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The Afterlife of Leslie Stringfellow: A Nineteenth-Century Southern Family’s Experiences with Spiritualism

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I read metaphysical books in hopes of learning something. However, when I can learn something and be entertained at the same time, as was the case with this book, it's a real treat. Reading this book was like watching a good movie. I could picture the characters, their homes, and their environment as the story unfolded. I'd have to rank it as one of the two most entertaining metaphysical books I have read - right up there with "The Boy Who Saw True."

This 2005 book is based on a 1926 book, "Leslie's Letters to His Mother," by Alice Stringfellow. That book resulted from afterlife communication received from Leslie Stringfellow, who had died in 1886, at age 19. The "letters" came by means of automatic writing through a planchette to Leslie's parents, Alice and Henry Stringfellow. Although the communications began soon after his death and continued for some 15 years, Alice's book was not published until 1926, as she did not think it would be of interest to anyone. As it was, only a hundred or so copies were published, mostly for family members.

Henry and Alice Stringfellow were no country bumpkins. Henry was a world-renowned horticulturist, having graduated from the College of William and Mary before earning graduate degrees in both theology and law. Alice was a graduate of Hunter College in New York. Leslie's death hit them hard. While visiting a medium in Galveston, they were directed by spirit to invest in a planchette - a device that holds a pencil and is moved by the communicating spirit as the hands of the two sitters rest on it. "Neither Alice nor Henry believed they had any control over the movement of the instrument," author Stephen Chism offers. "The Stringfellow's letter-writing sessions were to become a secret family ritual which lasted for over 15 years."

Chism, a librarian at the University of Arkansas, tells of the synchronistic events that led to the discovery of the 1926 book and then details his research into the history of the Stringfellow family. "As he was dying, Leslie claimed he could see light from Heaven," Chism writes. "He promised Alice that he would contact her `if such a thing were possible.'"

In 1897, Leslie encouraged his parents to adopt a child, a distant relative who had been orphaned at age two, as he felt they were too dependent on hearing from him. He wanted them to concentrate on living this life rather than constantly thinking about joining him in the next one. The child would be renamed "Lessie" and would go on to become a reporter and editor in Fayetville, Arkansas. It was Lessie who helped her mother put together their many letters into a book.

In his "letters" Leslie tells of his active life on his side of the veil. He states that he was weak when he first arrived on the other side, but he quickly regained his strength. "Here every man's home is an index of his character [on the material plane]" he informs them, pointing out that a large number of souls are stuck in the lower planes of existence. However, while he realized that there were many spheres or planes above him he informed them that he was very content. "Never doubt for a moment that this world is a thousand time better in every way than yours," Leslie continues. "When I compare even my happy life on earth with what I now have, I can but see the contrast."

Leslie's messages are consistent with messages received by other credible mediums, pointing to an evolution of the spirit through higher and higher spheres rather than a humdrum heaven and horrific hell.

It is a fascinating and captivating read. Every hospice should have several copies of this book available for its residents.

The Afterlife of Leslie Stringfellow: A Nineteenth-Century Southern Family's Experiences with Spiritualism is the true story of a well-educated, nineteenth-century family's contact with their deceased son Leslie Stringfellow. Over the course of fifteen years, their connection to the beyond through seance messages and "automatic writing" guided their actions in the recovery of an inheritance and the adoption of an orphan girl who grew up to be an active suffragist and newspaper editor. Stringfellow also described his personal afterlife and a detailed survey of the geography of paradise. In 191, Stringfellow's mother and her adopted daughter contacted Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, who urged them to publish their manuscript and even proposed and experiment concerning his own deceased son, Kingsley Doyle, who was killed in World War I. A handful of vintage black-and-white photographs round out this compilation of extensive research including some letters published for the first time. A "must-have" for metaphysical studies shelves concerned with what comes after death.

The phenomenon known as the Spiritualist movement that sprang out of the finger lake district of New York state from the area historians call the "burned over" district due to the variety of spiritual/religious epiphanies that swept the area, beginning with the Shakers, Jemima Wilkinson, Mormons and the Fox sisters among other evangelical social outbursts. What made Spiritualism the more attractive of these spiritual expressions was the progressive mindset the movement enunciated, which included abolition, feminism, humane childhood education, and dietary reform among others.
Perhaps the most significant innovation was the elevation of women within spiritialism to positions of authority, spiritual as well as temporal. This along with the Shaker movement was the first time in centuries that women held positions of power equal to that of men within a religious movement.
The other innovation with the advent of spiritualism was the shift from the "church" being a special building for religious endeavors to the American home as church. It was not unintentional that many spiritualists refer to their activities within a "home circle" down to this day. Spiritualism provided for the first democraticization of religion that appealed to the sensibilities of Jeffersonian democracy from which it sprang.
Mr. Chism has provided a great insight into this with the discovery of a family's documented automatic writing sessions initially, used to make contact with the son of the family, Leslie Stringfellow and the subsequent psychonautic communiques within the family that provided comfort, solace and intellectual stimulation on the nature of the soul and the afterlife through these alleged communications for the family.
For students of 19th century religious movements, spiritualists or students of parapsychology this book is a gift to treasure.

I found this book at my father's house on a Sunday afternoon and sat down to read it at about 4PM. By 10PM I was turning the last page. I couldn't put it down. Having just lost my father and mother and many close friends and relatives, this book is so comforting. A must-read for anyone who is spiritual and believes in life after death.
Enjoy.

This was a beautiful story of love and loss, and of holding onto a child who has left this life and gone on to the next. It was a touching biography, a thought-provoking and in-depth description of what heaven might be like, and an educational text for an introduction to spiritualism. I read this and then passed it on to my mother, who read it and passed it along to my grandmother. We all enjoyed it from it different angles and from the perspectives of our different points in life.