Bishop James Pike and the Medium Ena Twigg with Roy Stemman (4K Reboot)

Summary

Former Psychic News editor Roy Stemman joins Jeffrey Mishlove to tell the story of Ena Twigg, a British medium known for her integrity who quietly bridged the spiritualist movement and the Anglican Church. The centerpiece is Episcopal Bishop James Pike of California, who became convinced through Twigg's sittings that his son Jim had survived death after taking his own life. Twigg also reportedly received messages from Pike himself after he went missing in the Israeli desert in 1969, apparently before his body was found.

Key takeaways

• 1A Church of England committee set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1930s produced a report favorable to spiritualism, which the Church withheld until Psychic News obtained a leaked copy.
• 2Bishop of Southwark Mervyn Stockwood and Canon John Pearce-Higgins sent grieving people to Ena Twigg without revealing their identities in advance.
• 3Novelist Rosamond Lehmann, author of 'Dusty Answer', received evidential messages from her late daughter Sally, including a clue to Sally's father's name, Wogan, and later co-wrote 'Letters from Sally' through automatic writing.
• 4Bishop James Pike's son Jim died by suicide in New York; Pike's group recorded 55 unexplained incidents in their Cambridge flat, and theologian Paul Tillich, Jim's godfather, reportedly communicated through Twigg.
• 5Pike and Diane Kennedy co-wrote the bestseller 'The Other Side'; Pike also had a televised sitting with medium Arthur Ford, which Stemman treats with some skepticism.
• 6Twigg described Pike trying to climb a cliff in the desert before his body was found, which matched the later findings; Stemman's book about her is 'Medium Rare: The Psychic Life of Ena Twigg'.

Glossary terms

Source

Transcript excerpt

Everybody expected that the church's report on spiritualism would be published once it was concluded. And instead of it, they sat on it. And you might ask yourself, why would they sit on a report having proclaimed their interest in examining spiritualism? And the answer you might come up with is that the conclusion of the report wasn't what they were expecting. In fact, it was favorable to spiritualism, whereas most Anglican ministers were dead against it. And if you said to a minister in the church, I think I'm going to have a sitting with a medium to see if my dead mother or father can communicate, they would have warned you against the perils of doing so and dreadful things might happen to you. So, Psychic News got its hands on a copy of the report. Keep watching to learn more. New Thinking Allowed is presented by the California Institute for Human Science, a fully accredited university offering distant learning graduate degrees that focus on mind, body and spirit. The topics that we cover here. We are particularly excited to announce new degrees emphasizing parapsychology and the paranormal. Visit their website at cihs.edu. The new Thinking Allowed magazine issue 10 on UFOs and UAP is now ready for free download. And you can also order beautiful printed copies. Go to newthinkingallowed.org. Book 4 in the New Thinking Allowed Dialogue Series is Charles T. Tartt, Seventy Years of Exploring Consciousness and Parapsychology Now available on Amazon. Thinking Allowed, conversations on the leading edge of knowledge and discovery with psychologist Jeffrey Mishlove. Hello and welcome. I'm Jeffrey Mishlove. Today we'll be exploring the bishop and the medium. And by that I mean Bishop James Pike, the Episcopalian Bishop of California, and Ena Twigg, the British medium. ...

Excerpt from New Thinking Allowed, Aug 30, 2026. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.