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Life Beyond (23) More from Raymond
Raymond continued to communicate with his family, providing detailed evidence that it really was him. With so many other activities on the other side, he often found it difficult to remember specific incidents about his life on earth which would provide incontestable evidence of his identity. Some of his work on the other side was to help spirits who wanted to contact a loved one still alive on earth, but who might not know anything about survival, and so not be interested in sitting in a home circle or with a medium.
One such case presented itself when Sir Oliver Lodge sat with Mrs Leonard at her house on Friday, March 3rd, 1916.
FEDA - About the lady he tried to help [contact] a man who had drowned. This lady had had no belief in, [ nor anything to do with] spiritual things before. The guides brought her to Mrs Leonard so that she might speak with [this] dear friend of hers. I helped them, Raymond says, and got both of his initials through to her – E.A.
SIR OLIVER _ Do I know these people?
RAYMOND - Yes, you write a lot to the lady.
SIR OLIVER - Is A. the surname ?
RAYMOND - Yes, the spirit’s, not the lady’s. The lady doesn’t know that I am telling you this. And she doesn’t know that I helped her. It’s for your own use, father. It’s given her a new outlook on life.
SIR OLIVER - I have no idea who she is. Can you get her name ?
RAYMOND - Oh yes, she’s a lady called Mrs. D….. [Full name given, easily.] And before, you see, she was living a worldly life. She was interested, in a way, but not much. She never tried to come into it. When she came, she thought she would have her fortune told. I was waiting for her to come, and brought up the right conditions at once. The man was a nice man, I liked him, and I wanted to bring her into it [ that is, into communication with him]. The man was fond of her.
FEDA - Raymond has been helping him a lot.
RAYMOND - I can only help in a small way, but if you could go round and see the people just on the verge of learning something! I can’t help them in a big way, but still, it’s something important, even what I can do. For every one I bring in like that lady, there will be a dozen coming from that, [after the spirits saw that communication was indeed possible, and so were willing to try for themselves]..
SIR OLIVER - [Still remembering nothing about these people] Did the man drown himself ?
RAYMOND Oh no, he went down in a boat; they nearly all went down together.
The lady wasn’t expecting him - she nearly flopped over when he came.
SIR OLIVER - Was he related to the lady ?
RAYMOND - No, but he had been the biggest thing in her life. It seems as though she must have felt something, to make her write to you.
SIR OLIVER - However, did you know that she had written to me ?
RAYMOND - Do you believe me, father, I really can’t tell you how I know some things. It’s not through inquiry, but sometimes I get it just like a Marconi apparatus [radio] receives a message from somewhere, and doesn’t know where it comes from at first. Sometimes I try to find out things, and I can’t.
. [Sir Oliver finally remembered afterwards that he had had some correspondence with this lady].
FEDA - He [Raymond} took his mother some red roses, and he wants you to tell her. He took them to her from the spirit world.
RAYMOND - They won’t materialize, but I gathered some and took them to her. This isn’t a test, father.
SIR OLIVER - No. Very well, you just want her to know. I will tell her…………..Do you want to say anything about the other two people that you helped [the Sonnenscheins] – last Monday, I think it was ?
RAYMOND - No. There’s nothing much to tell you about that, or about them. But I brought a son [in spirit] to them. I stood on one side so as not to take any of the power.
SIR OLIVER - Why did you help those particular people ?
RAYMOND - I had to. They have been worrying about whether their son [Christopher Sonnenschein] had suffered much pain before he passed on. There seems to have been some uncertainty as to whether he had or not. His body wasn’t recovered as soon as it ought to have been. [It was not recovered for five days.] But he didn’t suffer much. He was numbed, and didn’t as a matter of fact feel much. He threw up his arms, and rolled down a [snow] bank.
SIR OLIVER - Did you know those people before ?
RAYMOND - Yes.
SIR OLIVER Does he want to send them any message ?
RAYMOND - Nothing further has come out. I am getting on very well, and I am pleased. You might tell them [the Sonnenscheins] that Christopher is happier now, since he saw them.
I have been trying to help YOU since I saw you here last time. I thought that you knew that I was. I did try hard. I helped you in such a funny way. I got near you and felt such a desire to help you and prevent you from getting tired. I was concentrating on the back of your head, and sort of saying to myself, and impressing the thought towards you: ‘ It’s coming easy, you shan’t get tired, the brain is going to be very receptive, everything is going to flow through it easily in order.’ I feel myself saying it all the time, and I get so close I nearly lean on you. To my great delight, I saw you sit up once, and you said: Ah, that’s good.’ It was some time back.
SIR OLIVER - I speak to your photograph sometimes.
RAYMOND - Yes. I can speak to you without a photograph ! I am often with you, very often.
