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Please read the transcript below as you listen...

Watson:

I've always rather been inclined to...well, disregard it, to say the least [to] make contact. In fact, it's only just latterly that I've, sort of, felt that I might be inclined to come...

I can appreciate people coming if they want very much to get into touch with some soul, some friend on Earth and have something of importance to speak about. Or perhaps to give some help or comfort to someone who's in dire distress. And, of course, I know that there are certain souls who make a habit of coming regularly, who probably feel that they are able to give some knowledge appertaining to this new life.

I suppose it all rather boils down to the individual, as to whether they should come or not. Fortunately we have free will. We don't have to come back unless we want to or if we feel the need is urgent. I rather feel myself inclined to stay away from Earth. I couldn't quite see from my point of view what benefit could possibly be derived from it.

Perhaps it is I am a little selfish, inasmuch that I am so content and so happy here, that I really have no real desire to make a connection or contact on Earth. There is no one now very near or dear to me. From the point of view of coming, it doesn't strike me as being very...well, necessary.

Anyway, out of curiosity more than anything else, I have come to see what you look like...

Greene: [Laughing]

I hope you're not disappointed?

Watson:

...on your side of life. And I must admit, that considering I haven't been anywhere near the Earth for, must be fifty years, I would say that - speaking from my own personal point of view - I have no particular desire to come again.

So much seems to have changed. Life seems to have become so fast. People seem now to have no time, one for the other. And the tranquillity and peacefulness of the countryside seems to have become disrupted by all these modern inventions, which seem to, evidently, get you about very quickly - in the process of which, you see nothing or very little, I should think.

And, at the same time, it seems to me that you have no real time to concern yourselves with the things that really matter. Everyone seems to be very unsettled. No one seems to be particularly satisfied or happy.

And, quite frankly, although I understand and it seems that the poorer classes have been certainly given a better way of life - at least they seem to have every modern convenience and they seem to have every possible opportunity... uh, which really, in a sense, makes them, I don't know, so vastly different from what I remember the poorer classes.

Of course I know there was dire poverty and distress and I know that in many senses the poorer classes had a very rough time.

And all that, no doubt, is to the good. One wants to see progress for people and it's nice to know that nowadays they do have more money in their pockets and more leisure and better housing and indeed, have made vast progress, in certain respects anyway. At least they're now well fed and well looked after and certainly seem to wash more often!

Greene:

Friend, can you tell us something about yourself - your name and what you're doing, the sphere you're on?

Watson:

My name, I doubt very much, will convey anything to you. I can't see any reason why it should do. My name was Isaac.

Woods:

Isaac?

Watson:

Isaac Watson.

Woods:

Isaac Watson. Yes...

Watson:

Although that really wasn't my name. Watson was not the family name, but we changed it to Watson for reasons... family reasons. Actually we were a Jewish family...and my father was in business...

Woods:

Yes.

Watson:

...and, uh, indeed, I entered the business when I was fifteen... sixteen and we were very successful. But, um...my brothers too started various businesses. Actually, we were of Polish descent. My... my father came to England and... in his youth, in early eighteen hundred. But, um, that's a long story. I'm sure you're not interested in our family history.

Greene:

Were you brought up in...strictly in the Jewish faith Mr Watson?

​

Watson:

Oh yes, I was brought up in the Jewish faith. But in my thirties I wouldn't have said I had any religion particularly. I wasn't very keen. I wasn't very interested in religion, as such. In fact, if anything, I think I became, more or less, what you'd term atheist. I read a good deal, read various books - on this subject, as a matter of fact, in the latter years of my life.

I can't say that I was terribly impressed, although I was interested. There's such a lot of nonsense goes on, of course. That's another reason I think why I wasn't all that keen on coming back. There's so much nonsense goes on in this business of Spiritualism.

Woods:

Could you tell us...

Watson:

Besides I didn't want to come back. As a matter of fact, I had enough of your world when I was there, one way and another; a very unsuccessful marriage, but I wasn't a fit man. My health wasn't good and I had a long illness and I was very glad to leave your world altogether.

