Messages from the Spirit World Rupert Lives Walter Wynn

Interestingly Rev Wynn went onto carve a name for himself as the Prophet of Giza,  as the article below will show "Mr. Wynn's prognostication is based on architectural allegory believed to be represented in the Great Pyramid of Giza. It is claimed that the Pyramid has correctly predicted many great events of British history since 1844, including the beginning of the World War . It is said to have foretold the commencement of the present coal strike , but doesn't say when it will end.


It may appear that he was always fond of prophecy as the following piece from the book "End of Days: Essays on the Apocalypse from Antiquity to Modernity" shows.

Then From the Montreal Gazette Aug 24 1926


This is one of his books which appears to be available. Wynn, Rev. Walter

What Has and What Will Come to Pass, Events Fulfilled and Coming Events Predicted

London: Rider & Co. 1933. Soft Cover. Rider & Co. Octavo, wrappers, 96 pages. Good+. Biblical and Pyramid Prophecy Vindicated; further prophecies up to September, 1936.

Of course Rupert Lives and his championing of the Hope Circle saw him targeted by Spiritualism's Jesuit adversary Rev H Thurston in the Tablet the international Catholic Weekly Page 5, 17th March 1923
THE ANTI-CHRISTIAN TREND OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM

BY THE REV. H. THURSTON, S. J.
The Rev. Walter Wynn, the author of Rupert Lives, and the editor of The British Man and Woman, is a per son of incomparable naiveté. He went to Crewe to obtain by the help of the photographer, Mr. Hope, a psychic " extra " of his dead son, Rupert. This was a favour not then granted him, but in its stead, there appeared upon the negative, when developed, a likeness, so he avers, of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, unfortunately upside down. The sceptic will be tempted to conjecture that Mr. Hope, having thoughtfully provided the extra beforehand, had by inadvertence inserted the plate into his camera the wrong way up.

Mr.Wynn, however, sees nothing more in the incident than a proof that the admiration he felt for the great liberal statesman was reciprocated, a conclusion strongly corroborated in his mind by the fact that certain psychic persons of his acquaintance subsequently beheld the spirit form of the Grand Old Man hovering above Mr. Wynn's head when he was preaching.

At a much earlier date, as our minister recounts in the book before us, occult influences had brought about his union with the devoted partner in life who was destined to be Rupert's mother. "A girl I had never seen before stood on a doorstep at Sandy Lane, Bradford, Yorkshire thirty-five years ago and blushed. My initials are VV. W., and this blushing girl had been told by a gipsy at Blackpool the previous week that she would shortly marry a W. W."11 And she did ; though we need not follow the narrator into the details of this North Country idyll. Convinced of the truth of Spiritualism by evidence such as this, Mr. Walter Wynn, whose very naiveté makes his testimony only the more valuable, became a fervent apostle of the expediency of communion with the dead. His relations with the leaders of the movement were of the most cordial description, but alas ! when he ventured to insert in the columns of Light a mild profession of faith in certain plain teachings of the New Testament, his fellow spiritualists, regardless of his unstinted, laudation of all editors, promoters, lecturers, and other influential champions of the cause, turned upon their associate and brutally rent him. They told him, not too politely, to mind his own business, summing up their conclusions with painful directness in the phrase HANDS OFF, made conspicuous by the use of small capitals.

Mr. Wynn undoubtedly had dared very much when he told the readers of Light that "the greatest truth ever revealed to man is the doctrine of vicarious atonement as made manifest by the death of Christ on the Cross," and he made matters considerably worse when he went on to declare that "There is salvation by no other Name and in no other way, and if a man is not saved by Christ, either in this world or the next, he is eternally a lost soul."

The attitude of Light, the journal in which this communication appeared, is described by Mr. Wynn in the phrase, "dancing the tight rope," because, he remarks, "it seems to think it is necessary to obtain adherents to the cause, no matter how heterogeneous and contradictory their religious beliefs may be. "ST But with regard to the leading Spiritualist organ of the North, the editor of The Two Worlds left no sort of ambiguity as to the standpoint from which he wrote. Commenting in a leader on Mr. Wynn's pronouncement, he made his position clear by a series of such utterances as the following : The whole doctrine of vicarious atonement is to our mind an utterly immoral and pernicious one. . . The salvation of the soul by vicarious atonement is the sequential outcome of a belief in the fabled "fall of man." . . . We do not hesitate to express the opinion that the propagation of the brutal doctrines of human depravity, vicarious atonement for sin, and eternal punishment, are directly responsible for half the sin of the world. . . This is the dirty doctrine of sackcloth and ashes. We prefer the cleaner method of soap and water and human dignity.......

I Still there can be no doubt that this note of hostility to the Creeds has become much more acute of recent years, and we can quite understand Mr. Wynn when he writes : "The fierce antagonism displayed towards my evangelical beliefs left no doubt in my mind that no minister believing in Christ as I believe in Him can possibly feel at home in the ranks of organized Spiritualism."  One cannot pretend to be much in sympathy with Mr. Wynn either as to his theological views or as to his 'belief in communion with the dead, but we may thank him for the light he throws upon the present tendencies of the cult, and for his vindication of the conception of sin and the need of pardon which the much-vaunted "New Revelation" seems determined utterly to ignore.
You can read more of Thurston here with another attack on the Hope photograph for Wynn http://www.woodlandway.org/PDF/PP3.5May07..pdf

This was such a good topic and the book Rupert Lives one of the classic records of correspondences from a deceased loved one through various mediums that I thought it deserved a move from recent news. Thanks for drawing our attention to that book Mark.

Glad you enjoyed it as much as I did Jim.

I wonder if the medium J.J. Vango is in the below photogragh as he was employed by W.T. Stead, and an active spirit worker for his Bureau. The photo is from The Mary Evans Picture Library, www.maryevans.com




Vango's bust is displayed at the CPS in London, and a picture of it can be seen on Brandon Hodge's wonderful blog, The Mysterious Planchette.

http://mysteriousplanchette.blogspot.ie/2014/07/london-artifacts-part-3-cps-talking.html

I suppose the virulent opposition to spiritualism by many Christian folk was done in a sense of self-preservation, or at least maintaining their lucrative income of those now far-off days.
The simple equation suggested by the findings of Spiritualism would seem to put a cap on the matter.

Christianity is founded upon a 'resurrection' albeit a miraculous one, while Spiritualism points to the impossibility of death for all, so no death means no resurrection and no resurrection means, inevitably, no Christianity.

hiorta, you make a fair point but I am more pulled towards the survival evidence of the article, rather than it's religious implication.

Agreed Mark

Two pamphlets arrived this morning, The Mediumship of JJ Vango, and the other on Mrs. Keeves Record, both look fascinating 

JJ Vango's was an interesting read. Now I am onto Mrs. Keeves Record's pamphlet it looks intriguing!

 

Thanks Mark

Mark,

The people who are digitalising all the old newspapers and magazines, Marc Demarest et al, are trying to work on a complete listing of occults and spiritualist books. The intention is to, where copyright permits ensure there is a digital edition of each one. Copy the following into your google search
"the fourteen group"site:ssoc.selfip.com
this gives a list of everything available on the rather unknown but important fourteen group the second in the list is well worth a read 3 discourses by major Spiritualists on separate topics concerning the mind of the medium, the communicator etc. I picked this up in research on Meurig Morris to fill the background for an article I am writing.

The Fourteen included Firebrace, Barbanell, Morris, Vegurs and others of that level.

By the way if you then replace the fourteen group with any other topic in spiritualism (keeping this in the inverted comma's) you can then search the body of  material for anything else.

Thanks Jim I will definitely check that out.