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T.C. Lethbridge (b.1901 - d.1971) - Archaeologist, Mystic, Explorer..

Thomas Charles Lethbridge was a remarkable man. However, after his death in a nursing home in 1971, there was the real possibility that his lifetime's achievements were about to be overlooked and forgotten by the world. This great injustice was avoided due to a number of remarkable coincidences that would eventually confirm him as a leading player in the world of psychical research.

In Cornwall, England during the 1960's, Joy Wilson, the wife of the celebrated author Colin Wilson, had been reading a series of short books published by the archaeologist T.C. Lethbridge. Lethbridge was renowned in the field of archaeology, but his remarkable series of books dealing with 'occult' matters, written during the
last decade of his life, had seen him ostracised by his profession and his academic peers.

It was only after the publication of Wilson's book 'The Occult' (Hodder and Stoughton, 1971), that Joy drew her husband's attention to the work of Tom Lethbridge. Immediately, Colin realised that Lethbridge's absence from 'The Occult' was a major omission from his study. To correct matters, Wilson wrote to Lethbridge at his Devonshire home and enclosed a copy of 'The Occult' for his attention. Within days, Wilson received a reply from the Lethbridge household, but it was not the response he had been expecting. Mina Lethbridge replied, informing him that her husband Tom, had recently died.

Over the next few years, the Wilson's kept in touch with Mina and the results of this dialogue were included in Wilson's next major work. Wilson dedicated the entirety of part one of 'Mysteries' (Hodder and Stoughton, 1978) to the work and ideas of T.C. Lethbridge. Wilson also contributed the foreword to Lethbridge' final, posthumous work 'The Power of the Pendulum' (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976). Credit is therefore due to Wilson, for acknowledging Lethbridge as a major figure in the study of the paranormal.

In 1918, at the end of the First World War, Lethbridge was seventeen and chose to study at Cambridge University rather than join the army. Here he soon became bored and spent his time reading books on archaeology and making drawings of ancient brooches at the local museum. It was here that he met the curator Louis Clark, who, after Tom had completed his degree, invited him to work as a voluntary digger on archaeological sites.

This Lethbridge was able to do, for he had a private income and this work eventually led him to become the keeper of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities at the Archaeological Museum in Cambridge. Here he held the posts of Director of Excavations for the Cambridge Antiquarian Society and Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology During his time at Cambridge, Lethbridge wrote a number of well-received books based on his love and understanding of aspects of British history. He was a natural explorer and had an inquisitive mind and this rational approach to his vocation, enabled him to apply commonsense and intelligent solutions to historical conundrums that he encountered in the field. During his time at Cambridge, he embarked on a number of expeditions into the northern waters beyond Britain. These journeys took him to Greenland and further a-field, fuelling his growing interest in ancient mariners, who he believed, had navigated these waters in prehistory, not only discovering Greenland and Iceland but possibly America.

The results of his expeditions manifested themselves in a unique series of books published between the years 1937 and 1954. Lethbridge was a natural writer, and his own experiences of the lives and cultures of the people he wrote about were exemplified in his work. Even in this initial series of books, he wasn't afraid to challenge the status quo. He presented his theories as ideas and possibilities, and left it up to others to prove him wrong. If this eventually happened, Lethbridge was always the first to acknowledge the error of his thinking, for he believed that dogma was the curse of all learning. He found the trade unionism of his work stifling and took every opportunity to challenge and stretch the boundaries of his profession. It is easy to judge his work with the benefit of hindsight, as many modern-day critics often do, but without the benefit of an enquiring mind, Lethbridge believed, that the advancement of the human race was doomed.

A watershed in Lethbridge's career was the publication of his work "Gogmagog - the buried gods" (Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1957). The book dealt with his discovery of long-lost, chalk-cut, hill-figures at an Iron Age camp known as Wandlebury, situated in the Gogmagog Hills, south of Cambridge. Lethbridge had located the figures using unconventional methods of detection, and these methods, including; using a piece of local folklore as a detection tool, were frowned upon by his peers. His profession's hostile and virulent reaction, not only to his 'discovery', but to his association with others who were considered 'un-scientific' in their approach, prompted Tom and Mina to leave Cambridge, and eventually set up home at Hole House in the village of Branscombe in Devon. It was this move to Branscombe and the relative isolation of Hole House, that led him to embark on a remarkable series of works that he was to be principally remembered.

Many have criticised Lethbridge's later books for being incomplete and repetitive, but Colin Wilson believes that this is necessarily so, and likens them to the notebooks of Leonardo de Vinci or the daily journals of any important discoverer. None of Lethbridge's books contain a complete set of ideas, theories often discussed in one book, are overturned or revisited in another, but what we witness is the unrestricted evolution of an astonishing mind. In the wake of unprecedented criticism, his publishers Routledge and Kegan Paul are to be commended for their patience and perseverance with their 'unconventional' affiliate. Lethbridge is most famously known for his experiments with a pendulum, which he utilised as a tool for divination. He believed that every inanimate object had the ability to store information, to somehow capture it's history within itself. By using the pendulum as an instrument of detection, he believed he could unlock information 'recorded' within any given object. His explanation for ghosts and ghouls were based on a similar theory, in that rooms, places or atmospheres, could, in the right given conditions, somehow 'record' themselves onto the ether. For these 'recordings' to be replayed, it would of course, require the right person and appropriate conditions to be in place.

Lethbridge believed that 'mind' was distinct from brain and that consciousness was a faculty that we had developed in our own evolution. He had problems with both the Darwinian vision of evolution and the view expressed by the theologians. He believed that a middle way was the more likely solution to the conundrums of human evolution and the fruition of consciousness. The pendulum therefore, was just a contrivance to aid the mind in its quest for understanding. He truly believed that magic and the paranormal were simply powers of the mind that had yet to be explained by science. Throughout his work, he was always thorough in his own experimentation, always recording accurately his findings. During the course of his work, he had soon realised that primary research was the key to discovery, for a reliance on second-hand knowledge, often resulted in inaccuracies and derision.

The body of work left behind by Tom Lethbridge reveals a man not content with accepting the limitations generally accepted by his fellows as 'givens'. In Lethbridge's eyes, boundaries were there to be challenged, and dogma was perceived to be the greatest curse of all learning. His findings and discoveries must be viewed in the context of their time - on the threshold of an unmapped and un-chartered world. Lethbridge is to be commended, for he stepped beyond the boundaries of his own profession and bravely taking a step into the dark, leaving us with a legacy of findings, in a subject regarded then, as 'occult'. Only today, over 30 years later, does science finally begin to acknowledge and corroborate the remarkable discoveries of T.C. Lethbridge.

Welbourn TEKH - Lincoln, England 2003

Thanks to Toby for reminding us about Lethbridge.
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Last Updated 27/07/2008