I was perhaps not an easy person to get on with and yet, at the same time, I think that, um...I tried to do the best I could for my work people. I wasn't a bad person, I don't think. I certainly wasn't a taskmaster and I tried to give them all the help that I could. And indeed, I think I can say in comparison with the vast majority of businesses of my time and people of my time in position - I think I treated my people extremely well.

I wouldn't like you to think that I'm, sort of, satisfied with myself. Far from it. Who is? But looking back and remembering the dire poverty that there was, particularly... particularly in the built-up areas in the big cities... in Leeds and Manchester and so on, I think really, today of course, people have much better opportunity.

But this business of communication, I realise of course, it could do a great deal of good, but I don't think you're ever going to break down the barriers that people have built up with religious intolerance. I think the task is so immense. I don't know how many religions you've got - there must be hundreds of them I should think. Everybody all, sort of, sticking to their guns...

Woods:

Could you tell us something about your side of life?

Watson:

Oh I could. As a matter of fact, um... since I've been here I've changed a lot of my views. But I suppose it is that one gets so adjusted to the new life, with all its many interests and the many attractions that there are, in all sorts of ways. And gradually, particularly if you've been unhappy - as I was on Earth, for various very good reasons - you are very glad to forget it all and settle here and take an interest in life.

I don't see the sense, with some of these people that make an habit of coming back. I don't know what good it does them or anyone else. Of course, I suppose like everything else, there are exceptions.

Greene:

Mr Watson, what was your actual reaction on passing over. Can you give us a description of how...

Watson:

A sense of relief...

Greene:

How did you find yourself?

Watson:

A sense of tremendous relief. My goodness me, I was so glad to get away from the Earth and out of that body of mine. And away from...well, some of the people that were only just waiting for me to die, so that they could get my money. But I'm afraid they were all rather disappointed. I made sure of that.

Greene:

How did you actually find yourself Mr Watson? What conditions did you find yourself?

Watson:

What? Conditions?

Greene:

Well I mean, what sort of, um...

​

Watson:

Well I found myself over here, first thing I remember was my father coming to meet me. Funny thing was I remember 'waking up' - I suppose is the way you'd put it - it would appear to me to be (well, it was) a garden.

First of all I thought it was the garden of our old house. We had a magnificent garden. My father was a great gardener and very interested in that. This place was so like it. And I remember I was sitting on a seat and looking across the lawns to an ornamental lake, which my father had had built. And I remember waking up and seeing my father coming towards me with his hands outstretched. First it didn't strike me as odd. I think I thought of it all in such a natural manner, as if it was the most natural thing.

I remember him sitting down beside me and congratulating me. Well this struck me as odd, why I should be congratulated. In fact, I couldn't think what I had done, what I had achieved. He wasn't a demonstrative man on Earth and there he was telling me how happy he was, that I'd come through and succeeded.

For a moment I didn't understand what he was referring to and then it suddenly dawned on me, that this was all an unnatural situation. What was I doing on this seat in this particular place - which was really of some forty years previously, possibly more, in my youth; my early years, my formative years?

We often went to the country during the summer months when business permitted - and in the winter too. And it was just as if I had come down for a week or two in the country to my father's place. And it struck me as being so strange, because it was as if I could remember at that particular moment, that I had been much older, and that I was lying on a bed and that I was, and had been for many months, suffering a great deal with my lungs and chest, having great difficulty with breathing.

But here I was, as natural... and breathing as easily as I had done in the old days.

And my father said, 'you know, you're now out of it all.' And it began to dawn on me that this was an unreal situation. But I... what he meant was, that I was out of the old life and I couldn't help thinking to myself, 'well I can't be dead.' And yet everything seems to imply that some big change has taken place, because this is all so familiar and yet, it was forty... fifty years ago in my life.

Then I thought to myself, 'well how could it be, this place?' If it's...if it's a new life that I'm in, if this is true, then I don't see how my father's property can be over on this side of life.'

It was all bewildering.

