by I wasn’t able to find out a lot about Ethel Johnson Meyers, the medium who accompanied Hans Holzer to Bank Street (the story I tell below). But as I say in the preface to the book, it always comes back to a love story, and this was true of Ethel Johnson Meyers.
Meyers, a former opera singer, was a trance medium and her control—the person who essentially used her body to become a guide between the living and the dead—was her dead husband, a musician named Albert.
Albert had died when his pharmacist made a mistake with his medicine and poisoned him. Ethel was going to walk into the sea and join him, but Albert came to her and stopped her. If she killed herself she wouldn’t be with him, he warned. Just the opposite. “It would separate us.” He told her that there was another way they could be together. Ethel went to a psychiatrist about the apparition and he rather surprisingly suggested that she contact J. B. Rhine.
Soon after Ethel found herself at the American Society for Psychical Research, which eventually led to her becoming a medium.
Whenever she went into a trance, Albert appeared. However, it was a bittersweet and ultimately unsatisfying reunion for Ethel and Albert. They weren’t really together again. Ethel was unconscious when Albert appeared, and when she awoke she remembered nothing. Hans Holzer spent more time with Albert than Ethel did. Even though Albert’s spirit was inside her, somehow suffused throughout her body in order to communicate with whoever required his afterlife services, Albert was still as far apart from Ethel as he was the day he died.
I called Hans Holzer to ask him what Ethel and Albert were like, but he wasn’t able to tell me anything. I had also intended to ask him if he ever tried to mediate any kind of exchange between his faithful medium and her beloved and deceased husband. IE, “Hey Albert, as long as I’ve got you, any messages for Ethel?” But Holzer didn’t seem to be feeling well and so I thanked him and got off the phone more quickly than I had planned.
Hi,
Do you know where I could get further info on Ethel Johnson Meyers’s life as a medium, she is very interesting.
Thanks
What is Ethel Meyers beliefs regarding re-incarnation?
I have read many of Sylvia Browne’s books on the paranormal. Sylvia is a staunch believer in re-incarnation as was Edgar Cayce.
I became a believer when I stumbled on what I believe was a life that I had as a mathematician named Evariste Galois. I came to my conclusion based on sheer probabilities of the similarities in our life’s experiences and need for karmic balance.
Thanks for answering my question. Also, I would like to know whether Mrs. Meyers is still active as a medium. Does she make appearances in that capacity. I am a Michigander who would love to meet Mrs. Meyers.
I am a political blogger in the forum LIBERALFORUM.ORG founded by Al Franken. I am the founder with handle Dr.Joeb of the topic Liberalism Versus Conservatism in that
forum. One of my messages in that forum gives a brief account of the many coincidences between myself and Evariste Galois.
I knew Mrs Meyers,The Medium in Hans Holzers book murder in amityville 1979 she was a friend of my family ,sorry to say she passed away, in CT many years ago I don’t recall what year it was some time around the 1980’s thats all I know, peace & light Dianna
Please tell us about her! What was she like?
Hi again. First, apologies for my horrible typing skills and all that accompanies it. Well about Mrs. Meyers, she was a very kind and helpful person, and very gifted indeed. She told my dad that she knew Sybil Leek, and they were friends. Mrs. Myers was my Dad’s good friend, they road on the Bonanza bus lines that traveled up and down RT .7 in CT. Back in those days Mrs. Meyers had lived in Gaylordsville CT., or perhaps it was New Milford CT. on RT 7 at that time, later she moved to Cornwall CT. before her death. My Dad, his mother was a medium herself and my Dad was also gifted, which explains his long friend ship with Mrs. Meyers. They traveled together every week into NYC and she helped me on cases I was involved in as a young Psychic medium back then.
Whenever I talked to her over the phone I could see a man that was in her home. Her husband I presumed? And when I was investigating a missing person, I was working for his family, a missing wealthy man. I can’t talk any further about that case, it’s a privacy matter for his family. I am also a working psychic medium today. My psychic gifts had greatly expanded since I knew Mrs. Meyers, and I have worked with police in many different states on murders. I draw accurate pictures of killers while in a trance, so the police can see who they are hunting.
I was young back then when I knew Mrs. Meyers and she helped me with the information I was getting on this particular missing person case and she agreed with my information. But this one day as we talked on the phone some time around 1982 or so, I can’t remember exactly, but it was around that same time that Mrs. Meyers had passed away, and yes if that was in 1982 that would be the very same year that Sybil Leek passed over. I was talking with Mrs. Meyers over the phone when I got this strange shock of electric that entered into my body around my Solar Plexus Chakra area. While I was talking with Mrs. Meyers after that I began to experience a bizarre feeling that I can only describe as taking in this energy from Mrs. Meyers somehow over the phone. Like her energy was coming directly into me and I felt she could die from this energy drain as her energy was leaving her and coming into me over the phone while we talked together. This sensation disturbed me greatly as I could feel her life force slipping away from her.
