One thought on “THE MEDIUMSHIP OF ARNOLD CLARE”

1. Whatever happened
   to Arnold Clare?
   From http://www.woodlandway.org/PDF/PP7.12December2011.pdf

   In January 1948, the SPR Journal reported on the
   reactions to its financial offer to physical mediums.
   Among the names of mediums was Arnold Clare.
   “Arnold Clare (direct voice) said he had periods
   when he could get no phenomena, and we had
   asked him at such a time.”
   In contrast to this sole appearance in psychical
   research, AC has an assured place in the history of
   Spiritualism, as one of two physical mediums
   about whom Harry Edwards wrote books. But
   whereas Jack Webber died young, Arnold lived on.
   In his biography of Harry Edwards Born to Heal17
   Paul Miller identifies ways in which Edwards was
   influenced by Arnold’s work.
   “There are several views on the production of physical phenomena—apart from those who
   declare that they cannot possibly be true—and it is to Peter18 that Edwards owes the
   development of his own views, some of which do not agree with opinions put forward by
   others.” (p.60).
   Secondly, Jack Webber materialised at a Clare séance held in Webber’s séance room, the
   clearest physical manifestation ever seen by Edwards, which he regarded as absolute proof
   of survival.
   In his 1982 biography of Harry Edwards, Ramus Branch speaks of Arnold Clare “whom he
   often declared had the gift of physical mediumship to an even greater extent than that of
   Jack.” Branch says of the Webber materialisation through Clare “This was Henry’s first
   personal proof of survival and it meant a good deal to him…..”. (p. 83.)
   Peter had some influence on the evolution of the healing philosophy of Edwards, for we
   read in a footnote by Harry Edwards in his book The Mediumship of Arnold Clare:A further work dealing with the science of healing, spiritual and magnetic, has
   already been commenced by the author with the collaboration of and
   explanations by Peter.”
   This was The Science of Spirit Healing which went through at least three editions and five
   impressions. It included an appreciation to Clare and his guide Peter for sitting several
   times and speaking on healing, the content being quoted in the book.
   Arnold Clare eventually became a priest in the Liberal Catholic Church. When he retired, a
   Liberal Catholic Church bishop, John Wheaton wrote a tribute which appeared in an LCC
   newsletter in summer 1989. The text of this was approved by Arnold. The funeral of
   Arnold Clare was on 18 June 1991. We are very grateful to John Wheaton for providing a
   copy of this tribute via Jim Pym, and for giving permission for it to be reprinted below.
   RETIREMENT OF FR. ARNOLD CLARE
   We hear from Rev. John Wheaton that Fr. Arnold Clare of the Exeter Oratory, now aged
   88, has reluctantly decided to stop taking public services, although he still attends the
   Oratory, giving the benefit of his experience of the inner life. He has led a full and varied
   life and readers may like to know something of this, and, in particular, the way in which his
   spiritual life developed to the point where he was ordained in The Liberal Catholic Church
   in 196l.
   Arnold Clare was born in Felixstowe in 1901. He left school at 12 and started working
   for a grocer. At 15 he went to sea under sail on coastal ships. Shortly after, he joined the
   Royal Navy. During World War I he saw service as a wireless operator with the Dover
   Patrol. He also served on destroyers and light cruisers escorting convoys. In 1917 he was
   given shore duties on Mt. Athos reporting the movements of German submarines.
   At this time he met Fr. John, a Greek Orthodox priest and they spent much time together
   discussing philosophy and mysticism, etc. In 1919 he went overland with a Naval
   expedition to the Caspian where, on converted merchant ships mounted with guns taken
   from their own ships, they chased Russian destroyers crewed by Bolshevik forces.
   Invited home by the Russian Master of his ship, Arnold was surprised to find that, after
   the evening meals, the Captain’s wife would play the mandolin and then start talking in an
   odd voice (in Russian, of course). Arnold didn’t recognise this as a trance state, but later,
