One of the most common objections to the idea of mediumistic communication is that no voice from beyond the grave has succeeded in revealing the contents of a sealed envelope containing a posthumous message. Yet I recently came across a case which contradicts this claim, at least in part.
The first account I read of this case is found in Trevor Hamilton’s 2009 biography, Immortal Longings: FWH Myers and the Victorian Search for Life after Death. In a section on the so-called cross-correspondences, Hamilton writes:
For example, in 1904 JG Piddington of the SPR [Society for Psychical Research] sealed an envelope containing the phrase that if he were a spirit he would try to transmit the number seven in some form or another. Over the next few years six mediums received scripts playing with the number seven in various ways and on the 27th of January 1909, Mrs Verrall wrote: ‘Has he (Piddington) found the bits of his sentence scattered among you all?’ Mrs Verrall did not get to know of Piddington’s sealed letter till 30th of March 1909. This, of course, destroyed the purpose of Piddington’s original sealed envelope, which was intended to provide some kind of after-death puzzle which the discarnate Piddington could solve, thus ‘proving’ his survival. However, it did suggest discarnate awareness of the process and some element of co-ordinated design to demonstrate that awareness. [p. 293]
This intrigued me, so I did a little Googling and came across a 1954 book by Alson J. Smith titled Immortality: The Scientific Evidence. On pages 76-77, Smith writes:
A number of years ago Mr. J.G. Piddington of the society for psychical research wrote a letter which was not to be opened until after his death. He then sealed it and put it away in a safe to which only he had access. In the letter he commented on his tendency, both as a child and as an adult, to play constantly with the number seven. He counted railroad cars in groups of seven, counted up to seven before making a decision, walked in a seven-step rhythm, etc. In psychology this is known as they “tic,” and Piddington referred to it as a tic in his “posthumous” letter. Piddington said nothing to anyone about the letter.
Three years later, with the letter still reposing unopened in the safe and Piddington still alive, the automatists — Mrs. Verrall, Mrs. Holland, and Mrs. Piper (who was an automatist as well as a trance medium) began to get a lot of references to “seven” in their scripts. The phrase “we are seven” appeared, and also constant references to the clock with its “tick, tick.” So often did the references to “seven” and to “tick” appear that it was obvious that they had some significance. Finally Piddington revealed the contents of his letter.
How account for this? Had the mind of Piddington leaked the information telepathically to the automatists? Or had they exercised clairvoyance to see the contents of the sealed letter in the safe?
Both of these possibilities are intriguing in themselves, but there was still another and even more interesting possible explanation. At the same time that Piddington had been writing his “posthumous” letter in London, the automatic script of Mrs. Verrall in Cambridge had been full of messages that purported to come from Frederic W. H. Myers, who had died sometime before. Even as Piddington wrote his letter, Mrs. Verrall had been writing: “Note the hour — in London half the message has come … surely Piddington will see that this is enough and should be acted upon.” Later “Myers” wrote again through Mrs. Merrill: “Has Piddington found the bits of his sentence scattered among you all?” Remember, all this time Mrs. Verrall and the other automatists had no conscious knowledge that Piddington had written any letter at all. The third possibility, therefore, was that the appearance of bits of Piddington’s letter in the scripts of the automatists was due to deliberate action on the part of a deceased personality (Myers) who had chosen this method of indicating his survival to his friends.
Finally I looked for the source cited by Trevor Hamilton in his biography — pages 175-181 of a book called Zoar; or, The Evidence of Psychical Research concerning Survival, by W. H. Salter, published in 1961. Happily, this book is available on Google Books, and most of the relevant pages are present, though a couple are omitted. Salter’s book provides the fullest account of this episode that I’ve read, though an article in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, cited by Salter, evidently goes into even more detail.
Salter writes:
The Sevens case (Proc. XXIV, 222-253) was much more diffuse and complex. In all its stages it was spread over four and half years, from July 1904 to January 1909, but with a stage of marked activity between the 20th of April and 24th of July 1908. Seven persons were involved, three of them being the principal members at that time of the SPR group of automatists (Mrs. Verrall, Mrs. Holland, and my wife, H.V.). The other four were the medium, Mrs. Piper, two minor automatists, Mrs. Frith and Mrs. Home, and Piddington….
