Co-founder in 1882 of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), Frederic W. H. Myers, a Cambridge scholar, is sometimes referred to as the “Father of Psychical Research.” As Myers came to realize during his lifetime, mediumship is very complex and does not easily lend itself to human understanding or to scientific research. After his death on January 17, 1901, he apparently found it even more difficult to communicate than he had realized. “Lodge, it is not as easy as I thought in my impatience,” Myers communicated to Sir Oliver Lodge, a renowned British physicist and fellow psychical researcher, through the mediumship of Rosalie Thompson, a trance medium, on February 19, 1901, a little over a month after his death.
“Gurney says I am getting on first rate,” Myers (below) continued, referring to Edmund Gurney, his close friend and co-founder of the SPR who had died in 1888. “But I am short of breath.” Lodge interpreted this to be a metaphorical shortness of breath. (The ability of a discarnate to lower its vibration to the more dense earth vibration and communicate has been likened to a human trying to hold his/her breath under water. Some are able to hold the breath for just a few seconds, some for several minutes, and so it seems there is a variance with spirits, apparently dependent upon the degree of spiritual consciousness achieved during the earth life and carried over to the real life).
Myers went on to say that he felt like he was looking at a misty picture and that he could hear himself using Thompson’s voice but that he didn’t feel as if he were actually speaking. “It is funny to hear myself talking when it is not myself talking. It is not my whole self talking. When I am awake I know where I am. Do you remember the day I was with you here? When I went home that day I was ill. I had such a bad night. It is in my diary. It was in May, I think.” Lodge recalled it all. (As explained below, Myers had to enter a dream state in order to communicate and therefore was not “awake” at the time he communicated with Lodge).
Myers mentioned that he had been with Professor Henry Sidgwick, a fellow researcher who had died several months before Myers, and that Sidgwick was still very much the skeptic he had been in the earth life and was hoping Myers could convince him. (As often reported elsewhere, we take our beliefs with us and thus the non-believer, lacking full spiritual awareness, may not immediately realize he has died. Those who achieved some spiritual consciousness may be in a stupor of sorts, not completely grasping the fact that they have died, living in a dream world of sorts, as if being absorbed in a movie and forgetting it is just a movie. This may have been the case with Sidgwick).
“Tell them I am more stupid than some of those I had to deal with,” Myers continued, mentioning that he could not even remember his mother’s name. “I thought I had lost my way in a strange town, and I groped my way along the passage. And even when I saw people that I knew were dead, I thought they were only visions. I have not yet seen Tennyson yet by the way.” (The famous poet, who died in 1892, had also been a member of the SPR and was idolized by Myers.)
Lodge sat with Thompson a second time, on May 8, 1901, and again heard from Myers. However, the conditions were apparently not ideal and much of the communication was muddled. Moreover, it was apparently easier for Nelly, Thompson’s spirit control, to pass on messages from Myers than for Myers to communicate directly. Among other things, Nelly referred to an incident with a medium, Miss Rawson, which researchers had deemed fraudulent. Myers said that “cheating” was not involved, although he couldn’t explain how phenomena which appear to be dishonest are actually genuine. He said he was still trying to understand it himself.
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