Afterlife Teaching from Stephen the Martyr

Early in 1974, a small group of religious friends began gathering periodically at the modest home of Thomas and Olive Ashman in Christchurch, New Zealand. We would reverently pray for protection, and be silent, says the Rev. Michael Cocks, an Anglican priest from Christchurch. Tom would sit upright in a chair, relaxed. After two or three minutes he would begin to pale and to breathe deeply. Then his body would give a slight jerk as Stephen seemed to take over.In effect, Tom Ashman was a trance medium and was entering an altered state of consciousness as his body was being taken over by the entity called Stephen, who would then speak to the group using Ashmans vocal cords. Stephen would dialogue with the group, which, in addition to Cocks and Ashmans wife, Olive, also included a Liberal Catholic priest, a Buddhist, and other curious observers. But this was not just any Stephen; it was Saint Stephen, the first Christian Martyr.Cocks states that normally Stephen spoke through Ashman in a rather curious English, but that he twice spoke in an ancient Greek dialect, which apparently was for the purposes of confirming his identity.For myself, I do not speak [English] and I never have, Stephen related in one of the sittings. I activate these words that are in Thomass memory and are known to him. Occasionally there is a little magic, when I join together sounds and symbols that are in Thomass mind so that words may be spoken that are not known to Thomas.Cocks realizes that the story is difficult for most people to accept. At first, he had a hard time accepting it himself. Even after he came to believe that St Stephen was actually communicating with the small group, he was reluctant to discuss it with many people outside of the group. Part of it was fear of social ostracism for claiming to receive teaching from a saint, he explains. After one of the early sittings in which Stephen spoke in Greek, Cocks consulted a lecturer in Greek at a University about Stephens Greek words. She reported my request to the then bishop, who called me for a chat, Cocks recalls. To him, I denied being interested in spiritualism, as was definitely the case in those days.Cocks, who earned a Masters Degree in philosophy at the University of New Zealand and a Masters in theology at Oxford University, is certain that the Ashmans were not attempting to pull off some kind of parlor trick. Tom was deeply sincere, as was his wife, and he was plainly undergoing personal change as the result of what was being spoken through him, Cocks states. There was no desire to impress, no question of financial gain, and the communications were made in the presence of a group of about twelve friends.Moreover, Cocks points out, Tom Ashmans personal views were somewhat at odds with the teachings coming through him. He gradually became more and more frustrated because most of the time Stephen spoke through him, he was unconscious, and had to wait a week for transcripts of the session to be printed out, Cocks continues. He often felt out of it.Cocks remained skeptical during those early sittings. He wondered if Tom had some kind of secondary or fragmented personality that was taking over his dominant personality, as has been reported in multiple personality cases. No doubt this would be the explanation provided by mainstream psychiatry, which is always looking for a reductionistic answer to such a phenomenon. But multiple personality disorder would not explain how or where that secondary personality obtained the knowledge and wisdom flowing from the entity calling himself Stephen. If the wisdom were flowing from Ashmans subconscious, how did it get into his subconscious in the first place?Ashman had a Catholic mother and Jewish father, and had always thought of himself as a Jew, although he had no strong belief system. Nothing in his history had exposed him to such profound teachings. What was most convincing to Cocks was the verification that the Greek spoken by Stephen in those earl

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