Posted on 16 December 2024, 6:14

In my essay for the Bigelow contest of 2021, I presented a simulated present-day court trial in which The Survival School contends that consciousness survives death in a greater reality, while arguing that the evidence for such survival was overwhelming before 1920.  It offered the testimony of 11 pre-1920 scholars and/or scientists, including three chemists, two physicists, a biologist, a judge, a lawyer, a theologian, a philosopher, and a physician.  Those not familiar with that trial summary/essay can find it, along with those of other award winners.

Prior to the trial, a number of other witnesses had been deposed, but because the presiding judge put a time limit on the trial, only those 11 testified. The testimony of, Professor James Hyslop, a psychologist, would have been the 12th witness and Dr. Gustave Geley, a physician, the 13th.  Hyslop’s testimony from his deposition was presented in my blog of December 6, 2021, while Geley’s was offered in my blog of September 11, 2023.  The 14th witness would have been Vice-Admiral William Usborne Moore. (below)  He was a British naval officer who commanded six surveying vessels, becoming a psychical researcher upon his retirement from the navy.  He studied dozens of mediums in both Great Britain and the United States and reported on them in two books.  His “deposition” involves his exact words from those books. Glimpses of the Next State (1911) and The Voices (1913). Moore concluded that as a surveyor, interested in detail and exactness, he was as qualified as anyone to investigate the subject matter.

Except for words in brackets, inferred and added to permit a proper flow or transition, the words are his verbatim. The questions have been tailored to fit the responses. After introducing him to the jury, attorney Edward Randall put various question to him, including those below:

Admiral Moore, in your 1904 book, “The Cosmos and the Creeds,” you attacked the teachings of the churches and expressed doubt as the reality of a future life. Do I understand that correctly?

“[You do.]” At the time I thought that such immortality as man possessed lay in the influence his actions, words, or writings had upon those who were his contemporaries, or who came after him; but that he himself, as an individual conscious entity, disappeared forever, not to be recognized again.”

It is my understanding that you have changed your views concerning the future life. Would you mind explaining?
 
“To be brief, I found that the deeper I went into the study of spiritism the more apparent it became that, whether he wished it or not, man’s individuality was not extinguished at death. I read books, visited clairvoyants, and attended séances for materialization.  Through all I was constantly reminded of the existence of a near and dear relative [Iola], older than myself, who passed away thirty-seven years ago in the prime of her life.  Her continued reappearances could only lead me to one conclusion: I was being guided to a reconsideration of the problem of immortality.”

As I further understand it, you were attracted to psychical research by Sir William Crookes’ book, “Researches into the Phenomena of Modern Spiritualism.”  When did you have your first sitting with a medium?

“In September 1904, I sat in Portsmouth with Mrs. Crompton of Bradford; she clairvoyantly saw a spirit form near me that answered very nearly to Iola as I remember her, and Mr. Vango described her to me two or three times, giving her name. These were the first intimations I received of the desire of my relative to get in touch with me.” 

And you then sat with other mediums, including Cecil Husk?
   
“[True], the blind medium, Cecil Husk, the psychic more frequently engaged for these séances, was then at his best.  The phenomena which took place were the materialization of the heads and busts of discarnate entities, spirits singing, whispers and the flight of a musical instrument round the rooms, over the heads of the sitters, all the while playing a definite tune…Husk sat in the circle at the table in every case.  I soon saw and heard a number of things that could not be explained away by any system of juggling or deception of any sort.  The principal control or familiar spirit of Husk is the famous buccaneer of the time of Charles II, Sir Henry Morgan, who now calls himself ‘John King.’  Often I have heard his stentorian voice and have seen him materialize above the medium’s head and dematerialize through the table.” 

Was it all in the dark?

“[Yes, but] when a spirit materialized it showed itself by aid in an illuminated slate, prepared and lying on the table.  Sometimes they spoke while in sight, but more often in the dark after they had dropped the slate; when in sight, the lips could be seen to move.  Except in the case of John King, who was life-size, the faces and busts were about two-thirds of life size.  The singing was remarkable; the voices would join with us, and also execute solos.  I have heard as many as eight different male voices, from tenor to deep bass, singing at different times during one séance; and at different séances, I have heard twelve languages spoken in direct voice.”

I recall reading somewhere that Husk was caught cheating on one occasion.
 
