Leslie Flint in Los Angeles

(2000 edition)

The case of Direct Voice medium Leslie Flint (1911-1994) is extensively documented with numerous recordings available for listening without charge at the website of The Leslie Flint Educational Trust.  In addition to the 1971 autobiography, many other testimonials are in print with a bibliography online.  Flint visited Los Angeles in 1949 to be the guest of Dr. Carl Menugh after agreeing to hold seances in his Long Beach apartment for a few of his friends.

Among the hundreds of ascended realm communicators heard to speak in the presence of Flint were people of earthly renown.  Lynn Russell's book The Voice of Valentino (1965) and the Flint 'seances' (or 'sittings') involving Hollywood actor Rudolph Valentino are mentioned in several previous blog articles (1, 2, 3).  In this article, I am presenting excerpts from Flint's autobiography as told to Doreen Montgomery, Voices in the Dark. 

My only contact with Dr. Menugh had been by correspondence, so when I arrived at Los Angeles station I looked about me for a cosy [cozy (US)] family doctor kind of man who might be my host.  I saw no one who answered this description so I stood around trying to look like 'the famous medium from London' by gazing aloofly into the middle distance while wishing fervently I had worn a quieter tie.  Shortly I was greeted by a man no older than myself who was Carl Menugh, his doctorate I later learned was in philosophy.

Perhaps the most dramatic seance I held in Los Angeles was one at which a father returned to tell his son the truth about his death and to exonerate the driver of the vehicle which killed him.

The son whom I shall call Bill was brought with his wife to a group seance by their friend Miss Artie Blackburn of Los Angeles.  All Miss Blackburn told me about the friends she wished to bring to sit in my group was that the husband was a brilliant inventor and scientist who would subject any evidence he might receive to analysis and would refuse to accept anything which could not be proved.

At the sitting Mickey spoke to Bill and asked if he was associated with the Texaco Corporation.  Bill answered that he was but he supposed Miss Blackburn had given this information to the medium.  This, both Mickey and Miss Blackburn stoutly denied, and in point of fact I never allow friends of sitters to give me any information about them because not only would it render any evidence which may come valueless but I have found when someone inadvertently gives me information before a sitting it makes me so self-conscious that the sitting is just as likely to be a blank.  "Was your father killed very suddenly in an accident?" was Mickey's next question to Bill, who said this was correct.  "What is La Brea?" asked Mickey next.  "It is the name of the bus which killed my father," was Bill's reply.

"Your Dad says it wasn't the driver's fault as you all thought, and he says you sued the Company which was too bad because it was all his own fault.  He thought he was spry enough to get across ahead of the bus.  He says the driver hadn't a chance, it wasn't his fault at all."  Mickey, prompted by the voice of Bill's father, went on to describe the exact circumstances of the accident, then suddenly changed the subject: "Your Dad is saying you did not do what he wanted with his Masonic watch and chain."

Bill's wife chipped in here, "Oh, dear," she said, "I kept the chain.  I wanted to wear it myself."  The next message Mickey relayed from Bill's father asked him not to visit the cemetery so often.  "Your Dad says you take flowers from his own garden to put on his grave and he would rather see them growing than on a grave where he is not."

When Bill was asked later what he thought of the sitting, he said: "This is the most wonderful night of my life.  This is the night my spiritual unfoldment begins."

On a subsequent evening Bill had another sitting with me and on that occasion his father spoke to him and his wife in a voice which Bill recognized as his father's own.

. . . a Mr. Le Fevre suggested driving me to Hollywood to spend the day with his wife and himself.  Hollywood!  The very name of it uttered casually on the telephone by a stranger was enough to thrill me with memories of past enchantments.  In spite of the years which had passed, at heart I was still the star-struck boy in the four-pennies [local cinema].

As we drove along Sunset Boulevard and began the climb into Beverly Hills, Mr. Le Fevre told me he and his wife had recently sold their chain of hotels in San Francisco and bought their Hollywood home for their retirement.  "It once belonged to Rudolph Valentino, the film star," said my new friend.  "Did you ever hear of him?"  Down the years echoed the voice of Valentino, "One day when he is a famous medium he will hold a seance in the room which was my bedroom in the house in Hollywood and I will come to speak to him there."  Then I saw the sign by the road which said "Falcon Lair" and the car turned off to the house.

It was a charming house and Mr. and Mrs. Le Fevre were the kindest of hosts, so when they asked me to hold seances for them and a few of their friends I was happy to agree.  When they asked me to choose a room in which to hold the seances I said I thought the room opening off the patio would be most suitable and it surprised me not at all when Mr. Le Fevre remarked, "That room was Valentino's bedroom."

Valentino came through at the first seance I held in 'Falcon Lair' and almost the first thing he said after greeting us was how happy it made him to be able to fulfill the promise he had made to me so many years before.  He thanked Mr. and Mrs. Le Fevre for inviting me and told them he was glad they were happy in his old home, but he was afraid they would be selling it again before long.  This brought a gasp from Mr. Le Fevre since he had acquired the house only a few months previously and intended to make it the headquarters of a World Peace movement.  Valentino must have sensed Mr. Le Fevre's uneasiness because he hastened to assure him there was no unpleasantness impending.  The Le Fevres would continue their work for World Peace in the house for a short time then they would prefer to live elsewhere and they would sell 'Falcon Lair.'

After the seance we sat in the big drawing-room of the house with the curtains open so we could see the whole of Hollywood spread out before us, a glitter of lights romantic and beautiful in the distance.  As I sat marveling, suddenly I knew with certainty that Valentino had never been happy in this house nor would anyone else ever be happy in it.  Months later when I was in London someone sent me a cutting from a Los Angeles paper which said the Le Fevres had sold 'Falcon Lair' to Doris Duke the tobacco heiress and had moved elsewhere.

Previous blog articles about Leslie Flint include "Link to a New Recording at The Leslie Flint Educational Trust Website", "Direct Voice Seance Phenomena", "New Additions at The Leslie Flint Educational Trust Website" and "Rosemary Brown's Comments about Direct Voice Medium Leslie Flint".

The Rudolph Valentino Society website presents an online article with commentary about Valentino's interest in Spiritualism: "Religion of Rudolph Valentino".  Leslie Flint is mentioned in a context that reminds the reader how people often make assumptions about cases of transcendental communication without apparently having personally researched and analyzed the testimonials and documentation that are available.