We talked about the force moving the pencil, which on this occasion was very strongly applied, though I was greatly fatigued by the efforts of the past few days, and I asked Frederick whether he could move it without my co-operation. But he said, “Only as you hold it.” To a suggestion that he expressed himself not through the pencil, but through me, he replied, “She is like the battery.”
From the first Mrs. Gaylord had been experimenting with planchette and pencil, hoping to establish direct communication with Frederick. While placing more emphasis on a possible communion of thought, without material aid, he had encouraged these efforts. “Mother, you can do it, I am sure,” he said once, “but don’t expect much fluency for some time. I have not written except through Margaret yet, but they tell me she is exceptionally sensitive as a messenger.”
Referring to this, he was asked whether others, not known to me personally, had desired to communicate through me, and replied: “No, but they have watched her, this last week.” Ten days later, when the most amazing of all the communications began to come, we remembered this. After enumerating some of the qualifications of a good messenger, he said: “When that combination is found we are all interested, if we want to reach our own people.”
“Are you over there especially interested in reaching your own families and friends, or in reaching persons who might be interested in the possibility of these communications?”
“Both. But if you have ever been unable to communicate with those you love, for months and years, and have known they were suffering, then you know which interest is keenest. The one is immediate and urgent, the other more or less a matter of evolution.”
“Shall I try to talk to some of you occasionally?” I asked. “Or shall I wait for a call?”
“You are over the top. We shall be glad to come.”
“Can you let me know, if you have something to say through me?”
“Not always. Sometimes we can suggest the thought to you.”
Since that time, however, a more perfect connection has been established and I am often conscious of a definite summons. On these occasions the pencil starts at once, generally with great vigor, and almost always writes some message not conveyed to my consciousness except as I spell it out after the pencil.