“Mr. Cecil Husk’s séances have been the theme of many discussions amongst spiritists.  I have sat with him over forty times, and have only once suspected fraud.  On that occasion the conditions were bad, and I am by no means sure that my doubts were reasonable.  Even supposing my first ideas were correct, there were good reasons for attributing the trick I thought I had witnessed to unconscious fraud. ...[Moreover,] the manifestations that occur through the mediumship of Husk when in private rooms are far better than those which happen in his own house. …The materializations which represent the sitters’ friends are less than life-size.  If frauds, they must be dummies.  But, if dummies, how is it the lips are seen to move when they speak?  And, if dummies, they would appear more natural.  I have seen faces even half life-size – for they vary very much – but none that I can remember which looked fresh and good color, such as you would expect from a face intended to simulate that of a human being.  There was a parchment appearance about all that came to me, and there is an undefinable look of Husk in some.  This ‘Husky’ appearance is just what we ought to expect, unless we are to suppose that the medium through whom they manifest has imparted nothing of individuality to the form and face. ...[As I earlier mentioned], I have heard twelve languages spoken at different séances [with Husk].”

Did you otherwise encounter much fraud?

“There is a great deal of fraud in the practice of spiritism – fraud intentional and conscious, and unconscious fraud.  There is no doubt that the trickery imposed here and in America had deterred thousands of people from investigation of the subject. ...The temptations of these psychics are great; whatever powers they possess are sporadic and cannot be summoned at will; they find this out early in their development, and, in order to maintain regular séances, they learn the art of jugglery to ‘help out’ their particular gift at times when they feel they have not got their usual power.  People travel long distances to sit with them.  They have not the moral courage to say, ‘I have little or no power today; come another time.’  Possibly they do not know how much power they have, nor how far their guides can assist them, until they go into trance.  If they turn their patrons away from the door, a murmur is soon circulated that they are not reliable, and sitters fail to attend; their income, never large, dwindles away, and they are stranded without means of a livelihood.  Having surrendered themselves for two or three years to the trance condition, they cannot adapt any of the ordinary wage-earning occupations of life, and they become destitute.  Competition is keen, and they see others prospering by keeping up their séances with artificial assistance.  Though we cannot defend, we can at least understand the causes of fraud in mediumship.” 

Would you mind explaining what you mean by unconscious fraud?

“All psychics are in danger of losing their power at a séance from the mental action of hostile sitters.  They are usually in a state of self-imposed hypnosis.  A man sits down in the circle and impresses them with a perpetually recurring suspicion, ‘You are going to deceive me.’  Eventually the thought becomes an active dynamic force, and the medium senses strongly, ‘I am going to deceive him.’…Some investigators imagine that if a medium is in trance he cannot commit fraud.  This is an error.  If the intention is in his mind before entering the hypnotic state, he may or may not carry it out.” 

As I recall, you traveled to New York in 1904 and sat with various mediums there.
 
“[Correct], I arrived on Christmas day, a Sunday.  That evening I attended a materialization séance; Mr. de Witt Hough was the medium.  The female figures were veiled, but one appeared at the opening of the cabinet, after some six or seven materializations had taken place, which was precisely the right height and figure of Iola, and gave her earth name.  I approached the cabinet; the figure advanced to meet me with outstretched hands; she was trembling excessively, and could utter only a few words.  I saw her twice after that through Hough’s mediumship, and communicated with her many times through psychics in New York and Boston.  On one occasion she said, ‘I did not know I was dead until I saw someone cut off a lock of my hair from behind my right ear.’  I was ignorant of this as I was in the Indian Ocean when my relative died in Scotland, but on inquiry, I found the statement to be correct: after her death a lock of hair had been cut off from behind her right ear.”

So what was your overall view of the matter after your first trip to the U.S.?

“I remained in America one month, and saw and heard quite enough to convince me that those whom I had thought of as dead were very much alive.  I returned to England in a frame of mind read to receive the truths of spiritualism if I could find them in any honest quarter…I endeavored to persuade others that this spiritism was no vain delusion, but a hypothesis which had come to stay, and was not to be disregarded. [I arranged for private séances, but] I found they could not see as I did, could not hear as I heard.  Their minds were unprepared.  Some were considerably impressed at the moment, but the next day thought themselves the victims of jugglery on the part of the medium or some confederate…Speaking generally their view was, ‘We are not experts in juggling, and we do not know what may be possible in that line; this contrary to all human experience; we cannot believe it.’  I remember, especially, one electrical engineer and one lady who could see or hear hardly anything.  They were both hostile to the subject, and their eyes and ears were open only to what their minds expected – which was nothing – or fraud.”

I know what you mean.  It seems that there is a will to disbelieve.

“[Exactly.]  No man can give to another the understanding to assimilate facts new to ordinary human experience.  Nor do I imagine that science will prove anything in either the mental of physical aspects of spiritism.  Mortals know of only three dimensions.  They may suspect that, outside their ken, there are beings operating in four or more, but all they see is the effect of these operations…When it comes to the passage of matter through matter, and others of the higher forces of spiritism that can only be witnessed under favorable mental and atmospheric conditions, it is difficult to see how science can prove anything.”

