Messages from the Spirit World Rupert Lives Walter Wynn

I came across an interesting article recently, featured in the Pittsburgh Press, March 14, 1920. The article mentions J.J. Vango a noted medium who frequented the London Spiritualist Alliance in his day. Unfortunately, there seems to be little readily available online in both biographic and historic information pertaining to J.J. Vango.  

The article may be of interest to members here.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19200314&id=I7gaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=l0kEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3925,5306155

Thanks Mark that's very interesting, I will join in digging around for J J Vango..

Jim

Admin wrote:Thanks Mark that's very interesting, I will join in digging around for J J Vango..

Jim

Thanks for the reply.  I thought it was a beautiful article.  J.J. Vango is an interesting character, I know he was one of William Stead's mediums, and was employed by his bureau.  I will be in London towards the end of November, and hopefully if I get time I'll sift through the CPS library.  It is really such a shame more info isn't at hand.

Let me know when you are going, I will be asking Leslie Price about Vango today and he is now their archivist of course.

Jim

Admin wrote:Let me know when you are going, I will be asking Leslie Price about Vango today and he is now their archivist of course.

Jim

Thanks Jim, I really appreciate that. I will be in London the second week in November, hopefully if the time permits I can pop along to the College.

Hi Mark,

I have found the first part of the article
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19200307&id=HLgaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=l0kEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3759,2581093

No this is the first part
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19200222&id=4bcaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lUkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3752,2682678

This one the second part
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=djft3U1LymYC&dat=19200229&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

Thank you Jim, the article may very well be from the book, Rupert Lives by Walter Wynn.

My first attempt at finding that book except its in Spanish (or is it Portugese). http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEwQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.autoresespiritasclassicos.com%2FPesquisadores%2520espiritas%2FWalter%2520Wynn%2FWalter%2520Wynn%2520-%2520Rupert%2520Vive%2520(A%2520Morte%2520n%25C3%25A3o%2520Existe).doc&ei=lHgXVNm3DYKJuAT3rIDoDA&usg=AFQjCNFlTzrLCSc27xMKUlXBzKQCp4oDDQ&sig2=A6aPnTmkfqb5jZWBoM_Nog&bvm=bv.75097201,d.c2E

Admin wrote:My first attempt at finding that book except its in Spanish (or is it Portugese).  http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEwQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.autoresespiritasclassicos.com%2FPesquisadores%2520espiritas%2FWalter%2520Wynn%2FWalter%2520Wynn%2520-%2520Rupert%2520Vive%2520(A%2520Morte%2520n%25C3%25A3o%2520Existe).doc&ei=lHgXVNm3DYKJuAT3rIDoDA&usg=AFQjCNFlTzrLCSc27xMKUlXBzKQCp4oDDQ&sig2=A6aPnTmkfqb5jZWBoM_Nog&bvm=bv.75097201,d.c2E

I seen this link myself. I've tried numerous web searches, on sites that are generally good at locating these type of books, but sadly the book continues to be listed as currently unavailable.

Yes and even the Hathi Trust only shows fragments "for copyright " reasons

But of course I forgot for a while we have a copy of this book, the second edition, the first was of 10,000 copies. He gave away, free of charge, the serialisation rights because he felt that everybody should be able to read his story.

In honesty there is very little about Vango but of course it was the time when mediums did all their private readings in a trance state letting their Spirit Control bring the messages through.

Here is a taster from the book Part of Chapter XIII "A Staggering Relevation"

If, however, my reader is still doubtful, I think I can banish his doubt.
One evening in July, 1918, I stepped into a third-class carriage at Marylebone Station to go to Chesham. At the other end of the carriage on opposite sides sat two ladies. No one else got into the carriage.
I was reading The Evening Standard.
When the train was near to Harrow, I heard one of the ladies say to the other:
" Forgive me: I am a spiritualist and a medium: I hope you won't be frightened, but your mother is sitting by you. She tells me she passed over recently, and wishes me to tell you something."
I shall never forget the look on the face of the lady addressed. It turned pale. Instantly, all her religious prejudices were of vital moment to the construction of God's Universe. It is this mental attitude that is surely unscientific and absurd.
" But I do not believe in spiritualism. It is

