Geraldine Dorothy Cummins (24 January 1890 –24 August 1969) was an Irish spiritualist

medium Medium may refer to: Aircraft *Medium bomber, a class of warplane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Medium'' (1921 film), a German silent film * ''The Medium'' (1951 film), a film vers ...

, novelist and playwright. She began her career as a creative writer, but increasingly concentrated on mediumship and "channelled" writings, mostly about the lives of Jesus and Saint Paul, though she also published on a range of other topics. Her novels and plays typically documented Irish life in a naturalist manner, often exploring the pathos of everyday life.

Early life and creative literature

She was born in Cork, Ireland, the daughter of the physician Ashley Cummins, professor of medicine at the

National University of Ireland The National University of Ireland (NUI) () is a federal university system of ''constituent universities'' (previously called '' constituent colleges'') and ''recognised colleges'' set up under the Irish Universities Act 1908, and signifi ...

and sister to

Mary Hearn Mary Ellice Thorn Hearn M.D. F.R.C.P.I. (25 February 1891 – 1969) was a gynaecologist and first female fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. Early life and education Hearn was born on 25 February 1891 to Ashley Cummins (rugby ...

and Iris Cummins. In her youth she was an athlete, becoming a member of the Irish Women's International Hockey Team. She was also active as a

suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...

. Her desire to follow her father in a medical career was vetoed by her mother, so she began a literary career as a journalist and creative writer. From 1913 to 1917 she wrote three plays for the

Abbey Theatre The Abbey Theatre (), also known as the National Theatre of Ireland () is a theatre in Dublin, Ireland. First opening to the public on 27 December 1904, and moved from its original building after a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the p ...

in collaboration with Suzanne R. Day, the most successful of which was the comedy ''Fox and Geese'' (1917).Alexander G. Gonzalez, ''Irish Women Writers: An A-To-Z Guide'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, pp.76–78. She published the novel ''The Land they Loved'' in 1919, a naturalistic study of working class Irish life. As she concentrated on

mediumship Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or ghost, spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or ...

, her literary work tailed off. However, she continued to publish creative literature in her later years. Her solo-written play, ''Till Yesterday Comes Again'' was produced by the Chanticleer Theatre, London, in 1938. She also published another novel, ''Fires of Beltane'' (1936) and a short-story collection ''Variety Show'' (1959). Literary critic Alexander G. Gonzalez says that her work tries to encompass the full range of Irish social life, from the aristocracy to the lower classes. In this respect she was influenced by

Somerville and Ross Somerville and Ross ( Edith Somerville and Violet Florence Martin, writing under the name Martin Ross) were an Anglo-Irish writing team, perhaps most famous for their series of books that were made into the TV series '' The Irish R.M.''. The te ...

. Gonzalez considers her short story "The Tragedy of Eight Pence" to be the "finest" of her writings, the tale of a "happily married woman trying to shield her ill husband from the knowledge that his death will leave her penniless."

Psychic writings

She began to work as a medium following prompting from Hester Dowden and E. B. Gibbes. She received alleged messages from her spirit-guide "Astor" and was an exponent of

automatic writing Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged sp ...

. Her books were based on these communications. In 1928 she published ''The Scripts of Cleophas'', which provided channelled material on early Christian history complementing ''

Acts of the Apostles The Acts of the Apostles (, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; ) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of The gospel, its message to the Roman Empire. Acts and the Gospel of Luke make u ...

'' and St. Paul's writings, supposed to have been communicated by the spirit of Cleophas, one of Paul's followers. This was later supplemented by ''Paul in Athens'' (1930) and ''The Great Days of Ephesus'' (1933). Cummins' next work described human progress through spiritual enlightenment. ''The Road to Immortality'' (1932) provided a glowing vision of the afterlife. Its contents were purportedly communicated from the 'other side' by the psychologist and psychic researcher Frederic W. H. Myers. ''Unseen Adventures'' (1951) was a spiritual autobiography. She also published several books of spiritually-derived knowledge about details of the life of Jesus. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

she allegedly worked as a British agent, using her personal contacts to identify pro-Nazi factions within the Irish Republican movement. She also employed her psychic activities to support the allied cause, sending channelled messages from sympathetic spirits to Allied leaders to support the war effort. This included information from

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as Teddy or T.R., was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt previously was involved in New York (state), New York politics, incl ...

Arthur Balfour Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (; 25 July 184819 March 1930) was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As Foreign Secretary ...

and Sara Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt's mother.Wendy E. Cousins, "Writer, Medium, Suffragette, Spy? The Unseen Adventures of Geraldine Cummins", ''The Paranormal Review'', 45, 3–7. In the 1940s and 50s she worked with psychiatrists to develop a model for using spiritualism to treat mental illness, ideas she explored in ''Perceptive Healing'' (1945) and ''Healing the Mind'' (1957). She collaborated with a psychiatrist who used the pseudonym R. Connell on both books. Their method was for Cummins to "read" an object associated with the patient and thus identify either childhood traumas or experiences of ancestors (preserved as "race memory") which have created the problem. This included treating a patient who was concerned about his homosexual desires by discovering that this derived from the fact that his Huguenot ancestors were humiliated by Catholics in the 18th century. Her biography of writer and spiritualist Edith Somerville was published in 1952. She also wrote ''The Fate of Colonel Fawcett'' (1955) which offered her psychic insights into the disappearance of the explorer

