Read Ebook: The Seven Purposes: An Experience in Psychic Phenomena by Cameron Margaret

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"More yet?" "Only love."

That same evening I wrote to Mansfield Kendal, though what his attitude toward this situation would be I could not even guess. We had known him well for several years, but our numerous discussions had never touched questions of religious faith and a future life. A man of extensive reading and of wide interests, supplemented by long residence abroad, he has been engaged for years in the executive conduct of large engineering and agricultural enterprises. I knew him to be intellectually open-minded. But I also knew him to be a devoted adherent of the orthodox Church, giving much time and thought to its support, and I was afraid that an assumption on my part of ability to communicate with the departed might offend some deep and reverent sense in him. Therefore, while I wrote him fully of my surprising experience, giving him Mary's messages, I promised at the same time never to force the subject in conversation, should he prefer not to discuss it. Subsequently, impelled by Mary's continued insistence, I wrote several other letters to him, which, like the first, were sent to his club in New York City, as I knew him to be traveling in the Middle West and thought they would reach him more quickly in this way than if sent to his business headquarters in the South.

Thus, curiously, I found myself vicariously engaged in a double search for a mother on this plane seeking her son on the next, and for a wife on the next plane seeking her husband here, and it is significant that, of the two, Mary Kendal was the more insistent. As she said, later, "We know how much it means."

H. asked, "Do you mind my being here?" "Excellent portent."

I asked why. "Intellectual interest."

H. said, "You mean that you are glad to have intelligent people interested?" "Yes."

When we were talking about H.'s interest, it wrote, "Tell others." This was repeated several times. "I am a missionary," came as clearly as I have written it here. We asked if she meant a missionary from that life to this. "Yes." At the end she again urged H. to tell others. I laughed, saying, "Tell as many others as you like about the experience, but don't tell too many that it came through me." "Sorry."

"Sorry that I am unwilling to be overwhelmed by a flood of curiosity and hysteria?" "Sorrow." I said I would be glad to help people in sorrow. "Sorrowful people suffer." Isn't that like Mary Kendal?

When H. was leaving, it wrote: "Good night. Tell others."

After she had gone I went back, and got another movement entirely. "Frederick?" "Yes." He seems to have more difficulty in writing than she does. Is very clear at first, but becomes illegible sooner.

"Do you know that your mother is coming?" "Yes.... Wish to make her at peace." I said I wished to make her at peace, too, and would do all I could, and he wrote, "Thank you."

As has been said, Cass had been ill, and his improvement after going to Atlantic City had not been as rapid as we had hoped it might be. A letter received from him on Tuesday reported a slight relapse, and promised a telegram on Wednesday. It had been arranged that I should join him if he needed me.

Your letter and wire both came after four, though the letters usually arrive with the first mail in the morning. I was getting a little anxious. Went to planchette and asked Mary Kendal whether she knew anything about you. She said you were better to-day and that a letter was coming, but that I must go to Atlantic City.

Frederick also came, seeming very anxious lest the meeting with his mother fail. Wrote "message" several times, and by dint of some questioning I found it was not a message he wished to send, but one he wished me to send to her about coming at once. Wrote of her "mental anguish," an expression I never should have used myself, and wanted her to join me at Atlantic City. Knew nothing about you, but was keen to meet her.

Later, he seemed to go, and Mary Kendal wrote a little. Then came something very hard to get. Over and over we tried. "Com ... come ... comf ... comp...." I suggested various words. Always the answer was "No." Finally, very clearly and slowly, "Comfort dear Mother." After the M of the last word I expected Manse, as I thought Mary was still writing. When it proved to be "Mother," I said, "Is this Frederick?" "Yes." I promised again to do all I could. He wrote, "Thank you," and went.

It is an amazing experience!... To sit all alone here and have that foolish toy move firmly and definitely under my hands, write things I have to puzzle out, sign names of persons who are what we call "dead," and beg me to send messages to those they love--all this is startling and deeply impressive. Deeply moving.

The next day I joined Cass at Atlantic City. He had never seen a planchette used, and was much interested in the whole matter. In the evening we experimented, and "Mary Kendal" was written at once.

He exclaimed, "God bless you, Mary Kendal!"

"God bless you, too. Tell Manse I love him. Don't fail to tell him that." During all the preceding days this had been her constant plea. Repeatedly I assured her that I had told him, and as often she urged, "Tell him again."

Then came a strong, brisk movement, to and fro, for a space of about five inches. I asked if this were Frederick, and received an affirmative answer, after which planchette ran about, as if in uncontrollable excitement, presently pausing to write:

"You are a trump!" We laughed, and he added, "You bet!"

As we had never known Frederick, and were unaware at that time of the continuance of what some one familiar with this experience has defined as "the subtleties of personality," this enthusiastic use of slang was startling.

When I asked if he had thought I would fail him, he replied, "No, but I was afraid Mother would not come."

More running about followed, during which Cass said that it was a pity to obliterate the earlier messages in that way. Planchette then swung back to a clear space and wrote clearly, "Mother is coming!" Beneath this, the bow-knot flourish we have since learned to associate with Frederick.

"You are a brick!" was a later comment. When Cass said he had thought the last word would be friend, Frederick concluded: "Friend, too. Thank you a million times."

An interesting, but rather confusing, feature of these earlier communications was the constant interruption by Annie Manning. On all occasions, frequently even breaking into messages from some other person, she wrote her name and her one request,"Tell Manning." During this period, also, I repeatedly asked Frederick to give me a message for his father, and was unable to account for his invariable refusal.

Once, I asked Mary Kendal if she had no message for me, personally, and she returned, "Yes, believe," which seemed, at the moment, somewhat cryptic, though the relation of my faith to the full development of this intercourse was afterward explained.

Thursday night, at the end of the fifth day, I was fairly certain that I had established communication with three definite and recognizable personalities on the next plane, but I dreaded Mrs. Gaylord's arrival the following day, lest these fragmentary messages fail either to convince or to comfort her.

The next morning, Friday, March 8th, before giving Frederick an opportunity to communicate 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 questions, some of which we were unable to remember 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 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.

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 Annie Manning interrupted with her invariable, "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 conversation, 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 mother, sometimes, she told me afterward, answering 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, saying: "Forget all that. It is over, and I am 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 assured 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?"

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