I became so concerned and afraid about what was happening. I rushed to hang up on her, to stop this whatever it was happening between us. She wanted to continue to stay on the line with me, but I cut her off saying I would call her back. Sadly I never did and so I never spoke to her ever again. But for this fear that I was somehow draining off her energy?
At that time I was involved in a paranormal class back then, I was in my 20’s, and was afraid that Mrs. Meyers would soon pass away right after the day we had talked on the phone. I was so worried about Mrs. Meyers dying. I discussed my intense fears with my then paranormal teacher at the time. I had psychically picked up that my teacher had been a friend of Mrs. Meyers so I sought out her council. After I told my teacher I know that you knew Mrs. Ethel Johnson Meyers in the past didn’t you?
My teacher responded, “why yes back in the day they knew each other from NYC, and where did she live now?” I told my teacher she lives in CT now in Cornwall and is a friend of my Dad’s. Then I discussed my fear that Mrs. Meyers would soon pass away, and my teacher helped to calm my fears. But the very next week as I walked into my paranormal class my teacher got up straight away from her desk and approached me saying that Mrs. Meyers had indeed passed a while after our discussion, and for me not to feel bad that I had no involvement in her passing. I felt sick and weak in the knees and have always wished I had called her back or at least had gone to see her in person before she passed.
But my fear was that I could somehow inadvertently cause her death. Contacting her and continuing whatever was happening between us we had left off that day over the phone, I had the distinct impression that if this energy exchange had continued any longer that could have killed her. She was elderly at the time so my intense fear was that if I went to see or call her this energy that flowed out of her into me would be the end of her! So I lament my not visiting her or calling her back before she left this plane of existence, but due to the circumstances, I was to afraid to visit or call.
I have always wished all these many years as I am now in my 60’s and to this day that I would have visited her. Well that’s my personal story, the one I know best about Mrs. Ethel Johnson Meyers, and that is all I am willing to say about Mrs. Ethel Johnson Meyers’ long and famous career. I feel it’s not up to me to speak for her amazing life . Peace Love & Light Dianna
I edited that a little. I didn’t change what you said, just broke it up into paragraphs, added periods (you didn’t have any) and so on.
Thank you for what you were willing to share. And no it’s not up to you, it’s a matter of what anyone is willing to say in tribute and to share.
Stacy how sweet of you, gosh thank you very kindly, as you can see I am most certainly no writer, smiles & blessing to you L&L Dianna
You’re quite welcome! I think people will want to read your story and I thought breaking it up into paragraphs would make it easier to read on the screen.
Interesting as I am myself a physical medium and even thou I have read them before, I still enjoy reading the old Holzer books especially when Ms. Leek and Ms. Myers were in the accounts….might be why I work like them.
I just described and talked about my experience with Mrs Ethel Mayers back in 1979 to a friend as I talked about it so many times before to different people.I got married in 1977 and was pregnant about two months when I went to see mrs Johnson I remember she lived on the upper West Side Manhattan.I had read in the Que magazine about 8 most popular and credible psychics mediums and decided to chose Mrs Johnson to go to.I could not call there was no tel.listed instead I wrote as she required requesting a meeting with her.She called me and set up the appointment.No sooner that I arrived and got comfortable in one of her soft living room chairs she asked me for something of mine to handle in her hands as a way to connect I gave her a thin golden chain which had a little either heart or a cross she was fiddling with it and she started saying things like where I came from originally to my surprise as I did not offer any information andtrue I had an accent and my name was typical Serbian or east Eurropian nama but my husbandwas American and Icarried his last nam so even if she looked for his name itvwould not reveal my true identity
Thank you for sharing your experience with Mrs. Johnson Meyers.
I have a very nice portrait of Ethel Meyers done by noted portrait artist Molly Guion. I inherited it as part of an estate of a Cornwall, CT resident, and a devoted follower of Ethel Meyers. After appraisal, the painting will probably go to auction.
Good luck!
Are you doing reading Dianna Starr ?
Who is Elizabeth? Is this a typo for Ethel? Please fix – inexcusable.
I am familiar with the mediums that Hans Holzer had accompany him on many investigations. Sybil Leek passed away in 1982, RIP. Mrs. Johnson was a rather private person and didn’t do a lot of the more ridiculous tv shows and nonsense that everyone seems to do today. They truly understood their abilities to be gifts and that all gifts if misused or abused they could be taken away. For anyone to compare these two imminent mediums with someone like Sylvia Browne really breaks my heart. Sylvia Browne wanted fame and fortune, Ms. Leek and Mrs. Jonson really wanted to help.
I’m sorry that is hurtful to you. I’m sure the people who posted really didn’t mean anything by it. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about Sybil Leek and Ethel Johnson Meyers.
