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Read Ebook: The Seven Purposes: An Experience in Psychic Phenomena by Cameron Margaret
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Transcriber's Note: struck-through text is indicated ~like this~.
THE SEVEN PURPOSES
BY MARGARET CAMERON
THE SEVEN PURPOSES
INTRODUCTION
Twenty-five years or more ago my attention was attracted to the entertaining possibilities of a planchette, and, like other young persons, I played with one at intervals for several years. Like others, also, I speculated concerning the source of the remarkable statements sometimes obtained in this way, but the assumption that these statements were dictated by disembodied personalities always seemed to me rather absurd.
At no time has my interest in the matter been sufficient to lead me to read anything describing or discussing psychic phenomena, with the exception of an occasional magazine article. Neither have I read philosophies to any extent. I have been always a busy person, taking life at first hand, without much regard to what students have said about it. Such faith as I have had in anything, human or divine, has been based upon works, and, without convincing demonstration, it has been impossible for me to be sure that individual life continued.
Several weeks later, two friends, Mrs. Wylie and Miss Gaylord, told me that they had been making efforts, through some one near their home, to get into touch with their brother Frederick, with results they thought promising. A day or two later we tried planchette together, with some success. It moved briskly, wrote "Frederick ... mother ... love ... happy ..." and other detached words. It also persisted in making little circles, perhaps two inches in diameter, the pencil tracing the circumference again and again. This was so often repeated that Mrs. Wylie thought it might be a symbol, but could obtain no satisfactory reply to questions about it.
My friends went home without renewing the experiment, and my interest was not greatly stimulated. It seemed quite probable that the words written had reflected the thoughts and desires of Frederick's sisters, and that the whole episode could be explained by the theory of unconscious response by the muscles of the hand to the prompting of the subconscious mind. I had dismissed the matter, as far as my own participation in it was concerned, when a letter came from Mrs. Gaylord, saying that her daughters had told her I had "mediumistic power," and suggesting that I might be able to help her.
I knew that the exceeding bitterness of her grief lay, not in the separation from her only son, but in her inability to believe that his identity and development continued, and that the assurance that he had not "gone out, like a snuffed candle," as she afterward expressed it, would bring her the greatest--indeed, the only possible comfort. Therefore I replied at once that while I had no reason to believe that I possessed "mediumistic power" to the slightest degree, I would make further experiments, at the same time warning her that the attempt would probably prove fruitless.
The following pages contain a partial history of the result. It was soon evident that certain of these revelations were of too great moment to be withheld from public knowledge. In addition, while much of the more intimate personal matter has been omitted, most of those to whom these messages were given have felt impelled to share, in this tragic time, the comfort and assurance of their conviction, and have voluntarily yielded their privacy, hoping thereby to bring to those in sorrow an added faith in the continuance of personality, with all that this implies.
To facilitate reference, and to avoid breaking the sequence of the twelve impersonal communications forming the basis of the whole revelation, this report has been arranged in three parts. First, the genesis and rapid development of the individual message, brief at first, and purely personal, but growing both in volume and in import with each day. Second, the Lessons. Third, additional individual messages, no less personal in their original application than the first, but more impressive in their wider human appeal and significance, illuminating and emphasizing the meaning of the Lessons.
For obvious reasons, the names and initials used have been substituted for those of the persons involved, with three or four exceptions.
Part I
My first serious attempt to establish communication through planchette with a person or persons in a life beyond ours was made Sunday morning, March 3, 1918. Not so very serious an attempt, either, for I anticipated no success, and was not without a humorous appreciation of my position, sitting with my hand on a toy, inviting communication with celestial powers. I remember laughing a little, as I pictured the sardonic glee with which certain of my friends would be likely to regard such a proceeding.
Perhaps this is as good a time as any to say that I was seeking a stranger. I never saw Frederick. When our friendship with his parents began they lived in one city, we in another, and he in a third and more distant one, where he was first a reporter and later a political and editorial writer on the staff of a leading newspaper. I knew that he was young, successful, a bachelor, and singularly devoted to his family, as they to him. But his habits of thought and speech had never been described to me, at first because it was expected that we would meet, and in the much closer intimacy of our later acquaintance, because the pain of his loss was so poignant that no member of the family could speak of him with composure. I had never seen a photograph of him, even.
