In 1952, Oxford-educated Theodore Johannes Haarhoff, with two doctorates in classical languages and professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, attended a séance with Alec Harris. He examined the room first, and noted that Harris and had brought nothing with him. “The materializing powers of Mr. Harris are astounding, unique, and entirely above suspicion,” he wrote in a published article. “I make these statements after many years of investigation and many disappointments and experience of fraudulent mediums.” Haarhoff described the materialization of a Greek philosopher he had worked with who came close to him and spoke in ancient Greek, using the correct pronunciation, which is different from that of modern Greek, as explained in his article. “The ectoplasm which issues in abundance from his [Harris’s] body and which the etheric entities use to make themselves visible, streams like a mist and assumes all sorts of shapes yet can be compacted into something absolutely solid while the power lasts—and what amazing power it is!” he declared.

Maurice Barbanell, the editor of the journal Psychic News, wrote that he saw thirty forms materialize in good red light with twenty-seven sitters present for almost three hours. “I was so close to the cabinet that several of the forms had to walk over my feet,” he wrote. “On several occasions I handled the flowing ectoplasmic draperies, which were soft and silky to the touch. I shook hands with two forms. Their hands were firm and normal.” A number of the forms were recognized by sitters. He was most impressed by the materialization of a girl, who “disposed of any suggestion that the results could be explained away by trickery by revealing part of her feminine form, nude from the waist up! Then one materialization parted the curtains so we could see the figure and the medium at the same time.”

And a very skeptical Albert Fletcher-Desborough, professional stage illusionist who did not believe anything he had heard about these séances, did such a thorough examination of the room and cabinet, looking for structural mechanisms like floor escapes and wall slides, that he was certain no one could come in or out. As he wrote in the Liverpool Evening Express and for Psychic News in 1974, “There was no chance for deception.” He wrote that first he recognized his father, who emerged from the cabinet and called Fletcher-Desborough by the nickname “Bertie,” which was known only to his family. Then his brother, who had been shot in the ankle, hobbled out, gave his name, and took his hand. “Why all these manifestations on my behalf? Because I was an unbeliever,” he concluded.

With Alec Harris, many people also witnessed the dematerialization of the solid entities, dissolving and sinking into the floor.  Some sitters interacted with their loved ones, easily recognizable, and they had no doubt about the reality of survival after such an experience.

In 1961, two journalists who concealed their identities attended a séance with Alec Harris as guests. They stationed hidden camera crews outside the window, with the intention of catching Alec committing fraud. According to Alec’s wife, Louie, Alec’s “guide” materialized during the séance and spoke to the sitters, then walked among them while taking their hands in his. The guide showed them the entranced Alec to establish his separate identity, but this was not enough to convince the journalists. When the materialized form walked over to one of them, the man threw his arms around the solid figure, grabbed him and held on tightly. Louie reported the journalist shouted, “I’ve got you!” He “was obviously convinced he had captured the draped medium in the act of duplicity, masquerading as a spirit form,” she wrote. She said that the figure quickly dematerialized, and Alec cried out in pain as the ectoplasm returned to his body “with the impact of a sledgehammer.” Alec became very ill and was under medical care for months as a result. It took two years before he became himself again, but he was never able to fully relax as a medium in the same way as before.

Alec Harris's materialisation and direct-voice mediumship astounded those who witnessed it. His wife, Louie, recorded the details of her husband's work in a fascinating book entitled They Walked Among Us.

One sitter who attended a seance in Alec's home in the Whitchurch area of Cardiff, which is the capital city of Wales, remarked, 'The materialised people came out of the cabinet sometimes two or three at a time. On that amazing night, about twenty fully-materialised forms greeted us and spoke with us, quite naturally. After a while you forgot you were conversing with so-called "dead" people'.

In the mid 20th-Century, the editor of Psychic News, Maurice Barbanell said of Alec's mediumship that 'the spirit forms not only show themselves in good red light, but they also hold sustained conversations after having walked about ten feet from the cabinet'.

But in the early days of his spiritual awakening, Alec Harris at first refused to accept the idea that he might possess such a rare mediumistic gift: his family were Welsh Christians of the 'dyed-in-the-wool' kind. Born and bred in Treherbert in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, where Christianity was most certainly the order of the day, Alec wanted nothing to do with 'meddling' with the dead or with the religion of Spiritualism.

But then his sister, Connie, died then subsequently returned to her family when Alec attended a seance conducted by the remarkable Scottish physical medium Helen Duncan. His sister's spirit-return encouraged him to sit for the development of his own spiritual gifts and he became one of the finest materialisation mediums to emerge from Great Britain in the 20th-Century.

During the production of materialised spirit forms, Alec's spirit guides usually took him into a deep-trance state, and the sitters were able to clearly see him sitting on his chair (bound hand and foot) inside the 'cabinet'. The seance room was bathed in good red light while the materialised spirit people walked around and spoke with their loved ones.

At one memorable seance attended by Sir Alexander Cannon, Sir Alex spoke to two spirit forms who were Tibetans and these conversations were held in their native tongue, which was unknown to Alec Harris or any of the other persons present at the seance. And Prof. T J Haarhoff, who was a professor of classics, conversed with another materialised spirit who spoke to him in ancient Greek.

Like other physical mediums before him, Alec was treated badly by sceptics who simply could not admit the possibility that what they were seeing with their own eyes was genuine phenomena, and the medium was hurt in a seance in South Africa when a journalist grabbed an ectoplasmic spirit-form while other members of the press set off flashlights without permission.

Source: http://www.stephenobrien.co.uk/mediums_hall_of_fame/alec_harris.htm