A Staggering Revelation 113
against my principles. Then again, I don't know you, and you don't know me. How do you know that my mother is dead ? " said the cultured lady, with that wonderful flashing insight into reality that characterises other " great thinkers."
" Well, I know your mother has passed over because she tells me so as she sits by you. She tells me your name is Grace, and-" then followed a private message that instantly converted the sceptical lady. That message cannot be reported, but proved one part of this startling revelation.
Turning to me, the medium said :
" I think I know you. You are Mr. Wynn, of Chesham, are you not ? Your son Rupert came to a circle of mine the other night and asked me to request you to sit with my husband and me in your study, and also allow my husband to take his photograph."
The lady talked as calmly and in as matter-of-fact a tone as if she were asking me to " take a chocolate."
" Madam," I said, " it will be a pleasure to Mrs. Wynn and me to entertain you."
Mrs. Rice came with her husband to Chesham. We sat in my study. Mrs. Rice, who lives at " Nara," Northwood, Middlesex, had never been in my house before. I told her nothing about Rupert, and resolved in my own mind certain test questions. When she had sat quietly for some minutes, she became W. T. Stead himself in look, tone, manner:

Rupert Lives ! 114
Good-afternoon, Wynn, glad to see you. I have brought Rupert with me. We mean to convince you, but I think I have convinced you."
" Who are you ? " I asked.
"Stead. Could I be anyone else?"
Well, I am delighted you are here, if you are Mr. Stead, but, if you are, your acute mind can surely give me a fact I am not thinking about, and this Lady could not possibly know."
" Yes; we met the other day," was the reply.
" Where ? " I asked.
"At luncheon with my daughter " (swiftly).
" Where ? "
" Near the Strand " (swiftly, and correct).
" Well, I'm staggered, Mr. Stead."
“ You need not be. I am here. It is real and true. We are using you on this side. Get your book out. Everybody will read it. Rupert wishes to speak to you-"
(A long pause.) “ love you all; seems so strange “Ruskin”(1) is with me ; my little Mother ! My dear old Pa! A home is being prepared for you both."

The reference to " Ruskin" my firstborn child, made me feel it would be cruel to ask—Who are you ? So I simply and quietly said:

"Rupert, my boy, do you mind a few test questions? "
"Not at all. Go on. I want them."
“Where did you sleep in this house? "
( (1) The name of his brother, of whom Mrs. Rice could not possibly have heard. )

A Staggering Revelation 115

"In this room, up in that corner " (swiftly).
"Can you tell me what you called the kitten ? " “ Tibba " (swiftly).
" What were the colours of the old cat's coat ? " " Black and white."
"Did you do anything for her ? " “ Yes; brought her home as a kitten, dirty, nearly dead, out of the fields."
“ Where did you keep your letters ? "
“ In that drawer," the medium pointing.
Every answer was correct.
Suddenly Mrs. Rice opened her eyes, and we told her what had happened.
“ I know nothing of these things," she quietly remarked.

I instantly arranged with Mr. Rice to sit for Rupert's photograph. Mr. Rice is a dentist, and simply takes snapshots of things. I removed all pictures from the room at “Nara," North-wood, where I and Mrs. Wynn sat. I examined plates and everything else, not because there was any need, for Mr. Rice is well known as a man of integrity and honour, but because I wished to rebut personally any sceptical ideas. The first four efforts proved abortive. The fifth was the startling revelation. At the back of my chair, which was placed against the mantelpiece, appeared the faintest outline of a face. It was Rupert's. I carry that photograph with me always. It has been submitted to expert photographers, all of whom admit that by no means known to them could they produce such a com-

Rupert Lives !116

posite photograph. Rupert's face is very faint, but when I showed it, without comment, to his sister, she cried:
"Why, that's Rupert."
I also showed it to Dr. John Clifford and his daughter. Miss Clifford could not, like myself, see it very clearly, but, wonderful to relate, Dr. Clifford, with his glasses off saw it instantly, and quietly remarked:
"Say what they will, we live again."
Maybe, some day, I shall be able to get a clearer photograph, one that I shall be to publish. In the meantime, I know I have the spirit photograph of my son.

The Photograph is at the Frontispiece of the book


As I get the chance I will try and scan the book.

