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Identity

Establishing the identity of spirit communicators has been a difficult problem for psychical researchers. Nineteenth-century Russian Spiritualist A. N. Aksakof conceded, "Absolute proof of spirit identity is impossible to obtain; we must be content with relative proof." Psychical researcher Charles Richet agreed, saying, "Subjective metapsychics will always be radically incapable of proving survival."

Sir Oliver Lodge suggested that the question of identity in spirit communication could be established (1) by gradually accumulated internal evidence based on thorough and meticulous records; (2) by cross correspondences, that is, the reception of unintelligible parts of one consistent and coherent message through different mediums; or (3) by information or criteria especially characteristic of the supposed communicating intelligence and, if possible, in some sense new to the world.

The role of the communicating spirit in a Spiritualist séance is somewhat complicated. The spirit acts like a prompter in the theater. The automatic script or trance speech delivered through the medium is seldom in his or her own hand or voice. The medium's organism acts like a freshly painted sieve; it tints whatever it lets through. Besides, communication is an art itself and has its own inherent difficulties. Direct voice séances, materialization in good light, lifelike personation of the departed, or the transfiguration of the medium, which afford more dramatic evidence with less opportunity for self-deception, are comparatively rare.

Many spirit entities claim to be ancient or historic personalities, and the problem of establishing the identity of such entities is almost impossible. Impersonation frequently occurs. According to the entity "Imperator," in a script of Rev. William Stainton Moses, "There is much insanity among lower spirits. The assumption of great names, when it is not the work of conscious deceivers, is the product of insanity. The spirit imagines itself to be some great one, fancies how he would act, and so projects his imaginings on the sphere of the medium's consciousness."

If the information claimed as proof of identity of famous personages is verifiable, it cannot be proved that such facts were not fraudulently gathered by the medium before the séance, that the information was inaccessible to the medium's subconscious mind, or that it was not obtained through clairvoyance. Furthermore, "Rector," another control of Stainton Moses, purportedly had the power to read books. Such power would open up a storehouse of pertinent information for so-called deceiving spirits.

Therefore, the difficulties of proof of spirit identity are almost insurmountable, a major reason why psychical research has largely abandoned the task. On a practical level, however, the human element—personal information embedded in the complexity of life—often provides convincing material to an individual who receives a communication through a medium.

One of the earliest cases of such convincing identity proof was registered by the Rev. J. B. Ferguson in his book Spirit Communion (1854). According to Ferguson's account, his cousin O. F. Parker died on August 5, 1854, in St. Louis. On the following day, in Maryville, Kentucky, Mrs. Ferguson was controlled by his spirit. Part of the communication was "My books I ordered to be sold to defray my funeral expenses, but it was not done. I am afraid, too, that there will be some flaw picked in my life policy, and if so I wish you to order my books to be sold to pay my debts, and if they fail, do not fail then from any delicacy of feeling to write to my mother, and she will have all properly settled. The policy is now in the hands of Mr. Hitchcock."

The Reverend Ferguson affirmed that until the communication the only account they had of his cousin's death was a short telegram. Because every detail was found correct, he considered the evidence of identity overwhelming.

C. H. Foster was visited in 1874 in San Francisco by the Honorable Charles E. de Long, a perfect stranger to him. Foster said he had a message for Ida and asked the visitor if this name meant anything to him. It was the name of de Long's wife. Foster asked him to bring her, and when she came he delivered the following message by means of automatic writing : "To my daughter, Ida. Ten years ago I entrusted a large sum to Thomas Madden to invest for me in certain lands. After my death he failed to account for the investment to my executors. The money was invested and 1,250 acres of land were bought, and one half of this land now belongs to you. I paid Madden on account of my share of the purchase 650 dollars. He must be made to make a settlement. Your father, Vineyard." This story proved to be true. Madden admitted it and made restitution.

An often-quoted case in Spiritualist literature is that of the steamroller suicide. The notes of Rev. Stainton Moses are as follows: "February 20, 1874. Dr. and Mrs. Speer and I dined with Mrs. Gregory, to meet the Baron du Potet, the celebrated magnetist and spiritualist. Mr. Percival was of the party. During dinner I was conscious of a strange influence in the room and mentioned the fact. The Baron had previously magnetised me very strongly, and had rendered me more than usually clairvoyant. He also recognised a spirit in the room, but thought it was the spirit of a living person. After dinner, when we got upstairs, I felt an uncontrollable inclination to write, and I asked the Baron to lay his hand upon my arm. It began to move very soon and I fell into a deep trance. As far as I can gather from the witnesses, the hand then wrote out 'I killed myself to-day.' This was preceded by a very rude drawing, and then 'Under steam-roller, Baker Street, medium passed,' (i.e., W. S. M.) was written. At the same time I spoke in the trance and rose and apparently motioned something away, saying 'Blood' several times. This was repeated and the spirit asked for prayer. Mrs. G. said a few words of prayer, and I came out of the trance at last, feeling very unwell.

"On the following day Dr. Speer and I walked down Baker Street and asked the policeman on duty if any accident had occurred there. He told us that a man had been killed by the steamroller at 9 A.M. and that he himself had helped to carry the body to Marylebone Workhouse."

