1920
In May of 1920 he was elected to be Secretary of the Manitoba Medical Society.
He lost his seat in the Provincial election that year.
And, as the months passed and October, 1920 approached, the impact of the seemingly fantastic prophecy had begun to fade and Dr. Hamilton was again doing a little reading in the psychic field by men like Hyslop, Lodge, Sir William Barrett, Crawford, and Flammarion.
Now and again he even dipped into more spiritualistic books such as W. T. Stead's 'Letters From Julia', Vale Owens's 'The Highlands of Heaven', Florence Maryat's 'There Is No Death'; and of course he continued to read his all-time favourite, Patience Worth.
He was not ready to investigate any of these phenomena himself, however.
He had recently founded the Manitoba Medical Bulletin, a small folder designed to keep all the doctors in the province informed on current medical, surgical, and pharmaceutical developments.
He also had many social services left over from his days in the Legislature.
In October he became a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
And now the door to psychic work was beginning to open again. Early on the evening of October 20, 1920, three people unexpectedly dropped in to the Hamilton home for a chat. They were Earnest Court, a well-read Englishman, Assistant Secretary of the Manitoba Medical Society, and his school-age daughter.
There was also their little Scots friend, Mrs. Poole, who had long been regarded as a member of the Hamilton family; but who knew nothing of psychical research or Spiritualism; and who had had very little education, in fact just enough to allow her to do a little ciphering, read books of the adolescent type, and write legible letters, although often the words were misspelled and punctuation marks were absent.
[ Photo of Elizabeth Poole ]
[ Photo of Elizabeth Poole ]
[ Photo of Elizabeth Poole at seance ]
[ Photo of Elizabeth Poole and children ]
During the evening, quite by chance, Mr. Court introduced the subject of psychical research, regarding which he knew the Hamiltons had some interest. He asked if they had ever tried table tipping, an old parlor-game which he had seen done in the Old Country, and which he had himself experienced once; and which, now and then, he said, brought to light various mind products not easily explained along any known normal orthodox lines, and in some cases even gave out communications evidential of certain dead people.
Intrigued by Mr. Court's description of the results sometimes obtained by this simple experiment, they brought a small wooden table - about the size of an ordinary piano bench - into the room.
To their utter astonishment, as they sat on the four sides of the small table, with their finger-tips lightly touching its surface, the table became agitated as if in the hand of a giant. Soon it began to pound up and down in tilts on two legs in a most aggressive and decided manner.
Dr. Court suggested that Dr. Hamilton repeat the alphabet. This he did, calling out 'a, b, c, d ...', over and over, with the table tilting to indicate the appropriate letter. Lillian's mother, Mrs. John Forrester, took down the indicated letters. Then the process was repeated. It was a laborious and time-consuming way to receive messages. After a few minutes the table stopped. Lights were turned up, and the message studied:
The table had tipped out a message purportedly from Myers, who claimed to be the chief spokesman.
"Plato Book 10 ... Allegory very true ... Read Lodge ... Trust his religious sense ... Myers ... Myers and Stead are here ... Stead answers doctor's questions ..."
At first the eleventh word had been recorded as "religion", and the table indicated by a sort of shaking motion that the word was wrong. Dr. Court then ask if the word indicated was "religious". The table gave three loud knocks, taken to mean 'Yes.'
This reference to the "religious sense" of Lodge was very interesting to the Hamiltons, for Dr. Hamilton had that very day bought the book, "The Substance of Faith", written by Lodge, which was not yet out of its wrapping paper. This fact was not known to the others.
The tenth book had been indicated by ten tilts of the table.
The Hamiltons had no acquaintance with the works of Plato; they did not know at the time of the sitting that "The Republic" had ten books but they had read Myers's "Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death".
They were the only sitters who realized the significance of the name, mentally asking: "Can this be the Myers?"
[ Photo of F. W. H. Myers - undated ]
The conversation following the sitting was recorded by Lillian Hamilton the same evening - not verbatim - but enough to give the meaning.
Dr. Hamilton: (to Mr. Court) "Are there ten books of Plato?"
Mr. Court: "Yes".
Dr. Hamilton: "What do you suppose is the meaning of this message?"
Court had read Plato's REPUBLIC, and said that in Book 10 was Plato's famous myth of the cave by means of which the philosopher made known his belief that the physical world as we apprehend it is but a shadow, so to say, of a more enduring reality which constitutes the world to come.
In Mr. Court's words "There is a very famous myth in Plato's works which symbolizes the unreality of this world as compared to the reality of the next; it tells the story of men chained in a cave gazing at their shadows cast by the light of a fire on the wall."
