I consulted with my husband. "One cannot," I argued, "go up to people who are almost strangers and tell them their son wishes to communicate with them through me."
My husband quite saw the difficulty, but it had always happened that when any one wished to communicate with us, and we paid no attention, we were given no peace till we did take heed, and sat down with an Ouija board to receive the message. He therefore proposed that we should consult Mr. A. P. Sinnett, now such a well-known writer on Occultism, and an old friend of ours. We therefore laid the matter before him.
His reply was uncompromising.
"Do as you are told from the other side. It is not for you to question or consider the social consequences to yourselves."
This advice we immediately followed, and we were met with the utmost kindness and sympathetic understanding. Sittings were arranged, communication established. Test questions were put, which we did not understand, but which were satisfactory to the questioners, and for many years the sittings continued until the "other side" made arrangements for a change of mediums and I was set free for other work. I say, set free, because during all those years we had held ourselves entirely at the disposal of this wonderful spirit, who communicated through me, and it is no exaggeration to say that our daily lives, our worldly plans, entirely depended upon his wishes. He had his own work to do, and our earth lives were always arranged to suit his convenience.
About the same time as the above experience began my husband was disturbed by noises in his library, and he came to the conclusion that some one had something to say and was determined to say it. One evening, when the disturbance prevented serious reading, we sat down with the Ouija board. The result was as follows—
A spirit who purported to be a well-known soldier of fortune who had lately committed suicide, desired to give a message. This astonished us, as we had known him only slightly, and we wondered why he had chosen to bestow his attentions on us. He said he was very unhappy because he owed a certain sum of money to a friend, whom I will call B. This money B. could have refunded to him if he would communicate with a certain London address, which the departed soldier gave us in full.
We knew B., and knew that he had been a close friend of the departed. We also knew that B. was on the Gold Coast. We promised, however, to send him the message, and that was the last we ever heard of the soldier.
My husband wrote to B. on the Gold Coast simply giving him the message and leaving it at that. We were sure B. was an absolute skeptic. He was! and did nothing till his return to England three years later, when he applied at the address which he happened to have kept, and received his money.
I first became interested in Occultism, not only through my own very early experiences, but through hearing as a mere child that my grandfather, Robert the younger of the two well-known publishing brothers, W. and R. Chambers, had investigated spiritualism to his entire satisfaction.