“STRANGE as it seems in the space age, the supposed reality of psychic phenomena continues to fascinate modern men.” So stated Time, an American news magazine, as it began a discussion of the subject of the living talking with the dead.

Learned men are still intrigued by the thought of life after death. Thus the late ex-bishop James Pike, a lawyer before he became an Episcopal clergyman, claimed to have gotten in touch with his son who committed suicide. Similarly, Anglican Bishop Stockwood insists that on five occasions he has communicated with the dead.

Gaining somewhat of an international notoriety in this matter is Rosemary Brown, who claims that ever so many great composers of the past appear to her and help her to compose music. While, by and large, persons who hear of it are skeptical, there are some who are impressed. Among these is British composer Richard R. Bennett, who stated: “If she is a fake, she is a brilliant one and must have had years of training. Some of the music is awful, but some is marvelous. I couldn’t have faked the Beethoven.”​—Time, July 6, 1970.

This indeed poses a question. Rosemary Brown has had very little musical training and appears to have very limited musical ability. Repeated tests indicate that she cannot even take down the simplest tunes dictated to her, and yet she has written some “marvelous” music as a result of her being “visited,” as she claims, by musical geniuses of the past. Then, too, at all her interviews she disarms reporters by her modesty and apparent sincerity. She claims that for upward of five years she has been in touch with such musical geniuses as Bach, Beethoven, Liszt and Schubert.

But there is a still more powerful reason why we should not seek to talk with the dead. This reason helps to account for all the psychic phenomena that has caused certain leading scientists in Great Britain and elsewhere, as well as Anglican bishops and Rosemary Brown, to believe that life does exist after death. And what is that? Seeking to talk with the dead may get one involved with wicked demons.