Gladys Osborne Leonard died in 1968.

But as a child, she would see strange and beautiful visions. She grew up in Lydon, St Anne's, of seaside town in Lancashire, England, and she describes frequent incidents in her childhood.

Every morning, she wrote in her biography, soon after waking, even while dressing or having my nursery breakfast, I saw visions.

In whatever direction I happened to be looking,

the physical view of the wall, door, ceiling or whatever, would disappear, and in its place

would come, valleys, trees, banks covered with flowers for many miles, and I was conscious

that I could see much farther than was possible with the ordinary scenery around me.

You would see couples or groups dressed in flowing draperies and in a condition of deep happiness and quiet ecstasy.

They had no doubt or fear or anxiety on their faces, and the way they moved around was just pure joy.

When Gladys tried to explain what was happening to her mother and father,

the first was accused of making it up, then eventually they just told her not to talk about it anymore.

It was around this time that her grandfather died, and her father and his brother, who had apparently both been depending on a large inheritance,

discovered they'd been left entirely nothing.

Her uncle promptly threw himself out of a fourth-floor window

while his wife drank frisic acid.

Gladys' father, meanwhile, became mentally unbalanced,

and after they lost their big house, her mother left him,

taking the four children with her.

Their existence from then on was a struggle, and they were incredibly poor. One day, when Gladys went into town grocery shopping with

her mother, they walked past a rundown building that had a sign outside of her advertising

spiritual meetings. At the time, Gladys had no idea what this meant,

but she felt a strong urge that she had to attend. So later that evening, after pretending to go to

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