Ethel was a wonderful medium. I had several readings with her in her New York studio. At that time I was grieving something terrible for the loss of my beloved Grandfather. Not only was she able to contact my Grandfather but was able to have me smell a certain after shave lotion that he used. She said so many things that there was no way she was able to know. Rita from NJ
Hi Rita. I’m glad Ethel was able to help you, and I’m sorry for the loss of your grandfather.
Smells are so powerful, aren’t they? My grandfather smoked a pipe and to this day when I smell a particular scent of tobacco it takes me immediately and completely back. I just smelled it now!
Hello,
Came across your postings about Ethel Johnson Meyers. I lived many years in the Gaylordsville Kent Cornwall area of CT and am interested in her story. My house in Kent CT had previously been occupied by an Ethel Meyers who neighbors described to me as a “medium”. I have always wondered if she was indeed the same person who worked with Hans Holzer. Flash forward many years, I find that together they held a seance in 1960 in the house my daughter and family now own in NJ. Small world. I’d love to her more about her if anyone has info they would like to share.
You could try reaching out to Alexandra Holzer, Hans Holzer’s daughter. I don’t have contact information for her, but you could google her and see if you can find it. Or, you could contact the Parapsychology Foundation, they should be able to direct you to how you might find out more about her. They might have information about her in their archives.
https://parapsychology.org/
My Mother and I met Ethel Meyers in 1962 in her Apartment in Manhatten. She gave me a incredible Reading.Everything she said would happen in the future actually did HAPPEN. Includingthat I would move to California which i had no plans to do. and that I would marry a Man with the initial A. IDID. also that I would have 2 Children. This also came to pass about 10 years later. Many other things she said would happen, did happen. She was Amazing. Thank you for this opportunity.
Sincerely,
Sharon Shapiro
That is so cool that you got to meet her and get a reading. Do you remember where in Manhattan she lived?
In the mid-1960s I was a student in NYC and very interested in the paranormal. I had a reading with Ethel Meyers (I don’t recall how it came about)… I went to her apartment and was very impressed with the reading. She named and described a great-grandfather of mine who she said was watching over me; she said I could develop psychic abilities and gave me an object to hold and read from, with very intriguing results. As I recall, she worked at a hospital (?) connected with the kitchen, and later invited me there and I had a meal there.
I had forgotten about her until she was mentioned on one of the “Holzer Files” TV episodes —
Hello Enoch, thanks for stopping by! Very cool that you got a reading with Ethel Meyers.
I visited Ethel Meyers twice towards the end of 1978. She was in her 90’s and she lived alone in her Manhattan apartment. She suggested I bring a tape recorder to our first meeting but as a skeptic, I didn’t bother. That was MY loss! What RATIONAL PERSON would believe a little old lady had the ability to contact people who died through her DEAD HUSBAND ALBERT?
Ms. Meyers CURED ME of my SKEPTICISM! I did record our second session but it was not nearly as exciting as the first one.
It was claimed that when Ms. Meyers went into a trance, her features changed, and her voice lowered significantly. NONE OF THAT HAPPENED, at least not in my session in her Manhattan apartment! I cannot recall if Ms. Meyers ever went into a “trance” as she spoke to me normally throughout the session. What impressed me most was that she accurately depicted incidents that happened years before with a dear friend who had recently passed due to a car accident. The friend was my roommate at the time of this incident,10 years previously. She was the reason I’d contacted Ms. Meyers. Her death was a shock to me. I was asked to bring an item that belonged to her with me.
This first session covered general information such as my past lives and my yellow-orange “aura”. I was also told incidentally that a new casual friend or acquaintance had recently passed. I was unaware and confused by this. As a skeptic, I’d asked Ms. Meyers if there was a way I could ask my friend to communicate with me directly. Ms Meyers suggested I leave a glass of water, pencil and paper somewhere obvious and perhaps I’d get a note. (This note-writing was common psychic propaganda at that time.). As I was new to psychics in general, Ms Myers gave me general information. “They seemed to like water”, she said. I had ZERO psychic ability but I was curious and I loved reading about “The Search for Bridey Murphy”, a best-seller. Reincarnation was believable to me.
Then Ms. Meyers contacted Albert to see about my friend. She volunteered that my friend had an unusually deep voice for a woman because she was strangled to death in her previous life. I had told her NOTHING about my friend other than she was run over and killed and that she had been my roommate 10 years before. The article I gave her was my friend’s Florida driver’s license.
