A Momentous Truth Suppressed (from Voices in the Dark)

Dr. Cosmo Lang (1864-1945)

Direct Voice medium Leslie Flint's autobiography Voices in the Dark (1971) includes his commentary about a suppressed report written by a committee appointed to investigate Spiritualism.  Dr. Cosmo Lang was the church leader who appointed the members of the committee.

This is how a 1942 unattributed Psychic Press pamphlet "The Silence of Dr. Lang" (PDF File) summarizes the predicament —

Over four years ago, the Primate of All England, The Most Rev. Cosmo Gordon Lang, appointed a committee to investigate Spiritualism.  After two years of patient and systematic inquiry, the committee made its report.  It was sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury.  It was circulated among the diocesan bishops.  And there, in the archiepiscopal and episcopal archives, it rests.  For over two years, Spiritualists, responsible Churchmen, and public opinion, as reflected in the clamour of the Press, have demanded that the report be made public.  But othodoxy remains obdurate.  The report is favourable to Spiritualism.

Following the end of his Earth life, 'Dr. Cosmo Lang' was occasionally heard among the myriad of manifesting Direct Voice communicators introducing themselves at Flint's seances.  This article presents excerpts from the fourteenth chapter of Voices in the Dark and includes portions of transcripts of 'Dr. Cosmo Lang' conversation recordings.

When my old friend Father Sharp died in 1960 he was 94 years of age, but he had never ceased to hope that one day the brave dream of The Confraternity would become a reality and Spiritualism would be brought within the framework of the Established Church.  One of the most grievous disappointments of his life was the suppression by the then Archbishop of Canterbury of the Report on Spiritualism produced by a Commission of churchmen who had spent many months investigating its claims.  This commission had been sent up by the late Dr. Cosmo Lang when he was Archbishop of York, but when he became Primate of England he suppressed the findings of his own Commission which by a majority verdict reached the conclusion that the claims of Spiritualism to communicate with the dead through specially gifted persons were true.

Lord Lang died in 1945 and one year later he spoke to Father Sharp in our home circle through my mediumship.  This is what he had to say: "If only I could have my life over again with the knowledge I now have, how different I would act.  I could have done so much, but I was afraid."  He went on to speak of the thousands of young souls precipitated into the next world by the war who were resentful because the Church had not taught them that death is not the end and a bridge can be made between the two worlds.

 
Just as each of the Direct Voice communicators, 'Dr. Cosmo Lang' articulated an idiosyncratic synthesis of human experience and knowledge.  Flint's quotations of Lang are evidently not verbatim and variations are found in some of the same transcript material included in Neville Randall's Life After Death (1975), a book about the Direct Voice phenomena that occurred in the presence of medium Leslie Flint (1, 2).  Nine 'Dr. Cosmo Lang' tape recordings may be heard at wholejoy.com.

Here is another quotation of 'Dr. Cosmo Lang' from Flint's autobiography. 
 

In August 1967 the former Cosmo Lang spoke again, this time in my own home circle, and I would like to quote an excerpt from the tape recording we made of his discourse.  He said: "The study of the human race from time immemorial is in itself an object lesson to all, yet we heed not the lessons we have learned, we do not see the present in the past, but what is the present but the result of past events, past mistakes, past foolishness?  Man has turned his back for centuries upon truth and he does not see that there within himself in his innermost soul is the paramount truth of all, the indestructible truth that man is truly Spirit and thus immortal.  Often I think back to my early years and how with enthusiasm I did step out in the path of religious instruction and experience.  How often I spoke from the pulpit to the many who had gathered to listen to the word of God, and I strove to give out truth as I saw it and as I felt I knew it.  As I look back, I see what I lacked was simplicity and knowledge of the power of the Spirit within.  If only I had seen what underlay the teachings not only of Jesus but of many of the Prophets and the great reformers and teachers of earlier times.  If I could only have seen the golden thread which runs from earliest times through all the great religions and realised that that single thread is the basis of all truth, that all men are of the Spirit and part of the great plan and that all life no matter what form it takes is indestructible and that even the lowliest creatures on earth have their place and their purpose not only in your world but also in ours.  Man so often thinks of Spirit as having shape or form or as a glory to come after death, but Spirit is none of these things.  It is the force which animates all who live in human form, everything in nature, and all manifestations of life in the universe."