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Contents |
THE SEVEN PURPOSES
Chapter II
THE next morning, Friday, March 8th, be-
fore giving Frederick an opportunity to com-
municate with his mother, I read her my
letters to Cass, wishing her to know just what
had occurred and my attitude toward it.
Then we turned to planchette.
From this point, the account is taken from
the original manuscript. At first we did not
realize the importance of writing in our ques-
tions, some of which we were unable to re-
member later. During those first days, also,
the messages were sometimes confused by
other messages written over them, or by lines
and circles done in apparent excitement and
joy, and were impossible to decipher afterward.
Frederick's writing, from the first moment
with his mother, was quick and firm—at that
time the most rapid and consecutive I had
ever seen done through planchette, although
in comparison with later communications these
were slow and fragmentary.
"Mother dearest," he began, immediately,
without question or comment from either [18]
of us.
She told me that this had been his name
for her, which I had not known. He went on,
writing eagerly, with brief pauses between
phrases.
"I am here, dearest. . . . Just believe. . . .
Mother, you do believe, don't you? . . . Tell
me you do."
After replying to some questions, he began
making the small circles first noticed during
the preliminary episode when his sisters were
in New York. I asked what they meant.
"Joy. . . . Don't fail to make her believe."
I reminded him that this was his responsibility,
and he added, "You and I."
A question of which there is no record
drew this reply: "Yes, busy every minute.
. . . Work is so interesting. . . . I love you just
the same. . . . Go home when I can. . . . Tell
Dad I am with him . . . helping all I can . . . I
am so glad you came. . . . I was afraid you
would not. . . . Go home in peace, Mother.
dearest. I am alive and happy and busy and
well."
She said it was like him to sum it all up
that way.
"Of course it is like me. It is 'me.'"
Some personal comment concerning members
of the family followed, in the midst of which [19]
Annie Manning interrupted with her invari-
able, "Tell Manning." Asked if she had any
connection with the Gaylord family, she said,
"No, good-by," and Frederick resumed his
sentence where it had been broken off.
Throughout this and subsequent interviews
Mrs. Gaylord and I kept up a running conver-
sation, impossible to reproduce here—my hand
still resting on planchette—to which Frederick
frequently contributed a remark, precisely as
if he had been present in the flesh. Again, he
would break a pause by addressing some
characteristic statement or appeal to his moth-
er, sometimes, she told me afterward, answer-
ing her unspoken thought.
Over and over he begged her to say that
she was convinced of his presence and identity,
and at last she gave him this assurance.
"Oh, thank God!" He made strong circles,
before running up to a clear space some inches
above, to add, "Tell Dad."
For the first time, a possible explanation of
his inexorable refusal to give me a message
for his father occurred to me, and when I
asked, he said, "Yes, I want to reach them
through her."
He told her not to think of him as he had
been during the months of his last illness, say-
ing: "Forget all that. It is over, and I am [20]
well and strong, and happier than ever—now."
When we wondered whether it had distressed
him to be unable to communicate with his
family, he said, "Yes, I needed that."
"Will you talk every day, you and she?"
he asked, presently. "Thank you."
"Mrs. Gaylord, Frederick is a fine force,"
followed immediately, in a more running
script, and when I said this must be Mary
Kendal, the answer was: "Yes. Tell Manse
I love him. . . . Tell him again."
"He doesn't need to be told that," I as-
sured her, as I had so many times before.
And again she returned: "Yes, he does.
There are reasons. Tell him." I promised
to write to him once more, and she continued:
"Mrs. Gaylord, Frederick wants you to be
sure that he is doing more here than he could
there. You should not grieve for that, should
you? You have a fearless mind in other
things. Trust for that. Good-by."
"Mother dearest, that was Mrs. Kendal,"
Frederick resumed, with his more vigorous
movement. "She is a missionary, and a fine
force."
Noticing the repetition of this word, I
asked, "You say force, not spirit?"
"No, force is what moves things."
To his mother's inquiry about a friend, he [21]
replied: "He is here with me, working. Bob's
little girl is here, too." She told me that a
medium visited by his sisters had described
him with a little girl, saying that he wanted
them to "tell Bob." [I had heard this from
them, also, and the subject recurred later.]
"Yes," he acquiesced. "Same child."
When she expressed her belief that he was
still alive and growing, promising that she
would be happier in future, he said: "Thank
you, Mother dearest. That is all I need.
Tell Dad to be happy, too. I am with him.
He has not lost a son. I am better and bigger
and more useful than I ever could have been
there, but I have been sorry you suffered so
much."
"Have you been trying recently to let us
know you were with us?" she inquired.
"Yes, for months. At first I could not."
He said that Mary Kendal had found him
for us, and when I mentioned that Mary K.
had come first to me, he explained: "Yes, she
is more used to it. She found Mrs. Kendal,
and she told me."
"You had better get your lunch," he sug-
gested, after a pause, rousing us from our
complete absorption to a consciousness that it
was late. Mrs. Gaylord denied being hungry,
but he warned her—characteristically, I [22]
learned afterward, "You will have a headache,
Mother dearest, if you don't."
