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| Larry Taylor
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Larry Taylor, a devoted
servant of the London Spiritual Mission (LSM), has passed to spirit, writes
Sue Farrow.
The
81-year-old former president of London's premier Spiritualist church passed
peacefully in hospital on the afternoon of 5th October, after a short illness.
He was surrounded by close friends and family.
A
natural medium, American-born Larry was psychic from childhood and paid a heavy
price when his ability to see and hear what others could not landed him in a
mental hospital.
In
1960, while visiting England with a friend, he embarked on his first
serious attempts at mediumistic development at the Spiritualist Association of
Great Britain.
In what would
prove to be his last interview, Larry told me: "I sat with Ivy Northage, who
said I didn't need development, I just needed to learn how to control my
mediumship, because I was open all the time, which was dangerous. So Ivy taught
me the basics of opening up and closing down, particularly how to close down. I
think I was there with her for about a year."
Returning
to the USA, Larry was ordained a Spiritualist minister in 1972. While there, he
met the famous direct voice medium Leslie Flint, and the two men forged a
friendship that was to last until Flint's passing in 1994.
It
was while staying with Leslie at his West London home that Larry first met
Rosalind Cattanach, the LSM's resident secretary. She invited him to visit the
church, and the rest is history.
When Larry walked into the church it was love at first sight. "I knew I
had come home," he said.
In
the years that followed, Larry fulfilled many roles within the church and gave
private sittings in the LSM's Healing Chapel on a regular basis. He was also
one of the staff mediums at London's College of Psychic Studies.
Larry
became the LSM's president in 2000, after a three-decade association with the church, stepping down in
2011. Following Leslie Flint's passing he founded the Leslie Flint Educational
Trust, an internationally-valued resource which has since made available
hundreds of recordings of Flint's direct voice séances.
Larry was a
man of integrity and great spirituality. His trust in the spirit people was
unshakeable and absolute.
"I trust
spirit implicitly when I get up there to do my mediumship," he told me at the
close of his final interview. "I have complete faith in them and they have
never proved me wrong. I may have let them down but they've never let me down."
There will be
no public funeral for Larry, at his own request. Anyone wishing to make a
gesture in his memory is invited to send a donation to the restoration fund at
his spiritual home: The London Spiritual Mission, 13
Pembridge Place, London W2 4XB.
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