Babbitt, Elwood

Babbitt, Elwood (b. 1922)

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

Elwood Babbitt was born in Orange, Massachusetts, on November 26, 1922. His father was Roy S. Babbitt, a toolmaker for the Starnett Tool Company and a Spiritualist who sometimes had psychic experiences. From early childhood, Elwood saw spirit people and was frequently unable to distinguish them from ordinary living people. Elwood also experienced spontaneous astral projection on many occasions.

When he was sixteen, Babbitt had a serious accident, being pushed off the road by an oncoming car that had lost control. As Babbitt swerved off the road into a driveway, a chain across the road struck him in the throat causing multiple injuries. Doctors gave him only a few hours to live but Babbitt’s deceased grandmother appeared to him and assured him that he would be all right.

In 1941 Babbitt joined the Marines and was stationed in the Pacific. After the war he returned to Orange. While working as a bus driver, he began to concentrate on his spiritual development. He developed his clairvoyance and started to give what he termed “life readings” to people. In 1966, he started working with Charles H. Hapgood, of the Keene State College Society for Psychical Research. Babbitt began a series of readings in which it was claimed that he channeled the Christ Spirit and the spirits of various other Biblical figures. Hapgood described the energy which came through Babbitt not as Jesus himself but as “a universal force that can manifest through anyone.” Babbitt also claimed to channel such entities as Nostradamus, Vishnu, Pontius Pilate, and others.

Sources:

Hapgood, Charles H.: Voices of Spirit: Through the Psychic Experience of Elwood Babbitt. New York: Delacourt Press, 1975The Sites of Ledash: http://www.cosmosite.net