Doris Stokes facts for kids

Doris May Fisher Stokes (6 January 1920 – 8 May 1987), born Doris Sutton, was a British spiritualist, professional medium, and author. Her professed ability to communicate with the dead, public performances, television appearances, and memoirs made her a household name in Britain. During her lifetime she was a controversial figure, with some believing her to possess psychic abilities, but investigations published after her death demonstrated that she used techniques including cold reading, hot reading, and planting accomplices in her audience, giving the appearance of having paranormal abilities.

Early life

Stokes was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England in January 1920. In her memoirs she claimed that she started seeing spirits and hearing disembodied voices in childhood, and that she developed these abilities further once she joined a local spiritualist church after her son died in infancy. She was recognized as a practising clairaudient medium by the Spiritualists' National Union in 1949.

During a crisis of confidence in 1962, she gave up her work as a medium and retrained as a psychiatric nurse, but had to retire five years later following an attack by a patient. She returned to her psychic work, and in 1975 became the resident medium at the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain.

Career

Stokes first came to public attention in 1978 during a visit to Australia, when she appeared on The Don Lane Show. In the wave of interest that followed her appearance, she played to three capacity audiences at the Sydney Opera House. She was also the first medium to appear at the London Palladium; the tickets sold out in two hours. She was especially believable because of her smiling, down-to-earth manner, which avoided the traditional trappings of the séance and gave her performances almost "the ordinariness of a transatlantic telephone call". In 1980, her first autobiographical volume, Voices in My Ear: The Autobiography of a Medium was published, pulling her further into the public eye in the UK. More than two million copies of her books were sold. Positive testimonials continued to come forward into the 2000s, from celebrities including Eamonn Holmes and Dale Winton.

Stokes was condemned by the Church of England and other Christian denominations, which objected to spirit communication as an offence to God. She countered that her work was done for God, and in accordance with the Bible's injunction to "test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4.:1).

Stokes's health was poor throughout her life. Her thirteen or so cancer operations included a mastectomy, and the April 1987 removal of a brain tumour, after which she did not regain consciousness. She died in Lewisham, London on 8 May 1987. Described variously as "an individual of great personal warmth", "the Gracie Fields of the psychic world" and "a ruthless moneymaking confidence artist", she continued to give free consultations or "sittings" until a month before her death, when she left only £15,291.

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