Geraldine [Dorothy] Cummins (1890-1969)
 

Life
[Geraldine Dorothy] b. 24 Jan. 17, St. Patrick’s Place, Cork and grew up in Glanmire, Co. Cork; dg. of William Cummins, MD and later Chair of Medicine, UUC; ed. at home; with her sister Iris, she played hockey for Ireland, 1910; became active suffragette with Suzanne Rouvier Day; formed non-partisan Munster Women’s Franchise League (MWFL) with Day and Edith Somerville; contrib. to Irish Citizen; contrib. to Pall Mall and holidayed in France on the proceeds, June 1914; there met Hester Dowden and attended séances; trained in mediumship with Dowden; wrote Abbey plays with Day incl. Fox and Geese (Feb. 1917; rev. Dec. 1917), a match-making comedy; also issued novels incl.The Land They Loved (1919), a feminist novel; also Fires of Beltaine (1936);
 
from 1923 she shared the Chelsea home of psychic researcher Beatrice Gibb, whom she met through Dowden; produced transcriptions of the psychic messenger “Silencio” as The Scripts of Cleophas 1927) and other works of psychic history and religion; won copyright case in 1950 associated with their legal ownership - author or spirit; wrote a biography of her friend Edith Somerville (1952); issued fictional biographies of St. Paul (1939) and Christ (1949); wrote Unseen Adventures (1951), an autobiography; a friend of Kathleen Raine, she purported to have received communication from W. B. Yeats after his death; inherited Gibbs’s Chelsea home and returned to Cork during her last illness but died in Chelsea, 25 Aug. 1969. IF DIW DIL ATT OCIL RIA/DIB

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Works
Drama [all with Suzanne Rouvier Day]
  • Broken Faith (Abbey Th.; 24 April 1913).
  • The Way of the World (Abbey 1914).
  • Fox and Geese: A Comedy in Three Acts (Dublin & London: Maunsel & Co. 1917), 55pp.
Fiction [novels]
  • The Land they Loved (London & NY: Macmillan 1919), 328pp.
  • The Fires of Beltaine (London: Michael Joseph 1936), 286pp.
Short fiction
  • Variety Show (London: Barrie & Rockliff 1959), vi, 27-200pp.
Biography
  • Dr. Edith Œ Somerville, preface by Lennox Robinson (London: Andrew Dakers Ltd. 1952), xi, 271pp. [with index of 1st edns. compiled R. Vaughan].
Autobiography
  • Unseen Adventures, an autobiography covering 34 years of work in psychical research (London: Rider 1951), 183pp., port.
Miscellaneous [Psychic research]
  • The Scripts of Cleophas, Introduction by the Rev. John Lamond, D.D. (London: Rider 1930, 1931), vii, 197pp. [err. Scriptures]
  • The Road to Immortality [communication of F. W. H. Myers] (London: I. Nicholson & Watson 1932) [see details].
  • Beyond Human Personality (I. Nicholson & Watson 1935), 223pp. [see details].
  • The European Crises: Accurate Prophecies Given through G. Cummins, comp. by E.B. Gibbes (London Goodmount Press [1939]), 45pp.
  • When Nero was Dictator: A Reconstruction of the Last Seven Years of St. Paul’s Life, Introduction by A. H. E. Lee [Life of St. Paul Ser.] (London: F. Muller [1939]), 272pp.
  • After Pentecost: An Alexandrian Chronicle of Cleophas [purporting to be communicated by Cleophas, an early Christian] written by the hand of Geraldine Cummins [1944], 112pp.; with R. Connell [pseud.], Perceptive Healing [case histories] (London & NY: Rider [1945]), 91pp.
  • with R. Connell, Perceptive Healing (London: [Rider] 1945), 91pp.
  • They Survive, Evidence [ ... &c.] (London: Rider & Co. 1946), 140pp.
  • The Road to Immortality: Being a description of the After-life purporting to be communicated by the late F. W. H. Myers .. through Geraldine Cummins (L.S.A. Publications Ltd. 1947), q.pp.
  • Travellers in Eternity; Being some descriptions of life after death, with evidence, from scripts of G. Cummins, comp. by E. B. Gibbes, foreword by Eric Parker (London: Psychic Press 1948), 203pp.
  • I Appeal Unto Caesar: Scripts of Cleophas: produced by the medium Geraldine Cummins under the guidance of the spirit ‘The Messenger of Cleophas’ (London: Psychic Press 1950), 189pp.
  • The Great Days of Ephesus: The Scripts of , explanatory notes [by] E. B. Gibbes (Rider & Co. 1953), xvii, 212pp. [brown paper d.-j.]
  • The Fate of Colonel Fawcett: A Narrative of His Last Expedition [purporting to be communicated by P. H. Fawcett through G. D. Cummins, with chaps. by E. B. Gibbes] (London Aquarius Press 1955), 148pp.
  • with R. Connell [pseud.], Healing the Mind: How extra-sensory perception can be used in the investigation and treatment of psychological disorders (London: Aquarius 1950), 190pp.
  • Mind in Life and Death: Review of recent evidence of the survival of Franklin Roosevelt and Others, foreword by Raynor C. Johnson [Records from the Society of Psychical Research] (London: Aquarian Press 1956), 269pp. [incls. David Russel, David Gray, et. al.].
  • Preface [introductory foreword] to John N. East, Man the Immortal, with foreword by W. Y. Evans-Wentz (London: Psychic Press [1960]), xxi, 231pp.

