Rudolph Valentino: Latin Lover to Spirit Guide

Rudolph Valentino was born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguella in Apulia, Italy. Valentino immigrated to America at age 18 and eventually became one of the most famous silent film stars of the 1920s. 

Due to his "exotic" appearance he became one of the first Hollywood sex symbols and was given the nickname "the Latin Lover". He stared in classic silent films such as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle, and The Son of the Sheik. 

Valentino was raised a Roman Catholic, and had fond memories of his mother’s particularly strong Catholic faith. However, his own personal faith in the Catholic Church essentially stopped there. Valentino would become very interested in a variety of spiritual topics due to his second wife, Natacha Rombova. Natacha was fascinated by Ancient Egyptian mythology, Reincarnation, Theosophy, and Spiritualism, and encouraged Valentino to study these subjects as well. 

We know from various sources that Valentino regularly attended several seances with Natacha, and also regularly consulted psychic readers while living in California. Valentino eventually began to practice mediumship and found that he had a gift for automatic writing, sometimes giving communications from his Spirit Guides named Black Feather (a Native American spirit) and Meselope (An Ancient Egyptian spirit). In 1923 he published a small volume of poetry titled Day Dreams which were supposedly written during automatic writing sessions. 

Valentino unexpectedly passed away at age 31 in 1926 due to medical complications and misdiagnosis, and was laid to rest in Hollywood Forever Cemetery. 

Although Valentino and Natacha were divorced about a year before his death, it was at a séance hosted by Natacha in November 1926, just a few months after his death, where the spirit of Valentino first delivered messages from the spirit world. The séance was conducted by a medium from the American Society for Psychical Research. A newspaper article contained Valentino's messages from the seance sumarized by Natacha: 

"Valentino is a citizen of the Astral Plane, He hopes to be a legitimate actor there, He has met Enrico Caruso and has heard the late tenor sing, He has visited theaters (on the worldly plane) where his pictures were being shown and has been pleased at the "flattery" he sensed in the minds of the audience, Everything in the theater, however, now seems strange to him as he "can see through all things."

In December 1927 a year after his death, a Spiritualist Medium named Carol McKinstry claimed that the spirit of Valentino came to her during a séance in Binghamton, NY and requested her assistance in transcribing a script that she would later publish as a book titled The Return of Rudolph Valentino. The book was to some extent a romantic novel that dealt with the subjects of spiritual development and reincarnation. 

The spirit of Valentino continued to work with Mckinstry for the rest of her life offering lessons and teachings on the principles of Spiritualism and metaphysics of the spiritual world.  In 1941 Rev. McKinstry moved to Los Angeles to found the Rudolph Valentino Memorial Church of Psychic Fellowship IGAS (International General Assembly of Spiritualist Churches), located in North Hollywood. 

In an interview she stated that Valentino acts as a Spirit Guide and "comes to me when he has a point of view he wants to express about conditions of the world." In addition to the messages she received from Valentino, Rev. McKinstry preached on a variety of Spiritual topics to her Hollywood congregation such as the principles of Spiritualism, as well as Buddhism, Astrology, Egyptian philosophy, and Reincarnation. 

Although Rev. Mckinstry is notable for her public promotion of Valentino as a Spirit Guide, she was not the only one who claimed to have contact with Valentino's spirit. After his death, what initially began as memorial practices from fans evolved into an almost folk saint like devotion to Valentino. 

In 1937 Roger C. Peterson, the grounds keeper of the mausoleum where Valentino was interred published a book titled Valentino The Unforgotten. In this book he recorded his experiences with visitors who visited Valentino's tomb. Although many came to visit as fans, almost half of the experiences seem to be individuals visiting his tomb for spiritual purposes. 

Almost as soon as Valentino passed away people claimed that Valentino appeared to them in dreams and visions, sometimes offering spiritual advice, and in some instances even healing them from illness. Some say they felt called by his spirit to visit his tomb to pray, a few instances recorded mention people praying to him for things such as finances or to find a job. A few of these individuals identified as Spiritualists and Psychics, most were simply people who felt simply felt connected to Valentino. The book Valentino The Unforgotten was out of print for several years but has thankfully been put back into circulation by the Valentino researcher Tracy Ryan Terhune. 

These fans and devotees turned his grave to a place of pilgrimage, leaving flowers, cards, small offerings, or simply going to meditate and pray near their beloved Valentino. Many of these fans and devotees around the world began to organize into memorial guilds, societies, and clubs in order to honor the memory of Valentino. Many of these would participate in the annual memorial held at Valentino's grave in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, which continues to be held to this day. 

One of these guilds, the Rudolph Valentino Guild, London was organized by the British Spiritualist Medium, Leslie Flint. Leslie Flint was the President of this organization, and had collected something of a small museum of Valentino films and memorabilia. This society would regularly meet once a month to watch a Valentino film in a venue attached to Flint's house.

Leslie Flint was one of the most well known Spiritualists to have come from England in the modern era. He was known for his direct voice mediumship. Direct voice is a form of physical mediumship that occurs when spirits use the magnetic energies from the medium's body to create an audible voice outside the body of the medium (rather than an inner voice, or using the medium's voice in a trance state) that all in attendance can audibly hear with their own ears. 

A book was published in 1965 titled the Voice of Valentino, which contained teachings derived from seances conducted by Flint where he manifested the voice of Valentino through his mediumship. Several of these sessions are available to listen for free online through the Leslie Flint Trust, and several of the recordings include a spirit voice that Flint claimed was the spirit of Valentino. Flint continued to promote his interest in Valentino up until his death in 1994. 