If Myers was living, as he claimed to be, then possibly he also could so interpret the world of sense in which we live, as compared with the life which he was now living in his more evolved state.
Myers appeared to be saying that in his new state as a discarnate he found these teachings to be very true. He further suggested that Oliver Lodge be read, and to trust his religious sense. He also added that he was being helped to communicate by the famous journalist W. T. Stead, who had died as one of the passengers when the Titanic went down in 1912. The Hamiltons knew about Lodge and his belief in life after death and the possibility of communication between the two states under certain rather particular circumstances. They also knew about Myers and had dipped into his 'Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death', but of Plato they knew nothing.
In fact, none of the sitters, with the exception of Court, knew anything of the works of Plato.
Mrs. Poole had no knowledge of Plato, Myers or of any literature dealing with psychics.
What did it mean?
And who were the purported communicators?
F. W. H. Myers was born in 1843 and he died in 1901, just two years before Dr. Hamilton graduated with his degree in Medicine. He was educated at Cambridge University and believed that any study of the human mind must take in the full range of human experience, of all the normal phenomena but also of the whole wide range of what are sometimes thought of as abnormal phenomena.
An after death communication from his first wife convinced Myers of the survival of human consciousness.
He was known for his studies of the unconscious mind, of dissociation, of subliminal consciousness, and for his psychical research.
Myers wrote in the 1880's and 1890's about dreams, hallucination, creativity and genius, hysteria, multiple personality, apparitions, trance mediumship, automatic writing, telepathy, and hypnosis.
All of these phenomena involved what Myers called 'automatisms'; that is, the coming into consciousness of latent subliminal materials or motor processes that were allowed to emerge because the normal waking consciousness barriers had become more unstable and permeable.
Myers had attempted to show the relations of all these to each other and to normal psychological processes.
He produced the theory of the subliminal Self. In this theory our normal waking consciousness is but a small subset of the larger individuality or self. It is the environment that calls forth the specific aspects of the unconscious that will emerge to respond to the circumstances of ordinary life.
This interpretation was very different from the conceptions of Freud's model of repression.
Freud and others viewed these subliminal phenomena as abnormal or unhealthy. Myers believed that all these phenomena are the outworking of a basic psychological process, namely the loosening of the barriers between the unconscious and the conscious areas of mind.
These out-workings can take on both beneficial and non-beneficial forms.
He wrote numerous books on his researches: 'Phantasms of the Living' in 1886; and 'Science and the Future Life' in 1893; and 'Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death' was published posthumously in 1903.
This book 'Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death' is often, with justification, referred to as a 'classic'.
It was the latter book that Dr. Hamilton and Lillian read with great interest and Lillian became convinced of the truth of Myers's assertions that human beings survive physical death in some conscious state.
Most of Myers's later life was spent in the study of psychic matters. He helped to found the Psychical Research Society in 1882.
Writing of the possibility of humans possessing a soul was a very daring act for any scientist when Myers wrote the book. He risked even more by stating that the soul can survive the death of the human body. Science was under the spell of the new 'materialism' that allowed only physically measurable phenomena to be acknowledged as real and to be studied.
Physics was in the full flush of self-conceit and hubris that allowed famous scientists the luxury of expounding upon the impossibility of heavier than air flight just at the point where they were going to have to eat their words.
The eating of one's own words has become a rather common public exhibition, enjoyed not only by the religious orders such as the Catholic Church after the Galileo debacle but also by Protestants and sundry atheists.
It is one of the pleasurable and entertaining aspects of life for those who hold their minds and tongues in check and wait for further research before they wade in and betray their appalling intellectual nakedness.
In this atmosphere of hubris Myers was one of the first to recognize that extrasensory perception is a normal phenomenon of human psychology.
William Thomas Stead was born July 5, 1849 and he died April 15, 1912. He was the son of a Congregational minister and he became a world renowned journalist. His grandparents were from farming stock.
[ Photo of W. T. Stead ]
By the age of five he could read Latin almost as well as he could read English. His father taught him, and by this time he was also already well versed in the Holy Scriptures.
Stead listed his interests as cycling, boating, and playing with children.
He had a profound religious awakening during his early life and much of his journalism was dedicated to eradicating the vices of high society and the well-to-do. Apparently he took the injunctions of Jesus very seriously.
He was more famous than most British Statesmen, and the most famous journalist of his age.
In his day the British Empire was floundering its way through the industrial revolution. Capitalism was taking hold, corruption and immorality were rife and poverty was more chronic than at any other time in the empire's history. Stead rolled up his sleeves and attacked this 'devil' with enthusiasm. He seemed to have endless energy.