Admiral Moore’s testimony will continue in the next blog on December 30.

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.
His latest book, No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife is published by White Crow books.

Bruce,

Thanks for the links about Long.  I must confess that I have never heard of him or even of Huna. Although I have heard that Hawaii is a hotbed of spiritual activity, I haven’t found it. It may be limited to the Hawaiian community, which pretty much keeps to itself.

Look forward to hearing about your breakthrough on the Myers/Gurney matter.

Happy New Year to you and to all!

Michael,

Max Long
https://maxfreedomlong.com/

I came across him in a reference to him in one of my searches.
https://archive.org/details/secretsciencebeh00long/page/n5/mode/2up

I would expect that you might have covered him in a blog as close to home. Dunne’s theory of precognition gets a mention.

I have had a breakthrough in my own research on the Myers/Gurney spirit team just before Christmas so exciting times.
Happy New Year,
Bruce

Bruce,
Like almost every other article or book about Pearl Curran, Tyrrell makes small errors, but not inconsequential, about the Pearl Curran case. First of all, Tyrrell’s examples are supposed to be about automatists, that is “automatic writing.”  If he had personally looked into the Pearl Curran case he would know that Pearl Curran was not an automatic writer as usually thought of in spiritualistic circles and further on in his article, he provided evidence that Curran was not an automatic writer.  That makes me question his intelligence and ability to comment about something he knows nothing about ( Now I am beginning to sound like Hyslop!)  Curran did not go into a trance, did not lose consciousness, and no discarnate entity took control of her body, arm or hand.  Curran repeatedly said that the Ouija board was “dead wood” and that she received dictation from Patience Worth in the form of visual images with an overriding voice interpretation sometimes by Patience Worth.  This is almost identical to what Geraldine Cummins said about her receipt of dictation from the “spirit world”  And additionally, Tyrrell said that Pearl Curran “was born of British parents.”  which is absolutely incorrect but significant as an explanation of where Pearl Curran got her information about medieval and Victorian England..  Pearl Curran said her family had been in the United States “for ages.”  Both of her parents and her grandparents were born in America.

These kinds of small errors are what frustrates me about the information that is available about Pearl Curran.

I am at a very low point in my journey with Pearl Curran and Patience Worth.  It is very frustrating for me to try to get a book published when it is processed by twenty-something jackasses who know nothing about parapsychology, spiritism, spiritualism and the enormous history of spirit interactions with incarnate humans.  They are more interested in following the accepted patterns of book-making, book covers,  marketing and how they can get their cut of any money by selling various publishing “packages.”  None of them I have been dealing with (six “project managers” at this point), have read the book or even seen it.  They might as well be making a pizza without ever tasted one.

I know that most people like to read about apparitions, direct voices and other non-evidential reports of possible human interactions with the so-called spirit world,  but I think that the Pearl Curran case is one that is more likely to provide real evidence of survival of human consciousness after death than reports of apparitions, dancing lights, self-playing accordions, direct voices, wax hands and feet, spirit photography, apports and other spooky manifestations of the spirit world, all of which can be faked or misreported.  - AOD

Paul and Amos,

Paul – you may have missed a comment to you in the last article as it was close to changeover to this article.

Amos I am reading The Personality of Man G N M Tyrrell. I get to half way through and up comes Activities beyond the Threshold Chapter 16 Patience Worth and think of your discussions.
I recently helped out a person starting out on their spiritual understanding by talking about Gordon Smith. There was an excellent four part series at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVgD7rfdDtM which shows how mediums operate.
One of the fellow contributors is in video 2. I recently mentioned that should we all meet for coffee what would be the topic for our discussions? I would suggest Swarm Intelligence. The intelligence of a swarm of bees is separate from the intelligence of the individual. Has our group of contributors developed a swarm intelligence? What do swarms do that is different to the individual? Cooperation is one such element.

Some intelligent behaviours never observed in a single individual will soon emerge when several individuals begin cooperate or compete. The swarm can complete the tasks that a complex individual can do while having high robustness and flexibility and low cost.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/swarm-intelligence.
Thanks,
Bruce

