Unsung Heroes – The Reverend Michael Cocks

It all started from a chance meeting with a woman called Olive in a library in Christchurch, New Zealand. Olive was the wife of Tom Ashman. She related to Michael that Tom began channeling St. Stephen by speaking in Latin while asleep. Once channeling sessions were established, they were taped with St Stephen speaking in a slightly stilted form of English. Tom progressed over the next three months to a full deep-trance medium after which the Rev. Michael Cocks joined the group.

Olive’s chance meeting with Michael was fortuitous since as a particularly open-minded vicar, Michael was strongly interested in psychic research, particularly methods by which one could receive information from “above” as did the prophets. He had also experienced many synchronicities which seemed to herald the later arrival of St. Stephen:

“Prior to meeting Olive by chance in a Christchurch library I had not visited before, my personal spiritual development had been marked  by a number of extraordinary synchronicities some of which I describe in my book, “Into the Wider Dream.” One of these, was that I, in New Zealand, received a series of prophecies about spiritual wonders to come, on the same day that Stephen first spoke  through Thomas Ashman in Kent, UK. Three months later I met Olive in New Zealand.”

It would seem that this highly educated, open-minded cleric who was well versed in the Bible was the ideal person to lead the group and record details of St. Stephen’s teachings.

Book Content: Afterlife Teaching from Stephen the Martyr

Subjects covered in Michael’s book range from those proffered by St. Stephen which he obviously considered of major importance for teaching contemporary readers, to those arising from questions provided by attendees usually at the commencement of each session, a practice encouraged by St. Stephen. Questions included topics such as moral problems associated with abortion. Regarding this subject, a typical response was, “[It is] wrong to impose a termination on a mother that would not wish it, as it would be equally wrong to impose on a non-mother a conception she would not wish.”

Regarding the controversial issue of “judging others”, Stephen pointed out that the biblical concept was more a final and dismissive view, i.e. that of a judge rather than, say, that of a parent discussing a child’s behavior. In this sense, St. Stephen’s teachings could be considered as a useful adjunct or update to the Bible, the assumption being that St. Stephen expected a higher level of education and intellectual ability than was common in biblical days.

Validation Tests and Analysis

The Rev. Michael Cocks, quite skeptical at first, over seven years, used every available method to test the validity of the purported source of the teachings. His research findings were reported in depth in Part Four of his book, “Afterlife Teaching from Stephen the Martyr.”

When asked what factors helped remove his doubts, Michael states:

“His loving personality, his mysticism, in line with the Gospel of John, and the great mystics of all religions – speaking of a God of love in whom we live and move and have being, the teaching that we should let go imagined separateness from God and be one with him.  Like many early Christians he accepted reincarnation as a reality. Also evidential was the Thracian dialect of Greek of words he remembered speaking on the occasion of being accepted into a group of Essenes in Galilee.”

 Michael pointed out the source’s willingness to take random questions at the beginning of each session. Surely, this was a first level validity test, as any attempt to answer random questions would be a risky approach that no fraudulent medium would contemplate. This was especially relevant since Tom Ashman, the trance medium, was relatively unsophisticated in these matters with no meaningful religious training or tertiary education. The participants once a fortnight over eight years were remarkably dedicated and serious about the sessions, quite unlikely to have ulterior motives.  Besides Tom Ashman, a London Jew, and his wife, Olive, a Catholic, and the Reverend Michael Cocks, consistent attendees included a liberal Catholic priest and a Buddhist astrologer.

When channeling first commenced, St Stephen often began sessions with the same Latin phrase, “sic ecclesia spiritus sanctus” (Thus, in the Church, speaks the Holy Spirit.) On two occasions St. Stephen was recorded, speaking through the medium, in a Greek dialect determined later by experts to have been used in ancient Thrace and Galatia. It took 30 years of research to fully understand the implications of the words. Tom himself had no knowledge of either language. As St. Stephen explained in the book, he spoke no English during his lifetime, only Aramaic and Greek. He further explained in detail how he used the language in the mind of the entranced Tom to communicate with the group. As a result, some of St Stephen’s teachings in English sounded somewhat archaic and stilted. For those interested his book it is available on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Afterlife-Teaching-Stephen-Martyr-Michael/dp/1907661921

http://www.thegroundoffaith.net/stephen/

The book was well received and reviewed by the Assistant Bishop of Europe, the Bishop of Colchester, and Bishop of Christchurch, Dr. David Coles. Other Bishops have been privately supportive.

The Ground of Faith Newsletter

Michael’s Newsletter promoting his Book “Afterlife Teaching from Stephen the Martyr” and containing many other articles on allied subjects can be found at:  http://thegroundoffaith.net/

He has produced some 90 issues, dating from June 2003.

Michael has just turned ninety and continues his Journal.  Despite some heath issues, he still labors to bring the benefits of St. Stephen’s teachings to all he can. A true unsung hero.