George Chapman

THE MEDIUMSHIP OF HEALER GEORGE CHAPMAN

By David Nicholls Ph.D

George William Chapman was born in Bootle on 4 February 1921. After the death of his mother when he was five years old, he was brought up by his grandparents, during the time of the Great Depression. After leaving school at the age of fourteen, employment was scarce although he managed to secure a number of different occupations, e.g. garage attendant, professional boxer and docker, before joining the Irish Guards. He was then transferred to the Royal Air Force and also served in the Royal Navy.

George recalls that by about this time: ‘Apart from a keen interest in animals and a natural ability to nurse them back to health, there were no signs in the first twenty-five years of my life that I would become a healer’. After marrying Margaret in 1944, Vivian, their daughter was born a year later. However, only a short time after her birth, George and Margaret were told that she would not survive, and only four weeks later she died. At this point, George was confronted with the questions faced by those in a similar position, e.g. how such a thing could happen. Nonetheless, on reflection, he views this as a turning point in his life: ‘For the first time I began to think seriously about the possibility of an after-life…I asked as many people as I could. Clergymen, to my dismay, were of little help apart from warning me not to dabble with the supernormal’.

Despite the all-too-obvious lack of information about survival, George continued his quest to find answers; it was after being demobbed and starting work in May 1946 as a fire officer with the Aylesbury Fire Brigade, that the first indications of an answer began to appear. With another officer, he passed away the time between call-outs, using an upturned glass and alphabet, and it duly moved spelling out messages. Aware that it is argued that such communication only arises through the subconscious mind of the sitters, George’s conclusion was that, ‘sometimes the content of the messages was so astounding that this theory could be instantly ruled out’. George also tested this mode of communication with his wife and when he did so, messages from his mother, about whom he knew little, were received; on investigation of what was being relayed, he discovered that the communicator could only be his mother. One item of information received was that she was now caring for Vivian.

Prompted by what was happening, the next step in George’s progress was developing trance mediumship, sitting for three hours each day. In these periods he accomplished astral travel and made contact with both his mother and Vivian. In view of what was taking place, George began to meet with other persons interested in the subject; on these occasions he would become entranced and a number of regular communicators would make themselves known. With these, one communicator, who would change George’s life, spoke to those who were present: he gave his name as Dr Lang.

Following up what George had already been told on a number of occasions, i.e. that he possessed healing powers, Dr Lang advised George that his mediumship would relate to the work of healing, and furthermore, he would have the principal role in George’s activity. The significant feature about Dr Lang was that, unlike many other guides and controls whose pre-mortem existence cannot be verified, he had lived in Britain in the twentieth century, and George therefore went to great lengths to verify this. George argues that verification of identity is of major importance: ‘The spirit communicator should speak as near as possible to the way he spoke on earth, using the same phrases and mannerisms and manifesting personal characteristics. He should be able to give dates, names and details of his earthly experiences that can be verified, and be able to discuss intimate matters with relatives and colleagues still on earth’. And indeed, George reports that, ‘William Lang, however, satisfied all my demands’, and he was able to contact people, both colleagues of Dr Lang and the people whom he had treated, and, ‘they confirmed it was the same Dr Lang they had known’.

From this time, George has gathered together information about the life of Dr Lang and demonstrated the continuity between the surgeon and his own mediumship. One incident that he describes is when a Dr Singer heard that a ‘Dr Lang’ had been successfully treating people suffering from cancer and made an appointment to see George: Singer was in fact suffering from cancer himself. On walking into George’s healing sanctuary, he was quite unaware that the ‘Dr Lang’ working through George was the very same Dr Lang who had taught him at Middlesex Hospital many years previously. But this suddenly changed when Dr Lang spoke through the entranced George, and greeted Singer with the words: ‘Hello my dear boy, I am happy to see you again’. George has supplied many examples of when a person, who knew Dr Lang before he died, has recognized him in George’s mediumship.

