Doris Stokes
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Doris May Fisher Stokes (6 January 1920 – 8 May 1987), born Doris Sutton, was a British
spiritualist Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century The ''long nineteenth century'' i ...
, self-proclaimed
medium Medium may refer to: Science and technology Aviation *Medium bomber, a class of war plane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium of ...
, and author. Her professed ability to communicate with the dead, public performances, television appearances, and memoirs made her a household name in Britain. During her lifetime she was a controversial figure, with some believing her to possess psychic abilities, but investigations published after her death demonstrated that she used techniques including cold reading, hot reading, and planting accomplices in her audience, giving the appearance of having paranormal abilities.


Early life

Stokes was born in
Grantham Grantham () is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of the Lincoln and ...
,
Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...
, England in 1920. In her memoirs she claimed that she started seeing spirits and hearing disembodied voices in childhood, and that she developed these abilities further once she joined a local spiritualist church after her son died in infancy. She was recognised as a practising clairaudient medium by the
Spiritualists' National Union The Spiritualists' National Union (SNU) is a Spiritualist organisation, founded in the United Kingdom in 1901, and is one of the largest Spiritualist groups in the world. Its motto is ''Light, Nature, Truth''. Over its history, it has organised ...
in 1949. During a crisis of confidence in 1962, she gave up her work as a medium and retrained as a psychiatric nurse, but had to retire five years later following an attack by a patient. She returned to her psychic work, and in 1975 became the resident medium at the
Spiritualist Association of Great Britain The Spiritualist Association of Great Britain (the SAGB) is a British spiritualist organisation. It was established ion 10th July 1872. History The SAGB grew out of the Marylebone Spiritualist Association (founded 1872). The story of the assoc ...
.


Career

Stokes first came to public attention in 1978 during a visit to Australia, when she appeared on '' The Don Lane Show''. In the wave of interest that followed her appearance, she played to three capacity audiences at the
Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architec ...
. She was also the first medium to appear at the London Palladium; the tickets sold out in two hours. She was especially believable because of her smiling, down-to-earth manner, which avoided the traditional trappings of the séance and gave her performances almost "the ordinariness of a transatlantic telephone call". In 1980, her first autobiographical volume, ''Voices in My Ear: The Autobiography of a Medium'' was published, pulling her further into the public eye in the UK. More than two million copies of her books were sold. Positive testimonials continued to come forward into the 2000s. Stokes was condemned by the Church of England and other Christian denominations, which objected to spirit communication as an offence to God. She countered that her work was done for God, and in accordance with the Bible's injunction to "test the spirits to see if they (were) good". Stokes's health was poor throughout her life. Her thirteen or so cancer operations included a mastectomy, and the April 1987 removal of a brain tumour, after which she did not regain consciousness. She died in Lewisham, London on 8 May 1987. Described variously as "an individual of great personal warmth", "the
Gracie Fields Dame Gracie Fields (born Grace Stansfield; 9 January 189827 September 1979) was an English actress, singer, comedian and star of cinema and music hall who was one of the top ten film stars in Britain during the 1930s and was considered the h ...
of the psychic world" and "a ruthless moneymaking confidence artist", she continued to give free consultations or "sittings" until a month before her death, when she left only £15,291.


Criticism, debunking and accusations of fraud

Stokes was accused of using various forms of
deception Deception or falsehood is an act or statement that misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight o ...
to achieve the effect of communicating with the dead. These included cold reading, eavesdropping, and planting accomplices in the audience.


Evidence of audience plants

Stokes's death coincided with the publication of Catholic author Ian Wilson's 1987 book, ''The After Death Experience'', in which he presented a detailed exposé of her methods. He described her as providing "slick, sure-fire answers" to the questions of life after death. He attended one of Stokes's Palladium performances in November 1986, when she claimed to contact the dead relatives of four consecutive audience members, with a sequence of convincing and poignant details. However, when the participants were questioned after the performance, it turned out that each of them had been invited by Stokes. The manager of the Palladium explained that Stokes routinely booked the front three rows of the theatre for her own use. Those "contacted" included a young woman called Dawn. She was given a message supposedly from her husband, who had died less than a month earlier, telling her that he supported her decision to turn off his
life support Life support comprises the treatments and techniques performed in an emergency in order to support life after the failure of one or more vital organs. Healthcare providers and emergency medical technicians are generally certified to perform basic ...
machine. However, when hospital nurses had asked her whether she would like to speak to anybody about this decision, she had asked to speak to Doris Stokes. Stokes had spoken to Dawn by telephone, offering commiseration and asking to be updated with the results of the tests that would determine whether Dawn's husband lived or died. In 1987, Dawn described a number of personal details which Stokes had given unprompted to her mother on the phone. While Dawn found these convincing, Wilson suggests that Stokes obtained them from Dawn's aunt, a prominent local spiritualist. Another participant was Marilyn Stenning, whose daughter Kerry had recently died in a car accident. She received a personal phone call from Stokes, offering her front-row seats for the Palladium performance. Other participants included "camp followers", who regularly attended the shows and repeatedly received messages from the same people. During the second half of the performance, members of the audience were chosen apparently at random. Wilson described this post-interval performance as "much less convincing ... elyingon intelligent guesswork and 'fishing.


Disputed memoirs and testimony

Stokes co-wrote seven volumes of autobiography, but some of the events she describes in them have been questioned. In her book, ''Voices in my Ear'', Stokes claimed that she had solved two murder cases in England. However, Detective Chief Superintendent William Brooks of the Lancashire Constabulary stated that Stokes made no contribution whatsoever to the detection of either murderer. Whilst in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, she also claimed that local murder victim Vic Weiss had contacted her with details of his murder. Former magician and high-profile sceptic, James Randi, contacted the
LAPD The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-large ...
, who informed him that all of the information supplied by Stokes had been available to the media at the time. Stokes was unable to provide any new information to the police and the case remains unsolved.


Bibliography

* ''Voices in My Ear'', Doris Stokes with Linda Dearsley (1980) * ''More Voices in My Ear'', Doris Stokes with Linda Dearsley (1981). Publisher: FUTURA PUBNS. * ''Innocent Voices in My Ear'', Doris Stokes with Linda Dearsley (1983). Publisher: Sphere; New edition. * ''A Host of Voices'', Doris Stokes with Pam and Mike Kiddey (1984) * ''Voices in My Ear: Autobiography of a Medium'' (1985). Publisher: TBS The Book Service Ltd; New edition. * ''Whispering Voices'', Doris Stokes with Linda Dearsley (1985). Publisher: FUTURA PUBLICATIONS; 1st edition. * ''Voices in My Ear: Autobiography of a Medium'' (1980). Publisher: Little, Brown. * ''Voices of Love'', Doris Stokes with Linda Dearsley (1986). Publisher: TBS The Book Service Ltd. * ''Joyful Voices'', Doris Stokes with Linda Dearsley (1987) * ''A Tribute to Doris Stokes'', Linda Dearsley (1988)


See also


References


External links


Spiritualist's National Union of the United Kingdom

Doris Stokes at the Barbican video (1986)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stokes, Doris 1920 births 1987 deaths English psychics English spiritual mediums People educated at Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School People from Grantham