OF THE LOVE OF PHILINNION -
One of the best authenticated 'ghost' stories of antiquity is that of Philinnion, a maiden of Amphipolis in Macedonia, and her lover Machates. It comes mainly from a treatise by Proclus on Plato, and is retold by the English scholar Collison-Morley, in his Greek and Roman Ghost Stories. The Hon. Ralph Shirley has written this up, in the March issue of Prediction, and seems to treat it as a materialization phenomenon - which to us seems doubtful.
The gist of the matter was, that the maid Philinnion, beautiful debutante of old Amphipolis, greatly loved young Machates, friend of her family, and was passionately loved in return. Ambitious parents frowned on this, however, and married her off to one Craterus, a famous general-to-be under Alexander the Great. Six months of this was seemingly enough, and Philinnion departed this life. Then, after the lapse of another six months, the frustrated Machates came to visit once again with her parents at Amphipolis. And to him, in his room at night, for three successive nights, came lovely Philinnion, no shadowy ghost, but in all her living and physical perfections (After 23 centuries, we rejoice for him and her!).
Game then the 'old nurse', familiar figure, probably snooping and night-prowling, peeks and peers and gets a glimpse of Philinnion, bears the doubtful tale straightway to the parents - who sceptically investigate for themselves. And, by Ishtar, there the two are, asleep in each other's arms! So, the "next day" paterfamilias Demosthenes and his spouse take young Machates to task, adjuring him by all the Gods to speak truth. Impenitent, he confirms all, and shows a gold ring and a belt his love had left with him. And the next night, when Philinnion arrived, he sent the parents word.
They "threw themselves upon her with cries of joy," but "Philinnion remained cold," reproached her parents, declared that because of their interference she must return "to the place appointed me, tho I came not hither without the will of heaven" - and with these words fell down dead. There was great sorrow in that house, and then when the burial vault was opened, Philinnion's body was gone, tho nothing else had been disturbed. So she was buried, this second time, outside the city gates, and the unfortunate Machates committed suicide in despair (After 23 centuries, we sorrow for her and him!).
All this was bruited abroad, and made a most terrific sensation, and one-in-authority named Hipparchus wrote at length to the half-brother of Alexander about it, suggesting a report to the King, with witnesses and confirmatory evidences from this correspondence comes most of our information.
Hon. Ralph Shirley, in his Prediction article, tells all this and then goes on to quote the testimony of Sir William Crookes about the Katie King materialization. We point out the obvious, viz., that the Katie King figure was evidently a direct materialization, while in l'affaire Philinnion the body appears to have been removed from the vault by a dematerialization process, reintegrated, and reanimated by the spirit - a novel process, even among the unending novelties of of spiritualism. But in both cases we have the appearance of a normal human being, in a complete physical body; and since the K.K. report by [3] Sir William has never been successfully attacked, or even weakened or modified in any way, the Return of Philinnion at least has the air of possibility about it. It seems worth while to quote once more some of Sir William's familiar phrases:
"During the last six months Miss Cook (the medium), has been a frequent visitor at my house, remaining sometimes a week at a time. She brings nothing with her but a hand bag, not locked. During the day she is constantly in the presence of Mrs. Crookes, myself, or some other member of my family, and,not sleeping by herself, there is absolutely no opportunity for any preparation, even of a less elaborate character than would be required for enacting Katie King... I frequently drew the curtain of the cabinet on one side when Katie was standing near and it was a common thing for the 7 or 8 of us in the laboratory to see Miss Cook and Katie at the same time, under the full blaze of the electric light. I dressed Miss Cook like Katie, placed her and myself in the same position, and we were photographed by the same cameras. When the two pictures are placed over each other the two photographs of myself exactly coincide but Katie is half a head taller than Miss Cook and looks a big woman in comparison with her. Miss Cook's hair is so dark as to appear almost black. A lock of Katie's which she allowed me to cut, having first traced it up to the scalp, is a rich golden auburn."
That love conquers death, has been said a thousand times - the word love being used in its most spiritual and exalted sense. But there is good evidence also (here we tread as if upon eggs) that the physical love of the sexes sometimes plays back and forth across the borders of our plane. The genuine tho rare power of complete materialization suggests this plainly enough - and the unprintable tales we hear are not necessarily lies on that account. As for the love-life of the planes nearest to us, we do not venture a single word of our own - but only quote, with dash for raucous horse-laugh, the spirit of an Arab chieftain, communicating (allegedly) at a seance in Algiers some two decades ago. When questioned about sex relations in his own spirit world, he replied " -- -- What do you suppose is the chief diversion of us who were once strong men, now that horses and weapons and war give us no more pleasure? -- " Have not spiritualists and occultists alike explained many times, that there are etheric or astral planes as real, as physical as our own, tho more fair to see, nor are the bodies of the dwellers there less substantial and complete Spiritualists, thoughts turned to holier things, somewhat shun the obvious implications; all ways and desires of earth are said to be mirrored in the invisible - but of earth love desires and means for their satisfaction hardly a word is whispered; "Nothing is gained by emphasizing this theme, yet something is lost by ignoring it. Candour is lost, and realism and right knowledge, and one more bit added to the eternal, incurable distortion of every value connected with sex.
Some enlightenment may be had on these matters, if memory serves, from Oliver Bland's Adventures of a Modern Occultist. Our own copy was filched by a fundamentalist (who destroyed it) some ten years ago, so we cannot verify the reference.
References
- Collison-Morley, Lacy. Greek and Roman Ghost Stories. B.H. Blackwell: Oxford; Simpkin, Marshall & Co.: London, 1912. Print. [Digital: <https://archive.org/details/greekromanghosts00colluoft>]
- Bland, Oliver. The Adventures of a Modern Occultist. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co, 1920. Print. [Digital: <https://archive.org/details/adventuresofmode00blan>]