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Stainton-Moses, William - Spirit Identity - READING MINDS
Identifier
015616
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
History has been very harsh on Stainton-Moses. He is now being called a fraud, but I do not think this is true, I think he was genuine, but extremely gullible. Moses endorsed the spirit photography of Édouard Isidore Buguet, for example, and Buguet was exposed as a fraud, as is to be expected [it is not possible to photograph an hallucination].
Moses was also an early member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). In 1886 and 1887 in a series of publications, the SPR exposed the tricks of the medium William Eglinton, another fraud in whom Moses initially believed. The SPR and society in general at this time was full of people who were capable of mind reading and no more – being able to glean facts from others present and recount them as if they were communications from another realm. And they made money from it. It had its unpleasant side. Deaths of children were far more frequent than now and many mediums claimed to be able to communicate with these children. Large amounts of money were made from the grief stricken whose perceptions were being tapped and fed back to them. But in saying this we should not forget that this is genuine spiritual experience. It is inter composer communication, not with the dead but with another person present – communication with and between bodied souls, so it is worth recording. And this appears to be what William was good at – reading the perceptions of those present.
In the example that follows only three are unconnected with them all and only one was an unknown. So only one communication is with a person outside their circle, all the rest is inter communication between themselves – via the mind – mind reading. Of that one, he gives no more details
A description of the experience
Spirit Identity – William Stainton Moses
Bit by bit, here a little and there a little, by steps which I do not detail here, the evidence came [of communication via minds], and as my mind opened to receive it, some six months were spent in persistent daily efforts to bring home to me proof of the perpetuated existence of human spirits, and of their power to communicate with me and give evidence of their unimpaired individuality and of the unbroken continuity of their existence.
Some of those who so came I had known during their time on earth, and was able, not only to verify their statements, but also to note their little traits of manner, peculiarities of diction, or characteristics of mind, that I remembered in them while in the body.
Most were unknown to me, and came, always in obedience to the controlling spirit who arranged everything, to give their evidence and go their way when the task assigned them was done. Of these some came from the most unlikely sources and gave me and my friends no little trouble to verify their statements.
Some came at the time of death. At that time, it would seem, the spirit finds it easy to manifest its presence, and the facts that it can give are readily capable of verification. Some had been long dead, as men count time and came back in a dazed and awkward fashion to revisit the old scenes of earth, cramped and straitened, as it were, by taking on again the old conditions.
But wherever they came from and however they communicated, one and all bore with them an air of sincerity and earnestness, as of those who were themselves impressed with the deep significance of the work they had in hand. And all, without a lonely exception, told the truth about themselves, so far as we could verify their story. Many statements were from their nature not capable of proof; a vastly greater number were minutely accurate; and none suggested any attempt at deception. I cross examined these invisible witnesses in every conceivable way and with a pertinacity that left nothing untried to elicit facts. Many of the queries were unanswered, for I am afraid I asked many unreasonable questions; but I failed to shake their story, or by the most cunning suggestion falsi to lead them into mistakes.
I refer for evidence of this to my records, kept during all this period with scrupulous regularity, day by day, minute in detail even to recording temperature and atmospheric conditions and checked by independent records kept by another member of the circle in which the facts were communicated. Any gaps in my own narrative such as would be caused by my being, as I frequently was, in a state of unconscious trance, are thus filled up and my own record is checked by independent observation.
Referring to my records, I find that from New Years Eve to January 11th 1874, during which time I was staying at Shanklin Isle of Wight, the guest of Dr Speer, we ha da continuous chain of testimony at our daily sittings….. during those twelve days eleven different cases of identity were made out by facts and dates.
Three of them were entirely unconnected with any of us and of one of them none of us had ever heard the name or ay particular. Yet his full name, his place of residence and the very name of his house, dates of birth and day of his death were given with perfect accuracy.
One was connected with Dr Speer, five with Mrs Speer and two were friends of my own