   when the lady started speaking in English, with the voice of his late friend, Fr. John, and
   carried on his teaching where he had left off, light started to dawn. Arnold returned home
   and never went to sea again but worked in Royal Navy wireless stations.
   Early in 1920 the Navy sent him to Cambridge to study mathematics as related to
   magnetism and electricity. Shortly after marrying Vera Lawson in 1921 he started to use a
   pendulum, again being contacted by Fr. John, who gave him further teachings via
   automatic writing. At 28, when told he had T.B. he prayed and was told by Fr. John not to
   worry as he had work to do and would be cured. An examination two months later showed
   395
   that he was completely clear. He become associated with a Spiritualist Church in
   Scarborough and later started a healing circle in Winchester.
   1933 found him working at the Admiralty and also studying Astrology in depth
   becoming a practitioner and lecturer in this field. In 1937 he joined Harry Edwards Balham
   Spiritualist Church, becoming its Hon. Sec. in 1939, the year after his mediumship became
   apparent.
   Commissioned in the Royal Navy in 1941, he and his wife opened their own church -
   The Trinity of Spiritual Fellowship. Due to the London blitz an alternative bomb-proof
   Admiralty was built with Arnold, single-handed, fitting it out with a world-wide wireless
   capability. Long working hours and continuing healing work resulted in a heart attack and
   Arnold was medically discharged from the Navy in 1944, with his marriage broken under
   the strain. He went to live quietly in the country taking up egg production, breeding angora
   rabbits for bloodstock and wool which he learned to spin. 1941 was also the year that Harry
   Edwards wrote the book “The Mediumship of Arnold Clare” which caused a rift between
   them as Edwards had stressed the psychic phenomena at the expense of Arnold’s, or rather
   Fr. John’s, teaching. Arnold still worked with Harry Edwards, lecturing and running two
   healing centres. In 1945 he was told by Fr. John to finish with physical mediumship.
   Fr. Arnold was ordained as a priest in the Old Catholic Orthodox Church but resigned
   shortly afterwards. With his new wife Ruby he bought a run-down restaurant and cake shop
   in 1949 and managed to build this into a thriving business. He is still a very good cook to
   this day. In 1951 they moved to Torquay where he had two healing sanctuaries and he
   joined the Theosophical Society.
   In 1961 he was ordained into the Liberal Catholic Church and started an Oratory in the
   Theosophical Lodge with Fr. Richard Hall as priest-in-charge. In 1963 he moved to
   Trusham where he built an Oratory. In 1972, the year his wife died, he started holding
   services in Exeter. A year later he married Diana Kerr-Jones, a well known Theosophical
   lecturer and moved to Milford on Sea where he set up a successful Oratory. 1976 saw them
   moving back to Devon, again setting up an Oratory and being involved in the new purposebuilt
   Exeter Oratory. In 1982 they moved again to Great Clacton but returned in 1986 to
   take up work at the Exeter Oratory. In 1983 Arnold’s expertise as an Exorcist was
   recognised in the comprehensive book by Leslie Watkins – The Real Exorcists.
   ——§——
   Leslie Watkins, who wrote The Real Exorcists (Methuen, 1983) was an experienced
   journalist, then living in Devon, and Father Clare was among the exorcists he interviewed
   about his methods. (Watkins, p. 22-4 especially) which included the use of salt, juniper and
   laurel. (We have already featured in Psypioneer March 2006 another LCC priest with a
   psychic background, Ernest Butler, who was a prolific exorcist.)
   The book by Harry Edwards The Mediumship of Arnold Clare has been relatively
   neglected. It was one of the last treatises to emerge from the inter-war flowering of London
   Spiritualism, with a challenging mix of evidence and philosophy. In his foreword, Edwards
   396
   wrote “Frequently, during these sittings, the air-raid sirens would be heard and the local
   anti-aircraft guns would be in action”.

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