By Willard Allen Colcord, Author of "The Rights of Man"
Coming to Aid Men and Religion Forward Movement
It is perhaps quite generally known that Mr. William T. Stead, the noted English journalist and peace advocate, who, with sixteen hundred others, lost his life in the wreck of the steamship Titanic Sunday night, April 14, was a Spiritualist. In a cablegram to the Washington "Post" of January 17, 1909, Mr. Stead said:
"New and wonderful letters are reaching me almost daily from my boy Willie, who died a year ago. . . . He says that the spirit world is quite as anxious to establish communication with this world as we are with it. For many years I have known that spirit communications were a reality. . . . In my opinion, not only experts, but ordinary men, will be able to communicate with those who have gone before. It is all a question of faith and of knowing how. The method whereby ordinary people may communicate with their relatives and friends whom they ignorantly suppose to be dead, I shall shortly attempt to make plain. Undoubtedly, the greatest development lying before the present century will be the bridging of the gulf between this world of change and the future world of changeless immortality."
In the spring of this same year, Mr. Stead, "acting under the direction of the spirit of a well-known Chicago woman," Miss Julia A. Ames, formerly editor of the "Union Signal," official organ of the W. C. T. U., who died seventeen years before, established in London a "spirit telegraph office," where "those who had passed over could communicate with the loved ones behind." An account of the establishment of this "bureau of communication between the two sides," was published in the Washington "Post" of May 28, 1909. In this Mr. Stead quoted a "letter" which he professed to have received from Miss Ames, in which she said:
"I have long wanted to establish a place where those who have passed over could communicate with the loved ones behind. At present the world is full of spirits longing to speak to those from whom they have been parted. It is a strange spectacle. On your side, souls full of anguish and bereavement; on this side, souls full of sadness because they can not communicate with those whom they love. What can be done to bring these somber, sorrow-laden souls together?
"What is wanted is a bureau of communication between the two sides. Could you not establish some such sort of office with one or more trustworthy mediums? If only it were to enable the sorrowing on earth to know, if only for once, that their so-called dead live nearer than ever before, it would help to dry many a tear and soothe many a sorrow. I think you could count upon the eager coöperation of all on this side."
Acting upon this suggestion, Mr. Stead established the bureau referred to.
That Mr. Stead died a Spiritualist, and was ardent and active in his belief in it to the last, is confirmed by the following from the New York "World" of April 19, 1912, which appeared among the numerous accounts of this latest and greatest of maritime disasters:
"Frederick K. Seward, who sat next to William T. Stead at the Titanic's saloon table, told of the veteran English journalist's plans for his American visit. His immediate purpose was to aid in the New York campaign of the Men and Religion Forward Movement.
TALKED OF SPIRITUALISM
"Mr. Stead talked much of Spiritualism, thought transference, and the occult," said Seward.
"He told of a mummy case in the British Museum, which he said had had amazing adventures, but which punished with great calamities any person who told the story. He told of one person after another who, he said, had come to grief after writing the story, and added that, altho he knew it, he would never write it. He did not say whether ill luck attached to the mere telling of it.
"Stead also told, Seward said, of a strange adventure of a young woman with an admirer in an English railroad coach, which was known to him as it happened, and which he afterward repeated to the young woman, amazing her by repeating everything correctly, save for one small detail."
That intelligent men, such as Mr. Stead, should be captivated and captured by the dark, mysterious, and uncanny workings of Spiritualism is an evidence of the insidious power and deceptive nature of this modern form of an ancient delusion, and ought to be a warning to others of like or less intelligence and mental acumen to be on their guard against it, and to give it a wide berth. His story concerning the "mummy" in the British Museum is an evidence of the superstition connected with this doctrine founded upon the first great lie—"Ye shall not surely die"—and is on a par with the like superstition connected with the "sacred relics," such as the nails of the cross, the bones of the saints, and other similar alleged sacred souvenirs so much made use of even to the present time. It sounds like a story from Lourdes, or of sacred images which at night have been said to leave their cabinets, or places of confinement, and go about performing miracles. It must be classed with the rankest superstition and demonology. After reading it, one is not so surprised that about sixteen years ago its author started, and for some time edited, a magazine called "Lucifer."
In the story concerning the strange adventure of a young woman in a railroad coach, is seen not only the tendency of Spiritualism toward the sentimental and immoral, but its power to pry into the hidden and unknown, and, to some degree, its ability to reveal secrets.
And that Mr. Stead, permeated with Spiritualistic views and beliefs as he was, was coming to America to "aid" the Men and Religion Forward Movement, is also significant, and ought itself to arouse suspicion as to the character and workings of this movement. In Washington, D. C., this movement, which has simply been carrying out a program laid down by the Church Federation at Philadelphia in 1908, allied itself with the Roman Catholic Church. Had Mr. Stead lived, it would, it appears, have allied itself, through him, with Spiritualism,—a significant triple alliance.