Hi Michael,
I am currently reading Hyslop’s book, ” Life After Death: Problems of the Future Life and its Nature.”  I have a couple of Hyslop’s other books to reread.  Without a doubt, Hyslop was a brilliant writer who apparently spent most of his later years thinking about the afterlife. He was a man of two personas; one was the erudite academician and the other was a a normal man subject to common human foibles. He was a man of strong emotions when it can to his own views about the afterlife but was very vulnerable and could become argumentative with anyone who did not agree with his views. His association with Emily Grant Hutchings and Lola Viola Hays is an example of how he could be swayed by charming vivacious women, believing what they said about Pearl Curran without the evidence he demanded for his imprimatur. That, and his belief in Mrs. Chenoweth (Minnie Soule) as a trustworthy medium seemed to trigger his human emotions rather than his intellect. As you may know the SPR refuted everything Hyslop wrote about Pearl Curran, her husband John, Casper Yost and their publishing company.  Samuel Clemens’s (Mark Twain) daughter made some public very negative comments about Hyslop concerning his acceptance of Hutchings’s book “Jap Herron” which Hutchings said was dictated by the spirit of Mark Twain through use of a Ouija board.  Hyslop criticized the Ouija board in the Pearl Curran case as “silly” but accepted its use in the Hutchings case. Hyslop finally met with Pearl Curran a couple of times but apparently let the whole affair with Hutchings, Pearl Curran and Patience Worth drop off of his radar when most probably he realized he was wrong, but refused to publicly admit it.  - AOD

Amos,

I know you had reservations about Hyslop because of his reservations about Patience Worth, which he expressed without ever observing her.  Admiral Moore has some unkind words about Hyslop, pointing out that he wasn’t qualified to comment on physical mediumship because he didn’t witness any of it. Hyslop stuck with mental mediumship.

Mike

Thanks for the list, David.  To Schiller’s comments, I would add that of Dr. James Hyslop, who asked:
“Why is it so noble and respectable to find whence man came, and so suspicious and dishonorable to ask and ascertain whither he goes?”

David,
I think James Hyslop would agree with Schiller regarding financial support for scientific studies related to the afterlife.

See Michael’s Oct 21, 2024 blog and my comment at Wed 23 Oct, 18:19. - AOD

In his book “Riddles of the Sphinx”, philosopher F.C.S. Schiller in the chapter on immortality remarked: “Nothing, indeed, presents a more curious study in human psychology than the reckless violence with which both the adherents and the opponents of traditional doctrines concerning man’s future have resented any attempts to approach the subject in the serious spirit of scientific philosophy.” As to believers in the hereafter, Schiller adds “its effect upon their conduct is disproportionately small. Insanity due to the fear of Hell contributes only a comparatively small quota to our madhouses. The hope of Heaven does not inspire to superhuman virtue.” Keeping thought about the afterlife as an uncertain matter of faith “is extremely convenient [and] to leave the future life in the realm of vague speculation, to be believed when desired, and to be disregarded when belief would suggest unpleasant reflections, in order to avoid regarding it as a fact to be steadily and consistently kept in sight. For a fact is something which must be faced, even though it may be very unpleasant to do so, but an opinion may be manipulated so as to suit the exigencies of the occasion.”

As to the indifference of the mass of scientific minds towards this subject, Schiller adds: “We spend thousands of pounds on discovering the color of the mud at the bottom of the sea, and do not grudge even the lives of brave men in exploring the North Pole—although there is obviously not the remotest prospect of establishing, a trade in Manchester calicos with the Eskimos and polar bears—but we would not pay a penny, nor sacrifice the silliest scruple of a selfish reticence, to determine whether it is true that our dead do not pass wholly beyond our ken. And yet, with a tithe of the attention and study that has often been devoted to the most trivial and unworthy objects, the real nature of these “psychical” phenomena might have been explored—had it suited men to arrive at certainty on the subject.”

I am more sanguine about the prospect that scientific curiosity will eventually engage with this topic, as any serious inquiry into the nature of mind and consciousness will lead to a dead end without acknowledging the ultimate independence of mind from the body.

I have created a collection of books in Google Notebook LM that contain descriptions of the afterlife. With this Google AI tool, you can query and converse with the spirits. Ask any question of interest, such as “do discarnate spirits engage in sporting activities, games, recreation and play?”

Here’s the list thus far:

Beecher’s Spirit World Explained and My Present Religion.
Beyond the Bourn - A fascinating 19th century NDE
Claude’s books (first and second)
Experiences in Spirit (accounts by various individuals through Cora L.V. Richmond)
Gone West: Three Narratives of After-Death Experiences
Heaven and Earth - Anthony Borgia
Life After Death - Neville Randall
Life Beyond Death With Evidence - Charles Drayton Thomas
Life In The World Unseen - A. Borgia
More About Life In The World Unseen - A. Borgia
My Experiences While Out of the Body - C. L. V. Richmond
My Travels in the Spirit World - Caroline D. Larsen
The Nature of Spiritual Existence - C. L. V. Richmond
The Unobstructed Universe - Stewart E. White

For access send an email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I will grant the Google account associated with that email access to the Notebook, where you will be able to query the sources with questions about the afterlife state.

What strikes me is that excellent information such as this has been available for many decades and yet the will to disbelieve and/or ignore still prevails. Very disappointing.

Mike,

Another fun blog. I enjoy this format

Mike S