to the truth of the general facts upon which my views are founded.
These opportunities came through the fact that a lady who lived with
us, a Miss L. S., developed the power of automatic writing. Of all
forms of mediumship, this seems to me to be the one which should be
tested most rigidly, as it lends itself very easily not so much to
deception as to self-deception, which is a more subtle and dangerous
thing. Is the lady herself writing, or is there, as she avers, a power
that controls her, even as the chronicler of the Jews in the Bible
averred that he was controlled? In the case of L. S. there is no
denying that some messages proved to be not true--especially in the
matter of time they were quite unreliable. But on the other hand, the
numbers which did come true were far beyond what any guessing or
coincidence could account for. Thus, when the Lusitania was sunk and
the morning papers here announced that so far as known there was no
loss of life, the medium at once wrote: "It is terrible, terrible--and
will have a great influence on the war." Since it was the first strong
impulse which turned America towards the war, the message was true in
both respects. Again, she foretold the arrival of an important
telegram upon a certain day, and even gave the name of the deliverer of
it--a most unlikely person. Altogether, no one could doubt the reality
of her inspiration, though the lapses were notable. It was like
getting a good message through a very imperfect telephone.
One other incident of the early war days stands out in my memory. A
lady in whom I was interested had died in a provincial town. She was a
chronic invalid and morphia was found by her bedside. There was an
inquest with an open verdict. Eight days later I went to have a
sitting with Mr. Vout Peters. After giving me a good deal which was
vague and irrelevant, he suddenly said: "There is a lady here. She is
leaning upon an older woman. She keeps saying 'Morphia.' Three times
she has said it. Her mind was clouded. She did not mean it.
Morphia!" Those were almost his exact words. Telepathy was out of the
question, for I had entirely other thoughts in my mind at the time and
was expecting no such message.
Apart from personal experiences, this movement must gain great
additional solidity from the wonderful literature which has sprung up
around it during the last few years. If no other spiritual books were
in existence than five which have appeared in the last year or so--I
allude to Professor Lodge's Raymond, Arthur Hill's Psychical
Investigations, Professor Crawford's Reality of Psychical Phenomena,
Professor Barrett's Threshold of the Unseen, and Gerald Balfour's Ear
of Dionysius--those five alone would, in my opinion, be sufficient to
establish the facts for any reasonable enquirer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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