After perhaps twenty minutes, during which planchette did not move, I left the paper--a roll of blank wall-paper, called lining-paper, which I found years ago to offer the most continuous and satisfactory surface for use with planchette--spread over the table, and went into another room, intending to return later. But I forgot it, and only when I was putting things in order for the night did I re-enter that room and remember my promise to Mrs. Gaylord. I decided to make one more attempt, that I might be able to tell her positively that I had been unsuccessful. All other members of the household were away--Cass at Atlantic City, recuperating from an illness--and I was entirely alone in the apartment.
For some minutes planchette was motionless, but almost immediately I felt the curious sense of vitality, very difficult to describe, that precedes movement. It is like touching something alive and feeling its latent power. Presently it began to move. Unfortunately no exact record of those first messages was kept, and this report of them is taken from my letters to Cass, written immediately after each interview, and from the typewritten record begun a week or ten days afterward, in which was included what I could remember of details not written to him. At first there was little capitalization, but within a few days capitals were used freely. The punctuation throughout has been added, except in cases noted.
... Instead of doing the usual loop sort of thing, it made straight runs across the table. I asked, "Are you ready to write?" "Yes." Then, as nearly as I can remember, it went like this:
"Are you Frederick?" "No."
"Are you Mary Kendal?" "No."
"Are you Anne Lowe?" "No."
"Did I know you in life here?" "Yes."
"Recently?" "No."
"Are you my father?" At this it ran sharply toward me, point first, but for some time did not reply, perhaps because I so hoped it would write "yes." Eventually, however, it wrote a very clear and uncompromising "No."
"Can you tell me who you are?" "Yes. Mary."
"Mary Kendal?" "No."
"Which Mary? What Mary?" "Mary ..." followed by a character that might have been either K or H, but looked more like K.
"Mary Kendal?" "No."
"Tell me again." "Mary K."
I asked if there were any message, and it wrote, "Mon ...," trailing off into a series of waves, a good many times. I guessed Monday ... money ... Mons ..., but always the answer was, "No." Finally it wrote "man" very clearly. I could not get more for quite a while. Finally came, "Many thanks."
"Thanks for what?" "For knowing."
I asked if Frederick or Anne were there. "No."
"Any message?" "Yes."
"For whom?" "Broth ...," trailing off again. This several times. "Brother?" "Yes."
"Where?" "Albany."
"His name?" "James."
"Where?" Beginning apparently with U, the writing trailed off. Finally made out "United ...," but no more. Then I remembered that Mary K.'s only brother was killed in an accident, years before she went over herself. I said so, and the thing began making loops. That used to be planchette's way of laughing at me.
"Why did you say that?" "Joke." This was not at all like Mary K. She had a fine mind and was not given to buffoonery. I have since thought that she might have been trying to get over a message to some other person's brother.
"... Can you get word from Frederick Gaylord?" "Yes."
"Will you come again?" "Yes."
"Have you been trying all these years to get into touch with me?" "No."
"Will you help me make a bridge between those on your side and those here?" "No." Then immediately it went back and wrote, "Yes," over the "No." Very curious.
After a long pause, I said I would go to bed, if there were nothing more, and it wrote, quickly, "Go." I said, "Good night." "Good night. God bless you." I asked again if this were Mary K., and got the same quick "Yes." Then I put planchette away and came out to my room. It was one o'clock. Three before I went to sleep. Can you imagine anything more weird than my sitting here alone in the middle of the night, with that thing fairly racing under my fingers part of the time, insisting it was nobody I expected? Claiming to be a very dear old friend, but the last I should expect under the circumstances. It was certainly queer, but I am very sure something outside of myself was doing it. I shall try again to-night.
I have just had another amazing try at planchette. This time it was Mary Kendal, writing one word at a time. "Let ... Manse ... know ... I ... am ... here...." She gave me several intimate messages for him, and when I finally said I would write and ask him to come, so she could tell him herself, she wrote, "Yes ... yes ... yes," very quickly.
What do you make of this? Isn't it the queerest thing you ever heard of? In the midst of her talk, another hand took hold, very brisk and energetic.
"Not Mary?" "No."
"Perhaps Frederick?" "Yes."
"Message?" "Yes. Mother."
"Anything more?" "Happy."
"More yet?" "Only love."
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