In time, more requests were made to George for healing, and eventually these came from abroad. Not wishing to leave his family, that by now included his two children, Michael and Lana, George attempted to initially work while remaining in this country. This in itself caused problems as: ‘One of the penalties of being well known is that people find out where you live and turn up on your doorstep, without an appointment, expecting to receive healing on the spot’.
Some of those who unexpectedly arrived at George’s home in Aylesbury even included those who had travelled from abroad. A number of these had seen many healers but there had been no improvement in their health. In the case of one person who saw George after flying from Morocco and was seeking help for her daughter Isabelle, ‘what impressed her about Dr Lang was that he was the first healer who did not promise to cure Isabelle. All he said was that he would do his best’.

In view of the number of requests for healing from those living in Europe, George established clinics in various European locations, and began to travel to treat people requiring Dr Lang’s assistance, e.g. Germany, Switzerland, Spain and the United States of America. In fact, by the close of 1974, he had been referred to as ‘England’s most travelled healer’. George relates how his life has involved hectic travelling between cities in different countries, and because of patients submitting progress reports, he needed typists and translators; his working ‘day’ often went into the early hours of the morning. One of the reasons for working abroad was the fact that he became aware that it was primarily only the wealthy who could travel to England to benefit from Dr Lang’s skill: by setting up clinics abroad, this ensured those who were not in such an advantageous position could also benefit. Accounts of George’s work appeared in Psychic News; one eyewitness told Maurice Barbanell that she had seen spirit operations carried out by Dr Lang on over a hundred people. These included a boy deemed to be an imbecile, who after treatment by Dr Lang, appeared to be enjoying virtual normality as he left the consulting room. Patients suffering from cataracts, glaucoma, arthritis and a host of other ailments were successfully treated by Dr Lang through George’s mediumship.

Dr Lang’s achievements are not restricted to treating human illness; his work has also included animals, e.g. Fella, a guide dog, who, ironically, suffered from cataracts, and was successfully healed. One Paris vet, who was so impressed with the improvement in his own health after contacting George, began to send his own cats to him for treatment. In fact, animals benefiting from George’s presence goes back to the days of his early childhood: as a young boy in the Bootle area he was energetic in caring for injured/stray animals during the years of the Depression. On realizing the extent of animal suffering, he began to run errands and use the money earned to feed the animals for which he was caring.
Due to his perseverance, this eventually led to him running his own sanctuary in someone’s cellar in return for doing the owner’s shopping and cleaning. The result was: ‘People began to talk about the boy who undertook any errand or job to earn a few coppers to buy food for his stray cats and dogs, and who put splints on their limbs and nursed them when he found them injured’. Indeed: ‘To this day, some of the people in Bootle talk about the unselfish boy who nursed animals with such tenderness’.

It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to know which of the healings effected by Dr Lang working through George, can be cited, simply because there are so many from which to choose. Therefore, the following are selected at random. One, in October 1974, when Dr Lang treated Mme. Gutowski for poor blood circulation and a fibroid (a non- malignant tumour in the womb), brought about unexpected results. Five months later she wrote to George saying: ‘Dr Lang told me I would be healed by December 26th… Not only was his prediction correct but there has been a bonus. As soon as I was healed I became pregnant, and I am expecting a baby during the first week of October 1975’.

In 1974, a physician directed Joseph Tanguy to George. This young man was suffering from a malignant tumour in the brain, and after an unsuccessful operation was told that he had only six months to live. Distant healing was commenced immediately and was followed up by a spirit operation by Dr Lang in the December. After two further consultations, Dr Lang advised that the disease had virtually disappeared. Five months later at the Raymond-Poincar‚ Hospital, the young man was examined and ‘considerable improvement’ was noted. This continued and his recovery was so noticeable that he was able to resume full-time work. The conclusion was: ‘Eventually, further EEG [electroencephalograph] examination showed the tumour had completely disappeared’.

The doctor who sent this patient to George stated in writing: ‘I have, therefore, complete trust in sending to him [Dr Lang] those patients for whom all known therapies have failed…The healing of M. Tanguy’s brain tumour, which had been beyond all therapeutic resources, is a completely convincing example’. In fact the same doctor has sent many patients to George, and in fact even did so as ‘a block- booking’ without George even knowing what their ailments were.