Jim

Thanks for that excerpt Jim, really wonderful. I will really try to get this book, I will keep my eyes open, hopefully it might pop up somewhere soon. I have often wondered why trance clairvoyance is so rare these days, it's a fascinating phase of mediumship, and can produce more evidential results. Why it isn't being developed is possibly due to the fact people nowadays seem to lack the patience.

Rev. Walter Wynn was an interesting character, one of his World War 1 sermons even being reported in the New Zealand press.
Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 35183, 20 April 1918, Page 1

RELIGIOUS.
"GIVE US VICTORY!" A PLEA FOR A CO-ORDINATED NATIONAL PRAYER. London.
The Rev. Walter Wynn, editor of the Young Man and Woman magazine, preaching at the Chesham United Free Church, said he believed the war was nearing its close. "This prediction can be rendered false by our own action," he said, "by a half-hearted, vacillating, and flimsy attitude in relation to the moral and religious justice of our cause. We ought to pray at every service we hold, 'Lord! give us victory.'"

"The German Emperor speaks with no uncertain voice," added Mr Wynn. "He does not plaster the wall with untempered mortar. He states his terms with brazen-faced defiance of the wish of all the democracies of the world. He does not dance tightropes, over the issue. 'The victory of German arms' is his motto. He is logical. If right is on his side, I pray his prayer; but I hold that Almighty God is dead against him in this struggle, and that if Britain is true to herself she will be used to defeat the foulest wickedness that ever reared its head in Europe."

"I appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, Dr. Clifford, Dr. Meyer, and the Rev. George Hooper, to rouse the British pulpits with the cry, 'Lord! give us victory,' not some limpid, flaccid, patch-up with Evil”. We fight for the German people as much as ourselves. An 'understanding' with Evil? Never!"

Interestingly Rev Wynn went onto carve a name for himself as the Prophet of Giza,  as the article below will show "Mr. Wynn's prognostication is based on architectural allegory believed to be represented in the Great Pyramid of Giza. It is claimed that the Pyramid has correctly predicted many great events of British history since 1844, including the beginning of the World War . It is said to have foretold the commencement of the present coal strike , but doesn't say when it will end.


It may appear that he was always fond of prophecy as the following piece from the book "End of Days: Essays on the Apocalypse from Antiquity to Modernity" shows.

Then From the Montreal Gazette Aug 24 1926


This is one of his books which appears to be available. Wynn, Rev. Walter

What Has and What Will Come to Pass, Events Fulfilled and Coming Events Predicted

London: Rider & Co. 1933. Soft Cover. Rider & Co. Octavo, wrappers, 96 pages. Good+. Biblical and Pyramid Prophecy Vindicated; further prophecies up to September, 1936.

Of course Rupert Lives and his championing of the Hope Circle saw him targeted by Spiritualism's Jesuit adversary Rev H Thurston in the Tablet the international Catholic Weekly Page 5, 17th March 1923
THE ANTI-CHRISTIAN TREND OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM

BY THE REV. H. THURSTON, S. J.
The Rev. Walter Wynn, the author of Rupert Lives, and the editor of The British Man and Woman, is a per son of incomparable naiveté. He went to Crewe to obtain by the help of the photographer, Mr. Hope, a psychic " extra " of his dead son, Rupert. This was a favour not then granted him, but in its stead, there appeared upon the negative, when developed, a likeness, so he avers, of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, unfortunately upside down. The sceptic will be tempted to conjecture that Mr. Hope, having thoughtfully provided the extra beforehand, had by inadvertence inserted the plate into his camera the wrong way up.

Mr.Wynn, however, sees nothing more in the incident than a proof that the admiration he felt for the great liberal statesman was reciprocated, a conclusion strongly corroborated in his mind by the fact that certain psychic persons of his acquaintance subsequently beheld the spirit form of the Grand Old Man hovering above Mr. Wynn's head when he was preaching.