After luncheon we went out for a walk, and
then to our respective rooms to rest, the morn-
ing having been fatiguing in its emotional
strain. Planchette and paper had been left
in Mrs. Gaylord's room, and in the afternoon,
while Cass and I were still alone, I picked up
a lead-pencil and placed its point on a sheet
of letter-paper, expecting no response. To my
great surprise, I was conscious almost instantly
of its vitality. The sensation is comparable to
that of holding a quiet, live bird, wrapped in a
handkerchief, its energy muffled but palpable.
Sometimes this sensation of a current from
without is communicated to the hand and
arm, sometimes only to the fingers.
In a short time the pencil moved, writing,
"Mary Kendal," followed by the usual mes-
sages for Manse.
Cass asked whether it annoyed them to be
questioned, or interfered with things they
might wish to tell us.
"No, it does not interfere. We are here to
tell you what we can, but we cannot tell
everything. . . . You have the right to know
what we can tell you. . . . You are getting nearer
the big things every day." This made Cass
wonder whether "the big things" would come [23]
to us in this life or the next, and she added:
"Both. You begin there and keep on grow-
ing. As soon as you are ready, big truths are
shown to you."
Addressing me, he made some allusion to
what "she" had said, suggesting that it seemed
to support a theory he had once held, that this
world is one of elimination.
"No, it is one of growth," was her answer.
"And 'she' is trying to tell you that growth
begins there and does not stop. It goes on
and on, as long as you are worthy."
"Then unworthiness kills?"
"It does not kill. It defers."
Weeks afterward, it was interesting to turn
back to these early pages of the record and
find how much of the wide significance of
later revelations had been foreshadowed from
the first.
"Are you as eager for this communication
as we are?"
"We are more eager, because we know how
much it means. We know that more truth
can be taught this way than any other."
Cass turned to Mrs. Gaylord, who had re-
joined us, saying that this seemed to imply
that they were our superiors.
"No, we are your elders," said Mary Kendal.
As has generally been the case during these [24]
interviews, we were talking among ourselves,
frequently going on with our conversation while
the pencil wrote. Some one wondered how or
why they had time or desire to leave their pre-
sumably more important work to talk to us.
"Because we are all humans, after all," Mary
responded, "and it is our work to help, just as
it is yours. Many people do not want to
help, here or there. . . . This life is just a con-
tinuation of yours under happier conditions."
"Are you happier there than you were
here, Mary?"
" Yes, except for Manse."
Mrs. Gaylord asked whether a man who had
loved books, and had always kept himself
surrounded by them in this life, would find
that interest there.
"No," Mary said, "but we have its equiva-
lent interest."
Mrs. Gaylord then explained that the medi-
um already mentioned had described Frederick
to his sisters as surrounded by books.
"He told her that to identify himself, as
characteristic."
[In this connection, an incident occurring
three months later is interesting.
[One night, about the middle of June, a
group of us had been talking for some time,
through my pencil, with friends on the next [25]
plane, when one of the women announced that
she could see distinctly a large man's hand
resting upon the hand of a man present.
[The person in question—a hard-headed,
practical business man, successfully conduct-
ing large affairs—looked startled, saying that
he had noticed a peculiar sensation in that
hand, and asked whether a friend, whom he
named, was actually present.
["Yes," was the reply through the pencil.
"R____ saw. I manifested physical attributes
for a minute. I have no hands, but I can
imagine them and project them in your minds,
occasionally."
[No one else saw the hand, and at no other
time in my experience has anything of this
kind occurred.]
I asked Mary Kendal whether they pre-
ferred planchette or pencil, and she said, "It is
easier for us this way." Therefore, except on
one memorable occasion, all later writing has
been done with a pencil.
For the information of persons interested in
physical details, it may be explained that I
generally use a long pencil, which is held erect,
almost at right angles to the paper, the fingers
clasping it lightly two or three inches from its
point, the hand and arm entirely unsupported.
In the very rapid writing that has sometimes [26]
been done, and occasionally in moments of
great eagerness or emotion, the force propelling
the pencil—which seems to be applied some-
times above, sometimes below my hand—has
forced it to a sharply acute angle in relation
to the surface of the paper. From the first,
I have used right and left hands alternately,
and the writing, with exceptions so few as to
be negligible, has been done in rather large
script on wall-paper, many rolls of which have
been covered.
One of the exceptions to the use of wall-
paper was this first experiment with a pencil,
when loose sheets of letter-paper were used,
and as many of them were missing when I
tried to assemble them the next day, much
of this interview has been lost.
"Frederick, shall we ever have our holidays
again?" Mrs. Gaylord asked, in the evening.
"Just as many holidays as you will take,"
he replied. "I am always there on high days
and holidays. Why leave me out?" This was
the first time he made an interrogation point.
It was traced slowly and with great precision,
as if to emphasize his inquiry.
His mother then explained to us that the
celebration of certain festivals, which had al-
ways been days of family reunion, notably
Christmas and Easter, had been impossible to [27]
them since his death. Shortly afterward he
expanded this theme.
