William Henry Lilley: Spiritual Healer

In December 1942 William Lilley and his business manager Arthur Richards, were refused a licence by the LCC to run their new treatment centre in Bulstrode Street Marylebone. Despite this ruling and losing an appeal in January 1943, the clinic continued there until 1948. At the time Lilley was living at 142 Cholmley Gardens in Mill Lane.

 

William Henry Lilley

He was a well-known spiritual healer who had been born in Oulton, a village on the outskirts of Leeds in 1914. When he was ten, his mother Sarah (Sally) Ellen took him to a monthly spiritualist meeting held in room above a pub in the neighbouring village of Kippax. Here he was taken over by his control White Hawk and began speaking in a strange voice. After a few more sessions William began holding regular spiritual healing meetings at his home, now controlled by an Indian called Dr Letari. In 1930 William was employed at the Yorkshire Copper Works in Leeds when he met seamstress Nancy Overton. They married in 1936.

William met Arthur Richards at a spiritualist church. He was a committed spiritualist and managing director of a company making metal pistons in Hunslett. Arthur decided to test William’s abilities. He invited two doctors to put their diagnoses of three patients in sealed envelopes and bring an object from each patient for Lilley to examine. Lilley’s diagnoses were compared to the doctors’ and found to be accurate and more detailed. Richards was so impressed that he sponsored William, which allowed him to quit his factory job. They set up Lilley’s first healing sanctuary in Richards’ factory. 

Lilley diagnosed patients’ illnesses from distance and administered homeopathic and herbal healing remedies to them. He used ordinary medicine, herbs, massage, manipulation, light and sound therapy to heal.

In May 1938 the spiritual newspaper ‘Great World’ featured Lilley in a leading article and healing requests poured in. To avoid Wartime conscription, in 1940 he requested a non-combatant position as a full-time healer, which was granted. 

In December 1942 with Richards’ financial help, he opened the Dr Letari clinic at 8 Bulstrode Street and at the court hearing for a medical license, he claimed he had diagnosed over 50,000 patients worldwide at a distance. 

Not everyone was convinced with Lilley’s diagnostic skills, and in October 1943 reporter John Ridley published an article in the Sunday Pictorial after a visit to the Bulstrode Street clinic. 

‘I sat last week in a large, luxuriously furnished room facing a short, plump, 29-year old man across an enormous desk. He addressed me in deep, impressive tones. And this what he said: You come from a tubercular family. Your makeup is tubercular. Your colour and so forth is tubercular. The man was W.H. Lilley a famous psychic healer. I would have been frightened, horrified, but for one thing, I knew he was wrong! There was no record of tuberculosis in my family, and only a short time ago I was completely X-rayed and there was no sign of tuberculosis.’

Ridley was accompanied by a doctor who was asked to focus on one of his patients. Lilley said he had to go into a trance so that his body would be taken over by a Hindu medical man called Dr Letari who had died twenty-nine years ago, when Lilley had been born. After a few minutes he spoke in a new voice and talked about the patient. Later, the doctor told Ridley that Lilley had used meaningless pseudo-medical language and the diagnosis was completely wrong. 

Ridley had also brought a handkerchief belonging to a sick colleague and a blouse belonging to a teenage girl. The diagnoses which Lilley gave after handling the items were both wrong. Ridley did not stay for the next stage which involved healing, but his article was highly critical of Lilley.

In 1949, Lilley left West Hampstead for South Africa with his wife and son, where he continued his spiritual healing. However, his reception in South Africa was quite different than in England. Three court cases were brought against him and he was charged with practicing medicine unlawfully. He won the last case, and this became a precedent for professional homeopaths to practice their profession in South Africa.

After Lilley went to South Africa, a spiritual healing centre called Letari House was opened at 13 Luttrell Avenue in Roehampton, moving to 22 Portsmouth Road Kingston around 1958. The idea of absent healing by Dr Letari was continued by Fred Partington who advertised in spiritual magazines from 1962. 

Lilley’s son, David who was born in Leeds in 1940, became a homeopathic and osteopathic doctor in South Africa. He has recently written a biography of his father who died in 1972 and was considered one of the finest spiritual healers of the 20th century.