Keith Milton Rhinehart

The mediumship of Keith Milton Rhinehart

Keith Milton Rhinehart was born April 1, 1936, in Nunn, Colorado, and probably became one of the youngest practicing mediums in the history of mediumship. The first indication of his future powers occurred he was about five years and his parents were divorced: Although little note was taken of them at the time, except wonderment and curiosity, poltergeist manifestations occurred in his home then. An occasional picture fell from the wall and rappings were heard here and there when no-one was around.

When Keith was ten years old and living with his mother, Mrs Val Rhinehart, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, she took a trip to San Francisco without him. There she happened to meet a woman named Lillian Laneville, who was planning to attend a meeting, at Florence Becker’s Spiritualist Church. Keith’s mother was asked to accompany her, and she did on the spur of the moment. When her time came for a message, Mrs. Becker began to sing, ‘Why, oh why, oh why-o, did I ever leave Wyoming?’ Then she told Mrs Rhinehart that she had a young son at home who would, one day, become a famous medium. This story, incidentally, has been confirmed independently by Lillian Laneville.

When Mrs. Rhinehart returned home she did not mention the prophecy to her son, but she told him how the medium had identified her as coming from Wyoming. The boy scoffed. You must have written your address down somewhere there and forgotten it. He was already interested in the subject of psychical research and had read a good bit about it, but he was highly critical of any of the phenomena about which he had read. In junior high school he wrote an article on the subject for his school paper, of which he was an editor.

When Keith was twelve he began delivering a morning newspaper, and he well remembers the days when he had to traverse his route in twenty below zero weather. It was his habit each morning before starting out with his papers to glance at the personal column. Once he found an announcement there that a medium wanted a group of people to start a development class with her.

I had read about this subject since I was just a little boy, Rhinehart says. It always fascinated me. I went to this class just to see if what I’d heard about such phenomena was really true. His interest captured by the activities of the group, he attended every week after that.

When Keith Rhinehart was fourteen years old, a visiting medium came to Cheyenne and gave billet readings without charge. The boy attended, and being so critical, he was the one who offered to put the tape over the medium’s eyes. On his billet, he says, he merely asked for a message, and signed the initials K.M.R. When his turn came for a reading, he heard the words, Keith Milton Rhinehart, you are not going into science or radio as you plan but will end up a medium and will be world famous.

I stood right up in the meeting and denied that, Rhinehart recalls. I told him he was definitely wrong about me. But the message continued: Your main spirit guide will be Dr. Robert John Kensington, and you will go into trance within a year.

Although he did not believe this, Keith continued meeting with the development class, and one night he became so bored that he fell asleep. When he awoke later in the evening, he says, I was told that I had been in trance and that objects in the room had moved about in the air and deceased relatives of people present had spoken through me. After this initial experience, he went into trance every week, and his development proceeded at a fast pace.

Toward the end of that year a Spiritualist minister from Tacoma, Washington, visited in Cheyenne. Impressed with the potentialities of the young boy who was developing mediumship, she invited him to come to visit her when he could. And so he did, during the summer between his junior and senior years of high school. He held some séances there which were so successful that he was ordained as a minister at that time. Naturally, when he returned home, he kept his new status from his school friends for fear of their scorn, but he remembered the State of Washington most favourably because the hay fever from which he usually suffered did not bother him there.

When Keith graduated from high school, he had the opportunity for scholarships to four colleges, but he passed them up in favour of the University of Washington because of its climate. By the end of his first year in college, however, his mediumship had developed so strongly that his guides insisted he start a church of his own. Because he was only nineteen, others formed a corporation for him, and the Aquarian Foundation was established.

Susy Smith personally spent some three months in Seattle in the fall of 1965 attending meetings, church services, and development classes at the Aquarian Foundation. “For a time I was allowed during séances to put the medium under test conditions, and in the strictest sense of the word and limiting myself only to those meetings that were carefully controlled, I must say that I observed several phenomena that I cannot account for by normal means.

“Because physical mediumship is the most difficult of all to investigate, for so much of it is alleged to require darkness, one begins to feel that the importance of human character should enter into his evaluation of a medium and his associates. That is why I was glad of the opportunity to spend time at the Aquarian Foundation and get to know not only Keith Rhinehart but the people closely involved with him. I liked these people, and learned that many of them were still highly critical in their observations, while at the same time loving and wanting to protect their medium.

