SPIRITUALISM OR PSYCHIC TELEPATHY

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21026, 30 November 1933, Page 7

SPIRITUALISM OR PSYCHIC TELEPATHY

TO THE EDITOR OF Til* I'ReSS. Sir,-—I was very interested in the letter on "Spiritualism or Psychic Telepathy," written by "Psychology," and since I have something which seems to agree with his theory I shall let him, through the columns of your paper, have the) benefit of it. In the "Church Times," of December 12, 1919, a sermon is reported which ' was preached by the late Bishop Gore, in Grosvenor Chapel. He says, "This tendency to try to have intercourse with the dead has recurred very often in human history. It was very prevalent in the Roman Empire, when Christianity was spreading. It was very prevalent in the early middle ages. It is very prevalent to-day. Are there realities behind it? I will tell you one remarkable thing. In every period when this attempt to hold intercourse with the dead has been prevalent, the ideas derived from it simply reflected the cheap ideas current in the minds of the people who resorted to them. There were very different ideas current for example, round about the Jews, and those of the Roman Empire and those fearful ideas of the middle ages, and the ideas of to-day Put it every period the results 01 fh s sort of Ritualistic investigation have simply been the ideas current in the of the people on "Spiritualism" at the Southend Church Congress in 1920.gives^ an interesting example of telepathy, tone took eyeful notes of what passed a seances arranged for her by the sec rotary of the Society of Psychical Research, and thus describes one sittfng "I gave to her (the meflium) the name of a young criminal whom I had once known intimately, ana asked what had become ot him. Under 'control' she saw him m tne spirit world. She described him correctly She gave me, unaided, tne Christian name and the very uncommon pet name of his wife. This name alone would have identified the family but the description of all the group was fairly detailed and correct. She then told me exactly .how, aftei I had lost sight of him, this man had died of thirst and exhaustion; how after death he had repented and •made good* his earthly crimes She described his shame at meeting his wife's mother—to whom his career must have been a great distress—in the spirit world. After such identification, how interesting and touching these facts ought to have been to anyone who knew the family! But, alas! to tell the truth this man and his family never lived, either in this world or the next. They lived only in fiction. He was the leading character of my first novel, written many years ago. "Here again we can rule out lraua, for had the medium read the book, she would hardly have seen its characters as in the spirit world, or ventured on so dramatic a sequel to the story. "In this case ... we (she and her friend) were both thinking of the character presented by the medium." I trust that this will be of interest to "Psychology,"—Yours, etc., JEAN COLLINES. November 20, 1933. TO XaU EDITOR OT TM* WU3S Sir,—l- hope some more scientifically endowed person may be moved to reply to "Psychology's" interesting letter, but I can deal with some of the points. I agree with some of his remarks about seances, but I do not think spiritualists are in any "fool's paradise" when they believe that they entertain angels (and the other kind, too, sometimes) at their seances. He does not know what is the nature of the force or energy that is given off by the medium and sitters at a seance. We are told that special knowledge is required by the spirit chemists to mix the ingredients for a successful seance—to build up the speaking apparatus. Then the spirit visitors improve with practice at speaking. It is noticeable that a person who was a public speaker in earth life soon picks up the trick in the seance room, and often he can be recognised by his tricks of speech. The weight of a materialising is often reduced by 50 per cent. The conditions at a seance are so finely balanced, that one hostile sitter can inhibit a seance by his unspoken scoffing thoughts. Yes, all of us are human dynamos, and we are learning how to make this peculiar use of ourselves, to get in touch with the spirit world.—Yours, etc., PETER TRGLOVE. November 28, 1933.