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Spirit Identity – William Stainton Moses

An extraordinary severe strain of work left me a month ago, it is necessary to premise, with the mental powers jaded and used out, so that even to read a newspaper was irksome.  Consequently I removed from the busy whirl of London and the excitement of its busy life to the peaceful quiet of the country, and occupied myself in the busy idleness of doing nothing.  That is not much in my way, and at first nothing but sheer inability to think kept me still.  Soon, however, rest began to do its beneficial work, and I experienced the returning sensations of mental vigour.

During this time and for some weeks before, the objective evidences of mediumship had been absent, save only for some remedial processes, which are usual when I am out of health.  But now, as health was re-established and the conditions of quiet and rest permitted, there supervened a condition of great lucidity.

On ordinary occasions, in the press and worry of daily occupations, the spiritual faculties with me are dimmed.  I see [if at all] ‘through a glass darkly’ and have to test and try my sensations before they can be accepted.  Here there was none of that: the vision was face to face and I found myself receiving its evidences with the same unquestioning acceptance that I do the phenomena that surround me in the natural world.

I look at myself in the glass and accept the counterfeit presentment without argument.  I know of course that ‘I’ am not there – that the solidity is visual deception and so on; but I accept the working model and am content.

So in the cases of clairvoyant vision.

The vision was so palpable that it created no revulsion, no wonder, no questioning in my mind.

The first of my cases occurred on August 18th inst.  I had returned from a three days absence to the house of friends with whom I was staying.  When I left, a friend of the lady of the house was unwell.  During my absence she died suddenly.  When I entered the room I saw her standing beside her friend – the lady whom I was visiting.

The disembodied phantom was as clear to my gaze as the living person to whom I was talking.

‘So Miss xxxxx is dead’ I said forgetting that the good lady could not see her ghostly visitant.

‘Yes’

‘And buried’ I continued for the words sounded in my ear.

‘Yes, but how did you know?’

Then I remembered and turned the subject, for my hostess would have fainted in horror had she known how near to her her friend was.

……………  I took careful note of the dress, mien and face of the ghost – I had never seen the original in the body – and as occasion served, I elicited from my hostess a description, which greatly tallied with my vision; except in one point.  The ghost wore a brooch of peculiar make which I could get no description of.  On the following day, however, my hostess came back from her friend’s house with the identical ornament in her hand.  Her friend had left it to her as a memento.

She looked puzzled at me – very; and I think she suspects something uncanny, for she eyes me now and again as one would study a phenomenon.