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Stainton Moses, William - Spirit Identity – THE DEAD WINE MERCHANT COMES BACK TO SEE HIM
Identifier
015715
Type of Spiritual Experience
Inter composer communication
Hallucination
Background
The Tibetan Buddhists plus a number of other mystic movements believe that the soul and Higher spirit stay around for a considerable number of days – anything up to 40 to 50 – before ‘departing’ as it were for good. The image is an hallucination, but the inter composer communication may not be – ‘may’ being the operative word. At the time, Moses was still struggling with his beliefs and this, along with a few other experiences he had, added ‘a stone to the cairn of evidence’, as he puts it.
A description of the experience
Spirit Identity – William Stainton Moses
Some six or seven years ago, when I first became acquainted with the phenomena of Spiritualism, I had a friend who was engaged in press work for one of the leading newspapers. I was full of the subject and I thought I would discuss it with my friend….
He was unreceptive and argumentative and I did not make any impression on him other than to impress him with a conviction of my sincerity and earnestness and an entire disbelief in the spiritual origin of my facts.
One day we were walking together and rain came on. To avoid a wetting we took refuge in a billiard room near at hand, and whiled away the rainy hour with a game, discussing all the while. The proprietor was the only other person in the room and he showed some interest in what I was saying. He asked some questions and seemed rather frightened than otherwise.
He was a wine merchant and gave me his card as I left, asking for some custom. From time to time I did purchase some goods from him and on perhaps half a dozen occasions exchanged some words with him. ….The last time I saw him he was ill and said that he was in the doctor’s hands but was mending fast.
I saw no more of him until, sitting alone as my habit is, in my study in the early morning, he appeared to my clairvoyant eye…..
For a time he did not speak; but when he managed to make me hear, he saluted me as he would have done in the flesh, calling me Mr xxxx a name which he heard my friend use while we were together in the billiard room. He used it quite naturally as he would have done in the flesh, though he knew my real name well enough.
I gradually inquired what brought him and learned that he had ‘come to see me’.
He was dead – had died some two months ago at a place and address which he gave me. He likewise told me his full name, the disease which carried him off and the date of his death. All these facts were outside my knowledge…… I and some friends verified them and found them to be literally exact.
Yet he seemed to have no special reason for coming… he came and he went like many another who has done the same. I have seen him no more.