“I felt in Keith Rhinehart a sense of integrity and pride in his mediumship; I watched members of his development groups grow in their own mediumistic powers, and saw their joy in their achievements and the pleasure their friends took in their accomplishments. I began to be aware that in order to account by normal means for some of the phenomena which occurred in the dark there, one would have to presuppose the collaboration of certain members of the foundation. But as I got to know these members it was difficult to believe them capable of any kind of fraudulent collusion with a medium.

Still, in order to maintain the strictest objectivity, I can only report, as in any way conclusive to me, a few incidents that occurred in the light under strictly controlled conditions. The Sunday morning billet services give the best evidence I encountered of something paranormal, however it be explained. At these Keith goes into trance and then Dr. Kensington purports to speak through him. He asks that a stranger or skeptic in the audience come up to blindfold the medium. First the eyes are carefully wiped so that one can be sure there is no oil or grease on them that might allow the bandage to slip so that a peep hole could be devised. Then wide adhesive tape is applied flat across the eyes and temples, usually so tightly pressed down that it removes some of the medium’s eyelashes when it is peeled off afterward. In fact, among my souvenirs of my visit to Seattle I have a few strips of adhesive tape with the medium’s eyelashes on them, retrieved after message services for any evidence of oil on them. Incidentally, I have also taped my own eyes with the adhesive from Keith’s roll, and I know that it is impossible to see out when the tape is applied as it is done at the Aquarian Foundation. After the eyes are taped, with the adhesive carefully flattened and pushed down all around the eyes, a large white bandage is tied around the head. Then a box is placed in front of the medium, containing the billets that have been written and signed by members of the audience.

Dr. Kensington frequently begins giving a message even before reaching for a billet from the box. Then, as he talks, the blindfolded figure fumbles around in the box and pulls out a card. He usually twists this in his hands as he talks, and when his message is finished he passes it to a monitor, who returns it to the person who signed the billet. It is invariably the correct card for the person!—even when, as I once observed, the message was written with a mechanical pencil that contained no lead, and that had barely made a few indentations on the card. Week after week, cards are returned to visitors, strangers, and regular members of the congregation alike, and little gasps can be heard as they identify their own come back to them.

One Sunday Dr. Kensington called for a certain person, who answered from the audience. He gave her several names and messages which she identified. Then he asked her if she had ever been to a service in that church before, and she admitted that she was a complete stranger. Then, and only then, he reached into the billet box and pulled out a card which was handed to her and she identified as her own.

One Sunday a man who admitted that it was only his second Sunday at the services was asked to stand up. He was then told that Anna, his wife, was asking for Steve and, that she loved him. She was reported to say that a candle must be lighted for her at the table on Christmas, because she would be there. Then Dr. Kensington began to describe a dress, with red flowers and green leaves and dashes of yellow in it. The man by this time was standing there shedding tears, for he was told that he had very recently had this dress out because it was a favorite of his wife’s, and that he had been sitting and holding it and crying. After the service I asked this man what his message had been, wondering just how much he had given away by his question. He showed me the card that had been returned to him. It read, To Anna, please talk to me, I love you. It was signed merely, Steve. He told me that his wife had died just a few weeks earlier, and that the night before he had taken out his favorite dress of hers (which answered the medium’s description) and had sat and held it and cried over it. Needless to say, he had not told anyone of this.

When I was in Seattle, most of Keith Rhinehart’s physical phenomena were direct voices, apports, and things of that nature. An apport is an object which appears after having ostensibly been dematerialized from somewhere else and then rematerialized in the séance room. They are said to come from sunken ships, old ruins, large factories with such vast quantities of small, inexpensive objects that a few would never be missed, or somewhere of like nature. The alleged spirits seem to be very careful to do nothing really dishonest in the securing of apports. This is why, it is said, that the amounts of green folding money a medium would appreciate having apported to him never appear. The first apport séance I attended at the Aquarian Foundation was exciting and strange. I enjoyed it, but gave it no evidential value, as it was held in abysmal darkness. Although two dozen white carnations dropped neatly into my arms where I was sitting in the third row, and red rosebuds were handed to me inside a trumpet, I could not give them too much significance. I had not examined the stage beforehand to see if anything was hidden there, and I did not know whether or not a confederate in the audience might have brought them in. I found the experience highly entertaining, but not conclusive in any way.

