about Thomas Lacey like that.

Absolutely.

And and again, just adds this, this other edge to what we were just saying, how he was clearly somebody that was having an impact.

1:14:00

He was resonating for him to be known the way that he was internationally and for people to want to see more and investigate what he was doing, to test him to to see if he was credible, to see if they could debunk the the gentleman, to see if they could debunk his work.

1:14:19

And so again, I think when you have that kind of attention, I think it just shows that obviously there was something there.

There was there was something of real interest and and it was captivating in some way for others that they were taking an interest in all parts of the world.

1:14:36

Right.

Absolutely.

So where could people go if they wanted to find out more about him?

So they can look at the University of Waterloo Special Collections and Archives.

That's where, you know, these collections are and there's finding aids.

1:14:53

So that's a list of the archival collections they can look into and then, you know, speak to them for that.

I mean, I, I hope people do.

I think it's incredible when you can come across, like we've said, come across something like this where you really do have access to a voluminous amount of, of information and material.

1:15:18

That when we think of all the, the medians and the various people for whom we know about, when there's very, there's very little evidence of what they did other than written transcripts or written recordings or press clippings.

You know, something very small that made its way into a headline in a newspaper, for example.

1:15:39

When we think of that and compare that to Lacey, just this sheer volume of work that exists that people can listen to and study and get a greater sense of, of his place within spiritualism, but also the impact that his work I think could have in better understanding the world of spiritualism.

1:16:00

I mean, it's incredible.

And I hope people take the opportunity to to go and have a look.

That's it.

His impact was non existent really for, you know, 30 years when he was doing this work in kitchen and Waterloo because no one knew they were doing it.

1:16:16

They went publicizing it.

It wasn't secret, but it wasn't like they were doing this in public.

So I think, you know, now that I've started to do this research and talk about him and get people interested in him, that more people will will look at his work.

1:16:31

And now we will really see an impact.

You know, many years after he died in 19, 66 to, to, to see that he was doing something worthwhile, even if it's so long after after the effect.

Honestly, it's been such a pleasure to find out more about him.

1:16:49

And, you know, thank you again for for raising his profile and coming along to talk about Thomas Lacey and of course, those also who were part of his sphere in terms of sitting within these these seance, you know, circles and attending and supporting what he was doing to help capture that.

1:17:09

So, you know, thank you for bringing all of that to our attention to help share his world.

My pleasure.

I'm happy to do so.

I'm always happy to talk about Tom Lacey.

I feel like he's an old friend at this point.

And just like before with the episode that we recorded about Maurice Barbanel, of course, I'll make sure that your links and things are readily available on the podcast episode notes itself and on the website.

1:17:34

Because, you know, people can then find you and the rest of what you're doing.

Because I know you've got things coming in the future that we can all eagerly look forward to.

Hopefully a book coming soon.

I've got my fingers and toes crossed because I know, you know, you're doing an awful lot of work, work that I think will be absolutely incredible to keep an eye on for the future.

1:17:55

I'm I'm certainly looking forward to it.

I appreciate that, Michelle.

Yes, I'm working on the book as we speak.

I'll crack the whip so it happens quicker.

I love it.

Thanks, I need it.

Anyway, I will say goodbye to everybody listening.

Thank you everybody.

1:18:11

Bye.

1:18:23

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