1933
Aug 18 - Oct 6
August 18, 1933.
"I know our Maurice Maeterlinck very well. He was a contemporary colleague of mine. I was employed to write the musical score of the play "Pelleas and Melisande", transforming it into an opera. I did so, and was put in charge of the cast, and cast Mary Garden, a young singer from America in the premiere role. She sang beyond compare. I have never heard anything quite so beautiful. She was, I believe, British-born. She was the most unconventional woman of the time, rather too daring; almost, one would say, an individual whose main objective in life was to thrill people. When she couldn't thrill them by her voice, she tried to thrill them by shocking them. In each case she succeeded. She is a charming woman. I am very fond of her ... But she is not over here ..."
General conversation with Sterge for another moment or two. Then the control changes. Medium stands, and after some hesitation and apparent difficulty, speaks:
"Good evening. I came to sing my evening song. Friend, I can't see you. I feel the touch of your hand ... You can sing? Can you sing 'Now the Day is Over?"
We sing it softly.
New control:
"It is not the same tune as I know ... My brother wrote hymns, glorious, heart searching hymns ... I must tell you! My brother was a great force for God ... George Whiteford ...We combed England. We preached in the villages and they came around by the thousands!"
L. H.: "You saved England."
Control: "No, God saved England. We were His ambassadors. They flung stones and we gave them words; which, being the Word of God, were the stronger and right prevailed. And from those hilltops we lit beacons, and God's messengers lighted torches from them and circled the world. And we carried the fiery cross! It will be lighted again from the same Old Merrie England, and will come in the same way from the gutter. That's where the roots of the Tree of Life are. God comes from the lowest so that he may transcend their lives. God always looks upward; he can never look down. Be sure he is coming! And with him are many whose names are legion and the light of the cross is in their eyes whom hate, vicissitudes, and scorn shall not prevail against!
"The Earth is the temple of the Lord, and they shall be cast out from the temple into the streets ... Good night ..."
Medium sits down heavily, is silent for a moment, with bowed head.
Robert speaks: "There is nothing like a minister to help to get a good control. Later so eloquent, so really fine and earnest ... oh, and there is many a collar should ha' been behind the bars! Now, I'll try a bit of work for a change.
"Acting in that capacity of your advisory councillor, I now take a more serious attitude toward the profession of writing for reward. Acting also as your advisor I trust I may be able to impress upon you some of the ideal theories of the productive writer, which possibly I, among many other writers, recognize; but, without giving due recognition to it, and that is the thief, time.
"I mentioned before that the best method of stimulating the imagination, the flow of words, and a cohesive arrangement of ideas was to write every day, little or lot. But there is more than that to it if you intend to be really serious about it. You've got to be regular in writing, and you've got to write regularly. It's the easiest thing in the world for the author not tied down to definite hours or even to definite results to find at the end of the day very little work done. And when you sit down and analyze it, as many of us avoid doing, you will find that the main reason has been that we have not set regular hours in which to write, and that we have not striven that other things should not have entrance into our time or conscious activity during that period. We must work regularly every day and set aside definite hours for the craft, and hold these hours sacred against the assaults of an ever-persistent, ever-alluring world. What the time is, it doesn't matter; how much time, is important, but it is up to yourself. As you want to succeed, so must you give your time, but the main thing is regular writing and write regularly.
"Even though, during the period set aside for the production of work, the material produced is scanty, yet if we try earnestly and strive to work so that we may be fair and true to our conscience and say to ourselves, "I am trying hard", then slowly but surely we must achieve. As you give of yourself to the art, so does the art give of herself to you. What you give you have, and what she gives you have also. It's all in your favor. But you've got to play by the rules ..."
"How's that for a fine tone of moral uplift? We might call it, "The Schoolteacher's Child", or "The Heir of the Pedagogue."
We have a jolly conversation with Robert for another two or three minutes. Then Walter speaks briefly, telling us he is trying to find something for "Tigi" for the winter, and that he is glad we are getting a good rest.