The next apport séance that was scheduled was therefore planned to give me the maximum of assurance. Keith himself suggested that the lights be left on. This is not often done because it is said to be extremely hard on this medium to produce ectoplasm in the light-even though he is inside of his cabinet at the time. After the séance, he was reported to have been ill for several days, and a few members of his congregation were furious at me for trying to kill their beloved medium. I don’t take this too lightly because, frankly, I have never been a physical medium and I don’t know what bodily conditions are involved. I do know better than to scoff completely; far too many investigators more critical and more scientifically oriented than I have observed physical phenomena they couldn’t account for.

However, as I said, the suggestion that this session be held in the light was made by Rhinehart himself, and I cannot but give him credit for it. Before the meeting I was given the opportunity to examine the entire room, particularly the stage area, to make sure that no objects were hidden there. There was no basement under that part of the building, as I knew from personal inspection. The floor was covered with wall-to-wall carpeting, which was fastened tight to the stripping along the wall, and the chair in which the medium sat would have to be moved in order to pull it back. The walls were of plaster, with no recesses or indentations where anything could be hidden. I almost took the medium’s chair apart, but found no trick arms that would come loose, no false bottom of any kind, no hollow legs or arms.

The medium’s cabinet was in the outside corner of the room, which was at the outside corner of the building, almost against the street. Keith’s cabinet was composed of two purple velvet curtains that were pulled out on a rack from the wall to make a square in the corner of the room. The top is about two feet down from the ceiling.

After my examination of the room, I asked two men from the audience to come up and search Keith. One was Clyde Beck, who has been a member of the American Society for Psychical Research for some years. The other was a man who had never attended a séance before and did not believe any mediums were genuine. They stripped him of all his clothing and examined him carefully. (Of course, there was no way to give him an internal examination to make sure that he had nothing hidden within his body, but the nature of the apports themselves would seem to preclude that.)

Keith then resumed his shorts and shirt, and I entered the cabinet and tied him securely to his chair with a heavy cord that frayed if one were to attempt to loosen it. His wrists and bare feet were tied so tightly that afterward there were deep red grooves in them.

Now, in order that his audience will not think that he is practicing ventriloquism when the voices are heard, Rhinehart always has his mouth filled with water and then taped shut before going into trance. After the séance is over he spits out the water to indicate that he has held it in his mouth all the time. On this occasion I gave him milk instead of water, which he still retained when the session was over. I placed a wide strip of adhesive tape across his mouth and made marks on it extending out onto his skin so that if the tape were removed it would be evident. This is also part of his usual procedure.

I have learned from experimenting, however, that it is possible to loosen the center of the tape and talk without disturbing the correlation of the markings; I also know that one can do a little talking with water or milk in his mouth, and that it is possible for some persons to swallow a fluid which they later can regurgitate. I am not sure whether it would be possible under these conditions for a variety of voices to be produced, ranging from very deep, sonorous tones, to children’s prattle, to a beautiful tenor voice singing, when the medium’s natural voice is a mediocre baritone. I don’t know either whether conversation can be sustained for hours on end under these conditions, as I have heard it at the Seattle séances.

The room itself on this afternoon was illuminated by several ceiling lights and visibility was excellent. I sat in the second row of the audience, the front row of seats being vacant, and watched everything that occurred. What did occur, in the light, with the medium bound and gagged, were apports. Susan, the cabinet guide—the little spirit entity who acts as master of ceremonies—called out the name of each person in the audience in turn. Then she passed each person’s apport under the cabinet curtain for him, talking as she did so about where it had come from, what it was, or why it was particularly appropriate for that individual. I observed each object land outside of the cabinet before it was picked up.