On the 13 July 1904, at some time in the middle of the day that cannot be exactly fixed, Piddington wrote a “posthumous letter” at the Society’s room in London, sealed it, and gave it to Alice Johnson to keep. The letter began as follows: —
“If ever I am a spirit, and if I can communicate, I shall endeavour to remember to transmit in some form or other the number SEVEN.
“As it seems to me not improbable that it may be difficult to transmit an exact word or idea, it may be that, unable to transmit the simple word seven in writing or as a written number, 7, I should try to communicate such things as: ‘The seven lamps of architecture’, ‘The seven sleepers of Ephesus’, ‘unto seventy times seven’, ‘We are seven’, and so forth. The reason why I select the word seven is because seven has been a kind of tic with me ever since my early boyhood….”
He continues by referring to his habit of taking it as a good omen for his golf if he saw from the links a railway engine drawing seven carriages, and added that he had purposely cultivated “this tic”, as the memory of it might “survive the shock of death”.
On the same day at 11.15 a.m. Mrs. Verrall, who was then in Surrey, wrote a script which, after some nonsensical Latin and Greek words, continued: —
“But that is not right — it is something contemporary that you are to record — note the hour — in London half the message has come.”
The rest of the script purports to give the contents of Myers’s “posthumous” envelope [a different posthumous test, with ambiguous results] … and ends “Surely Piddington will see that this is enough and should be acted on. F.W.HM.” This is, I think, the only instance of any direction in all Mrs. Verrall’s scripts to “note the hour” because “something contemporary” was to be recorded. The only “contemporary” event relevant to communications from Myers was Piddington’s “posthumous” letter. Although this was probably not written until shortly after Mrs. Verrall’s script, and although the phrase “half the message” is not altogether appropriate to this opening move in a cross-correspondence involving six other persons, nevertheless the script may, without too great a strain, be regarded as referring to Piddington’s “posthumous” letter, of the existence of which Mrs. Verrall had no normal knowledge.
Salter then gives examples of the number seven appearing in the automatists’ scripts and utterances from 1907 onward. These include:
Helen Verrall (Salter’s wife “H.V.”) wrote, “A rainbow in the sky … The sevenfold radiance from a single light …”
Various automatists made allusions to Dante’s Divine Comedy, involving the Seventh Circle of Purgatory and seven candlesticks whose flames painted colors of the rainbow in the sky.
Mrs. Piper said in semi-trance, “We are Seven. I said Clock! Tick, tick, tick.” (Note that “we are seven” is the exact phrase found in Piddington’s letter.)
Through her Myers persona, Helen Verrall wrote of a seven-branched candlestick and the seven colors of the rainbow, and also wrote “we are seven.”
In trance, Mrs. Piper said, “Seven of us, 7, seven.”
Mrs. Frith wrote, “… till the mystic seven lights up the golden candlestick of dawn.”
Mrs. Holland wrote, “There should be at least three in accord and if possible seven.” She specified the six automatists involved in this cross-correspondence as six of the “seven,” though Piddington himself was not mentioned.
Through her Myers persona, Mrs. Home wrote, “Seven times seven and seventy-seven send that burden of my words to others.”
Salter continues:
On the 19th November 1908 Alice Johnson told Piddington of a sevens cross-correspondence with Dante allusions to be found in the scripts…. On the 27th November 1908, after he and she had examined the case more thoroughly, he told her that the subject of his “posthumous” letter was variations on the theme of Seven. She then got out his sealed envelope from the locked drawer where she had kept it. They examined it, found to the seals intact and opened it. Until that day she had had no inkling what the contents might be.
On the 27th January 1909 Mrs. Verrall, who did not even know that such an envelope existed, wrote a script ending with the following passage: —
“And ask what has been the success of Piddington’s last experiment? Has he found the bits of his famous sentence scattered among you all? And does he think that is accident, or started by one of you? But even if the source is human, who carries the thoughts to the receivers? Ask him that. F.W.H.M.”
Nothing is airtight, but this strikes me as an exceptionally strong case, and one that deserves to be better known.