In 2004 author and medium Wayne Hatford began a series of automatic writing sessions channeling the spirit of Valentino. Similar to Rev. McKinstry, these sessions developed into a spiritual mission guided by the Spirit of Valentino to “help each of us achieve greater degrees of awareness, inner alignment, and personal growth.” 

These teachings were published in 2011 as the work Valentino Speaks: The Wisdom of Rudolph Valentino: Cues and Views from the Other Side. In the year 2020 another volume was published by Hatford titled Rudolph Valentino on the 2020's. 

With almost a hundred years since his passing, Valentino's role as a Spirit Guide within the Spiritualist movement seems to renew itself with every generation of Spiritualists, offering messages of hope and wisdom to anyone who cares to listen.  

Rev. Anthony Camardo

I came across Rev. Anthony Camardo while I was researching Italian-Americans involved with American Spiritualism, and he's quickly become one of my favorite people I've researched. Rev. Anthony Camardo was an Italian-American Spiritualist from Chicago. He was described as "a short and cheerful man," affectionately called "Tony" by his congregation. He was founder of the Liberal Psychic Science Association, and Pastor of the Liberal Psychic Science Church. 

In 1928 the 27 year old Camardo was drawn into a somewhat high profile criminal investigation. An eight year old named Billy Ranieri was kidnapped on his way home from school in Chicago, and held for ransom. Ranieri was rescued and his kidnappers were caught, and it was discovered that one of the men had a business card of Anthony Camardo's in his wallet. Camardo was questioned by the State Attorney; he explained that he had only met the man once, and that he was brought as a guest to a séance that he had facilitated. 

In 1935 Anthony Camardo was listed as a member of the First Italian Spiritualist Church, where he would regularly assist in Sunday Services. By 1937 Rev. Anthony was ordained as a Spiritualist Minister and was leading his own congregation; in 1941 he formed his own Spiritualist Association, the Liberal Psychic Science Church. 

A few different articles describe Camardo's church; the main entrance lead to a fellowship hall on the ground floor. This fellowship hall had folding chairs and several tables with small packages of incense for sale for 25 cents. A reporter made note of a few song birds that were in cages, a parrot, a few tanks of fish, and two resting dogs (a spaniel and a bulldog) were present in the fellowship hall during his visit. 

The sanctuary was somewhat dark, with rows of folding chairs; the platform had a lectern, and a wooden altar table with a cross. The windows in the sanctuary overlooked a small garden. There was a painting of Jesus in a white robe, a few statues of Catholic Saints, and some busts of figures in Turbans. 

The church hosted regular Sunday Services, as well as Wednesday night services. The congregation also met for monthly development circles. One particularly interesting feature of Rev. Camardo's church service is that in addition to Healing and Messages typical of most Spiritualist Churches, the Liberal Psychic Science Church also offered Communion to the congregation on a fairly regular basis, which is somewhat unusual for most Spiritualist Churches.

The Church also had an auxiliary organization called the Liberal Psychic Science Welfare Federation, which organized events such as a Christmas Bazaar, Holiday Parties, and Church dinners (chicken and spaghetti, lasagna, and ravioli were mentioned).

In 1948 Camardo served as President of the Federation of Spiritual Churches and Associations, which was the American branch of the International Spiritualist Federation. He served alongside notable Spiritualists such as John & Helen Gerling of Rochester, New York and also Rev. A. Mae Baxter Gruner, the President of Harmony Grove Spiritualist Camp in Southern California. He was described as one of the pillars of the organization: 

"Tony" Camardo has many virtues, but there is one high quality which he possesses that so overshadows all others that the one word which is most apt to characterize him is FRIENDLY. His great and good work is the true embodiment of friendlies, which reaches out to folks and makes them want to listen to the Voice of Spirit that works through him. Rev. Anthony Camardo was elected to the Federation at the Chicago Convention of 1946." 

In 1950 a reporter for the Chicago Tribune attended one of Rev. Camardo's Wednesday Night Development Circles. The meeting began at 7pm, with a gathering consisting of about 30 thirty people, mostly women, and most of them older with a handful of individuals in the 20-30 year age range. 

The meeting began with a short lecture given by Rev. Camardo on the importance of meditation for spiritual development, and also the importance of the influence of the moon on people. After a short break the Mediums prepared for the message service. Four aluminum spirit trumpets and a child's slate were placed on the floor in the center of the circle, and the lights were dimmed. The sitters were asked to place their feet firmly on the floor, with their palms resting upwards. 

The opening prayer was the 23rd Psalm, and Rev. Camardo lead the gathering in raising the vibrations for spirit communication. After about 20 minutes some small noises seemed to be produced from the Trumpet, and Camardo asked all gathered to share any messages that they had received for themselves or for others, and some for friends not in attendance. The meeting ended with coffee and cake. Camardo then invited the reporter to get pizza around the corner after everyone left. 

In 1956 Camardo lead his congregation on a retreat to Chesterfield Spiritualist Camp, where they stayed for a week to attend lectures, classes, and demonstrations of psychic phenomena. Camardo represented Chicago for "Illinois Day" during the Camp. Two notable Puerto Rican Espiritistas (Victor M. Ramos, and Judge Victorio M. Fernandez) made a special 3,000 mile trip to visit Camp Chesterfield and and study with American Spiritualists. Rev. Camardo was chosen to act as host, and helped as an interpreter for the guests. 

In a 1964 article from the Chicago Daily News, a description was given of a marriage counseling session that was conducted by Camardo for two reporters disguised as a couple. The reporters in the article openly admitted that they had not researched what the session would be like, and were disappointed that it was not similar to a psychological counseling as they had expected. Instead Rev. Camardo offered a lesson on mental healing, meditation, and positive affirmations that couples could use to improve and heal their relationship. 

Rev. Anthony Camardo passed away in January 1972 at age 71.