On that Sunday afternoon, in the light, with the medium gagged and tied up, some fifty apports were dropped out of the cabinet, varying in size from tiny plastic disks and inexpensive items of jewelry and scarabs, to a Mayan or Aztec relic of stone about two inches high, a plain oval rock almost two inches long, a jagged-edged arrowhead three inches long, and several smaller arrowheads. My particular present was a bronze Roman coin from about the second century A.D.

My own testimony about Keith Rhinehart’s apports is enhanced, it seems to me, by a color movie taken in the brightly lighted church one Sunday before I arrived in Seattle. In it the medium is seen spewing from his mouth quantities of small objects as he did in the Japanese séance. The most curious thing about this film, however, is that apports are seen in his ears. I have talked to men, whose powers of observation seem perfectly reliable, who were standing right beside the medium at the time. They saw that he was not by any kind of sleight of hand sticking those black stones in his ears, but that the stones seemed to arrive as bulges in his neck, which then inwardly popped up into his ears one by one and were removed as they appeared.

This movie was made by amateurs and is not too good. By itself it is not conclusive evidence. Neither is the testimony of witnesses, when taken alone. But taking everything in aggregate, and with the testimony of the Japanese scientists to back up other statements, it seems to me that we have here one of the best possible cases for honest physical mediumship.

Although it is usually thought that good physical mediums are things of the past Keith Milton Rhinehart of Seattle, Washington has produced phenomena under controlled conditions which deeply impressed scientists in Japan. Physicists and chemists from faculties of the universities of Tokyo and Osaka and from electro-technical laboratories publicly expressed their surprise in films that have been televised in Japan and the United States.

Rhinehart’s manifestations in Japan occurred during a time when he was securely locked in a specially constructed chair, so designed that if the occupant so much as moved an inch it would be recorded. Before being placed into the chair Rhinehart had been stripped and thoroughly examined, then given a simple dark kimona to wear. He was also carefully weighed, and measured, his blood pressure taken, his urine analyzed and many other tests made. (These tests were repeated after the séance, and the results have been published; indicating that amazing physiological changes occur during mediumship.) Rhinehart was then placed into the chair and tied securely. Both of his arms lay in wooden enclosures from which he could not move them without having his motions recorded. The chair arms were studded with small buttons connected to red lights, and if his arms were raised off the buttons, the red lights would flash on. There was also an automatic weighing device fitted into the chair, which had been especially constructed by scientists for the visit of this prominent American medium. The weighing device was wired to an electrical graph-chart that recorded any of his movements.

Under these test conditions many physical phenomena showing ectoplasm in various forms were produced under white light and photographed with still and movie cameras. Ectoplasm, a substance that comes from the body of a medium during trance, is quite often invisible. When it can be seen it looks like a milky-white substance of nebulous form and consistency. It has been analyzed in a laboratory and has been found to contain human cells as well as another substance that has not yet been identified. During the Japanese tests ectoplasm flowed from Rhinehart’s nose, ears, throat, and solar plexus, levitating trumpets and producing partial materializations. Some of the phenomena were photographed on infrared motion picture film, later televised in Japan.

One sequence revealed an ectoplasmic-mass flowing from the entranced medium downward, then up over the edge of a nearby table. In the picture it appeared to be a long, thick swan’s neck. The end of the mass, looking like the swan’s beak, actually, consisted of two finger-like protuberances, known as pseudopods, which grasped a pencil and drew with it on a sheet of paper. The drawing afterwards found to be a face, recognized by Mr. Mikami, the leader of a religious group, attending the séance, as the alleged face of his spirit guide. In a second picture, taken a short time after the first, so much ectoplasm had come out that it had covered the entire body of the medium.

At other séances, arranged under controlled conditions in Tokyo and Kyoto during the medium’s visit to Japan in 1958, materialized spirits appeared: One was recognized as the deceased father of Professor Iki Goto, D.E., of Tokyo University an investigator at the séance. The spirit walked out of the cabinet down the room, turned around, and walked slowly back into the cabinet. A cabinet, of course is the dark, enclosed area in which the medium frequently sits in order, it is claimed to build power and to allow the ectoplasm a controlled area in which to form.