A number of examples of George’s healing successes are given by S. G. Miron, L.D.S., R.C.S. (Eng.), a dental surgeon who wrote in 1957; one of the cases that he cites was of a young girl suffering from serious kidney disorder and facing the prospect of the right kidney having to be removed, although the left one was not working properly either. After a number of unsuccessful operations, it appeared that her life expectancy was no more than a year. Miron observed: ‘the outlook could only be described as very bad…one could be honest and say pretty hopeless from a medical standpoint’. As her health began to rapidly deteriorate, her parents contacted George and after absent healing, there was an improvement. This was followed up by contact healing and in less than a month, her health ‘was greatly improved’.

Dr Lang continued to treat her on a monthly basis and on returning to the hospital shortly before Miron wrote his book, it was discovered than her right kidney ‘was beginning to function and the left kidney was functioning practically normally’. Miron’s book includes an introduction written by the Revd William Rose, an Anglican priest who referred to witnessing George’s work and added: ‘I emphasize that he does not work for gain, nor claim any merit…He regards himself as a servant sent with the Power to heal’.

In the case of spirit operations carried out by Dr Lang through the mediumship of George Chapman, a fascinating account is supplied by Morton B. Jackson, a Californian lawyer: the operation in this instance was to alleviate the painful condition of rheumatoid spondylitis (a condition that attacks not only the joints, but the ligaments that bind them). On entering the room where George worked, he related how he saw George, a man in his forties, who spoke as ‘an elderly gentleman’, and ‘somehow I found no difficulty in accepting the fact that it was actually Dr Lang with whom, I was conversing…Everything was very easy and natural’. After a cordial conversation, Dr Lang began his spirit operation on Jackson, who became: ‘aware of the sharp cracking noise of his snapping fingers occasionally accompanied by instructions to Basil [Dr Lang’s son who died in 1928] and others apparently assisting him. The nature of the touch, while light, seemed consistent with the handling and utilisation of invisible instruments…All this while…Dr Lang explaining, as he went along, what it was he was doing and why’.

Another witness to George’s mediumship was Lady Barbirolli who was treated by Dr Lang in April 1972. Of this event, she recorded that after George had said that he was about to become entranced: ‘He seemed to have become another man, and to have changed in appearance, voice, manner and age’.
During the spirit operations that were carried out by Dr Lang, it was noticed that he operated with his left hand, while George is right-handed; furthermore, a tremor was observed. On making enquiries, it was ascertained that Dr Lang, before he died, did in fact suffer from tremors, and as this was less of a problem in his left hand, he tended to use this hand when carrying out surgery.

One report by Dr John Best described the remarkable healing of a friend’s wife who had been diagnosed as having a thyroid disorder, with only eight months to live. Best details how after a few visits for contact healing by Dr Lang, her terminal illness was cured, and she became active and enjoyed life again. However, as Best’s fiancee, Marjorie, had died not long before this time, he wrote to George and asked whether he might speak to Dr Lang about the questions that he had concerning the afterlife.
An appointment was arranged and on entering George’s consulting room, the medium was already entranced and Best noticed that the personality of George, whom he had met before, was wholly absent and had been replaced by Dr Lang. While asking Dr Lang questions, that were duly answered, Best was advised about how he could secure a better communication with Marjorie. Best followed the advice that he was given, and found that a link was established in which he had no doubt that he was communicating with his fiancee.

And who was William Lang? Firstly, although he was, and is, invariably addressed as ‘Dr Lang’, he was actually ‘Mr Lang’ in view of being a surgeon, but through his warm character, most of his patients preferred to call him ‘Doctor’. In the initial stages, George was very anxious to confirm Dr Lang’s identity, and contacted the BMA (British Medical Association), but it could not confirm his existence due to the lack of details supplied and the fact that ‘Lang’ was a common name in the field of those practising medicine. However, later, Dr Lang was speaking with one of George’s fire brigade colleagues and he said that he wanted a book to be written about his healing work, adding that he had not revealed much information earlier on, as he did not want his identity to be revealed. He therefore went on to give details about his life, i.e. he had worked at Middlesex Hospital. On making enquiries, it was discovered there had indeed been a William Lang working there as an ophthalmic surgeon between 1880 and 1914.

