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ON 27 September, as already stated in Chapter III, I myself visited
Mrs. Leonard, going anonymously and alone, and giving no information beyond the fact that I was a friend of Mrs. Kennedy. I
lay no stress, on my anonymity, however.
In a short time Feda controlled, and at first described an
elderly gentleman as present. Then she said he brought some one with the letter R; and as I took verbatim notes I propose
to reproduce this portion in full, so as to give the general flavour of a 'Feda' sitting; only omittingwhat has already been extracted
and quoted in Chapter III.
OJL. at Mrs. Leonards, Monday, 27 September 1915,
12 noon to 1 o'clock
(Mrs. Leonard's control
'Feda' speaking all the time.)
There is some one here with a little difficulty; not fully
built up; youngish looking; form more like an outline; he has not completely learnt how to build up as yet. Is a young man, rather
above the medium height; rather well-built, not thick-set or heavy, but well-built. He holds himself up well. He has not been over
long. His hair is between colours. He is not easy to describe, because he is not building himself up so solid as some do. He
has greyish eyes; hair brown, short at the sides; a fine-shaped head; eyebrows also brown, not much arched; nice-shaped nose, fairly
straight, broader at the nostrils a little; a niceshaped mouth, a good-sized mouth it is, but it does not look large because he holds
the lips nicely together; chin not heavy; face oval. He is not built up quite clearly,
but it feels as if Feda knew him. He must have been here waiting for you. Now he looks at Feda and smiles; now he laughs, he is
having a joke with Feda, and Paulie laughs too. Paul says he has been here before, and that Paul brought him. But Feda sees many
hundreds of people, but they tell me this one has been brought quite lately. Yes, I have seen him before. Feda remembers a letter
with him too,. R, that is to do with him.
(Then Feda murmured, as if to herself, "Try and give me
another letter.")
(Pause.)
It is a funny name, not Robert or Richard. He is not giving the
rest of it, but says R again; it is from him. He wants to know where
his mother is; he is looking for her; he does not understand why
she is not here.
OJL.
- Tell him he will see her this afternoon, and that she is not here this morning, because she wants to meet him this
afternoon at three o'clock.
[Meaning through another medium, namely Peters.
But that, of course, was not said.]
He has been to see you before, and he says that once
he thought you knew he was there, and that two or three times he was not quite sure. Feda gets it mostly by
impression; it is not always what he says, but what she gets; but Feda says "he says," because she gets it from
him somehow.(1) He finds it difficult, he says, but he has got so many kind friends helping him. He didn't think when he
waked up first that he was going to be happy, but now he is, and he says be is going to be happier. He knows that as
soon as he is a little more ready, he has got a great deal of work to do. "I almost wonder," he says, "shall I be fit and
able to do it. They tell me I shall."
(1)
Note this, as an elucidatory statement.
[And so on as reported in Chapter III]
He seems to know what the work is. The first work he
will have to do, will be helping at the Front; not the wounded so much, but helping those who are passing
over in the war. He knows that when they pass on and wake up, they still feel a certain fear-and some other word
which Feda missed. Feda hears a something and 'fear.'
Some even go on fighting; at least they want to; they don't
believe they have passed on. So that many are wanted where he is now, to explain to them and help them, and
soothe them. They do not know where they are, nor why they are there.
[I considered that this was ordinary 'Feda talk,' such
as it is probably customary to get through mediums at this time; therefore, though the
statements are likely enough, there is nothing new in them, and I thought it better to interrupt by
asking a question. So I said:-]
O.J.L.
- Does he want to send a message to anyone at home? Or will he give the name of one of his instructors?
[I admit that it is stupid thus to ask two questions at once.]
He shows me a capital H, and says that is not an
instructor, it is some one he knows on the earth side. He wants them to be sure that he is all right and happy. He
says, "People think I say I am happy in order to make them happier, but I don't.
[And so on as already reported in Chapter III
Now the first gentleman with the letter W is going over
to him and putting his arm round his shoulder, and he is putting his arm round the gentleman's back. Feda feels like
a string round her head; a tight feeling in the head, and also an empty sort of feeling in the chest, empty, as if sort
of something gone. A feeling like a sort of vacant feeling there; also a bursting sensation in the head. But he does
not know he is giving this. He has not done it on purpose, they have tried to make him forget all that, but Feda gets it
from him. There is a noise with it too, an awful noise and a rushing noise.
He has lost all that now, but he does not seem to know
why Feda feels it now. "I feel splendid," he says, "I feel splendid I But I was worried at first. I was worried, for I
was wanting to make it clear to those left behind that I was all right, and that they
were not to worry about me."
You may think it strange, but he felt that you would
not worry so much as some one else; two others, two ladies, Feda thinks. You would know, he says, but two
ladies would worry and be uncertain; but now he believes they know more.
Then, before Mrs. Leonard came out of trance, came the
description of a falling dark cross which twisted round and became bright, as reported in Chapter III.
After the sitting, and before I went away, I asked Mrs. Leonard
if she knew who I was. She replied, "Are you by chance connected with those two ladies who came on Saturday night?"
On my assenting, Mrs. Leonard added, "Oh! then I know, because the French lady gave the name away; she said 'Lady Lodge' in the
middle of a French sentence."
I also spoke to her about not having too many sittings and
straining her power. She said she "preferred not to have more than two or three a day, though sometimes she could not avoid it; and
some days she had to take a complete rest." But she admitted that she was going to have another one that day at two o'clock. I told
her that three per day was rather much. She pleaded that there are so many people who want help now, that she declined all those
who came for only commercial or fortune-telling motives, but that she felt bound to help those who are distressed by the war. I
report this to show that she saw many people totally disconnected with Raymond or his family: so that what she might say to a new
unknown member of the family could be quite evidential.
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