Religious [Christian]
  • The Paul in Athens (London: Rider & Co. 1930), vii, 197pp.
  • Childhood of Christ (London: Frederick Muller 1937), 224pp., and Do. [4th edn.] (Psychic Press 1949), 220pp.
  • The Resurrection of Christ, Explanation of the mystery through Modern Psychic Evidence (London: LSA Publ. 1947), 35pp.
  • The Childhood and Manhood of Jesus: His Early Adult Years, His Trial and Crucifixion, with a preface by Eric Parker and a foreword by B. A. Lester (London: A. Dakers 1949), 250pp.

See also Signe Toksvig, ed., Swan on a Black Sea: A Study in Automatic Writing: the Cummins-Willett Scripts transmitted by Geraldine Cummins, foreword by C. D. Broad [rev. edn.] London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1966, 1970), lxii, 168pp. [purportedly communicated by spirit of Mrs. Charles Coombe Tennant].

Bibliographical details
Beyond Human Personality, being a detailed description of the future life purporting to be communicated by the late F. W. H. Myers, containing an account of the gradual development of human personality into cosmic personality, intro. by E. B. Gibbes (London: I. Nicholson & Watson Ltd. 1935), 223pp.

The Road to Immortality, Being a Description of the After-life purporting to be communicated by the late F.W.H. Myers through Geraldine Cummins, foreword by Sir Oliver Lodge; with evidence of the survival of human personality by E. B. Gibbes (London: I. Nicholson & Watson 1932, 1935), 194 [2]pp.; Do. (London: Psychic Book Club 1947), 111pp.; Do. [3rd edn.] (London: Aquarian Press 1955), 192pp., and Do. [abr. version], being a description of the after-life purporting to be communicated by the late F.W.H. Myers through Geraldine Cummins (Tasbucge / Norwich: Pilgrims Book Services 1984), 114pp.

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Criticism
  • John Stevens Kerr, Cummins and the Lia Fail (Enniskillen: Wm. Trimble 1967), 16pp.
  • Christopher Fryer, Geraldine Cummins: An Appreciaton (Tasburgh : Pelegrin Trust in association with Pilgrim 1990), 160pp.

See also Melissa Sihra, ed., Women in Irish Drama : A Century of Authorship and Representation (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2001), 262pp. [q.pp.]; Jennifer Grinnell & Alston Conley, eds., Re/dressing Cathleen: contemporary works from Irish women artists [Boston College] (Boston: McMullen Mus. of Art 1997).

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Commentary
Margaret Mills Harper, Wisdom of Two: The Spiritual and Literary Collaboration of George and W. B. Yeats (Oxford: OUP 2006), refers in a footnote to Geraldine Cummins ‘this famous Anglo-Irish writer and author of Unseen Adventures (1951)’, who, after the death of Yeats, ‘received a message from him by means of automatic writing addressing the vexed question of where his remains should be permanently interred.’ Further, ‘Wondering how to convey the post-mortem message, the automatic script asked at one point, “Do you know my friends or my wife”, to which Cummins responded in her own hand, “This woman here through whose hand you write used to know you & knows yr friend. But it will be difficult to speak to yr wife - ”.’ Harper concludes: ‘This may well have been true, although perhaps not for the reason next stated: “My wife is afraid of spirits and the grave I fear she would not listen to you.”’ The ‘message’ was given to Harper’s parents [George and Mary Mills Harper] by Kathleen Raine. (Wisdom of Two, p.19n.) Note: Harper does not draw the obvious inference that Cummins forged the message, consistent with her [Harper's] view that George Yeats was closely involved with Yeats in all that he did regarding his belief in the afterlife and psychomancy.