Percy Fawcett Percy Harrison Fawcett (18 August 1867 disappeared 29 May 1925) was a British geographer, artillery officer, cartographer, archaeologist and explorer of South America. He disappeared in 1925 (along with his eldest son, Jack, and one of Ja ...

in Brazil in 1925. Cummins claimed she had received psychic messages from Fawcett in 1936. He was still alive at that time, informing her that he had found relics of

Atlantis Atlantis () is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works '' Timaeus'' and ''Critias'' as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world ...

in the jungle, but was ill. In 1948 she had a message from Fawcett's spirit reporting his death. Her last book was an account of her conversations with the spirit of Mrs Willett (the spiritualist name of Winifred Coombe Tennant): ''Swan on a Black Sea; a Study in Automatic Writing; the Cummins-Willett Scripts'' (1965).

Reception

The

and alleged channeled material from Cummins have been examined and have been described by some psychical researchers to be the product of her own

subconscious In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness. The term was already popularized in the early 20th century in areas ranging from psychology, religion and spirituality. The concept was heavily popu ...

. For example,

Harry Price Harry Price (17 January 1881 – 29 March 1948) was a British Parapsychologist, psychic researcher and author, who gained public prominence for his investigations into psychical phenomena and exposing fraudulent Spiritualism (movement), spiritu ...

who studied various mental mediums including Cummins wrote that "there is no question that most of the automatic writing which has been published is the product of the subconscious." Paranormal researcher Hilary Evans noted that unlike most spiritualists, Cummins did not accept the phenomena at face value and questioned the source of the material. According to the psychical researcher

Eric Dingwall Eric John Dingwall (1890–1986) was a British anthropologist, psychical researcher and librarian. Biography Born in British Ceylon, Dingwall moved to England where he was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge (M.A., 1912), and the Univ ...

information published in Cummins' scripts allegedly from Mrs Willet were discovered to be erroneous. Biographer Rodger Anderson wrote that although spiritualists considered Cummins completely honest "some suspected that she occasionally augmented her store of knowledge about deceased persons by normal means if by doing so she could bring comfort to the bereaved." Cummins' book ''The Fate of Colonel Fawcett'' published in 1955, contains her automatist scripts allegedly from the spirit of Colonel Fawcett. Spiritualists have claimed the scripts are evidence for survival. However, the psychical researcher Simeon Edmunds noted that Fawcett before his disappearance had written articles for the '' Occult Review''. Cummins also contributed articles to the same review and Edmunds suggested it is likely she had read the work of Fawcett. Edmunds concluded the scripts were a case of subliminal memory and unconscious dramatization. Other researchers such as Mary Rose Barrington have suspected fraud as Cummins had long standing connections with friends and families of the deceased that she claimed to have contacted and could have easily obtained information by natural means. The classical scholar

E. R. Dodds Eric Robertson Dodds (26 July 1893 – 8 April 1979) was an Irish classical scholar. He was Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford from 1936 to 1960. Early life and education Dodds was born in Banbridge, County Down, the son of ...

wrote that Cummins worked as a cataloguer at the

National Library of Ireland The National Library of Ireland (NLI; ) is Ireland's national library located in Dublin, in a building designed by Thomas Newenham Deane. The mission of the National Library of Ireland is "To collect, preserve, promote and make accessible the ...

and could have taken information from various books that would appear in her automatic writings about ancient history. Her writings were heavily influenced by literature and religious texts. Dodds also studied her book ''Swan on a Black Sea'' which was supposed to be an account of spirit conversation but wrote there was evidence suggestive of fraud as Cummins had received some of the information by natural means. Eric Robertson Dodds. (2000). ''Missing Persons: An Autobiography''. Oxford University Press. pp. 105–106.

Works

Plays

*''Broken Faith'' (co-written with Suzanne Day; Abbey Theatre, 1913) *''The Way of the World'' (co-written with Suzanne Day; Abbey Theatre, 1914) *''Fox and Geese'' (co-written with Suzanne Day; Abbey Theatre, 1917) *''Till Yesterday Comes'' (Chanticleer Theatre, London, 1938)

Fiction

*''The Land they Loved'', 1918 *''The Fires of Beltane'', 1936 *''Variety Show'', 1959

Non-Fiction

*''Dr. E. Œ Somerville: A Biography'', 1952

Psychic works

*''The Scripts of Cleophas'', 1928 *''Paul in Athens'', 1930 *''The Great Days of Ephesus'', 1933 *''The Road to Immortality'', 1933 *''Beyond Human Personality'', 1935 *''The Childhood of Jesus'', 1937 *''After Pentecost'', 1944 *''Perceptive Healing'', 1945 (with R. Connell) *''They Survive'', 1946 *''The Resurrection of Christ'', 1947 *''Travellers in Eternity'', 1948 *''The Manhood of Jesus'', 1949 *''I Appeal Unto Caesar'', 1950 *''The Fate of Colonel Fawcett'', 1955 *''Mind in Life and Death'', 1956 *''Healing the Mind'', 1957 (with R. Connell) *''Swan on a Black Sea'', 1965

Notes

External links

*
''Fox and Geese'' by Suzanne Day and Geraldine Cummins at Great War Theatre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cummins, Geraldine 1890 births 1969 deaths 20th-century Irish novelists 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights Irish psychics Irish spiritual mediums Irish women dramatists and playwrights