Some fifteen minutes later, the spirit appeared again. This time he had his sleeves rolled up and showed a scar he had received while in his earth life. This phenomenon, illuminated by white light was witnessed by some three hundred sitters who marveled and wondered, according to the widow of the late Wasaburo Asano, founder of modern psychical research in Japan and first president the Japanese Psychic Science Association.

Just before the end of the séance, Mrs. Asana reports, the guide requested that a basin be put near the medium, ready for him, when he was taken from the trance state. As soon as this was done the medium tore off the adhesive plaster that bound his mouth spat out hundreds of polished agates in rapid succession. After this more agates came from the trumpet that was poked through the cabinet curtain. There were a total of 720 pieces of agate which were later examined by Kenichi Ikeda, a jeweler who valued them at more than five hundred yen apiece.

Keith Milton Rhinehart’s trip around the world was his second world tour, and had been given to the young medium by his church, the Aquarian Foundation, as a coming-of-age present.

Rhinehart in Egypt

By Dr Aly Rady

After I returned to Egypt from England in 1957, Mr. Abu Alkeir, who was at that time the leading Spiritualist in Egypt, asked me to go to Alexandria to meet an American medium, the Reverend Keith Milton Rhinehart.  A sitting was arranged with him there, at the home of a Spiritualist of Greek origin, Mr. George Kitroff, and was to be held on the evening of 23rd November, 1957.
Blindfolded, the medium asked the sitters to put in front of him their questions to their spirit friends, written on small pieces of paper, and so I wrote two words on my piece of paper, these being my own name, and that of my mother.

When he began to demonstrate, you could see one of the pieces of paper jumping by itself to his finger-tips. And then he began to answer the questions, either by writing, or by speaking. This went on for some time, but suddenly, heard a click, like an electrical discharge, behind my ear, and about six feet high. Immediately after this, the medium wrote on a piece of paper, and threw it onto the floor.
A young chap picked it up, exclaiming “It is written in Arabic. Knowing that all the other sitters were Greek, I asked him if I could see it. When he handed it to me, I realised that it was addressed to me: ‘My son, Aly Rady , and the signature was Amouna Rady’. I was quite astonished. The handwriting was very similar to hers! Add to this the fact that the medium had never been to Egypt before, and does not himself know a single word of Arabic. He was only 21 years old at that time! After this, he began to give me a long, oral message from my mother, describing all my troubles, just as if she were living with me at home!

Following this, he proceeded to demonstrate Direct Voice. The three-piece trumpet was raised in the air in full light! Then spirit personalities started to talk to their relatives, who were really, and obviously excited at the conversations they were holding.

On the second evening, Rhinehart was in Cairo, where we arranged for him a big meeting at the Medical Doctors Association. Amongst the people who were invited by Abu Alkeir were ministers, ex-pashas, doctors and judges, etc. I was asked to introduce the medium to the audience and to act as interpreter. He demonstrated exactly the same things as on the previous night, as well as materialisation!

The medium sat behind a small black curtain as usual, and the trumpet rose above it in the full light. Before he entered the cabinet, Rhinehart filled his mouth with water, and the mouth was then sealed with gummed tape. I was one of those who shared in this operation, and then put my signature on his cheek.

When the trumpet rose up into the air without any seen force, Susan, the medium’s doorkeeper, began to speak through it. First of all, she asked somebody at the back of the hall to stop waving his hand from side to side. I looked back, and noticed a man waving his newspaper in front of his face because of the hot weather. Nobody could possibly imagine how the medium, fixed into his chair behind the black curtain, might have seen through the curtain, and through the audience to have known about that. He certainly couldn’t have heard any movement at the back of such a big hall!
According to Susan, Sir William Crookes was telling her that this night would be a milestone in the history of Spiritualism in Egypt.

Katie King then said that she would materialise. Soon, light ectoplasm began to form on the top of the curtain, behind which the medium could be partially seen. And we soon saw her shoulders and her head, covered with a white shawl, similar to the traditional picture, which was taken of her, arm in arm with Sir William Crookes, in 1874, through the mediumship of Florence Cook. I saw her very clearly as she moved from side to side right next to me, in the dim light.

