FIRST LETTER FROM MRS. KENNEDY TO O. J. L.
"16 August 1914
"Sir Oliver Lodge.
"Dear Sir,—Because of your investigations into spirit life, I venture to ask your help.
"My only son died 23 June, eight weeks after a terrible accident. On 25 June (without my asking for it or having thought of it) I felt obliged to hold a pencil, and I received in automatic writing his name and 'yes' and 'no' in answer to questions.
"Since then I have had several pages of writing from him every day and sometimes twice daily. I say 'from him'; the whole torturing question is—is it from him or am I self-deceived?
"My knowledge is infinitesimal. Nineteen years ago a sister who had died the year before suddenly used my hand, and after that wrote short messages at intervals; another sister a year later, and my father one message sixteen years ago; but I felt so self-deceived that I always pushed it aside, until it came back to me, unasked, after my son's passing over.
"Your knowledge is what I appeal to, and the deep, personal respect one has for you and your investigations. It is for my son's sake—he is only seventeen—and he writes with such intense sadness of my lack of decided belief that I venture to beg help of a stranger in a matter so sacred to me.
"Do you ever come to London, and, if so, could you possibly allow me to see you for even half an hour? and you might judge from the strange and holy revelations (I know no other way to express many of the messages that are sent) whether they can possibly be only from my own subconscious mind.... Pardon this length of letter.—Yours faithfully,
"(Signed) Katherine Kennedy"
Ultimately I was able to take her anonymously and unexpectedly to an American medium, Mrs. Wriedt, and there she received strong and unmistakable proofs.[11] She also received excellent confirmation through several other mediums whom she had discovered for herself—notably Mr. Vout Peters and Mrs. Osborne Leonard. Of Mrs. Leonard I had not previously heard; I had heard of a Madame St. Leonard, or some name like that, but this is somebody else. Mrs. Kennedy tells me that she herself had not known Mrs. Leonard long, her own first sitting with that lady having been on 14 September 1915. I must emphasise the fact that Mrs. Kennedy is keen and careful about evidential considerations.
As Mrs. Kennedy's son Paul plays a part in what follows, perhaps it is permissible to quote here a description of him which she gave to Mr. Hill in October 1914, accompanying an expression of surprise at the serious messages which she sometimes received from him—interspersed with his fun and his affection:—