And he was saying to me, 'of course you know that we have still got the old house'.

And I thought this was so strange. He said, 'you know this is an exact replica.'

I said, 'What do you mean an exact... exact replica?'

He said, 'Of the old home.'

And I could see, of course, that it evidently was a replica. Although to me it seemed identical, I thought it was the house, but I knew that it couldn't be.

And he said, 'Let us go in and see the others'.

And I said, 'Others? What others?'

And he said, 'Oh, Mother and Simon.'

Simon was a young brother, by the way, who passed in infancy and when he said 'Simon', it didn't mean a thing to me.

I said, 'Simon, Simon, who the deuce is Simon?'

He said, 'Simon is your brother. Don't you remember the baby brother who died when you were about three or four years old?'

I said, 'Simon?'

I didn't remember any of this.

Anyway we went into the old house. It was exactly the same. Everything about it was the same; the same furniture, the same statues, the same mantelshelf. Everything was identical in the drawing room; the piano was there and I could see, as it were, as if I were going back more than 50 years - all perfectly reproduced.

And there was my mother, looking so young, so very young, and I hardly realised at first that it was she. But it was she, but as she was when my mother and father, presumably, first met. And there was a tall young fellow. I should think he looked about seventeen, eighteen. It turned out to be this brother who died in infancy. Puzzling.

And then I remember asking my people, I said,

'Well how is it that you have this house? How did it come about?'

I said, 'I accept the fact that you say I am dead and I realise something tremendous has happened, but I don't understand how it is that one should have one's old home reproduced. Who makes all this furniture? Who makes all the carpets and things and how does all this come about?'

And my father said, 'Well, this is something which is not easy to explain, but this is something which we you earned - which we have earned.'

And I thought to myself, 'well I don't know that I've earned anything in particular.'

And, uh, I'm remembering my father; although he was in many respects, a good man, at the same time he was a very strict man; a man, I suppose, running a business, which...one had to be when on Earth. But he was honest and just and indeed, he was a remarkable man in many ways. But I couldn't see the justification for all this, which seemed so remarkable because it was so identical in everything.

​

My father said, 'Well of course, to some extent, one's conditions, one's surroundings, one's life here, if you like, is due, to a great extent, as to what you were yourself when on Earth; your attitude of mind to others, your efforts on behalf of others – and, to some extent, the way in which you yourself have given yourself to others.' And as he was saying this I couldn't help but think, 'well there may be something in this if he says so.'

And yet I couldn't really say that either my father, or for that matter, myself, were particularly over-generous people. We were sensible, we helped people it's true and we were particularly good to our workpeople. But evidently, from what I gathered, that as you live, to some extent, that must and does affect your way of life over here and what reception you have. So, evidently, we couldn't have been so bad. We'd made for ourselves some preparation, without our even realising it!

My father was very orthodox. I was not an orthodox man as far as religion was concerned, but my father was strictly orthodox. But of course, I soon gathered that this orthodox outlook of religion had changed very much and he was no longer thinking on the old lines...

[Break in recording]

...and it seems to me that I lived in a very natural, happy way for a time with my people and I must say that, in many respects, our life was very like it had been in my youth - early years on Earth. The only thing that I began to realise was that one seemed to have no need for food nor drink.

At first this puzzled me. I thought, I couldn't understand why I didn't have this desire. It was a natural thing, as far as my Earth life was concerned. Indeed, I was very fond of food until my illness made it impossible to eat a great deal. And, um, the idea of being fit and well and yet having no longer the desire for food and drink seemed in a sense unnatural.

And for that matter, I never saw anything in the way of food, although there were times when fruit was available. Whether this was, in some sort of way, a thought - and I think possibly it must have been - there were times when possibly one desired it or felt the desire for it and there it was. But very seldom did one eat fruit or eat anything or desire to drink anything.

The thing that interested and appealed to me most in those early formative years - if I can so use them over here - was the desire to continue studies which my father had stopped. When I was quite young I had shown a tendency towards music, and my mother encouraged me in this, and for about two to three years I was allowed to have lessons.

