William Stainton Moses | |
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| Born | 1839 (1839) Donington, England |
| Died | 5 September 1892(1892-09-05) (aged 52–53) |
| Occupation | Spiritualist medium |
William Stainton Moses (1839 – 5 September 1892) was anEnglishcleric and spiritualistmedium. He promoted spirit photography andautomatic writing, and co-founded what became theCollege of Psychic Studies. He resisted scientific examination of his claims, which have generally been demolished.
Moses was born inDonington nearLincoln. He was educated atBedford School,University College School, London andExeter College, Oxford.[1] He was ordained as a priest of theChurch of England byBishop Samuel Wilberforce in 1870.
Moses attended his firstséance with Lottie Fowler in 1872. Charles Williams andDaniel Dunglas Home were the next mediums he visited. Five months after his introduction tospiritualism, he claimed to have experiencedlevitation. The automatic scripts of Moses began to appear in his booksSpirit Teachings andSpirit Identity.[1] The scripts date from 1872 to 1883 and fill 24 notebooks. All but one have been preserved by the London Spiritualist Alliance.
Moses publishedPsychography. A Treatise on One of the Objective Forms of Psychic or Spiritual Phenomena in 1878. In it, he coins the term "psychography" (frompsycho andgraphy) for the spiritualist concept of channeling messages from the dead viaautomatic writing (also known as "independent writing", "direct writing" or "spirit writing").
Moses was one of the first vice-presidents of theSociety for Psychical Research (SPR).[2] Other early members includedFrederic W. H. Myers,Henry Sidgwick andEdmund Gurney. In 1886 and 1887 in a series of publications the SPR exposed the tricks of the mediumWilliam Eglinton. Because of this, some spiritualist members including Moses resigned from the SPR.[3]
Moses endorsed thespirit photography ofÉdouard Isidore Buguet, however, Buguet was exposed as a fraud.[4] Moses had supported Buguet in an article forHuman Nature in May 1875.[5] After Burguet was exposed later in the same year, Moses insisted that Buguet was still a genuine medium and he had been bribed to make a false confession.[6][7] The case has been cited by researchers as an example of spiritualistswilling to believe and refusing to accept evidence of fraud.[8][9][10]
In 1884, Moses was a founding member, together with Rogers, of the London Spiritualist Alliance, afterwards theCollege of Psychic Studies.[1]
Moses died on 5 September 1892.[1]
Moses performed in dark conditions only with a small select circle of friends, he did not allow psychical researchers to attend his séances and refused to be tested.[11] The psychical researcherFrank Podmore wrote:
It seems reasonable to conclude that all the marvels reported at [Moses] seances were, in fact, produced by the medium's own hands: that it was he who tilted the table and produced the raps, that the scents, the seed pearls, and the Parian statuettes were brought into the room in his pockets: and that the spirit lights were, in fact, nothing more than bottles of phosphorised oil. Nor would the feats described have required any special skill on the medium's part.[12]
It was suggested that Moses looked up obituaries, daily newspapers, biographies orThe Annual Register to research the history of deceased people.[12]Joseph McCabe described Moses as a "deliberate impostor" and wrote that hisapports and all of his feats were the result of trickery.[4] Science historianSherrie Lynne Lyons wrote that the glowing or light-emitting hands in séances could easily be explained by the rubbing of oil ofphosphorus on the hands.[13] Moses was caught twice with a bottle of phosphorus.[14]
A psychologistThéodore Flournoy wrote that before admitting a supernatural explanation for theautomatic writings of Moses, "we must first of all be sure that he himself was not capable of elaborating them subconsciously. To my mind, he was quite capable."[15] Many of Moses's statements about ancient history have proven to be false.[16]
ResearcherGeorgess McHargue has suggested that Moses' mediumship was the result ofself-suggestion and unconscious trickery.[17]
The first documented instance ofcryptomnesia occurred in 1874 with Moses, after his described spiritual contact with a pair of dead Indian brothers matched a newspaper report from the week before, and despite his claimed communication he could ascertain no details not given in that report. Researchers concluded that Moses had read the story but forgotten that he had read it, instead mistaking the partial memory for a message from the spirit world.[18][19]
Under the pen name "M.A. Oxon", Moses published the following books on spiritualism:
Moses also edited the periodicalLight and wrote on spiritualism forHuman Nature.
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