He worked on behalf of the poor, the outcast, and the oppressed; and to this end he wanted to advance the causes of social justice, equality, and morality.
His attacks on slum housing prompted legislation to improve the situation.
He was a life-long supporter of public action to help the poor and a friend of Gladstone as well as a great many influential people around the entire world. Stead was in communication with kings and emperors and statesmen of every nation, even though he was an editor of a paper that lay far from the centers of power. He was a strong influence on the contemporary journalism of his day and a pioneer of the tabloid enthusiasm when he originated the 'interview' style in his interview with General Gordon in 1894.
He was also the originator of the modern technique of creating a news event rather than just reporting it.
In 1885 he started a crusade to end child prostitution; and in the process he 'bought' a child, Eliza Armstrong, the thirteen year old daughter of a chimney sweep, to show how easy it was to buy children for prostitution. As a result of this action he was imprisoned for three months; but his writings on the experience influenced the changing of the age of consent from 13 to 16 and other changes.
Stead did not blame the prostitutes. He knew where the problem lay and attacked the stylish houses that resulted from the passions of the well-to-do in need of prostitutes.
So - what happened then?
Stead was the messenger who brought bad news to the king - so to speak - and the next event of his busy life is easily foretold.
Stead was imprisoned for abduction and indecent assault. He was convicted on the grounds that he had first failed to secure permission for the purchase from the girl's father. The father was not blamed for selling his daughter. This alone tells us all we really need to know about the social and legal milieu in which Stead worked.
But, typically, Stead treated his imprisonment as a valuable asset in his life as he was enlightened by the experience and his readers were informed about the conditions of society at the time. He treasured the experience as one of the most growth-fostering times in his life. He was simply irrepressible. He had his family down to the prison for Christmas and they generally 'had a ball.'
He became an enthusiastic supporter of the peace movement, and one of its foremost spokesmen.
He was not all that popular in many quarters for his stands on controversial issues; but of him it can be said that he never avoided a controversy if it was on the side of justice for the poor.
Cecil Rhodes was inspired by his suggestions and left him an inheritance in his will, but eventually crossed Stead out of his will for his opposition to the Boer war.
Stead was a true pacificist and campaigner for peace. His bust is at the peace palace at the Hague.
He was an Esperantist - that is, he supported the spread of Esperanto, the created language that is still being touted as the universal language that can break down the language barriers of the world.
In 1881 he attended his first seance where he later claimed he was hailed as the 'future St. Paul of Spiritualism.'
In 1890 he became owner and editor of the Review of Reviews and this opened up his talents to the support of Spiritualism. In 1891 he published 'Real Ghost Stories' and a year later he published 'More Ghost Stories'. Both were very popular ventures.
From 1893 to 1897 he edited a Spiritualist organ called 'Borderland', in which he fully displayed his interest in psychical research.
In 1897 he published 'Letters From Julia'. This purported to be a record of his communications by automatic writing from departed American journalist Julie Ames. He had known her in life and she continued the communication after she died an early death.
In 1909 he established 'Julia's Bureau' where inquirers could obtain information about the spirit world from a group of resident mediums.
Stead sketched pictures of ocean liners and himself drowning. These appear to have been precognitive, as he did eventually drown when the Titanic went down.
He was several times nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In the year when many thought that he would win he lost his life on the Titanic.
Stead was on his way to America on the Titanic to take part in a peace conference at Carnegie Hall at the request of William Howard Taft. After the ship struck the iceberg Stead helped several women and children to get on lifeboats and then was seen sitting in the first class smoking room and calmly reading as the boat went down.
After his death he communicated from the other side a short book on his after-death experiences and the conditions he found there. This was done in 1922, just about the time that Dr. Hamilton was beginning his serious study of telekinesis.
'The Blue Island' is the alleged account of his after death experiences. This was written by him through the hand of a medium during several seances. His daughter Estelle published this work.
By the time he died he was derided in many journalistic circles as a fanatic and a crank.
'Society indeed appears white and glistening but internally it is full of dead men's bones and rotteness', Stead had said during his life. Maybe he was simply paraphrasing Jesus.
These, then, were the men who purported to contact Dr. Hamilton during that first seance. They had shown a strong interest in the survival of human consciousness and a willingness to follow the research where it lead. They were not likely to be easily diverted from their purposes.
Sir Oliver Lodge, mentioned in the message, was still alive at the time. He lived from June 12, 1851 to August 22, 1940, and he was a well-known British scientist, having been active in the study of radio communication.
