[38] "Human Personality," vol. ii. p. 580.
CHAPTER VI
PHYSICAL PHENOMENA ALLEGED TO HAVE OCCURRED
IN THE PRESENCE OF WILLIAM STAINTON MOSES
It is mainly due to the labours of Mr. F. W. H. Myers, after Mr. Stainton Moses' death, that the Physical Phenomena alleged to have occurred in his presence can be included among those for which evidence of a scientific character is claimed. It is much to be regretted that, during Mr. Stainton Moses' lifetime, although phenomena of a very varied character were alleged to have occurred with great frequency during many years, no scientific man of eminence appears to have joined in the seances, except on one or two occasions. Perhaps the primary reason for this was that Mr. Stainton Moses' own attitude of mind towards the subject did not court critical and scientific investigation of the phenomena. But even during the last ten years of his life, subsequent to the formation of the Society for Psychical Research, of which he was an original member, and not only that, but for nearly five years a Vice-President and a member of the Council, so far as I know, no sittings were held with him on behalf of the Society, and no first-hand authentic records of the alleged phenomena in earlier years were placed before it. One reason for this probably was that the Council of the Society informally adopted a sort of understanding that its earlier investigations should not be directed towards "Spiritualism," but mainly towards those branches of the great subject which were, so to speak, just outside the field of recognised scientific inquiry—such, for instance, as Thought-Transference and Hypnotism. In this course there was doubtless a certain amount of wisdom, but to it was due the apathy and the ultimate secession of a few members who took great interest in the formation of the Society. Chief among these was W. Stainton Moses himself. In November 1886 he withdrew from the Society, considering that the evidence of phenomena of the genuine character of which he had satisfied himself beyond doubt, was not being properly entertained or fairly treated.
Mr. W. Stainton Moses entrusted by will his unpublished MSS. to two friends as literary executors, Mr. Charles C. Massey and Mr. Alaric A. Watts. At the earnest request of Mr. Myers, these gentlemen permitted him to see a large number of them. Thirty-one note-books were placed in his hands. Permission was further given to Mr. Myers to make selections from these note-books for publication in the Proceedings of the Society. These selections form the substance of two long articles.[39] The thirty-one books comprise twenty-four of Automatic Writing, four Records of Physical Phenomena, and three of retrospect and summary. Two of these recapitulate physical phenomena, with reflections.
Mr. Stainton Moses' most intimate friends were Dr. and Mrs. Stanhope T. Speer. They, with the occasional attendance of another intimate friend, Mr. F. W. Percival, barrister-at-law, and Examiner in the Education Department, were generally the only members of the small group who witnessed the phenomena. Mr. Stainton Moses' note-books had been kept extremely private. It seems probable that no one had seen them until they were placed in Mr. Myers' hands. Two note-books and other MSS. by Dr. Speer were also handed to Mr. Myers, which he says contained independent contemporary records of much evidential value. With regard to Dr. and Mrs. Speer, Mr. Myers says: "Their importance as witnesses of the phenomena is so great, that I must be pardoned for inserting a 'testimonial' to the late Dr. Speer (M.D., Edinburgh), which shall not, however, be in my own words, but in those of Dr. Marshall Hall, F.R.S., one of the best-known physicians of the middle of this century. Writing on 18th March 1849, Dr. Marshall Hall says (in a printed collection of similar testimonials now before me): 'I have great satisfaction in bearing my testimony to the talents and acquirements of Dr. Stanhope Templeman Speer. Dr. Speer has had unusual advantages in having been at the medical schools, not only of London and Edinburgh, but of Paris and Montpellier, and he has availed himself of these advantages with extraordinary diligence and talent. He ranks among our most distinguished rising physicians,'"[40] Dr. Speer practised as a physician at Cheltenham and in London, and at different times held various important hospital posts. He had scientific and artistic tastes, and being possessed of private means, he quitted professional work at the age of thirty-four, and spent his subsequent life in studious retirement. Mr. Myers says that his "cast of mind was strongly materialistic, and it is remarkable that his interest in Mr. Moses' phenomena was from first to last of a purely scientific, as contrasted with an emotional or religious nature."[41] Mrs. Stanhope Speer also kept careful records of the sittings. Over sixty instalments were published in the weekly journal, Light, under the title of "Records of Private Seances, from Notes taken at the time of each Sitting."
Mr. Stainton Moses was born in Lincolnshire in 1839. He studied at Oxford, and was ordained as a clergyman of the Church of England. After a few years of active life as a parish clergyman, he was offered a Mastership in University College School, London, which post he held until about three years before his death, which took place in 1892. As to the "fundamental questions of sanity and probity," Mr. Myers says: "Neither I myself, nor, so far as I know, any person acquainted with Mr. Moses, has ever entertained any doubt."[42] Mr. Charles C. Massey says: "However perplexed for an explanation, the crassest prejudice has recoiled from ever suggesting a doubt of the truth and honesty of Stainton Moses."[43] Mr. H. J. Hood, barrister-at-law, who knew him for many years, writes: "I believe that he was wholly incapable of deceit."[44] The principal published works of Mr. Stainton Moses are—"Researches in Spiritualism," issued in Human Nature, a periodical now extinct; "Spirit Identity" (1879), recently republished; "Spirit Teachings" (1883), of which a new edition has lately appeared with a biography by Mr. Charles Speer (son of Dr. S. T. Speer). Mr. Stainton Moses was also Editor of Light during its earlier years.
It has seemed important, in view of what is to follow, that the reader should be in possession of this somewhat explicit account of Mr. Stainton Moses, his life, his work, and his intimate friends.
Having briefly treated of these external matters in the first of his two articles in the Proceedings of the S.P.R., Mr. Myers goes on to say:—
"But now our narrative must pass at a bound from the commonplace and the credible to bewildering and inconceivable things. With the even tenour of this straightforward and reputable life was inwoven a chain of mysteries which, as I have before said, in whatever way soever they be explained, make that life one of the most extraordinary which our century has seen. For Stainton Moses' true history lies, not in the everyday events thus far recorded, but in that series of physical manifestations which began in 1872, and lasted for some eight years, and that series of automatic writings and trance-utterances which began in 1873, received a record for some ten years, and did not, as is believed, cease altogether until the earthly end was near."[45]