Ronald J. Baker: Trance Medium

[Karyn]

Ronald J. Baker: Trance Medium

Ronald J Baker was born in Birmingham, England in 1936, the sixth of seven children in a strict Roman Catholic family. He attended primary, junior and convent schools, but all was not well. By the age of eleven, his natural mediumship abilities became noticeable. Although he would have been destined for the priesthood, he couldn’t accept the church’s fire and brimstone view of the world and heaven. He preferred the tranquility of his astral visions. When he was thirteen, he was directed by spirits to seek out Mrs. Millage, a Spiritualist. He attended development circles at Aston Spiritualist Church and trained with Mary Morris, a mystic and trance lecturer. Within the first year, he gave his first trance lecture.

Baker attended college, taking accounting, shorthand, and typing. He became an accounts clerk for an export merchant and later worked for several heavy-manufacturing companies. After Mary Morris died, Ron continued to receive communication from her, as she checked to see that he was doing what she had taught him. At one point, Baker was told to move north. He moved to St. Helens and joined St. Helen’s Spiritualist Church. It was there that he was given messages about sugar, had his urine tested, and was eventually diagnosed as diabetic.

Baker spent time teaching at The Arthur Findlay College and acted as General Secretary of the Spiritualists National Union, but he eventually moved back to Birmingham in 1976. He also worked closely with Gordon Higginson when Gordon gave materialization seances, and with Glasgow medium, Albert Best.

“I’ve had the automatic writing gift since I was 12,” Baker said in an interview for the Psychic News in November 1981. “I’ve utilized it occasionally over the years. It came to the fore several months ago after I resorted to it as a form of diagnosis when healing a patient.”

Baker worked with Scottish medium, Alex Gilchrist to receive messages through the technique known as automatic writing. “I would produce the questions,” wrote Gilchrist in a personal letter. “And he would answer them using automatic writing. It was a fascinating thing to take part in, and altogether we produced 125 questions and answers, which was produced in book form….” Gilchrist said the book, Automatic Writings of Ron Baker, was out of date, and that other questions and answers, which were produced later, remain unpublished. He hoped to publish a new book with expanded contents.

Baker was also a trance medium, and one of his guides was a Doctor. “He told us about an incident where one of his clients had an ear problem and was referred to the hospital to treat the ear. There was no improvement, and Ron’s ‘Doctor’ informed them that the hospital had treated the wrong ear. On checking the hospital notes, it was found that this was true,” Gilchrist wrote. “He [also] relayed a message from a church member who had passed on. The congregation was adamant that he was still alive and had spoken with him earlier that day. Someone was dispatched to his house where they found him dead in his chair!”

Baker moved several times in the 1980s while his health became precarious, and he developed a degree of kidney failure and then a severe episode of meningitis. After going to Glasgow, he returned to Birmingham, where his health deteriorated rapidly, and he became hospitalized.  He died of kidney failure in December of 1986 at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham.

Additional Reading:

“Behind the scenes with a Roman Catholic who became a brilliant medium.” Psychic News March 15, 1980

“Psychic partnership leads to spirit guidance on many vital topics” Psychic News April 11, 1981

“Doctor communicates within days of passing.” Psychic News November 21, 1981

 “Church donates 600 pounds to fund.” Psychic News May 16, 1987