Have spirit-people any influence on our daily thought and action? If so, to what extent and by what process?

One in spirit-life, who has given many lectures, said on the subject:
“Come with me through the walks of life, and see the manner of men we can help. It is not the arrogant fool who says in his heart: ‘My way is the only way,’ nor yet the man who weakly fears to trust his own instinct and vacillates falteringly between the opinions of man; but it is the sane, quiet thinker, who is willing to listen to all arguments and to choose wisely those that appeal alike to his heart and brain. Such we can assist by spirit-suggestion. Without his being conscious of it, we can often guide his thought along right lines, because he is fair-minded.

“Suggestion is one of the strong factors in the life force. As you said this morning, all things have their power of suggestion. Does not a low saloon throw out its vile suggestion to all men? Whether this emanation entices or repels, depends upon the man, but its surrounding influence is felt strongly and the suggestion is evil. A beautiful rural scene is helpful with its suggestion of peace and harmonious coloring. And so it is through all phases of life. Hence all should seek the best, and, unconsciously all do aspire to it.”

Power of Suggestion

The inhabitants of this invisible world influence and in some measure control the thought and conduct of every individual. They are more progressive than we, and having no incentive to accumulate money, devote themselves to the acquisition of knowledge. They delve deeply into the forces of Nature, and dealing with matter in greater refinement, make from time to time discoveries, some of which are utilized on the physical plane.

Faraday, who first made practical the force known as electricity, did not cease his investigation with death, but has been a potent factor in its development through suggestion to those who devote their time to the utilization of that force.

Raphael did not cease to portray upon canvas his wonderful creations, nor did Michael Angelo lose his ability to chisel marble into forms of beauty when he ceased to inhabit this plane. The years that have elapsed since they went on, have been years of opportunity and progress. Mozart, Beethoven, and all the other musicians who gave us our great compositions, have they gone down into the silent and relentless darkness, or have they continued their work, impressing on others from day to day new music that enriches the world? Milton, Dryden, Pope, Goldsmith, Moore, Wordsworth, Burns, Browning of modern times, Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, Epictetus, Tacitus and Cervantes, of an earlier period, were all their wonderful writings and philosophies produced without suggestion from the master minds in the more advanced spheres? I know this one fact, that people in the afterlife are so close, so in touch with our thoughts that it is difficult for any one to say that this or that is the product of his own intellect. Progress owes much to the invisible.

Robert G. Ingersoll, well known to me, in the afterlife, speaking on this subject said:

“Let me give the most remarkable illustration of spirit suggestion—the immortal Shakespeare. Neither of his parents could read or write. He grew up in a small village among ignorant people, on the banks of the Avon. There was nothing in the peaceful, quiet landscape on which he looked, nothing in the low hills, the undulating fields, nothing in the lazy flowing stream to excite the imagination. Nothing in his early life calculated to sow the seeds of subtlest and sublimest thought. There was nothing in his education or lack of education to account for what he did. It is supposed that he attended school in his home village, but of that there is no proof. He went to London when young, and within a few years became interested in Black Friars Theater, where he was actor, dramatist, and manager. He was never engaged in a business counted reputable in that day. Socially he occupied a position below servants. The law described him as a “sturdy vagabond.” He died at 52.

“How such a man could produce the works which he did has been the wonder of all time. Not satisfied that one with such limited advantages could possibly have written the masterpieces of literature, it has been by some contended that Bacon was the author of all Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies.

“It is a fact to be noted that in none of this man’s plays is there any mention of his contemporaries. He made reference to no king, queen, poet, author, sailor, soldier, statesman, or priest of his own period. He lived in an age of great deeds, in the time of religious wars, in the days of the armada, the edict of Nantes, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the victory of Lepanto, the assassination of Henry III of France, and the execution of Mary Stuart; yet he did not mention a single incident of his day and time.

“The brain that conceived “Timon of Athens” was a Greek in the days of Pericles and familiar with the tragedies of that country. The mind that dictated “Julius Caesar” was an inhabitant of the Eternal City when Caesar led his legions in the field. The Author of “Lear” was a Pagan; of “Romeo and Juliet” an Italian who knew the ecstasies of love. The author of those plays must have been a physician for, he shows a knowledge of medicine and the symptoms of disease; a musician, for in “The Two Gentleman of Verona” he uses every musical term known to his contemporaries. He was a lawyer, for he was acquainted with the forms and expressions used by that profession. He was a botanist because he named nearly all known plants. He was an astronomer and a naturalist and wrote intelligently upon the stars and natural science. He was a sailor, or he could not have written “The Tempest.” He was a savage and trod the forest’s silent depths. He knew all crimes, all regrets, all virtues, and their rewards. He knew the unspoken thoughts, desires, and ways of beasts. He lived all lives. His brain was a sea on which the waves touch all the shores of experience. He was the wonder of his time and of ours.

“Was it possible for any man of his education and experience to conceive the things which he did? All the Shakespearean works were, beyond a doubt, the product of his pen, but the conceptions, the plays, the tragedies were the work of many brains, given Shakespeare by spirit suggestion. He was but the sensitive instrument through which a group of learned and distinguished scholars, inhabitants of many lands when in earth-life, gave to posterity the sublime masterpieces of the Bard of Avon.”

Extract from The French Revelation by Riley Heagerty Published by White Crow Books.