Psycho-Phone Messages.
by Francis Grierson.
INTRODUCTION
The word "psycho-phone" was first suggested and used by Mr. Francis Grierson in a lecture I heard him deliver before the Toronto Theosophical Society, August 31st, 1919, a year before Thomas Edison announced his intention of devising an instrument which he hopes will serve to establish intercourse between our world and the world of spirit.
My own experiences as a student in this sphere of psychic research in Europe and America, covering a period of thirty years, convince me that we have here a revelation of a new mode of spiritual communication unlike anything heretofore given to the world, not only different in quality but different in purpose.
From personal knowledge I can state that the recorder of these messages has not acted on ideas advanced by anyone living on our plane.
Looking back over the past two decades, I am led to believe that Mr.
Grierson's predictions in "The Invincible Alliance," and in that startling poem, "The Awakening in Westminster Abbey," forecasting the war and the tragic events in Ireland, were spiritual and psycho-phonic in character.
From 1909 to 1911 Francis Grierson was the acknowledged leading writer on "The New Age," of London, which at that time had as contributors, H. G.
Wells, Bernard Shaw, Arnold Bennett, the two Chestertons, Hillaire Belloc--in one word, all the most prominent writers and advanced thinkers in Britain, yet not one of them except Mr. Grierson could see the approaching world upheaval.
Early in 1909 he published a series of articles in that weekly depicting the coming war, and nothing of so drastic a nature had ever appeared in an English publication. In the spring of 1913 these articles were published in book form in London and New York under the title of "The Invincible Alliance."
In the Westminster Abbey composition, published in "The New Age" in 1910, the characteristics of four personalities are plainly manifest--Coleridge, Milton, Shelley and Shakespeare--and I have not forgotten the sensation caused by this great work in London at the time of its appearance.
Having had occasion to study the social and psychic conditions in France, Germany, Italy, Austria and England before the great war, and after having been an eye witness of scenes unique in the annals of musical inspiration in the artistic and literary circles of Europe as well as the most intellectual of the royal courts, in which Mr. Grierson was the central figure, I now have a better understanding of the work he accomplished and its far-reaching import. The more complex the work the longer must be the preparation, and we are now confronted with what will appear to many as the most interesting phase of Mr. Grierson's psychic gifts, for the seer who ushered in the new mystical movement by the publication of "Modern Mysticism" in 1899 is now the recorder of messages which must induce thinking and unprejudiced minds to pause and consider such matters in a new light, and it is to be hoped that many more messages like these may be recorded by the same hand.
As I write, I have before me a unique collection of letters written to Mr.
Grierson by men and women eminent in philosophy, art, music, literature and journalism, in Europe and America. Among the letters that Mr. Grierson values the most in this remarkable album are eight from members of the French Academy, with Sully Prudhomme, winner of the first Noble Prize, heading the list. Which reminds me that I heard him say one evening in Paris, after hearing Mr. Grierson's music: "You have placed me on the threshold of the other world. There are not words in the French language to express what I have felt tonight!" Up to that moment the famous Academician had been known as an avowed agnostic.
Maeterlinck writes that the first Grierson volume (in French) influenced him more than any book he had ever read. There are four letters from the Belgian mystic.
This album is filled with expressions from the most authoritative minds in literature and art, as well as statesmen, soldiers and diplomats, such as Jules Simon, the Duc de Broglie, Lord Lytton, British ambassador at Paris; Lord Reading, British ambassador at Washington; Field Marshall Lord Wolseley, General B. H. Grierson, U.S.A., leading members of the Bonaparte family in Paris, Prince Henri of Orleans (son of Louis Philippe), Princess Eulalia of Spain, and crowned heads who gave receptions in Mr. Grierson's honor during the past thirty years. There are letters from distinguished Americans, such as Col. Henry Watterson (who wrote two long editorials on Mr. Grierson in the Louisville "Courier Journal"), Henry Mills Alden, editor of "Harper's Monthly," Prof. William James, Marion Reedy, Edwin Markham, Edith Thomas, Mary Austin, and many leading professors of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, the Universities of Illinois, Wisconsin and California.
Edwin Bjorkman says, in his "Voices of Tomorrow":--
"To Francis Grierson belongs the honor of having first attained to prophetic vision of the common goal. In his first volume, published in Paris in 1889, he suggested every idea which since then has become recognized as essential not only to Bergson and Maeterlinck but to the constantly increasing number of writers engaged in making the time conscious of its own spirit. As we read essay after essay it is as if we beheld the globe of life revolving slowly between us and some unknown source of light."
The following remarks from the London "Outlook" seem to me pertinent to the subject:--
"Grierson is an Englishman, for he was born in Cheshire; Scotland may justly claim him in that he is a direct descendent of Sir Robert Grierson, the famous Laird of Lag, who is the hero of Scott's novel, 'The Red Gauntlet'; that America has had a part in the making of him all readers of that wonderful book, 'The Valley of Shadows,' know; France can claim him since he began his musical career in Paris and published his first book in French; but no special country can claim to have developed his genius--that is cosmopolitan."
As "Current Opinion" says, in a long study: "He presents a unique combination of thinker, writer, artist and musician who owes nothing to any school or any master or system of training; and his experience is without a parallel in the intellectual world of our day."
LAWRENCE WALDEMAR TONNER,
245-1/2 So. Spring St.
Los Angeles, California.
FOREWORD
These messages were begun in September, 1920, and the last was recorded in May, 1921. I little dreamed that many of the predictions set forth would be verified so soon. For names, in themselves, count for nothing. The subliminal mind may assume different names on different occasions. A message is of value exactly in proportion to the information imparted.
The first communication from General Grant was recorded September ninth.
It is peremptory in tone, and contains a warning touching the insecurity of the Panama Canal. In November Mr. Harding made a tour of inspection and found the fortifications of the Canal inadequate. I then decided on the publication of these messages.
They deal with the actual. Take, for example, John Marshall's documents, which are filled with warnings no reader with intelligence will attempt to refute, Disraeli's indictment of English statesmanship in recent times, Lincoln's utterances on affairs in Europe and Mexico, General Grant on Preparation, Benjamin Franklin on the Privilege of Liberty, Bishop Phillips Brooks on the Coming Ordeals, to name but a few.
As a Judge sums up, regardless of who may or may not agree, a decision is rendered according to the vision of the one who delivers the message.
Principle, not Party, is the basis of judgment.
Witness Disraeli's remark that the blunders committed by the British Parliament would have been impossible in an Irish Parliament in Dublin.
In a series of articles in "Nash's Magazine" Mr. Basil King suggests that "the means of communication with the plane next above us may be through the everlasting doors which the subliminal opens upward. Through these doors the mind may go up and out; through these doors the light may come in and down."
In our group of investigators we have had the perseverence essential for serious development, and, as in all demonstrations, whether physical or psychical, everything depends on conditions, so we have had periods of weeks when no message of any kind was received.
A striking feature of these communications is their freedom from restraint imposed by popular opinion. They contain neither theories nor appeals.
Warnings are uttered concerning events and their inevitable reactions.
The psycho-phonic waves, by which the messages are imparted, are as definite as those received by wireless methods.
FRANCIS GRIERSON.
Los Angeles, California
Psycho-phone Messages
THOMAS B. REED
(Late Speaker of the House)
Recorded September seventh, 1920.
The formidable imbecility of the Senate rivaled the fantastic irritability of the President.
Born with a Utopian temperament, Mr. Wilson has a Herculean passion for generalities and a Lilliputian penchant for details.