Raymond,

Raymond,

Bibliography

See M. W. Baldwin, Raymond III of Tripolis and the Fall of Jerusalem (1936).

Raymond

Raymond Lodge was the son of psychical researcher and world famous physicist Sir Oliver Lodge. He became the subject of a book by his father, titled simply Raymond. The book dealt with the apparent spirit return of Raymond after he was killed in World War I. It is regarded as one of the best-attested cases of spirit identity.

On August 8, 1915, the medium Leonore Piper had Richard Hodgson, the deceased psychical researcher, communicating through her. Hodgson said, “Now, Lodge, while we are not here as of old, i.e., not quite, we are here enough to give and take messages. [Frederick] Myers says you take the part of the poet, and he will act as Faunus. Faunus. Myers. Protect: he will understand. What have you to say, Lodge? Good work. Ask (Margaret) Verrall, she will also understand. Arthur says so.”

According to Nandor Fodor, “The message reached Sir Oliver Lodge in early September, 1915. On September 17, the War Office notified him that his son Raymond had been killed in action on September 14. Before this blow fell, Sir Oliver Lodge wrote to Mrs. Verrall, a well known classical scholar, and asked her, ‘Does the poet and Faunus mean anything to you? Did one protect the other?’ She replied at once that ‘The reference is to Horace’s account of his narrow escape from death, from a falling tree, which he ascribes to the intervention of Faunus … As bearing on your terrible loss, the meaning seems to be that the blow would fall, but would not crush; it would be ‘lightened’ by the assurance conveyed afresh to you by a special message from the still living Myers, that your boy still lives,'"

Raymond’s mother, Lady Lodge, had a sitting with Gladys Osborne Leonard on September 25. Raymond contacted her and said, “Tell Father I have met some friends of his.” He mentioned Myers, among others. Two days later another medium, Alfred Vout Peters, spoke of a photograph of a group of officers, with Raymond among them. A Mrs. Cheves—a complete stranger to the Lodges—wrote to say that she had a photograph of the officers of the South Lancashire Regiment, to which Raymond belonged. On December 3, Mrs. Leonard gave a full description of the photograph, describing exactly where Raymond was in it (he was described as sitting on the ground with another officer’s hand on his shoulder). The photograph arrived on December 7 and was exactly as described.

A variety of other messages came from a number of different mediums. There was also cross correspondence on the Faunus issue. Sir Oliver Lodge included all the evidence in his book, which has become a classic of Spiritualism. In it Lodge wrote, “My conclusion has been gradually forming itself for years, though, undoubtedly, it is based on experience of the same sort of thing. But this event has strengthened and liberated my testimony. It can now be associated with a private experience of my own instead of with the private experience of others.”

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