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.