TC Lethbridge | The Sons of TC-Lethbridge | Tekh's Anthological Review

ESP

Beyond Time and Distance

Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1965

“The proof of the pudding must always be in the eating and not in the theories of the author of the cookery book.” - T.C. Lethbridge

In the most evocative of Lethbridge’s prefaces, he begins ESP - Beyond Time and Distance with an alarming account of having fallen through the ice-flow into the polar sea whilst on an expedition to East Greenland in the summer of 1923. Not one to miss the opportunity of a classic metaphor, Lethbridge assimilates this experience in the course of his research to having fallen into a world where there are many more dimensions.

Lethbridge always seemed astonished at his own discoveries and his enthusiasm for his endeavours remains child-like and at fever pitch throughout his works. At times, he is almost apologetic to his reader for leading them into this multi-dimensional world, which, after all, was accessible to everyone willing to shed their inhibitions or the shackles of traditional thought. He believed that his findings and discoveries were so important that the implications would eventually destroy the whole argument for materialism. Never one to be carried away with his own discoveries, he had a naturally inquiring mind and even made a light-hearted reference to his biblical namesake to reiterate the point. “Remember that my baptismal name is Thomas and it was most correctly given. I doubt even my own evidence”.

Lethbridge again ‘sets out his stall’ early in ESP, the book is an attempt to link science with magic, and magic with religion. Once again he uses the pendulum as a divining tool. His primary objective is to exhibit that rays of energy appear to omit from every living and inanimate object. This train of thought was triggered by the apparent existence of a green ray of light sent by the sun across The Minch at the moment of it’s setting. Lethbridge never did witness, nor ever meet anyone who had seen this unique phenomenon, but in the postscript to ‘ESP’, he remarks that since embarking upon his quest, he had become involved in a maze of invisible rays, numbered by the million.

Lethbridge was astutely aware of the pickle that modern religious thinking had got itself into. By trying to fit a four-dimensional subject into a three-dimensional frame, it had been forced to retreat from it’s intended line of evolution. In it’s attempts to be more modern and up to date, the less probable it had become. Unlike the church, he was always prepared to change his theories in the light of new available evidence. In Ghost and Ghoul, he had concluded that nothing could be impressed onto the field of an inanimate object. Further experiments with the pendulum revealed that portions of the psyche-field of artists were retained within their paintings. He remained unabashed by his change of heart, for he truly believed that dogma was the curse of all learning.

Lethbridge is notorious for his rants and diversions, which frequent all of his works. One minute he is discussing the probability of extra-spatial rays in the animal world and next he is discussing the vermin-infested and ‘slum-like’ dwellings of the swallows at Hole House. These distractions add a curiously beautiful detail to his writings and present him as a truly great observer of the detail of nature.

It is this detail that Lethbridge believed was constantly missing from the lives of the general public and was an inhibitor to discovery. He likened his and Mina’s relative isolation at Hole House to that of eastern sages who retreat to caves to think and to contemplate in peace. He believed that people who congregated in large numbers in towns and cities were subject to a mental wearing down by the constant din and demands of town and city life. This, ‘Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Lifestyle’ caused nervous and mental inefficiency and created a materialistic herd mentality amongst the populous. He believed the solution to the mass ‘brain-drain’ was to somehow isolate each person at will from all of the others. This would result in the individual’s mind being given a chance to send correct ideas to it’s attendant body.

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