I have given this experience in some detail, not only because it corroborates the statements that malevolent and crafty forces are about us, striving to thwart progressive effort, but because it seems also to offer at least a partial explanation of the inconsistencies and contradictions that long have baffled and discouraged investigators of psychic phenomena. Obviously, until the identity and character of the invisible communicating personality have been established and clearly recognized, and the purpose prompting the communication manifested through a series of experiments, it is unsafe to rely upon information received in this way. And it is equally obvious that forces of disintegration could scarcely find a more fruitful method of implanting in the human mind doubt and cynicism concerning the possibility of obtaining authentic and enlightening revelations from planes beyond, than by contradicting and confusing such messages, or by deliberately misleading the applicant for information.
Later experience brought further demonstration of the diligence of the sinister purposes, together with greater knowledge of ways to defeat them.
VII
Before beginning the Gaylord interviews at L—— (April 17th), Mary K. asked me not to tell the family the details of the Farrow episode.
“Are you ever going to explain that clearly?” I asked.
“Not until you know more about these conditions.”
That night, for the first time, I saw a photograph of Frederick. During the year of her grief and despair Mrs. Gaylord had been unable to bear the added poignancy of a portrait’s suggestion, and only when I arrived, to manifest his actual presence in the family circle, was the hidden photograph—a singularly lifelike and virile reproduction—brought to light.
“Hooray!” he began, after the customary signature. “Here we are again, all of us together at last! Dad! (O)” It will be remembered that this was the first time that either his father or his younger sister, Lois, had witnessed these manifestations. “You have been the one I wanted most, after Mother. The girls I knew I could get sometime, for this is the future for everybody with purpose, and I knew they’d come to know me again soon. But you and Mother dearest I had to have (O) right now. You both need this knowledge and intercourse as much as I do. The fuller development that comes there with age and experience, and here—where there is no age except experience, makes me nearer to you and Mother in feeling and outlook than I am to the girls and Dick. Not that I am not one with all of you. But being here has showed me the reasons for the things—protective, overseeing, far-seeing things—that you stand for, and have learned there through your experience in that preliminary life. So we are a lot nearer of an age than we used to be. Now we are off together again, and there is no reason, unless somebody backslides, why we can’t keep step through the countless aeons of eternity.... Mother dearest, this time I sure am in. Thank you for putting me on the mantel. I like it. Coming home is lots happier business now. It used to make me sorry to see you all so sad. But this is bully!... Dad, look happy for the boy! He’s here for keeps now.”