With this information, the BMA was approached again and it was duly confirmed that Dr Lang had been a distinguished surgeon and ophthalmologist. George was still unsure but he reports that, ‘over the months the kind doctor…slowly revealed more about himself which left us in no doubt’. The life story of William Lang, born on 28 December 1852 in Exeter, only serves to demonstrate his marvellous skill and untiring dedication to the work of healing.

When only eighteen years of age, he entered the London Hospital in Whitechapel and then qualified in 1874 as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons. Five years later, he became a Fellow. In time, he developed an interest in sight, and became the assistant surgeon to the Central London Ophthalmic Hospital (later Moorfields Eye Hospital), at the age of twenty-seven. His achievements included several publication of important works regarding ophthalmology, and with others, founded the Ophthalmological Society. It would be impossible to deal with, or even list all of his accomplishments herein; however, an indication of his high standing is given by testimonials reproduced in Surgeon From Another World, together with other details concerning his extraordinary abilities. After Susan, his first wife, died in 1892, he married Isabel; his joy was made manifest in Basil, his son, who became a distinguished surgeon and often worked with his father. However, Basil died in 1928 after developing pneumonia, and the world and hopes of Dr Lang, collapsed; he then retired to Crowborough and died there on 13 July 1937, aged eighty-four.

In the obituary notice for William Lang, his abilities were praised and there is reference to the deep respect with which he was held: he was a man, ‘always good tempered, always courteous, always full of sound advice’. But what is most striking is the amazing conclusion to this notice:- ‘When we all foregather in the Elysian fields there will be one pleasure that we wish – to see him again perform…’.

While the writers were entirely correct in thinking that Dr Lang would continue his healing work after his death, little did they realize that he would do this in the present world. It is interesting to note that in his childhood, Dr Lang had witnessed paranormal phenomena in the family home and his father had told the young William these were caused by unseen persons: ‘They are spirits’, he would say, ‘and there is nothing to be afraid of…they just come to visit us, to be around and help us’. Later on, the idea of life after death became a subject of great interest to him and it was often a topic of discussion with other academic colleagues who shared the same interest.

Surely one of the most important statements concerning Dr Lang’s continuing activity through George, is the one made by his own daughter, Marie Lyndon Lang: ‘an active and very well-educated woman with a level-headed approach to life and death’ . After meeting George, and seeing him regularly for many years, and speaking with Dr Lang while George was entranced, she was only too willing to make the following crucial statement: ‘I can truthfully say the William Lang who operates via the body of George Chapman is, without a doubt, my father’. In addition to speaking with her father through George’s mediumship, she was also able to do this with her mother and Basil. George regularly met Dr Lang’s daughter together with a group of friends and medical contemporaries of Basil Lang, who also knew William Lang, and they ‘questioned and tested’ both George and Dr Lang. Of these occasions, Dr Lang’s daughter stated: ‘We could only come to one conclusion: that the person who speaks through George Chapman and claims to be William Lang is, without a doubt, my father…It is a fact that William Lang, my father, is as much alive today’. Noteworthy is the fact that it was Dr Lang’s daughter and this group of persons who encouraged George to take up healing full-time, which he did in 1957.

Confidence is also expressed by the Revd Allan Barham, a experienced member of the SPR and Churches’ Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies. On meeting George, he observed that the man with whom he spoke when George was entranced, ‘had the appearance, voice and mannerisms of an elderly doctor of a generation earlier. He was obviously a cultured man with an extensive vocabulary’. Moreover, Barham remarked on how he understood, ‘that a number of William Lang’s former colleagues recognised him in George Chapman when the latter was in trance, and would meet him regularly…Sometimes they would even bring their patients for consultation and treatment’.