Sterge and Arthur make brief reappearances before Sterge brings the sitting to a close at 7:32 p.m..
The medium, on being questioned as to his remembrance of the events of the sitting, said that he got the name "Charles Wesley" as the man who had on rather rough looking clothes like those of a working man or a blacksmith.
August 18, 1933.
J. MacDonald (medium); Lillian Hamilton; Margaret Hamilton (recorder).
6:36 p.m. sitting commences.
Sterge speaks first, then we are greeted by Arthur and Robert; we converse briefly about general matters. Sterge returns to tell us about a book "Culmination", which we have been reading with interest, and about which we have asked him questions. He says:
"The ether-bridge is a creation of the imagination. I do not think it possible. I think he (the author) has taken it as something symbolic and rarely adventurous and romantic to the public. It is easier to believe in the impossible ... From what I know he has a source of three mediums, one major and two others. As for his ideas of reincarnation ... frankly I can't say that I know of any cases of reincarnation ... If one comes back to this earth to expiate a wrong done ... thoughts are reincarnated ... Thought, from what I know, is a great power source that never dies, a great fountain continually bubbling up through individuals. Often we find the thoughts of the early Briton, Greek, or French writers written again in our age with absolute proof that there has been no contact. Whole verses of poems have come from the fountain of Poesy through the mouths of contemporary poets with the words, measures, lines, meter, rhythm and thought identical ..."
[Letter from Mental Hygiene Study Group.]
"... I have been asked to again express the sincere appreciation of the group for your kindness in giving to us one of the most interesting, and certainly the most unusual, addresses we have yet had the pleasure of hearing.
"... The large turnout of well over sixty-five people is an indication of the wide interest in the subject, and the discussions which your address has called forth shows, more than anything else, the value of bringing to the attention of thinking people the important advances along all lines of science."
August 20, 1933. Sunday.
[The day of MacKenzie King's visit to the Hamilton household.]
Abridged version of August 20, 1933, except where quoted directly:
[The below is a section of MacKenzie King's diary as quoted by someone with initials S. R. W. D. F.]
"Dr. Hamilton met me at the Fort Garry Hotel; he is a former cabinet minister in the Norris government. We went to his home where I met his wife, daughter and sons. At luncheon the talk drifted to experiments by Hamilton, who had been taking photos of ectoplasm and teloplasm(?) during seances. A number of photos were taken of Spurgeon, Conan Doyle, Raymond Lodge, Gladstone ... Lucy Warnock ... Katie King. They showed me the photos.
[Note from S. R.: The above people were quite dead, of course; I'm uncertain who they all are, except Conan Doyle, the author, and Gladstone, the former British P.M.]
"The Hamiltons also recounted how they had been paid a visit by Robert Louis Stevenson, and how he had read to them his poem "The Donkey", plus other material that was not yet published. But he (Stevenson) instructed them that it was to be published under his name; this message was passed on to them by the medium. They were also visited at one point by Livingstone, the explorer"
"Dr. Hamilton and his wife are strong Christians; and he told me that, while the University wouldn't permit him to lecture on the psychic phenomena and experiments, the churches and other organizations do, and his lectures are quite popular."
[Note from S. R.: There are some disconnected thoughts about here; King's thought processes weren't all that lucid, sometimes, - at least, his writing of those processes wasn't.]
"He told me Pitblado and other leading professional men in Winnipeg had to be in on his experiments. He showed me his darkroom where the photo-processing is done, and some of this other equipment, and a bell which the spirits ring themselves (to indicate the exact time at which it is best for the camera shutter to be tripped.) He also gave me a folio of photographs which have been taken. Dr. Hamilton came with me to the train station at 5:30.
"While at the Hamiltons, Mrs. Poole, an elderly, white-haired, fat and dumpy little body, appeared. She was the first medium."
[Note from S. R.: King's diary doesn't make it clear whether she just came to the house at the time, or whether in fact she was dead, and appeared at a seance; I got the impression it was the latter, from the reference to a first medium. Nor does the diary make it clear whether King attended a seance that day.]