The only flaw in this case is that the Pall Mall Gazette published a short account of the suicide the same evening and this might have been subconsciously seen by the medium. The name was not known, nor was it disclosed by Moses.

Dr. Isaac Funk, the New York editor, handed a letter to Lenora Piper containing the word mother. Piper gave the Christian name of Funk's mother, told him that she was walking on only one leg and asked, "Don't you remember that needle?" She had hurt herself by thrusting a needle into her foot. Piper also described a grandson, Chester, of whom Funk knew nothing. Upon inquiry, however, he found out that a grandson of that name had died 20 years earlier.

Dr. Joseph Vezzano established the identity of a materialized form in a séance given by Eusapia Palladino and describes it in Annals of Psychic Science (vol. 6, September 1907, p. 164) as follows: "In spite of the dimness of the light I could distinctly see Mme. Palladino and my fellow sitters. Suddenly I perceived that behind me was a form, fairly tall, which was leaning its head on my left shoulder and sobbing violently, so that those present could hear the sobs; it kissed me repeatedly. I clearly perceived the outlines of this face, which touched my own, and I felt the very fine and abundant hair in contact with my left cheek, so that I could be quite sure that it was a woman.

"The table then began to move, and typtology gave the name of a close family connection who was known to no-one present except myself. She had died some time before and on account of incompatability [sic] of temperament there had been serious disagreements with her. I was so far from expecting this typtological response that I at first thought this was a case of coincidence of name, but whilst I was mentally forming this reflection I felt a mouth, with warm breath, touch my left ear and whisper in a low voice in Genoese dialect, a succession of sentences, the murmur of which was audible to the sitters. These sentences were broken by bursts of weeping, and their gist was to repeatedly implore pardon for injuries done to me, with a fullness of detail connected with family affairs which could only be known to the person in question.

"The phenomenon seemed so real that I felt compelled to reply to the excuses offered me with expressions of affection, and to ask pardon in my turn if my resentment of the wrongs referred to had been excessive. But I had scarcely uttered the first syllables when two hands, with exquisite delicacy, applied themselves to my lips and prevented my continuing. The form then said to me: 'Thank you,' embraced me, kissed me, and disappeared."

According to Theodore Flournoy, this case was nothing more than the objectification of the emotional complex existing within the subconscious mind of Vezzano. There is food for thought, even for those who incline to differ, in his following remark: "The invasion or subjugation of the organism of the medium by a psychic complex belonging to a strange individual is not more easy to explain if that individuality be a spirit of the dead than if it is or belongs to one of the sitters in flesh and blood. And in this equally difficult question there is no reason to attribute to the discarnate or to the spirit world phenomena which can as readily be explained by the phenomena of our empirical world."

The pearl tie-pin case of Sir William Barrett has been frequently cited. Through the medium Hester Dowden, a Mrs. C. obtained a message spelled out on the Ouija board: "Tell mother to give my pearl tie-pin to the girl I was going to marry." The message allegedly came from a cousin of Mrs. C's, an officer who had been killed a month earlier. The name and address was returned and the whole message was thought ficitious. Six months later, however, it was discovered that the officer had been engaged to the lady. The war office returned his effects—a pearl tie-pin among them—and it was found that he put the lady's name in his will as his beneficiary.

Ernesto Bozzano recorded that in a sitting held on July 23, 1928, with the Marquise Centurione Scotto in Millesimo Castle, a voice addressed him as follows: "O Ernesto Bozzano, O my dear, my dear, I sought you in London, I sought you in Genoa, at last I find you." He immediately recognized the voice; the words carried a strong southern accent like that of Eusapia Palladino. He later noted: "This, her first manifestation, was a great revelation to me from the point of view of personal identification of the communicating spirit; because, without the faintest shadow of doubt, I recognised the person who was speaking to me the moment she pronounced my name. In life she had her own particular way of enunciating my surname, for she pronounced the two z's in an inimitable manner. Not only so, for when she spoke to me in life, she never called me simply by my surname, but invariably added my Christian name, though she never used the word 'Mr.' These small but most important idiosyncrasies of language are really what constitute the best demonstration of the real presence of the agency which affirms that it is actually present. I must add that she spoke with the identical timbre of voice which she had in life and with the very marked accent of her Italianized Neapolitan dialect."

Many visions of deceased soldiers were recorded by clairvoyants during the world wars. Mrs. E. A. Cannock of London described at a Spiritualist meeting a novel and convincing method employed by the fallen soldiers to make their identity known. In her vision they advanced in single file up the aisle, led by a young lieutenant. Each man bore on his chest a large placard with his name and the place where he lived inscribed. Cannock read the names and the place. The audience identified them one after the other. After recognition the spirit form faded and made way for the next one.

There has been no shortage of evidence of communication from servicemen who died in World War II. One of the most distinguished champions of such communication was Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, who was head of fighter command in the Battle of Britain. He obtained convincing evidence of spirit communication from servicemen at sittings with such famous mediums as Estelle Roberts, which he later compiled in his books Many Mansions (1943) and Lychgate (1945).

Of course, such convincing personal evidence of identity in spirit communications does not reach the level demanded by scientific criteria. However, thousands of people from all walks of life have been assured of and based their affirmation of survival upon such impressive clairaudient and clairvoyant messages through a medium or psychic.