An excellent review of George’s work is supplied by Joe Bernard Hutton in his very readable Healing Hands, that has already been cited. The book was first published in 1966 and has been reprinted several times as well as being translated into several languages. Hutton begins his account by describing how in 1963 his doctor advised him that he was suffering from poliomyelitis. Hutton, a journalist, had suffered poor eyesight for most of his life, and from 1958 had been under the care of a leading ophthalmic specialist, but in 1963 he was faced with the dire prospect of becoming blind. He had already been told by his specialist that without certain complex operations, he would become permanently blind. However, due to the risk element, he had decided not to undergo the operations. By 1963, clear signs of this awful reality had begun to appear, i.e. a person standing just ten yards way was no more than ‘an indistinct outline’. One day his wife passed him a copy of Psychic News, and asked him to read a certain article; only with tremendous difficulty and great discomfort did he manage to read the article: this described ‘some remarkable happenings in Aylesbury’, relating to a Dr Lang working through George Chapman.

Hutton’s wife implored him to ‘give it a try’, and it was with only the greatest of reluctance did he consent. An appointment was made to see Dr Lang, and Hutton travelled to George’s home. On entering the consulting room, the first thing that struck Hutton on seeing George were the ‘wrinkles and lines . . . of true old age, but I knew Chapman was in his early forties’. Dr Lang introduced himself (‘Even the voice sounded old’), and on holding Hutton’s spectacles, still having not opened his eyes, Dr Lang remarked on Hutton’s poor eyesight and that the spectacles were classified as minus eighteen. He then went on to comment on a childhood splint operation that had been carried out on his eyes. Hutton records: ‘I was astounded. How could he have known this? Not even Pearl, my wife, knew. I never spoke about it. In fact I hadn’t even thought about it for years’. Dr Lang made no promises except that he would do his best: he began examining Hutton and referred to the diagnosis of poliomyelitis and the existence of a hepatitis virus. At this, Hutton said: ‘If I had been amazed before, I was speechless now. I had not told Chapman anything about my own doctor . . . nor had I mentioned being ill. Yet here was the medium, telling me something that only my own doctor and my wife could possibly have known. And neither had been in touch with George Chapman. It was uncanny’.

Hutton then details how Dr Lang explained what he was about to do and said that he would operate with the assistance of Basil and other colleagues: ‘He came across to the edge of the couch and then lifted his hands and started to move them, and flick his fingers just above my eyes. His own eyes stayed tightly closed. The fingers of his hands opened and shut as though taking and using instruments’. Hutton comments that after Dr Lang had explained what he had done, that: ‘Incredible as it may seem, I began to experience the physical sensation of incisions bring made. They were painless, but none the less capable of being felt. The man’s eyes never opened, and he did not touch me’. Further surgery was carried out, at this point for the virus, and yet again, Hutton could feel instruments being used, albeit painless. On sitting up, he was concerned to find that he could barely see and Dr Lang, recognizing this, reassured him that this was merely a temporary phase. On not being able to even guide himself out of the consulting room, the receptionist guided Hutton’s exit and he groped his way to the car and waited for his wife to return to drive them both home. There, he recorded that he sat ‘cursing and depressed’ by what appeared to be a deterioration. But ‘then it began to happen’: he suddenly saw things around him coming into focus and consequently, he ‘wept then, fully and freely’. During the journey home, his sight continued to improve and he could ‘see much farther than ever before’ and his eyes no longer hurt when confronted with lights.

The next morning, Hutton took hold of the newspaper and was reading it until his wife pointed out what he was actually doing. His sight had vastly improved together with the absence of the accompanying effects of the poor vision as were the pains of his liver condition. He recalls how his friends and colleagues were, not surprisingly amazed at how he, ‘a pathetically short-sighted man’, could now suddenly type with ease without having to ‘crouch over with my nose to the keyboard’. He continues by recounting how further surprises were in store when undressing that night, and he noticed ‘a long mark, a thick line about five inches long’, that ‘looked exactly like the scar of a surgical incision just as if I had had an operation on my liver’. He concludes the record of his own healing by referring to how he later returned to Dr Lang who told him the operation had been a success and adds: ‘But I didn’t have to be told. I knew
it. It was a miracle and it happened in Aylesbury on a cold January day in 1964’.