But I think my father began to feel that this was becoming too important in my life and I was sent away to a school and music was dropped completely. And I’d always sort of, in my later years, regretted it. Because I was a great one for going to the opera. I hardly ever missed a season at Covent Garden and many recitals that I used to go, the great musicians of my day. Indeed, whatever time I could spare I would give to music.

[Sound of a passing aeroplane is heard]

​

And here I seemed to, quite naturally, take up again my music, and I suppose it shouldn't have been to my surprise, but my father encouraged it and was delighted when I started again to seriously take an interest in music.

And, on one occasion, quite early on in my being here, he said, 'Well would you like to go to a concert?' I was highly delighted, but at the same time, surprised that he should suggest such a thing because he had little or no time for the arts. He was very much towards business and never had any time for music and arts, in particular. But I said, 'Yes, of course, I would.' But I was a bit puzzled. He said, 'Oh well, we will go.'

So, I was taken to my first concert in a vast, vast building. Oh, so vast, that I thought as I entered, not only how magnificent and beautiful it was, but at the same time, I couldn't help thinking to myself the vastness of this place. Surely if one sat in some parts of this place, you wouldn't hear very much.

But I was amazed and surprised at the acoustic properties and the clear-cut sound, and a vast orchestra of what appeared to be, to me at least though it was impossible to count, but several hundred musicians - and many of the instruments which they had were completely unfamiliar to me.

And there were several pianos, not just one, as one would perhaps expect in a concert, perhaps two, one would have thought, but here there seemed to be at least twenty pianos. Goodness knows how many violins. Indeed it was the vastest orchestra I'd ever seen, and the sound was... well, beyond description.

But the extraordinary thing was, behind this great orchestra was what appeared to be a large wall, expanse of wall, which had the appearance of being made of some sort of substance which seemed to give off all kind of hue in colouring.

It was extraordinary, it seemed to scintillate, and the whole of this background seemed to change according to the music. Sometimes it would be suffused with the palest of colours, and occasionally there would be flashes of brilliant reds, and blues, and greens and colours, indeed, some of which I couldn't even begin to describe.

And it seemed as if all this colour had some connection with the music, according to the passage of the music that was being played, so this seemed to act as a... in such a way, as to depict in colour the scene or idea of the music. And yet... after this, of course, I went to many such concerts, and since then I have met many musicians, and I’ve always, as I've said, been interested in music and I have met many great musicians and composers.

And now I’ve become so immersed in music that, um... perhaps that accounts, or one of the reasons why I’ve never been drawn back to Earth and that I am so happy in my life here and music in particular, that I do not feel the need or the urge to come back. And I am sure there must be thousands, millions like me. And I am sure that, perhaps for some it is a good thing to return.

There are those who have, perhaps, specific, special work to do who are probably in themselves the right people for coming back to communicate, but I never have felt the urge. I wouldn’t like one to think that I’m so self-centred. I wouldn’t like one to think that I was selfish, but I think there are people whose task it is to come back to communicate, to do some special work, perhaps for humanity. And there are others who, perhaps in their own way, do something of real consequence in their own environment.

Of course I do know that, although I’ve not been in the habit of coming back to Earth, I do know that my efforts in music have been of some help to souls, when we have gone into other planes and um, give... given to them our music, and I am sure it has been a great encouragement and a great help to them to raise themselves out of, sometimes, the darkness in which they find themselves.

There are many, many different places. I wouldn’t like you to think - as no doubt so many people think - that the Earth is the only world. I think it is very wrong and very, shall we say, bumptious for people to assume that theirs is the only world. Yours is only one of many worlds, and there are many different stratas of intelligence and beings.

In fact, one might say that, to some extent, the Earth is one of the lesser progressed worlds. There are many worlds and... um, the Earth world is, in comparison to some, very backward. Indeed, I would have thought that was very obvious to anyone with any intelligence - when you consider the age of your world and the generations of peoples that have inhabited it, that you are still, at this stage in your evolution, still talking and thinking about war.

