Instone (Tony) Bloomfield

Source(s): 1978, 1001 Club, confidential membership list (provided by Kevin Dowling in September 2008); 1987, 1001 Club, confidential membership list, in memoriam (provided by Kevin Dowling in September 2008)

Israel Instone Bloomfield? Managing director West London Property Corporation Ltd. in the 1950s. Chairman of the Oddenino's Property And Investment Company Ltd. from the 1950s-1970s. Has funded the London Society for Psychical Research, resulting in the 1981 book 'The Metal-Benders', by J. B. Hasted. Founder of the Spiritual Truth Foundation in 1965. Instone Bloomfield Charitable Trust.

Volume 1, No. 13, May 2005, Psypioneer: "When I joined the CPS staff as librarian in June 1968, it was springtime for the College, which had recently been (in effect) bought by Paul Beard who had become very much an executive president. ... Paul was very well qualified, first to provide the capital. He was assisted in this by Mr. X, a property developer called Instone Bloomfield who had already been instrumental in saving the two main Spiritualist newspapers through the creation of Spiritual Truth Foundation. ... The new president had numerous creative ideas. He invited Geoffrey Keyte, a dynamic young Spiritualist, for example, to form a Psychic Youth Group which met chiefly at the College from 1967-69.This brought in new junior members for the College, and generated many stories in “ Psychic News”. ... Paul was a dedicated worker for the New Age, part of the network around Sir George Trevelyan, though his own psychic roots were in a long experience of spirit teachers such as Red Cloud and White Eagle. By his book “ Survival of Death” he had achieved a respected place in psychical research, and was an active member of the Survival Joint Research Committee."

Sir George L. Trevelyan (1906-1996): Hon. President, Wrekin Trust (Founder, 1971; Director, 1971–86). trained and worked in F. M. Alexander re-education method, 1932–36; taught at Gordonstoun School and Abinger Hill School, 1936–41. Served War, 1941–45, Captain, Home Guard Training; taught No 1 Army Coll., Newbattle Abbey, 1945–47. Principal, Shropshire Adult College, Attingham Park, Shrewsbury, 1947–71; mounted and ran Wrekin Trust courses, 1971–86; latterly, lecture tours on holistic themes. A Vision of the Aquarian Age, 1977; The Active Eye in Architecture, 1977; Magic Casements, 1980; Operation Redemption, 1981; Summons to a High Crusade, 1986; Exploration into God, 1991. Heir: brother Geoffrey Washington Trevelyan [b 4 July 1920].

Both Sir John and Lord Humphrey (Pilgrims; chair RIAA) descended from Sir John Trevelyan, 4th Baronet (1735-1828).

In March 1983, after a long, dramatic career, Arthur Koestler ended his life dramatically by killing himself. He and his wife, Cynthia, were found dead in their home near London, both having taken overdoses of barbiturates. The Hungarian-born writer, age 77, had been suffering from terminal leukemia. His wife, in her fifties, was not ill. A suicide note expressed Koestler's "timid hopes for a depersonalized afterlife beyond due confines of space, time, and matter, and beyond the limits of our comprehension." Koestler's intellectual pilgrimage falls into three parts: (1) active communist, (2) active anti-communist and author of the influential anti- Stalinist novel Darkness at Noon, which made him famous, and (3) active promoter of the paranormal. Koestler was firmly convinced that para- psychology is ushering in a new Copernican Revolution. The Koestlers left a will in which about $750,000 was set aside for the endowment of a chair of parapsychology at a United Kingdom university. Oxford, Cambridge, and other leading universities declined the endowment on the grounds that it would cast doubt on their other research programs. Only two finally sought the funding: the University of Wales, at Cardiff, and the University of Edinburgh. Koestler's trustees finally gave it to Edin- burgh. Earlier, retired businessman Instone Bloomfield, a friend of Koestler, had independently established a Koestler Foundation. He announced that he would increase Koestler's endowment by another $750,000 if the chairman of the new department planned a research program that his foundation approved. At the time of this writing, the chairman has not yet been chosen. However, a psychologist at Edinburgh and one of the leading figures in British parapsychology, John Beloff, was a good friend of Koestler. Beloff New Directions in Parapsychology ( 1974) has a postscript by Koestler. Although Beloff is noted for the negative results of his experiments, especially when he tried to replicate U.S. tests of psi, he is a firm believer in the paranormal, including the psi powers of the great mediums of the past, and in the powers of modern psychics like Uri Geller and Ted Serios.

Sir John Rollo Norman Blair Sinclair, 9th Baronet (1928-1990): Lt Intelligence Corps, 1948–49. Director: The Lucis Trust, 1957–61; The Human Development Trust, 1970–; Natural Health Foundn, 1982–87. The Mystical Ladder, 1968; The Other Universe, 1972; The Alice Bailey Inheritance, 1984.

Schiller Institute: "American sponsors of the Lucis Trust include Henry Clausen, former supreme grand commander of Scottish Rite Freemasons; the Rockefeller Foundation; former secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara;, Rabbi Marc Tannenbaum of the American Jewish Committee; and Thomas Watson, Jr. of IBM. Watson is the uncle of John N. Irwin, III."

Members of the Temple met at the Endowment headquarters in the United Nations Plaza. Among their members: Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson), Eleanor Roosevelt, Thomas Watson (President of IBM), Max Lerner, James Linen (of Time-Life), Norman Thomas, James A. Pike, Ellsworth Bunker, and John D. Rockefeller IV.

The Lucis Trust’s leading sponsors include the following prominent figures: Henry Clausen, Supreme Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, 33rd Degree, Southern District Scottish Rite Freemasons Norman Cousins John D. Rockefeller IV The Rockefeller Foundation The Marshall Field family Robert McNamara Thomas Watson (IBM, former US Ambassador to Moscow) The United Lodge of Theosophists of New York City U. Alexis Johnson, former Undersecretary of State Rabbi Marc Tannenbaum, American Jewish Committee