| Main Performers | George Craze (Chairman),
The Duchess of Hamilton and Brandon,
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
Miss Lind-af-Hageby,
Mr H Ernest Hunt,
Miss Estelle Stead,
Rev. C Drayton Thomas - speakers |
| Set List | Hymn
Speech (Craze),
Speech (Conan Doyle),
Two Minute Silence,
Hymn: 'O God, Our Help In Ages Past',
Carols: 'Jubilate',
Reading (Duchess of Hamilton and Brandon),
'Come, Let Us Join Our Friends Above',
Hymns: 'Praise, My Soul, The King of Heaven',
'God Be With You Till We Meet Again!',
'God Save the King' (The National Anthem) |
| Performance Notes | "SPIRITUALIST SERVICE.
SEATS REFUSED AT ALBERT HALL.
As a protest against the character of the service many permanent seatholders at the Albert Hall refused to allow their seats to be used yesterday at a service organised by Spiritualists in memory of those who fell in the war. Mr George Craze, the Chairman, stated that but for this all the available accommodation would have been taken. There were about 8,000 people in the audience - spiritualists from all parts of England - and most of them rose to their feet when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said: "Let all who know they are in touch with the dead, and have personal experience of other-world-visitation or message, rise and testify." The audience observed two minutes silence and sang carols, and the Duchess of Hamilton and Brandon gave a reading from Scriptures and from Dr. Anna Kingford's 'Hymn of Love'." (The Daily Telegraph, 14 November 1927)
"It was an amazing spectacle. Row after row, tier upon tier, ones eyes encountered peoplepeople everywhere. Looking upwards from the well of the hall, one saw them, a huge concourse, seeming to stretch up to the heavens. An unforgettable sight! It was like the rally of some gigantic army.
When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle asked those who had obtained personal experience of other-world visitation to rise and testify, his words were followed by a sound as though of muffled thunder; it was the sound of people - thousands of them - rising to their feet as one man. The impression of an army was heightened; it might almost have been a drill movement - a massed
corps of troops obeying the word of a commander - so instantaneous and uniform was the action. Was it possible that all these thousands had obtained personal experience of the existence of that Other World? It seemed incredible. One strained ones eyes to discover if any remained seated. Yes, here and there were a few, a very few, who failed to rise. Perhaps one in every hundred; perhaps less. ...
'We are met here to-day, said Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 'to show those who passed away in the Great War that their memory is still green, that their sacrifice has not been forgotten.' Let them think what might have been! Had the enemy been victorious, we should have had a gigantic, hostile power facing us from the Belgian coast; we should have lived in constant terror of that advancing giant as he strode across Flanders; we should have waited in our homes while the victorious enemy prepared his next and final step, a step which would infallibly have fallen upon us. And today, with reduced resources, we should be living under a daily menace. 'If we live now in safety, fearing none (and, I trust, causing fear to none), to whom do we owe it? To those who gave their lives, and to them we send but now our hearts love and gratitude.
We, with our blessed knowledge, know that they are here, said Sir Arthur, in a ringing voice that brought a murmur of deep emotion to the lips of many
of his listeners. Those arisen ones were there with them, by the tens of thousands, high-spirited, boisterous, happy, though in some instances their joy was shadowed by want of recognition on the part of ourselves. 'The father who turns away from his dead son saying: It is impossible, or It is wrong,
little thinks of the yearning disappointment of his dead boy.' " (Light, 19 November 1927) |
| Related Archival Material | Programme (RAHE/1/1927/70 - forms part of 'Light: A Journal of Psychical, Occult, and Mystical Research') |