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References
Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction [Pt. II] (Cork: Royal Carbery 1985); lists The Road to Immortality; Unseen Adventure; They Survive; The Childhood and Manhood of Jesus; Paul in Athens; After Pentecost.

Janet Madden Simpson, ed., Woman’s Part, An Anthology of Short Fiction by and About Irishwomen 1890-1960 (Dublin: Arlen House 1984), incls. ‘The Tragedy of Eight-Pence’, short story concerning a women who attempts to hide from her dying husband that fact that she will be destitute when he dies.

Ann Owens Weekes, ed., Unveiling Treasures: The Attic Guide to the Published Works of Irish Women Literary Writers: Drama, Fiction, Poetry (Dublin: Attic Press 1993) quotes a remark from Janet Madden-Simpson to the effect that Kate, a sympathetic caring Anglo-Irishwoman in the Fires of Beltaine is unusual in Irish fiction.

British Library holds Perceptive Healing (1945); Fox and Geese, with Day (1917); After Pentcost, an Alexandrian chronicle of Cleophas [purporting to be communicated by Cleophas, an early Christian] written by the hand of Geraldine Cummins [1944], 112pp.; Beyond Human Personality, communicated by the late FWH Myers; intro. by E. B. Gibbes (1935), 223pp.; Childhood of Christ (Frederick Muller 1937), Childhood of Christ (Psychic Press 4th ed. 1949), 220pp.; Dr. Edith OE Somerville, preface by Lennox Robinson (Andrew Dakers 1952), xi, 271pp., with index of 1st edns. compiled R. Vaughan; Fires of Beltaine, novel (London: Michael Joseph 1936), 286pp.; The Great Day of Epheseus [Cleophas], explanatory notes [by] E. B. Gibbes (1953), xvii, 212pp.; I Appeal Unto Caesar, Scripts of Cleophas (1950), 189pp.; The Land They Loved (London: Macmillan 1919), 328pp.; The Resurrection of Christ, Explanation of the mystery through modern psychic evidence (London: LSA Publ. 1947), 35pp.; The Road to Immortality [FWH Myers] (1932), 192pp. [cross-ref to Myers]; Scriptures of Cleophas with critical introduction (1928), xix, 11-291pp.; They Survive, Evidence &c. (London: Rider & Co. 1946), 140pp.; Unseen Adventures, an autobiography covering 34 years of work in psychical research by Geraldine Cummins (Rider 1951), 183pp., port.

University of Ulster Library holds Variety Show (London: Barrie & Rockliff 1959) [n.p.]; Swan On a Black Sea, a study in automatic writing, the Cummins-Willet scripts, transcribed by Geraldine Cummins, ed., Signe Toksvig [wife of Francis Hackett (1965).

Belfast Public Library holds The Land They Loved (1919), Dr. E. OE. Somerville (1952); and Unseen Adventure, cited as autobiography; also Variety Show, I/FICT in New Catalogue.

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Notes
Fires of Beltaine (1939): Epigraph, Beltane, Beltene, Beltine, or Beltaine ... [encyc. Brit. definition; and an author’s note on the festival fires on St Johns, with attribution of verse quoted in text to Emily Lawless’s With the Wild Geese. Norah Keogh; Kate (Widow) Keogh; Owen the fiddler; the Fenian; Father Flood; St. Blaise; Paul Peter Carolan.

Michael Joseph (publisher): inside cover of Fires of Beltaine (1936) cites Irish works by Geraldine Cummins, The Land they Loved, and two plays in collaboration with Susanne R. Day [sic]), Broken Faith and Fox and Geese.

F. W. H. Myers: purportedly the communicator whose messages provided Cummins with the text of The Road to Immortality (1932), Myers was referred to W. B. Yeats in his lecture on “Ghosts and Dreams” to the London Spiritualist Alliance on 23 Oct. 1917. (See under Yeats, “Life” - as supra.)

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