THE INCIDENT from 10 years before that Ms. Meyers repeated to me:
I had returned from my college classes that evening, walked up the four flights of stairs to my apartment, and as I approached the fourth floor, I smelled smoke. When I opened the door and entered, a thin haze of smoke filled the air. I looked to my right at the fireplace and saw the surrounding bricks and wall were covered with black soot! My roommate ran up to me excitedly, waving her arms in the air, telling me about how earlier in the afternoon she threw the Christmas tree into the fireplace. {Who would do such a thing?} Flames immediately shot up into the air and she thought the entire apartment building would burn down! Wide-eyed and very animated, she told me she ran to the next-door neighbor who somehow managed to put the fire out. She later said she didn’t want to drag the tree down four flights of stairs to dispose of it. She spent the entire day trying to clean up the mess. She never did get the soot out of the living room couch and we had a permanent memento of that holiday season.
Ms. Meyers accurately mimicked her animated gestures and her excited ranting as she told me how she ran to the next door neighbor pleading for his help to keep the entire apartment building from burning down! It was as if Ms. Meyers was watching the event as it happened. Her depiction of both the mannerisms and the words spoken was EXACT! Nobody was like this friend. Everything about her was hers alone, including her actions. There was NO WAY Ethyl Meyers could have made this up or known about it. At that moment I became a believer.
I made a second appointment for a few weeks later and reported events that transpired since the first session. I had visited a nearby hobby shop where I’d become friendly with the owner. We both collected RIO model cars and discussed our various similar interests and collections. I learned he had recently died. He was the new friend who recently passed. I was very fond of him and I loved frequently visiting his store. We might have become good friends if he had not died. Never before or since have I become friends with a shop owner. This was an isolated occurrence and very out of character for me.
As for the glass of water + pencil + paper, I felt like a fool putting those things out every night. Of course there were no notes from “beyond” in the morning and I stopped that after a week.
A week or two later I was at work when a friend called me frantically from my house. There was a terrible banging throughout the house and she didn’t know what it was. It was so loud I heard it in the background of the phone call. After 5 or more minutes it stopped and I hung up the phone. That evening a few friends visited. We were in the dining room when the banging started again. It was coming from the dining room radiator and it persisted for about a half hour before it lessened and quit. (The two friends had known the deceased as we had visited together many times when I was still in college). Next morning the banging started again. This time water started to come out of the radiator valve in the dining room. I called the oil company that serviced my boiler as that was the heat source for the house. The repairman found that there was a pinhole in the boiler coil. This allowed water to seep into the steam lines and that caused the radiator banging along with the water escaping from the dining room radiator. I asked him how that hole happened. He shrugged his shoulders.
My friend was hysterical from the time the banging started the day before. She was sure we were being haunted by ghosts, probably my fault for letting her know why I put out those glasses of water every night expecting someone to write me a letter from beyond.
The next session with Ms. Myers I reported my experiences since our last session. I told her there were no written notes but I considered the radiator banging with water erupting from the valves a form of contact. Once again, Ethel Myers reacted in place of my friend. Eyes wide open and arms flailing about, she excitedly told me how once she started with the water, she was unable to stop it. Again, my friend’s animated behavior and gestures were spot on. This was exactly like she would have behaved – quick to take action with little concern for consequences.
This was my last visit with Ethel Meyers. I occasionally thought about psychics and their ability to contact people who passed. Many years later, I’d moved to Florida, and one evening before I went to sleep I thought about how much I’d like to know how my friend was doing on the other side and what they all did there. I fell asleep and had a vivid dream that I was slowly being led by four or five people to see my friend. As we approached a small group that was surrounding her, I was asked if I was SURE I wanted to know? This scared the SH*T out of me. I got out of there and forced myself awake! To this day I’m no longer curious about things we are not supposed to know about. The surroundings were dark and muted although my vision was clear. This was not a dream in color. It was darker than dusk, but not as black as night. There was no sunlight, no winged “angels”, no heat extremes, no screams, no dancing, and no emotions, just a muted scene with people or whatever going about their business, whatever that was. I had bought into the theory that people with damaged souls go through a period of repair and healing before they are ready for “reincarnation” or whatever comes next. I expected that she was in this process and that was where I was going to see her, That’s the best my rational unimaginative mind could make of all this.
As for Ethel Meyers, I have no doubt she was either a legitimate psychic or she was able to read my subconscious mind! Which option is more likely?
Wow. Thank you for taking the time to tell these stories. It is much appreciated and absolutely fascinating.
A Molly Guion portrait of Ethel Meyers is avaiable ; if there is any interest ?
Hi Lans. I’m sure lots of people would be interested! How did you come to own it? Do you have a picture of it you would be willing to share?
This is the portrait of Ethel Meyer that I mentioned. It was part of the estate of a friend in Cornwall and I was the grateful recipient. It is framed. I am very eager to pass it on to anyone for whom it would have some meaning. This site wont carry the photograph, but I will gladly sent it to anyone interested.
Stacy,
If you send me your email I will send you the photo of the painting,
reportpair@gmail.com