Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-07-26

Boston medical student killed in an
automobile accident, and is written to
comfort the bereaved friends of dead
soldiers. Achorn finds very material
world on the other side of the grave.
He does not seem to have left the
earth, but hovers around it. He sits
in chair and holds little girl in his
lap and reads to her from books. He
announces that he used to like large
cities, but that he has grown to prefer
smaller towns. lie communicates with
Doctor Hicks, with whom he was not
intimately acquainted during life, be-
cause she had been friendly.
"Thc Twentieth Plane" much
moro ambitious volume, comes from DIR.
Albert Durant Watson. president of the
Association for PsyChcnl Research of
, canada, who reports conversations he
has had with Shakespeare, Lincoln,
Walt Whitman. Elbert Hubbard, Keats,
Shelley, Bcnvonuto Ccllni and a score
of the other famous dead. They were
not direct. but through the assistance
of Louis benjamin, young business
man of Toronto, born Of Hebrew par
ents. They came by the ouiia board,
by automatic writing and in n trance.
All sorts of subjects were discussed
from the poetry of the Rev. Robert
Norwood, rector of an Ovcrbrook
| church, to the color of souls of negroes.
These, as Dorothy Wordsworth ex-
plains, are the same color as the souls
of white persons. 1--WE are nearly all
mere, she explains, "the pale pink OF
sea shells. Keats says some fatter-
ing things about Mr.. Norwood's verse.
benjamin, the medium. does not seem
TO have any difficulty IN getting into
communication with any one desired.
The book has an introduction by Abra
ham Lincoln and s. r. Coleridge. and
is dedicated by Colcridge to the heroes
OF the war. Doctor Watson does mt
claim that tn" messages are authentic,
out nc publishes them for the informa-
ton of those interested.
The interest in the subject is so great
that the publishers have thought if
worth while reprinting w. T. Stcad's
communications from Julia" received
during period of years. Stead was So
thoroughly convinced of his ability to
get messages from the dead that he
ran an information bureau in London
which he put at the service of those
who wished to hear from their departcd
friends. Julia" seldom failed to pro-
duce satisfactory message. delivered
through the hand of Stead himself NV
means of pencil which she directed,
licr descriptions of life on the other
side differ very much from conditions
as revealed by later news from the sol
diers who have reported in the books
already mentioned. Her Heaven" ia
much more nearly orthodox.
In strange contrast to these fluent
messages are the reports of the ot-
tempts of Frederic w. II. Myers. for
mer president of the Society for Psv-
chlcal Research of London, to get word
through to his friends still alive, II. A
Dallas, in Death. the Gate of Life.
has reviewed and discussed certain com.
munications purporting to come from
Myers. These communications are
cryptic, hesitating and uncertain. And
sometimes they are untrustworthy. For
example, before his death MYERS left
with Sir Oliver Lodge n sealed en-
VeIope containing some words which it
was his intention to communicate after
his death. On July 13, 1904, Mrs.
Nerrall, through whom Myers is said to
have communicated previously, wrote
automatically that the enyelope con-
tanned a passage from the symposium
about love bridging the chasm." The
message described the paDcr on which
the passage was written and announced
! that it was contained in an enyelone
inclosed within second envelope. Sir
| Oliver consented that the enyeloDc
should be opened. 1t was found that
the written passage was something en-
| tirely different. Yet it must be admit
ted that many members of the PsychicaI
Research Society are convinced that
authentic messages have been received
from Myers.
James H. Hyslop, formerly professor
OF logic and ethics in Columbia Uni
versity, is one of those who are so thor
oughly convinced that the chasm be-
tween the living and the dead has been
bridged that he is intolerant of any one
who doubts. In Life After Death, -
he writes: 81 regard the existence Of
discarnate spirits as scientifically proved
and l no longer refer to the skeptic as
having any right to speak on the sub
ject. Any man who does not accent the
existence of disCarnate spirits and the
proof of it is either ignorant or a moral
coward" His book, Life After
Death" is a study of the problem OF
future life from various angles. III,
: summarizes the primitive conceptiops
the Greco Roman ideas, and the idea,
of civilized nations, and has much to sa,
on the relation of Christianity t,
psychical research, and on the processes
:, of communication and the nature of tn,
: future life.
+ W. ]. Crawford, lecturer in mechani
p cal engineering in the Municipal Tech
& nical Institute of Belfast, is not so dog
matte as Doctor Hyslop. In Hint
and Observations for Those Investigat
,s ing the Phenomena of SpirituaIsm, " h
+ says: The survival of man is no
: scientifically proved. 1t cannot be dem
- Onstrated with instrumental accuracy
q Yet he is personally convinced tina
ir there is communication between tn
n dead and the living. He has couducte
long series of scientific experiment
40 into the mechanics of levitation an
N into the nature of spirit rappings, whic
" he reported in volume published
: year or more ago. This new volum
al is a supplement to the earlier one. An
/. a third volume by him, Experiments i
n Psychical Science" is devoted to fur
10 ther reports on the results of his in
id vestigations. He finds that spirit rap
re pings are produced by a clammy, vapor
. ous wand poDahlp of nroducinP nj i'm