After that materialisation was dissolved away, the guide, Susan came again. “Gabriel is here”, she said. “Who is Gabriel”, I asked, and was stunned by the reply – “Gabriel, who brought the Koran to Muhamed, and he blesses this meeting”. Obviously she meant the Archangel Gabriel, who was God’s messenger to all the prophets. I would like to testify here that I never saw another materialisation, or heard about the presence of an Angel in any other sitting, before or after that day.

Messages were now given loudly through the trumpet, in different languages, including German, Swedish, Arabic and English. At the time, I wrote notes down of all the messages, and afterwards, when I made enquiries, I found them all to be 100 per cent correct!

As the trumpet was pointing to a lady sitting nearby, she was being addressed affectionately in German by the voice of another lady in spirit. On hearing the message, the recipient had tears in her eyes as she answered the communicator. After the sitting, I discovered that she was a German lady, married to an Egyptian, and the spirit speaking to her was her mother.
Another message came for a friend of mine, Mr. H. A., who had to be present. The spirit communicator who came for him was his son, who correctly gave his name. He sent his father an encouraging message, and told him to take care of himself. He stated that he was now part of a group of spirits whose aim was to prevent accidents. After the sitting, this friend told me that his son was killed as a youngster when a slab of wood fell on his head in the street.

The omen that this spirit predicted for his father came true after some years, when he was given promotion in his office, and his financial difficulties were removed. Also, I knew that the father had trouble with his intestines at that time. Afterwards he developed cancer and was sick for some years until he died 12 years after this message.

Whilst blindfolded, the medium gave written messages to many members of the audience, and I collected some of them. They were similar to the one I received in Arabic, the last evening in Alexandria, and testimonies from the recipients later showed them all to be correct.

After the Rhinehart sittings in Egypt in 1957, I wrote a book, in Arabic, called ‘A Miracle in Egypt’, which recorded Rhinehart’s work during that visit. Some years later, at the request of Mr. Rhinehart himself, it was translated into English.

The glorious work of the Rev. Keith Milton Rhinehart, and his superb demonstrations of physical phenomena, affected me very deeply. It gave me the motive to begin a new campaign to spread this wonderful truth in Egypt. I began to establish the Pyramids Spiritual Association (PSA for short), which was opened on the 5th April, 1958 – just four months after Rhinehart’s visit to Egypt.

He visited forty countries and held séances under test conditions in many of them, including England, India, and the Union of South Africa.

One of the most extraordinary séances of all time took place in Johannesburg, South Africa.

It was a joint séance at which two powerful physical mediums, Alec Harris and Keith Rhinehart, were linked by a broad stream of ectoplasm, and ten figures materialised.

The séance was given by Harris in return for one of Rhinehart’s he attended in company with nearly 50 others, which went on for four hours!

Here he heard pure, fluent Zulu spoken to a native servant of the house by his “dead” father, through Rhinehart’s direct-voice mediumship.

Nearly every sitter received a personal message.

The messages to Mr and Mrs Alec Harris included one from her mother, who gave both her Christian and surnames.

At the Harris séance, possibly unique of its kind, Rhinehart, the American medium who is on a round-the-world tour, sat with a dozen others and watched several figures materialise, including a spirit guide of his whom he recognised and conversed with.

This amazing figure had a spirit light glowing inside his ectoplasmic head, and shining through the eye sockets!

Then a tall materialised spirit figure, known as the “scientist”, appeared bathed in a strong bluish light, put his hands on Rhinehart’s solar plexus and drew forth a long stream of ectoplasm.

This he stretched and broadened as he walked backwards to Harris, to whose body he joined it.

He next took a section of the ectoplasm to a sitter and told him he was going to give him healing.

Mrs V. Carleton Jones, who was present, says that the “scientist” fed the ectoplasm into the patient’s solar plexus drawing it as he did so from Rhinehart, via Harris.

It was a living force seen by all present, and it broadened and moved in a most amazing way.

Then, in a flash, it was gone!

A further magnificent materialisation occurred when a leading guide of the Harris circle appeared with his whole torso transparent and showing a glowing light within.

His arms were solid and his ectoplasmic draperies hid his lower limbs, but his body was just a shell, with a pulsating light coming and going in a fantastic manner.

Everything that took place was clearly seen in the light of three red bulbs.