At a much earlier date, as our minister recounts in the book before us, occult influences had brought about his union with the devoted partner in life who was destined to be Rupert's mother. "A girl I had never seen before stood on a doorstep at Sandy Lane, Bradford, Yorkshire thirty-five years ago and blushed. My initials are VV. W., and this blushing girl had been told by a gipsy at Blackpool the previous week that she would shortly marry a W. W."11 And she did ; though we need not follow the narrator into the details of this North Country idyll. Convinced of the truth of Spiritualism by evidence such as this, Mr. Walter Wynn, whose very naiveté makes his testimony only the more valuable, became a fervent apostle of the expediency of communion with the dead. His relations with the leaders of the movement were of the most cordial description, but alas ! when he ventured to insert in the columns of Light a mild profession of faith in certain plain teachings of the New Testament, his fellow spiritualists, regardless of his unstinted, laudation of all editors, promoters, lecturers, and other influential champions of the cause, turned upon their associate and brutally rent him. They told him, not too politely, to mind his own business, summing up their conclusions with painful directness in the phrase HANDS OFF, made conspicuous by the use of small capitals.

Mr. Wynn undoubtedly had dared very much when he told the readers of Light that "the greatest truth ever revealed to man is the doctrine of vicarious atonement as made manifest by the death of Christ on the Cross," and he made matters considerably worse when he went on to declare that "There is salvation by no other Name and in no other way, and if a man is not saved by Christ, either in this world or the next, he is eternally a lost soul."

The attitude of Light, the journal in which this communication appeared, is described by Mr. Wynn in the phrase, "dancing the tight rope," because, he remarks, "it seems to think it is necessary to obtain adherents to the cause, no matter how heterogeneous and contradictory their religious beliefs may be. "ST But with regard to the leading Spiritualist organ of the North, the editor of The Two Worlds left no sort of ambiguity as to the standpoint from which he wrote. Commenting in a leader on Mr. Wynn's pronouncement, he made his position clear by a series of such utterances as the following : The whole doctrine of vicarious atonement is to our mind an utterly immoral and pernicious one. . . The salvation of the soul by vicarious atonement is the sequential outcome of a belief in the fabled "fall of man." . . . We do not hesitate to express the opinion that the propagation of the brutal doctrines of human depravity, vicarious atonement for sin, and eternal punishment, are directly responsible for half the sin of the world. . . This is the dirty doctrine of sackcloth and ashes. We prefer the cleaner method of soap and water and human dignity.......

I Still there can be no doubt that this note of hostility to the Creeds has become much more acute of recent years, and we can quite understand Mr. Wynn when he writes : "The fierce antagonism displayed towards my evangelical beliefs left no doubt in my mind that no minister believing in Christ as I believe in Him can possibly feel at home in the ranks of organized Spiritualism."  One cannot pretend to be much in sympathy with Mr. Wynn either as to his theological views or as to his 'belief in communion with the dead, but we may thank him for the light he throws upon the present tendencies of the cult, and for his vindication of the conception of sin and the need of pardon which the much-vaunted "New Revelation" seems determined utterly to ignore.
You can read more of Thurston here with another attack on the Hope photograph for Wynn http://www.woodlandway.org/PDF/PP3.5May07..pdf

This was such a good topic and the book Rupert Lives one of the classic records of correspondences from a deceased loved one through various mediums that I thought it deserved a move from recent news. Thanks for drawing our attention to that book Mark.

Glad you enjoyed it as much as I did Jim.

I wonder if the medium J.J. Vango is in the below photogragh as he was employed by W.T. Stead, and an active spirit worker for his Bureau. The photo is from The Mary Evans Picture Library, www.maryevans.com




Vango's bust is displayed at the CPS in London, and a picture of it can be seen on Brandon Hodge's wonderful blog, The Mysterious Planchette.

http://mysteriousplanchette.blogspot.ie/2014/07/london-artifacts-part-3-cps-talking.html

I suppose the virulent opposition to spiritualism by many Christian folk was done in a sense of self-preservation, or at least maintaining their lucrative income of those now far-off days.
The simple equation suggested by the findings of Spiritualism would seem to put a cap on the matter.

Christianity is founded upon a 'resurrection' albeit a miraculous one, while Spiritualism points to the impossibility of death for all, so no death means no resurrection and no resurrection means, inevitably, no Christianity.

hiorta, you make a fair point but I am more pulled towards the survival evidence of the article, rather than it's religious implication.

Agreed Mark

Two pamphlets arrived this morning, The Mediumship of JJ Vango, and the other on Mrs. Keeves Record, both look fascinating 

JJ Vango's was an interesting read. Now I am onto Mrs. Keeves Record's pamphlet it looks intriguing!

 

Thanks Mark