It was, of course, this event that prompted Hutton wholly to abandon his initial sceptical viewpoint and investigated George’s mediumship, resulting in his book, Healing Hands. Apart from the fascinating interview with Dr Lang detailing something of his post-mortem life and involvement in healing, the book includes testimonies by people with such diverse backgrounds as the Chairman of Psychic Press, a retired police superintendent, Member of Parliament, matron, state registered nurse, laboratory technician and ex-miner. Hutton selected patients at random and interviewed them, acquiring written authorities to consult their hospital and doctor(s), and obtaining their health records. He remarks: ‘I succeeded eventually to establish from lw medical case histories that the patients had indeed been classed “medically incurable”, yet the latest records stated: all tests established that no trace of the disease could be detected’. If Hutton did not have enough evidence by this stage, he was about to gain some more: when his book was about to be published, he was injured and he refers to how ‘the orthopaedic surgeon decided my left leg must be amputated’. Hutton arranged an appointment with Dr Lang and was operated on by him, Basil and others. Afterwards, Dr Lang informed Hutton, you won’t lose your leg’, adding that not only would amputation be unnecessary, hut he would not suffer any problems with the leg either. Hutton then saw the hospital surgeon again and he states that, ‘Lang’s forecast proved correct in every respect’. The surgeon remarked that the recovery was ‘incredible’, and writing twelve years later, Hutton confirmed that his leg had caused him no problems.

George moved from Aylesbury to Machynlleth in Wales, where he continued his healing work; this was an area that Dr Lang had often visited before he died. By the time of moving here, George had already started to build up a collection of items belonging to both William and Basil Lang. George recalls how Dr Lang has taken special pride in telling visitors about some of the articles when they came for healing through George’s mediumship. In this respect, George comments: ‘I am surrounded by reminders of Dr Lang’s presence. He uses my body and, in return, I have use of most of his belongings!’.

June 1996 marked fifty years from the time when George Chapman first became involved in spirit communication, which led to his remarkable healing mediumship and partnership with Dr William Lang. As someone who knows something of his work, and has experienced the benefit of absent healing through him, I would begin with my own personal observation: this being that George Chapman comes across as a medium with a strictly no-nonsense approach, and his feet firmly on the ground. Furthermore, despite the attention that could be derived from his accomplishments, he has chosen rather to quietly devote himself to his healing work. In fact, in view of what he has achieved, not only in healing but in providing evidence of survival, he is undoubtedly a medium who stands out prominently in the sphere of twentieth century mediumship.

One recognition of this was gaining the ‘Spiritualist of 1975’ award, presented to him by Harry Edwards.

As Barbanell so rightly observed in Psychic News (27 March 1976): ‘When Spiritualism’s history comes to be written, the Lang/Chapman partnership which has brought health to thousands of sufferers after their cases were called “hopeless”, will contribute some of its most illumined pages’.

***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

The Daily Telegraph published the following obituary:

George Chapman

12:01AM BST 12 Aug 2006

George Chapman, who died on August 9 aged 85, was said to be one of Britain’s most remarkable healers; for 60 years he treated patients from all walks of life, including celebrities and members of the medical profession, by going into a state of trance and allowing the spirit of William Lang to “operate” through him.

William Lang, the son of a wealthy merchant, had been an ophthalmic surgeon at London’s Middlesex Hospital from 1880 to 1914, and his cultured tones from beyond the grave were a stark contrast to those of the Liverpudlian fireman through whom he spoke.

Some may have dismissed this vocal contrast as acting on George Chapman’s part, but William Lang’s daughter, Lyndon, and his grand-daughter, Susan Fairtlough, confirmed not only that his speech and mannerisms were as they remembered them, but also that they discussed events and people who would have been unknown to George Chapman, who was not even in his teens when Lang retired from private medical practice.

Chapman’s “surgery” on his patients was carried out on their spirit (or etheric) bodies, from which the benefits were transferred to the subjects’ physical bodies. Sceptics may have scoffed, but Chapman’s supporters point to many astonishing healings achieved. He is credited with curing an inoperable and malignant brain tumour, among other cancers, as well as with improving various eye conditions and even lengthening a patient’s leg. Chapman himself maintained that the purpose of his healing mission was to prove that there was life after death; the healings, he said, were secondary.

