Weird Historian and Curious Publications are pleased to announce the publication of The Talking Dead: A Collection of Messages from Beyond the Veil, 1850s to 1920s. The book features a cornucopia of messages from the deceased, including many from some of world’s greatest luminaries. Hear all about the afterlife straight from William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, and other spirits living it up in death in this most unusual collection of writing.
Below is a section highlighting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1927 book, Pheneas Speaks.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s zeal for Spiritualism is mentioned in the introduction to this book, as is his wife Jean’s mediumship. Among the spirits she channeled was an ancient Arabian from a Mesopotamian city called Ur. His name was Pheneas, and he claimed to have lived before the time of Abraham. This old spirit was in touch often with the Doyles during the mid 1920s. “Say just ‘Pheneas’ and I will come quicker than if you said a number on the telephone,” he told them, as if he was their own personal genie.
Pheneas gave business advice, suggested travel dates for the couple, and even helped them find a new home in a region of Southern England called the New Forest. “It is a wonderful place,” he said in May of 1924. “The atmosphere is perfect.”
He also liked predicting doom and gloom for the world. More specifically, the ancient man from Ur predicted doom for Doyle’s friend and non-believer, Houdini. On April 12, 1925, Pheneas told Jean, “Houdini is doomed, doomed, doomed. He will not be allowed to stand in the way of God’s progress.” The great magician died just over a year later, on October 31, 1926.
Doyle collected all these messages into a book, Pheneas Speaks, in 1927. A few delightful excerpts regarding evil, hope, and vegetarianism follow.
“THE GREATEST THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN FOR HUMANITY”
July 5, 1924—When the great change comes to humanity then all creeds and churches will cease to exist or the people of all nations will realise how they have utterly failed them in their hour of need. All, all, every colour and sect and nation will turn to spiritualism, and so the world will be changed and the shams will be swept away for ever. Then comes the Millennium. When you come over here to the land of your dreams you will find that only love prevails, and the sun shines, and all, all is beautiful, and the heart is never hurt. From here you will see the progress of the world under the new conditions, it will all be most interesting and wonderful to behold. The crop is nearly due, the seeds are almost all in, the rain is now to come, and then the sunshine. It is the greatest thing that could possibly happen for humanity.
“THE RUBBISH HEAP OF HUMANITY”
April 12, 1925—I would like to—please I want to say this. The people are struggling against a force that is crushing them, and a pit of evil has been growing deeper and deeper in the world, and its forces have been dragging down humanity. So we have made a central battery to prevent the destruction of mankind. There are pits covered with beautiful green that seem safe to walk on, but they are fatal. That is why we must interfere, to cut out those dangers for mankind.
You understand it is just like a microbe in the body—a little, wee thing, but centres grow and grow till the whole beautiful body is destroyed, and is not as God made it. So with the human race.
Much has to be swept away with the rubbish heap of humanity. It is like the ashes you put on soil to do it good. Those experiences will be a living memory of what to avoid in the newborn earth, where Love will prevail in days to come, tenderness, simplicity, and the fulfillment of all that God meant humanity to be.
… We are at present meeting continually, first to discuss the reports from those who have certain tasks upon the earth, secondly to send out to the centres instructions respecting the latest developments in the chemical world from here to the earth plane. Our people have been to study the conditions in different parts of the world. They have readjusted every mechanism. This has been circulated round to those who deal with the various districts— this is done from our Central Committee. Then there are those who report on the evil forces on their plane; then there is above that the great power descending from a very high sphere, with instructions to all as to what each unit is to do, and prepare for. The receiving stations in the homeland have to be ready. Then above that are wonderful messages of inspiration, coming to revitalise all of us, so that we may be channels of His great light to descend upon earth, and to the intermediary spheres, like a battery of electricity.
… After a time dawn will come—a new sun will shine forth—a sun that has more warmth and health in it.
The earth will grow green once more. The flowers will appear. Humanity will awaken to a world reborn. The old things will have passed away, and the earth will know them no more.
“SURELY I COULD NOT HAVE LIKED THAT”
April 25, 1925—All is easier on our side than in this moth-eaten, muddy world. This is like a very hideous brown ghost-form of real life, which is much more solid. When we visit it, we say: “Surely I could not have liked that. Don’t tell me there was ever a time when I wanted to stay in that. It is inconceivable.”
We have all you have, without the shadows. All the best you have is intensified with us. All the beauty, but no ugly human elements. No selfishness, no anger, nothing ugly. Only beauty.
You will meet all who have love and sympathy for you.
If you do your simple duty as God means you to do it in your daily life, you will be in this beautiful place.
“HUMANITY WILL SOON BE STAGGERED”
March 25, 1926—In a little time there will be a great discovery of an electric nature made by spirit power by a man who knows nothing of electricity. It will mean seeing and hearing by means of electricity.
This spiritual knowledge is coming into your world in little rills all from a source which is inexhaustible. Soon these rills will unite and form pools and lakes, which will submerge everything.
Conditions are mixed to-night. There have been workmen and others in this room who have mixed the atmosphere.
You must understand the difficulties. Electricity is as coarse as lead compared to these fine psychic vibrations.
All is well. There is a very great man on our side who will inspire you at your address to-morrow.
Humanity will soon be staggered at the enormous power shown from on high.
The result will be to lower all the bridges of thought in the direction of the spirit world. You Spiritualists will have to get busy, all of you, in helping to lower those bridges, and giving the tickets of entrance to those who would pass over to a greater conception of faith, thought, and knowledge.
A gardener in a conservatory, when he sees a life-killing fly destroying the plants that he lovingly cultured and tended, will spray those plants with an anti-death toxin. So will the great Gardener when He sees His beloved flowers being destroyed by noxious growths. God bless you!
Let your mind be very open to us—to our directions—in the next twenty-four hours. Don’t shut the doors and windows. Let us in. Don’t get it too tight. You understand.
“WE DON’T HAVE MEAT HERE”
April 26, 1926—We don’t have meat here. We love all living creatures because God made them, and He loves all that He has created, for in each there is a spark of God, and that is love—for their mates, their little ones, for something.
I get troubled when I see the creatures sacrificed to the appetite of man. But their days are numbered. Comparatively few more will be sacrificed, because in the new world humanity will have awakened to the sense of the enormity of the action which they take when they absorb a life that God has not done with—I mean when they kill creatures to fill their own bodies.
Your hearts are full of love for the animal world, and you will be glad at the memory that you had sympathy on the dark earth plane.
We see the difficulties of dietetic change—soon you start a new era—you begin life instead of existence. Now you come up to the top story when, for the first time, you will see things as they are. Humanity will be like the worms when they come up to the surface.
The Talking Dead: A Collection of Messages from Beyond the Veil, 1850s-1920s is available now.