That night Mrs. Gaylord telegraphed to her
husband that she had received messages for
him and for the family. She said, as other
members of the family have said since, that
there was in everything Frederick had written a
familiar and convincing sense of his personality,
a quality which we were unable to recognize,
never having known him.
The next day he announced, buoyantly:
"Mother dearest, I am here. Thank you for
wiring Dad. Made him happier."
Greatly comforted by the conviction of her
son's continued life and development and de-
votion, Mrs. Gaylord's thought was already
turning to other bereaved and suffering moth-
ers, and more than once she expressed her
desire to share with them her new knowledge,
urging me to make preparations for the pub-
lication of the messages she was sure Frederick
would give us, to which, for personal reasons,
I demurred. We asked Frederick whether he
thought it should be published, and he replied
in the affirmative. After some discussion,
leaving me still unconvinced, he resumed his
appeal to his mother.
"You will be happy now, won't you? You
can't be sorry I am so much better off and [28]
more useful. I get your thoughts and you get
mine, only you don't recognize them always
as mine. You will now."
"Is there any way I can know when you
are with me?" she asked.
"You will learn, now you know I am there.
I can't tell you how, but you will learn. That
is part of this big knowledge, dearest. You
are both just beginning, but, like other knowl-
edge, growth is rapid, once begun. You will
meet skeptics, who will laugh, but don't be
disturbed. This is the next big revelation,
and you are with the first over the top."
"Are you still interested in the war?" she
asked, and the reply came with great vigor.
"Yes. How can anybody help that? It is
great and hideous and wonderful, and the
salvation of the civilized world. Something
had to wake the souls of most men. They
have been quiet too long. Growth is always
struggle. It is hard struggle there, because
you don't see far ahead. We see farther—
much farther—and it is easier to climb."
" Was the war the fault of the Germans, or
the result of world conditions?"
"Both. The Germans had long been ob-
sessed by a lust of power, and the rest of the
world by a lust of ease and money, and indi-
vidual interests. There has been real unity of [29]
purpose only in Germany." When she said
that this thought of Germany's unity had been
much in her mind of late, he added, quickly,
"That was I, Mother dearest, trying to tell
you what I could of what I know."
A long talk on personal topics followed,
during which he referred to me as a "mes-
senger," explaining Mary Kendal's previous
use of the word. By this time, many of the
messages were conveyed to my consciousness
before the pencil wrote them. Sometimes I
had no previous impression of them; some-
times only the meaning reached me, being ex-
pressed by the pencil in other phrases; some-
times I knew what the words would be. I
mentioned this, with some misgiving, and
Frederick dryly remarked: "You are very sensi-
tive for so obstinate a person."
Referring to his earlier statement about
Germany, Cass asked: "What would national
unity of purpose lead to? Hasn't it elements
of great danger?"
"Many men feel that unity of purpose is
dangerous, but it is up to men . . . to guide the
purpose to sane and right ends. It must come
through the awakening of the souls of the
people everywhere. We work for that here,
because the growth of the part is the growth
of the whole. You can help us and all life [30]
by working for that unity with us."
This was the first intimation, apparently
personal and casual, of that gospel of unity
and co-operation so fully developed later.
"Mother dearest, you are normally a build-
er," he went on, after a little. "Now clear
away the debris of things outlived, and begin
the new structure with me."
She replied that she had been feeling for some
time that she must free her life of many small,
insistent demands, and have time to think.
"Not only that, dearest. You must get out
of shadow into light. Out of mourning into
building. Out of black into color and life.
Out of grieving into joy with me in our work
together. It is not that I object to black,"
he continued, when she expressed her unwill-
ingness to lay aside her black dress, "but to
a symbol of mourning. Sorrow is not construc-
tive, after it has done its first big work. Leave
it behind and go on. Can't you do that?
Won't you please try? . . . As for me, this is a
great time to be here. Think what this war
means here. We are busier than you are.
There, I should be in the army, I suppose. I
am doing bigger work than that here. Just
now, I am on a sort of furlough, to visit with
you. That is permitted. But when I go back
to work I can't be with you all the time, this [31]
way."
"Can you get into touch with my father,
who died years ago?" Cass asked. "And do
the young stay young, and the old, old?"
"I will try to find your father. Some of us
go on into remoter places to work, but almost
all of us come back, at intervals. We are
tremendously interested in life there, for it is
the root and beginning of all our work. When
things improve there, they are just that much
better here. . . . Age is a matter of experience
here, not of time."
"Does your work affect us in this world,
or only those joining you?"
"We try constantly to help you with our
greater knowledge, but some of you are easier
to help than others." This led to a question
as to whether all our knowledge here is given
to us from his plane, and he went on: "Not
all. We help develop what you are willing to
work for, if you are really sincere in wanting
it. Sincerity is the crowning virtue."
We talked this over, and in the midst of our
discussion he interrupted with a question of
his own:
"Mother dearest, are you getting tired?"
She denied it, but he said, "She is tired," and
we talked no more that afternoon.
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