The case of Stainton Moses, whose name we have just mentioned, is a very
striking one in this respect. This Stainton Moses was a dogmatic,
hard-working clergyman, whose learning, Myers tells us, in the normal
state, did not exceed that of an ordinary schoolmaster. But he was no
sooner “entranced” before certain spirits of antiquity or of the middle
ages, who are hardly known save to profound scholars, among others St.
Hippolytus, Bishop of Ostia, Plotinus, Athenodorus, the tutor of
Augustus, and, more particularly, Grocyn, the friend of Erasmus, took
possession of his person and manifested themselves through his agency.
Now Grocyn, for instance, furnished certain information about Erasmus
which was at first thought to have been gathered in the other world, but
which was subsequently discovered in forgotten, but nevertheless
accessible books. On the other hand, Stainton Moses’ integrity was never
questioned for an instant by those who knew him; and we may therefore
take his word for it when he declares that he had not read the books in
question. Here again, the mystery, inexplicable though it be, seems
really to lie hidden in the midst of ourselves. It is unconscious
reminiscence, if you will, suggestion at a distance, subliminal reading,
but, no more than in cross correspondence, is it indispensable to have
recourse to the dead and to drag them by main force into the riddle,
which, seen from our side of the grave, is dark and impassioned enough
as it is. Furthermore, we must not insist unduly on this cross
correspondence. We must remember that the whole thing is in its earliest
stages and that the dead appear to have no small difficulty in grasping
the requirements of the living.
-----
Footnote 13:
_The Survival of Man_, Chap. xxv, p. 325.
Footnote 14:
In this connexion, however, we find two or three rather perturbing
facts, a remarkable one being, at a spiritualistic meeting held by the
late W. T. Stead, the prediction of the murder of King Alexander and
Queen Draga, described with the most circumstantial details. A
verbatim report of this prediction was drawn up and signed by some
thirty witnesses; and Stead went next day to beg the Servian minister
in London to warn the king of the danger that threatened him. The
event took place, as announced, a few months later. But “precognition”
does not necessarily require the intervention of the dead; moreover,
every case of this kind, before being definitely accepted, would call
for prolonged investigation in every particular.
-----
2
In regard to this subject, as to the others, the spiritualists are fond
of saying:
“If you refuse to admit the agency of spirits, the majority of these
phenomena are absolutely inexplicable.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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