Personality Survives Death: After-Death Communication from Sir William Barrett

Dr Florence Barrett was a prominent gynaecologist and obstetrician, as well as dean of the London School of Medicine for Women.  Professor William Barrett, her husband, was a distinguished physicist, knighted in 1912 for his contributions to science.  He was also one of the founder of the Society for Psychical Research.  Sir William spent much of his life investigating mediumship and the possibility of  life after death until his own death in 1925.


During the 11 years that followed Sir William’s death, Florence, initially very skeptical, sat with renowned trance medium Gladys Osbourne Leonard on numerous occasions (35 sittings are recorded in this book) and became convinced that William and numerous other deceased friends, acquaintances and relatives were communicating with her.  Many topics were discussed, including cancer, diet and the nature of reality. During one communication William explained: 


“We cannot locate the seat of life in the physical because it is not there. How many have tried to find something in the physical organism – the seat of life – some spark, germ, cause of what is called life. It doesn’t lie in the physical body, it is useless looking for it there. It is in the etheric – or more correctly, the etheric is the true carrier of life.”


When theologian and scholar G. W. Butterworth reviewed Personality Survives Death in 1938, he wrote: “If mere quantity of evidence were all that was necessary to establish the truth of the spiritistic hypothesis then all men ought by now to be believers. ” In 2020 the same could be said to be true. Materialist science has failed to explain psychic phenomena preferring to opt for the easy explanation that it doesn’t exist.


For the hardened sceptic this book may do nothing, but for the seeker it has much to offer.


Key words: Life after death, Gladys Osborne Leonard, trance medium, William Barrett, Oliver Lodge, after-death communication, psychic phenomena, psychic medium