Mrs Carleton-Jones said that this séance seemed to dispel the theory that two physical mediums cannot sit in the same circle without cancelling each other’s power.

“To me, this was among the most wonderful experiences I have ever been privileged to witness.”

She has attended scores of voice and materialisation séances.

Mrs Carleton Jones describes Rhinehart’s public sittings in Johannesburg as a highlight in the psychic history of that city.

At his voice séance, half a dozen sitters received apports in the form of small hand-painted cards, each with a different subject.

Each came one at a time, through the floating trumpet.

Recipients were asked to feel inside the trumpet and announced that it was empty.

A rattling sound was next heard.

The sitter then said that a card had materialised inside the trumpet.

NOTE by ZERDINI:

When I visited the Japan Psychic Science Association in 1995 I was shown the film of Rhinehart’s séances. It is kept under secure conditions together with many valuable and out-of-print Spiritualist books in English and Japanese.

I am aware of the articles and claims written about Rhinehart nevertheless he was an outstanding physical medium at the age of twenty-one when he went on his world tour.

I was in South Africa when he visited that country.

He came to Cape Town and gave a brilliant demonstration of clairvoyance.

In the audience were Mona van der Watt and her husband, Eben.
Rhinehart singled her out and, amongst other good evidence, gave her the names of some of her guides which were all correct.
She had no doubt that he had a genuine gift.
His joint demonstration with Alec Harris is certainly one of the most astonishing demonstrations of physical mediumship ever seen.
I know that Barbanell organised meetings in London for Rhinehart and also wrote very favourably about him.
It is not beyond the realms of possibility, as a young man surrounded by sycophants constantly praising his abilities, that he started to believe the stories about him.

He visited 40 countries and lectured and held séances in over half of them.
He was the first visiting medium to demonstrate psychic phenomena in Turkey.
After his first séance there which was printed on the front page of an Istanbul newspaper over 600 Moslems arrived for the second séance.
Spirit communicators managed to speak in their native tongues and give their native names.
After leaving South Africa he visited India then went on to Japan.
In March 1958 he returned to America after visiting Honolulu.

Keith Milton Rhinehart died April 30, 1999.

18 thoughts on “Keith Milton Rhinehart

  1. Hi, George,

    Can you please send me a copy of this biography of Keith Rhinehart which I could submit to automatic translation by copy/paste.

    Thank you by advance.

    Michel GRANGER
    Former member of the regretted NAS

      • KMR lived with my Family, Lady Cherie our sons Mark and Matthew-we also stayed with him – we traveled together for 30 years – we opened and financed many Groups kept out of Seattle by Count and Keith – We have established a Legacy for KMR in a home for that purpose and have transferred all his materials on to the Net – come rejoin your Aquarian Family Visit – https:/vk.com/videos272219402

  2. I was drawn to a psychic fair being held at the masonic lodge in Portland Or. About 29 Years ago. Something just guided me there,had no knolage of Keith Rinehart. When I arrived the fair was already winding down, but a voice came over the innercom “anouncing the readings of master Kamora in the autatorium about to begin.” Wow, I got lucky. A bit of history was presented about Keith Rinehart, then after a time he just kind of floated on to the stage w/ white flowing robe and long white hair his skin was translucent. I could feel a great spiritual presence. Then he did his medium work .I was so mesmerized ,I couldn’t think of anyone to put in the billet box, but I did join the Aquarian foundation and attended meetings while being held in pdx. Best time of my life! Greatest spiritual knowledge I’ve had so far. Lorraine.

    • Keith Milton Rhinehart was on his world tour at the age of 21 when he came to Luanshya in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). He stayed in our home and held several amazing seances in our dining room, under strict test conditions. Keith was a gaunt-looking young man with dark hair and deep-set eyes. He had no money or possessions. He had only one set of clothes, and a single pair of shoes. Spiritualists around the world accommodated him in their homes and paid for his minimal expenses. He charged nothing for his spiritual seances, clairvoyance, demonstrations. Unfortunately, I was only a child and my parents did not think I and my younger sister were old enough to attend them. He also gave several riveting talks on Spiritualism on the mezzanine floor of an amateur theatre, and gave clairvoyance to an African walking past the theatre and was fetched on instruction by Keith by a member of the audience. The young man’s father came through and he spoke to him in his native language..He have photographs of him with family and friends and spiritualists in our front garden.