[ Photo of Sir Oliver Lodge ]
He was one of the earliest experimenters in the field of wireless telegraphy, transmitting signals on August 14, 1894, a year before Marconi did so; and he invented devices for the detection of radio signals as well as the commonly known 'spark plug' used in automobile engines for ignition.
He developed a variable tuner for the detection of radio signals and the moving-coil loudspeaker, which is still the main instrument in the production of sound and music from radio and television receivers and all manner of audio equipment, as well as theatre sound systems.
He also developed the vacuum tube, which was a further development of the Crookes vacuum tube, and made amplification of electrical signals possible by the addition of a grid of wire inside the vacuum tube, which acted on electrons much as a water valve acts to control the flow of water past a certain point. This invention lead to the development of amplified loudspeaker systems.
He had written papers on relativity and the Lorentz contraction, being credited by Lorentz himself with the early work in the phenomenon around the year 1893, about a decade before Einstein published his researches on the topic of relativity.
He carried out scientific investigations on lightning, electrolysis, and the application of electricity to the dispersal of fog and smoke. His early work is still used in pollution control devices manufacturing.
He was a professor of physics at 30, president of Birmingham College, a popular lecturer, and an early Broadcaster. Heinrich Hertz thought that Lodge was the first scientist to discover electromagnetic waves.
Lodge wrote about 40 books on subjects such as the ether, electro-magnetics, relativity, and psychic communication with purported deceased people.
He was famous for his studies of mental telepathy in the late 1880's and his work with mediums, from which he became a convinced and powerful voice for the belief in the continuation of life beyond the physical death of the body.
He wrote about psychic matters and was president of the London Society for Psychical Research from 1901 to 1903.
He worked with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the investigation of psychical phenomena. They were both thoroughly convinced of the truth of survival of consciousness.
[ Photo of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ]
He was a practising Christian, and he wrote: "I am as convinced of continued existence on the Other Side as I am of existence here!" He never wavered in this belief.
He was also a well-known socialist in his political convictions.
He spent his retirement years just a few miles from Stonehenge.
To return to the Hamilton work, now. The question for Dr. Hamilton was exactly the same question that had occupied the mind and researches of W. H. Myers: where had this information come from?
There were several possibilities. The information might have come from the mind of the medium - although this was rather unlikely since the medium could barely read and write and had no exposure to any information about the individuals who claimed to communicate through her. Nor did she have any information about Plato.
The information might have come telepathically from the minds of one or more of the other sitters. For anything to come from the minds of the other sitters it would first have been resident in the mind of that sitter. This again was most unlikely - a quick poll of the sitters brought only a blank where Plato was concerned. Any knowledge would have to be unconscious knowledge.
Two weeks after the first message Lillian Hamilton found that a copy of Plato's Republic was among their own books.
In the REPUBLIC she found that in book 10 was a much more appropriate myth under the circumstances: it was a myth setting forth in allegorical form Plato's argument that life must follow death if we are to hold our belief in the justice of the Divine Judge - of God.
Here she read: To quote Socrates: "Well," I said, "I will tell you a tale of the son of Arminius ... he was slain in battle, and ten days afterward ... as he was lying on the funeral pyre, he returned to life and told them what he had seen in the other world.
He said that when his soul left his body he went on a journey with a great company, and that they came to a mysterious place ... He drew near, and they told him that he was to be the messenger who would carry the report of the other world to them ...
Then he beheld and saw ... souls... some ascending out of the earth, dusty and worn with travel, and some descending out of heaven clean and bright ...
And they went forth into the meadow where they encamped as at a festival; and those who knew one another embraced and conversed, the souls which came from Earth inquiring about the things above, and the souls which came from heaven about the things beneath ... those from below weeping and sorrowing at the remembrance of the things they had endured ... while those from above were describing heavenly delights and visions of inconceivable beauty ..."
"Wherefore my counsel is that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and the gods ... and it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing ..."
Dr. and Lillian Hamilton were much impressed with the beauty and pertinence of the message.
It is interesting to note that on the day of this first seance a recently ordered book had arrived from London, England. It was still in its wrapper. When opened, it was found to be Lodge's book 'The Substance of Faith.'
But the question continued to haunt: where had the message come from?
There had been only a few sitters and none of them knew anything about Plato, so the information could not have come from them telepathically.
Encouraged by the evidentiality of the so-called Myers message, Dr. Hamilton and Lillian occasionally held table sittings with the same little group, the theory being that as this group had functioned once successfully as a sort of composite "medium", then perhaps other important results might be obtained.
They considered what was happening a group phenomenon, and they were not searching for one individual who might be a medium.