Born in Liverpool on February 4 1921, George William Chapman was brought up by his maternal grandparents after his mother died when he was five. Finding employment was difficult when he left school in Bootle, he took work as a garage hand, butcher and docker before becoming a professional boxer.

Having joined the Irish Guards in 1939, Chapman subsequently transferred to the Royal Air Force as an air gunner. In 1944 he was based at RAF Halton, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, where he trained apprentices in unarmed combat, self-defence, small arms and battle drill.

It was at Aylesbury that year that he met and married Margaret May Dickinson. Their first child, Vivian, born in 1945, survived only four weeks. The Chapmans were devastated but, encouraged by a fellow fire officer (Chapman had joined the Fire Brigade after being demobbed), they used a glass-and-alphabet to receive spirit messages which reassured them that their daughter was alive and well in the next world.

These experiments also induced a trance state in Chapman, and a variety of “entities” spoke through him. In time, however, “Dr Lang” manifested himself, explaining that his mission was to heal the sick.

Over the years Laurence Harvey, Stanley Holloway, Patricia Neal, Barbara Cartland and Roald Dahl were among those said to have sought the spirit doctor’s help.

So, too, did a dental surgeon, SG Miron, whose wife ironically had had the roof of her mouth perforated during a tooth extraction. No surgical procedure could cure the problem, but Lang’s intervention caused the wound to heal, resulting in Miron writing a book, The Return of William Lang, about this and other remarkable cases.

Lyndon Lang was so impressed with Chapman’s mediumship that she entered into a contract with him to hold twice monthly meetings at her home in London, to which she invited friends and medical contemporaries of her brother, Basil Lang (also a surgeon), most of whom had known William Lang. This arrangement continued for 10 years while Chapman served as a fireman and also held healing clinics, mostly in the Midlands.

When Chapman left the Fire Brigade in 1956, those meetings became weekly, but he also had more time to see patients and to travel. Eventually, he ran regular clinics in Paris and Lausanne, and carried out spirit operations in the United States, India and other parts of the world. Lyndon Lang showed her support for Chapman and his mediumship by leaving much of her estate to him on her death in May 1977.

By then, Chapman had moved to Pant Glas, close to Machynlleth, Wales. A healing clinic adjoined the house, where the medium slept in William Lang’s bed, a gift from the surgeon’s daughter.

George Chapman is survived by another daughter, Lana, and a son, Michael – a healer in his own right who assisted his father for more than 30 years.

*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Interview with Dr Lang – Guide of George Chapman

By George Cranley – January 1999

On a recent visit to George Chapman, while in the treatment room, I seized the opportunity to question Dr Lang about his method of entrancement. Here are his tape-recorded answers:

Q: Dr Lang, for over fifty years you have been working through George Chapman how do you take control of the medium?

A: Quite simply, George spends a little time relaxing before he starts really working. He starves himself for the weekend. So he just has tea and water and maybe a small sandwich in the evening. He prepares his body and all that happens is that he is here half an hour before the patients to get himself into a relaxed state and then I start to move towards him and take over the physical body as his own spirit starts to move out.

Q: Is this a very complicated process?

A:What happens is, as George sees me moving towards him, it is as though he is being suffocated and starts to doze off and then from behind the eyes a pressure is exerted from the rod and cones to the bulbar part of the brain so the brain is deadened.

For instance, if you look at the light and you move your hand you pick up light reflections which are transmitted through to the brain so you don’t actually feel that the eyes are light vibrations. So I exert pressure here (indicating the back of the head) so that his own spirit gradually moves out until the end of the healing session because he has to stay in trance this way for the whole period of time.

Q: What exactly can you see?

For instance, I can’t see your machine, can’t see the couch, I can’t see anything that is of the material. I can only see the spirit of the object or person.
I can move around the room but I like everything fixed in a way that suits me. Where George is right-handed I operate left-handed so the couch must be for left- handed persons (the couch is flush with the wall so it can only be used by a left-handed person). At the end of today when I suppose I should have about thirty-odd patients and tomorrow there is a coach with about forty, I understand, from Holland, it will be trance throughout. I control George’s body today till about 3.30 pm (approx. five hours) I suppose.