      According to sitters, the trumpets would fly around at a phenomenal rate, and known guides and loved ones came through, talking in their own voices. A dog yapped in a trumpet and ran around the circle room.

    • My husband I had a 10 year beginning although a sad parting., with K..M.H.
      However the Truth is all so beautifully documented here. Thank you for this. It has uplifted me and the eternal reality that I shall ever embrace with “gracious gratitude ” and undying appreciattion.
      Gracious Gratitude was a part of a beautiful sentence of a profound lesson given in special classes for the more devoted students, by choice. I would be happy to tell you of our ten years of of what evolved into as close contact with him as perhaps possible, at that time.
      Had he known a loving personal relationship, later in his lite. Those decades that mounted , unanswered inner questions re: trust may not have affected him quite so intensely.
      The tragic end is not what matters anymore.
      Only the Sacred Truth that 2nd to my Beloved Husband, Absolutely Heralded the true intent and trajectory of my life and Eternal Light, Love, Life, Truth, Goodness and all that IS Holy Sacred and True.
      That has become my breath of life itself.
      Thank you again for your thorough accounting of the essence of what I’m grateful to see is no longer a secreted mystery. One I’ve not discussed for 43 years.
      Ever!

  3. I’m on the verge of reaching KMR videos in Japan, there is a person looking for videos on JPSA but we need a few more details. If we get the data the videos will be published on the Internet. Please can utmost account the following:

    With regard to “film”.

    Was it a video?
    Who did show it to him?
    When I visit JPSA did in 1995?

    Any information will help.

  4. This is a well written testimonial about an amazing medium Keith Milton Rhinehart! Is there a biography that has been published anywhere? I would purchase one!
    Thank you for sharing these experiences of Higher Spiritualism with the world.
    Namaste’

  5. To Whom This May Concern, I am the youngest protege of the late great psychic & physical phenomenon medium: Dr. Richard Ireland. I am very interested in getting books about Keith M. Rhinehart’s work, if you could call me at xxxx, I’d deeply appreciate it. Thanks, Love Sean MichaeL

    • Hi Sean – I won’t be able to phone you but if you have any questions I’d be happy to try to help. Please feel free to ask.

  6. I knew Keith for many years. Studied in his group Aquarian Foundation. He was not only the most adept medium that the world has even known, in my opinion as he was thoroughly testing in scientific laboratories, but also a very refined and caring person. Highly intelligent, deeply concerned about the conditions and problems of humanity, totally committed to serving mankind. He invested millions of dollars of his own money to build up his study groups and to invest in other worthy projects to aid humanity. He personally influenced legislation in Hawaii to relieve the unfair pressure on marginalized groups in society and he appeared before the US Supreme Court and won a 9-0 victory that has become law protecting minority group associations from the invasive and destructive practices by stronger richer organizations. His greatest contribution may be the teachings he was able to be the instrument for transmitting from the Ascended Masters involving all areas of human life and spiritual and psychic development. History will remember him, if it is just, as a figure the likes of H.P. Blavatsky. I dearly miss him.

  7. Hello,

    I would like to inquire as to the reason why most information regarding Mr. Rhinehart is not publicly available? To what reason can we attribute the lack of publicly available documentation or conveyance of this documentation to the public? Or am I perhaps misinformed?

    From appearances, it would seem that information regarding perhaps the most gifted physical medium in the last century is also the most secret. Is this true?

    Thank you kindly,
    Keith

  8. Are you still looking to contact, hear from, people that knew Keith Rhinehart or attended the foundation during the early years? My father was an active core member and spent much time with Keith. I grew up hearing the stories and my father continued to participate in the spiritual/metaphysical world by later becoming a reverend himself in the mid 2000’s.

    My father dropped from the church when Keith began to be present less often and the atmosphere changed. Also, my father began to go to Alaska to seek quiet and calm. I believe this is also when Rhinehart was either in legal issues or had begun spending more time or of state.

    My father is now well aged and I’m doing research to compile information on Keith Rhinehart for him I helpfully came across your grand document.

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