FEDA - He’s taking me into a room with a desk in it; too big for a desk, it must be a table. A sort of a desk, a pretty big one. A chair is in front of it, not a chair like that, a high up chair, more wooden, not woolly stuff; and the light is falling on to the desk; and you are sitting there with a pen or pencil in your hand; you aren’t writing much, but you are looking through writing, and making bits of writing on it; you are not doing all the writing yourself, but only bits on it. Raymond is standing at the back of you; he isn’t looking at what you are doing.
SIR OLIVER - The description is correct.
FEDA - He thought you were tired out last time you came here. He know you are sometimes
RAYMOND - I’ve been wanting to say to you, ‘Leave some of it.’
SIR OLIVER - But there’s so much to be done.
RAYMOND - Yes, I know it isn’t easy to leave it. But it would be better in the end if you can leave a bit, father. You are doing too much. You know that I am longing and dying for the day when you come over to me. It will be a splendid day for me. But I mustn’t be selfish. I have got to work to keep you away from us, [stopping premature death] and that’s not easy for me. [Sir Oliver was to live a further 24 years, dying in 1940]. Lot’s [of people] over here talk, and say that you will be doing the most wonderful work of your life through the war. People are ready to listen now. They had too many things before [to distract them rather than] to let them think about [spiritual matters]. But now it’s the great thing, to think about the afterlife.
I want you to know that when first I came over here, I thought it a bit unfair that such a lot of fellows were coming over in the prime of life. But now I see that for every one that came over, dozens of people open their eyes, and want to know where I have gone to. Directly they want to know, they begin to learn something. Some of them never stopped to think seriously before. ‘He must be somewhere,’ they say, ‘he was so full of life; can we find out ?’ Then I see that through this, people are going to find out, and find out not only for themselves, but will pass it on to many others, and so it [the interest] will grow.
I want to tell you that Mr. Myers says that in ten years from now the world will be a different place. About fifty per cent of the civilised portion of the globe will be either spiritualists, or coming into it. I am no judge of that, but he [Myers] is not the only one that thinks it. I’ve got a kind of theory, in a crude sort of way, that man has made the earth plane into such a hotbed of materialism and selfishness, that man again has to atone by sacrifices of mankind in the prime of their physical life. So that by that prime self-effacement, they will bring more spiritual conditions on to the earth, which will crush the spirit of materialism. That isn’t how I meant to put it, but I’ve forgotten how I meant to say it.
SIR OLIVER - Will now, Raymond, Mr. Myers sent me a message to say that you had got some tests ready to get through, and that I was to give you an opportunity of giving them.
RAYMOND - Yes, ………[the next part of the sitting is taken up by Raymond giving mental pictures of earlier family holidays, images of sandy beaches, tents and yachts and incidents which are quite evidential. Then Feda resumes]:
FEDA - He’s been trying to find somebody whose name begins with K. It’s a gentleman. He’s been trying to find him.
SIR OLIVER - What for ?
RAYMOND - I thought mother would be interested. There’s something funny about this. One is in the spirit world, but one we believe is still on the earth plane. He hasn’t come over yet. There’s a good deal of mystery ahout this, but I’m sure he hasn’t actually come over yet. Some people think that because we are here, we have only to go anywhere we choose, and find out anything we like. But that’s Tommy-rot. We are limited, but we send messages to each other and what I sincerely believe is that that man has not passed on.
SIR OLIVER - Mother thinks he has, and so do his people.
RAYMOND - Yes, yes. I don’t know whether it would be advisable to tell them anything, but I have a feeling that he isn’t here. I have been looking for him everywhere. [This discussion continued, about a Colonel who had fallen in battle, and had disappeared. No one knew whether he was dead, or taken prisoner. Also, the Lodge’s gardener had died a week before this sitting, and Raymond was aware of his passing.]
It’s difficult when people approach you [over here] and say they knew your father or your mother; you don’t quite know what to say to them !
SIR OLIVER - Yes, it must be a bother. Do you remember a bird in our garden ?
RAYMOND - Yes, I do [They talk about the pet peacock, named Mr. Jackson, who had recently died, and Raymond describes the place in the garden where his mother had picked some flowers mentioned earlier]. I HAVE enjoyed myself [coming to communicate]. Sometimes I enjoy myself so much, I forget to do the good things I prepared. I could stay for hours and hours,, but I’m just as keen as you are in getting [evidential] tests through, [talking about subjects and details which nobody else could have known]. I think I have got some. When I go away, I pat myself on the back and think, That’s something for them to say, ‘Old Raymond does remember something.’ What does aggravate me sometimes is that when I can’t get things through, people think it’s because I have forgotten. It isn’t a case of forgetting. I don’t forget anything.
[To be continued, with another visit by Raymond to a higher plane Beyond. Condensed and edited from Chapter XXI, “Raymond” by Sir Oliver Lodge. Methuen. 1916.
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