With patients I am rather quick to perform my operations but at the end of the trance Michael (George Chapman’s son) will first come in talk with me, say it is all finished, he may ask me a few questions and then I gradually withdraw from George’s body. His own spirit then will move strongly with the raised vibration from the Spirit World back into his own body and he starts to become at one with himself. It could take him two hours or more to recover.

Q: When you take control are there a group of people helping you to take control?

A: I have the team. Outside you see a brass plate with various names on it and these medical gentlemen, contemporaries of my son Basil most of them, and they, of course, made a contract for George going back to 1947 but they first met up with him in 1946 to talk with me in a general way. George used to travel to London each Thursday in the month for them to carry out various studies of George when in trance. There was Sir Alexander Cannon who used to try to get across from the Isle of Man and those people have now passed into this life, medical men who worked with me at London, The Middlesex, are still practising with me today. We are a team and so, if I have a patient with say an eye problem, I will call upon one of the oculists.
I was the first medical man to bring in a dental gentleman to a hospital and I brought in William Heard who was a dentist who I had a lot of respect for. William came, Sir William Heard, because I found during my lifetime upon earth many patients with serious eye problems were suffering with what you call moon- shaped or Hutchinson type teeth due to disease. Therefore, I used to have their teeth extracted because they were poisoning the system anyway.

When George had completed the contract it became a gentlemen’s agreement that when the last person in the contract had passed on he could more or less retire and the last one to pass was my daughter, Lyndon, but George kept visiting her until she passed over at a very ripe old age, way into her nineties. Younger medical men that were associated with the team wanted George to continue under them but he refused. The medical group made a trust for him for his life so he could retire while still quite young so he could have retired when he was 55 or 60.

FOOTNOTE(1): George Chapman, at the time, was 78 and was still healing at his beautiful home in Mid-Wales. In addition he travelled to many countries, as he had done for years, where he held regular healing clinics. A former fireman and champion boxer, turned healer, he had the energy of a man half his age — Zerdini

FOOTNOTE(2):

I experienced a spirit operation by Dr Lang through the mediumship of George Chapman some years ago which averted a proposed operation at my local hospital and can, therefore, confirm everything written above.  To date the condition has not returned. – Zerdini

Further Reading:

Surgeon from Another World by Roy Stemman

 Healing Hands by J Bernard Hutton

4 thoughts on “George Chapman

  1. I have just re read the book Surgeon From Another World and found it most interesting. I am a qualified Healer and the book is an inspiration to me.

  2. What a wonderful site. I am still working my way through your posts, some of which are truly beyond belief! I think your site should be required reading for all pseudoskeptics. Thank you George. I am learning something new with every one of your posts. – AOD

  3. As an investigative researcher, especially of the paranormal and ufology, I’ve been trying to find tangible proof of the existence of the supernatural without little luck I’m afraid as the first thing I look for is fraud or misinterpretation of evidence. I just happened to come across a copy of ‘Healing Hands’ in a used book store and the cover put me in mind of a typical hype story that was concocted just to make money from gullible insecure Romantics which I find is the case well over 95% of the time. However, to date I’ve not yet found anything to even remotely suggest fraud in this case nor so far any attempts to try and debunk it. In fact, considering his notoriety I can’t understand why he isn’t far better known than Edgar Cayce and Jean Dixon, and in my opinion ‘Healing Hands’ and ‘Surgeon From Another World’, and certain other books I’ve come across over the years need to be republished in high quality hardbound editions from non sulfuric acid paper, and more certified documentation obtained to more fully support this. The Shanti Devi case, and the more recent books ‘Life Before Life’ and ‘Return to Life’ both by Tucker, and ‘Soul Survivor’ are more evidence that supports this case and answer many questions, like men who claim feeling like women trapped in a mans body, and vice versa. Also books like ‘The Body Electric’ by Dr. Robert O. Becker, and ‘The Spark in the Machine’ by Daniel Keown help shed light on this subject.

Leave a Reply to Graham Lambden Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.