Shortly after the great disaster on the Atlantic, we predicted that Spiritualists would doubtless soon be professing to have received messages from Mr. Stead. True to this conjecture, before a week had passed a family of Spiritualists in Washington, living but a short distance from our house of publication here (only two blocks), claimed to have received such a message. The following, under the caption "Stead Spirit Message," is the account given in the Washington "Post" of April 21, 1912, of the receipt of this message:
"That William T. Stead, who was lost on the ill-fated Titanic, has already communicated with his friends through a medium, is the announcement made by Arthur R. Colburn, a prominent member of the local bar, and a resident of Takoma Park. Mr. Colburn for some time had been a friend of Mr. Stead, both being believers in Spiritualism, and often exchanging their ideas in long letters to each other. Mr. Stead was exceedingly active in the Spiritualistic movement in England, and Mr. Colburn announced that English Spiritualists would soon begin to receive messages from Mr. Stead.
"The first message from Mr. Stead is said to have been received on Friday night at Mr. Colburn's residence on Carrol Avenue, Takoma Park, Mr. Colburn taking the message down in shorthand as it came from the lips of the medium at the rate of eighty words a minute. An improved ouija board was used, which Mr. Colburn asserted was the only one of its kind in the world, explaining that it was made according to the directions of the spirits themselves. A greater speed is possible on the board than the old board allows.
"The alleged call from Stead came at 8:30 on Friday evening, while Mr. Colburn was playing the flute, when he got an impression that his spirit 'guide' had something to tell him. He then got word that Stead was present and would talk. Six persons were present during the receipt of the message, among them being the Post representative. From the message it is said to be evident to Spiritualists that Stead, after going down with the Titanic, retains an interest in his work among Spiritualists on earth, and is anxious that it go on.
"The medium experienced a feeling of suffocation during the receipt of the message, which Mr. Colburn asserted was caused by Stead's drowning after the Titanic made her final plunge. The alleged message, exactly as transcribed from Mr. Colburn's shorthand notes, is as follows:
"A SUPPOSED MESSAGE RECEIVED
"(W. T. Stead:) No possible excuse—and yet it has happened. And I am present; but I feel that some other time you will greet me with a better feeling than now.
"If I could see you I would be glad, but the time has not yet come when I can see you. Before long I will strengthen up and be present—a power, as you will look for me to be. I am now feeling so overwrought that I can not stay, nor feel that I could speak to you with any degree of certainty or possible . . . (chance) you could understand me or what I would wish you take down. Let time of a few days come to me, and help me out of the powerful feeling of remorse and regret. I left so great a work only started that I am now weak and nerveless in mind and heart, and can not say with you all present here what I would like to lay down for real truth of what I have passed through. Now I take my leave. Let me express to you my pleasure at some other time at what I still have left me, a source of coming back, and strength from which to draw in my time of weakness and trouble.
"I now say good night to you here, and take with you each grateful thanks. And I will tell you all the facts, for I am not biased in any way; nor can I feel that it will not be correct to speak of as the truth—for which I stand.
"In the meantime, farewell."
"Mr. Colburn said that he is looking for another message from Stead in the next few days. He hopes that the second message will contain details of the calamity."
This message, weird, indefinite, unsatisfactory, yet suggestive, enticing, and awakening an interest and expectation for more to follow a little later, is characteristic of Spiritualism, if it does not sound much like the lucid and forceful writings of Mr. Stead while living. The circumstances have changed. Mr. Stead has been drowned, and hence the "sensation of suffocation" on the part of the medium, and the "weak and nerveless mind" of Mr. Stead, his inability to say much at this time, and the need of the passing of a few days to help him out of "the powerful feeling of regret and remorse" which he was experiencing in this his "time of weakness and trouble." It would not do for the "spirit" of any of the hundreds lost on the Titanic to reveal too much concerning the disaster before the Senate Committee probe and other boards of inquiry had ascertained the facts.
On another page of this same paper the statement is made that "William T. Stead, editor of the 'Review of Reviews,' stood by Captain Smith, and without trepidation went to his last reward." But if the passing to one's "last reward" leaves one in such a condition as this spirit message represents Mr. Stead being in, the alleged glories of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and reward at death are shorn of much of their luster, and believers in the doctrine, we should think, might well query if after passing from this life one were not better really dead than alive. The whole ouija board message may well be classed with the "peepings and mut-11terings" of ancient sorcery and witchcraft, and credited to the spirit workings and satanic delusions of the latter days.
Through these alleged messages from Mr. Stead, he, tho dead, may do more to advance the cause of Spiritualism through his death than he did during life. And Mr. Stead is not alone. The world at large, and the religious world particularly, is getting ready for this great, overmastering latter-day delusion. Not long ago Bishop Samuel Fallows, of St. Paul's Reformed Episcopal Church, Chicago, speaking on "immortalism," or "the science of talking with spirits," predicted that before long this science would become a routine study in the public schools, like spelling or arithmetic, and said:
"In the enlightened days to come we shall be able to converse with spirits of departed friends and relatives. Their state will be made known to us through these communications. They will be able to advise us on knotty problems, and the ancient Biblical days, when communications from above were comparatively common, will have returned in part."—Washington "Post," August 31, 1909.
The only safeguard against this strong and enticing delusion is familiarity with, and a firm belief in, the plain teachings of the Word of God. This Word teaches that the dead are dead, and that the only hope of life beyond the grave is in Christ and the resurrection from the dead. W. A. COLCORD.
