Publication information
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Source: Birth Through Death
Source type: book
Document type: book chapter
Document title: “Messages of Fifty-Five Minds Through One Soul”
Author(s): Benjamin, Louis; Watson, Albert Durrant
Publisher: James A. McCann Company
Place of publication: New York, New York
Year of publication:
1920
Pagination: 244-56 (excerpt below includes only page 255)

 
Citation
Benjamin, Louis, and Albert Durrant Watson. “Messages of Fifty-Five Minds Through One Soul.” Birth Through Death. New York: James A. McCann, 1920: pp. 244-56.
 
Transcription
excerpt of chapter
 
Keywords
William McKinley (posthumous communications); Leon Czolgosz (posthumous communications).
 
Named persons
Edith Brock [in notes]; Leon Czolgosz; Ralph Waldo Emerson [in notes]; Bertram Jackes [in notes]; William McKinley; Girolamo Savonarola [in notes]; Ella Wheeler Wilcox [in notes].
 
Notes
The following text comprises the opening two paragraphs (p. 1) of the book’s introduction, titled “The Reporter’s Explanation of the Revelation”:

     The matter contained in this book was received psychically. It was spoken in trance by one whose own thought did not direct his speech. No physical apparatus was used at any time while receiving it, either by him or by us. It was all spoken in the light. Some chapters were communicated in full daylight, as in the case of the chapters by Savonarola, Emerson, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox, all of which were spoken to about one hundred and fifty people in a public hall on Sunday afternoons. Others were dictated in artificial light subdued by exclusion of the yellow and blue rays. Always, the light was clear and strong enough for the stenographers.
     Much of the matter was dictated slowly and written down by the reporter. The rest was taken stenographically by two members of the Inner Circle (Edith Brock, the stenographer of the Twentieth Plane, and Bertram Jackes), to both of whom, for the faithful devotion of their time and skill, we are deeply indebted. All the communicated matter was revised twice by the unseen authors. The reporter read the chapters aloud, in the presence, usually, of some members of the Inner Circle, and the entranced Instrument whose voice was the medium of correction, as it had previously been the medium of dictation.

The following text comprises the opening paragraph (p. 244) of the chapter’s introductory remarks:

     The chapter which follows was communicated on February eighth, nineteen twenty, in the presence of several members of the Inner Circle. As it was all reported in long-hand, it required one hundred and thirty minutes to receive it. The first thirty-three messages were received in sixty-six minutes, the remaining twenty-two, after an intermission of ten minutes, in fifty-four minutes.

From title page: Birth Through Death: The Ethics of The Twentieth Plane.

From title page: A Revelation Received Through the Psychic Consciousness of Louis Benjamin; Reported by Albert Durrant Watson, M. D., F. R. A. S. C.; Reported of “The Twentieth Plane”—A Psychic Revelation, etc., Ex-President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and of the Association of Psychical Research for Canada, etc.
 
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Messages of Fifty-Five Minds Through One Soul [excerpt]

     MCKINLEY: The Isthmian Canal is constructed. The waters of two oceans have joined together. This is but a significant precursor of all oceans and nations joining together soon into one democracy with one government ministering to the needs of all mankind. Is my ideal too large? Make it smaller if you dare. Nationality is an ever enlarging force. This so-called proud isolation has been tried and failed. It leads to degeneration. I demand for the world an honoured place among the spheres.
     CZOLGOSZ: Old Europe made me what I was, and I shot to death a man. I am informed that it is not possible for similar European economic conditions to make a man like I was. I have long been here in the place of pain, but I know that God is good, because the one I assassinated met me, forgave me, and is my friend. I am trying to be worthy to be his.

 

 


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