You are still, indeed, making war. You have civil war. You have all sorts of diseases brought about by man’s foolishness and ignorance of stupidity. Indeed, I would go as far as to say that the Earth world is perhaps one of the most un-progressed worlds in the atmosphere, in the system, the solar system.

I don’t think people realise how little progress, in some respects, has been made. Though you’ve had great scientific progress, at the same time - although science may have benefited in some senses - it certainly hasn’t brought the world together in mind and in spirit. It may have brought you closer together materially, but that’s not, in itself, necessarily such a good thing. If it were to combine the spiritual and the mental and the well-being of humanity, then that would be a different matter.

But when I see, as I have seen just recently into your world, the appalling mental conditions, the terrible attitude of mind of human beings, one towards the other, and how irrational you all are and how self-centred you are and how the whole world seems to be full of hatred and intolerance - it hasn’t learned hardly anything at all. You may flatter yourselves that you’ve progressed in some respects, but actually in some respects its worse than it’s been for centuries.

There were little affairs, and I suppose, in their time and day they were considered big affairs, where peoples were at war - but now you think nothing of dropping 'a bomb' as you call it and wiping out thousands of people at the same time. It really seems to me that evil has become even more powerful on a vaster scale.

And yet you look upon yourselves as civilised human beings, and some of you look upon yourselves as Christians following the Christ. Others have their religious beliefs, equally sincere, possibly, no doubt. But, it seems to me, that you're living in an age, in a time, in a world which has gone backwards rather than forwards.

And, I think, until you start thinking more deeply about the things that really matter; the things of the spirit and of the mind, and allow these things to take precedence and become uppermost, paramount importance in your lives... the whole world is materialistic in its acrimonious approach - even those who profess to be religious. Most of them, so it seems to me, are acting and thinking in a hypocritical kind of way.

As a matter of fact I, the more I see of your world, the less I like it. And I certainly wouldn’t want to come back there, and I must say that if I thought that I could be of any real help or service in coming, I would. But frankly, I can’t see what good I can do. I don’t really think that others on this side, whatever their intention of doing good, no matter how strong it may be, that they can hope to achieve very much.

Because even those who profess to know about this subject seem to me to be very little further advanced than the rest - if, in some senses, less far advanced. Indeed, their responsibilities are greater, but it doesn’t seem to me that they do very much or achieve very much. I find it appalling that where there are people who have this knowledge of survival, of communication... uh, that you don’t get the spiritual and mental advancement that one would have expected.

One, therefore, can only assume that, in many instances, the contacts and links that are made are made with souls on a very similar vibration and condition to you Earth people yourselves. Of course, there are exceptions no doubt, but it does seem to me a tragedy, that if you have this opportunity of communication that you don’t make more good use of it.

It seems to me that you are achieving very little and therefore I don't really see what good you can hope to achieve by it - until at least more people understand and accept it and do something about it. It’s no good saying, 'oh yes, I get into touch with this or that person, and we have conversations and its very wonderful, and we know its true about life after death.'That will come quick enough, you'll die quick enough and find out for yourselves.

Unless you do something about it while you’re there and you really put your back into it and really get down to doing something of a spiritual nature, in such a material world as yours, all the effort seems to be pointless and in vain. Personally, I wouldn’t want to come back regularly. I can't see there is any good or advantage in it for anyone. It certainly doesn’t seem to have made very much difference. The world seems to be worse than when I left it.

I can’t stay long. I’m sorry, I suppose I haven’t really done or achieved anything.

​

Greene:

You have.

Woods:

You have. You’ve done a lot.

Greene:

You have.

Watson:

I didn’t think much good would come of it in the first place. Really quite honestly, I shan’t be sorry... I shan’t be sorry to get away from it. I pity you. Bless you, but I wouldn’t want to go through your world again... I can’t think of anything I'd dislike more!

Well, goodbye.

Greene:

Goodbye Mr Watson. Thank you very [much].

Woods:

Thank you for coming...