[Note: Mrs. Poole died in 1935 a few months after Dr. Hamilton died. She was very much alive in 1935 when MacKenzie King visited the Hamiltons. However, her health was failing and she discontinued the sittings with the Hamiltons just before MacKenzie King visited with the Hamiltons. - W. D. Falk.]
"The Hamilton experiments are 'amazing beyond words.'
"The afternoon was quite the most remarkable one ... I have had in my life ... I believe absolutely in all that Hamilton and his wife and daughter had told me ... Their children will go on, beginning with this knowledge, and in this way, what is in doubt now will become accepted belief soon. The scriptures will take on new and literal and clearer meaning; the world itself will evolve to a higher plane. One can see a new significance in the second coming and in its nearness..."
This ends the relevant section of the diary entry.
August 25, 1933.
Jack MacDonald (medium); Lillian Hamilton; T. G. Hamilton; Margaret Hamilton (recorder).
6:58 p.m. sitting commences
8:20 p.m. sitting concludes.
Sterge and Arthur speak to us for a few minutes.
Control changes. Medium rocks back and forth, mutters, pats T. G. H.'s hand. After much difficulty, finally gets through clearly the words "Bisson". He says "Alexandre Bisson" ... ( Pats sitters' hands and says to T. G. H.)
"Good you come. I talk to you ... yes ... yes ..."
T. G. H.: "What have you to tell us?"
Control: "Purports of another coming ... Myself come to you ... not alone. Good doctor come, too."
T. G. H.: "Your friend Schrenck?"
Control: "Yes, friend Schrenck come to you through another medium and another group."
T. G. H.: "Through our other group?"
Control: "Yes, Please say nothing, for good evidence is silence. I predict the coming back of the good doctor and myself but not alone. With us will come the French doctor also ... Geley. Coming before 10 months ... two months we make first attempt."
T. G. H.: "You think we will get work done this winter?"
Control: "Yes. Must go, must go. Goodbye."
Control changes. Sterge speaks:
"There is a man here who tried to speak to the doctor. He has a lady with him, and he tried to get through at the same time as the other and it delayed them both. He says to say to you that he has confidence in your work and would sometime like to word a message to his son through his circle. He says it is good his son seeks such friends. He says you do not know him. He says he will come back but his son you know. He says over again that he will word a message to his son. He smiles and says that is all for tonight. The lady stands and says nothing. She is his wife I think. He says: "You know my son but not myself." Then they go. Oh, he is back. He says to call him Rex."
Medium becomes a silent. After about two minutes, a new control dictates the following poem, speaking slowly, hesitatingly, apparently composing as he goes along. We suspect Robert as the poet.
"Delight is mine when wind sweeps slow;
Across the pine that cloud-ships blow.
Doubly dear to me the sky at eve
Where bright and clear the cloud-fairies weave.
Gentle and strong the last winds pass,
My heart as gay as the dancing grass.
Robert: (Using scotched dialect) "I no got it very well, but that was just an experiment. I'm getting lyrical."
Robert teases T. G. H. about the romance in his nature, then speaks of the work he has given with this medium:
"I'm going to keep at it to produce better work than any control has. I realize that perfect work, no matter how linked with other evidence, is seized upon by the critics with their mouth to the public ear. We want to give them something to roll under their pallets! We want to draw up a plan, and then we're going to go right through it (the dictated letter on the art of writing) again and give it the cohesiveness of steady writing. I want things to follow naturally ... Now, I'm a lot better. It's very easy the night. I might say the lad who came the last time is part of the plan, too, and if ye look back in your wee Bible ye'll find that he came before. I'm trying to bring back all the others that came through the other wee lass and duplicate in a sense all our other work. It is to show a plan, and to show that our people are continuously existing and able to come through two different mediums.
"Now we'll try and work a wee bit more.
"Most of us have ideas, or we wouldn't be writers. Most of us have some special kinds of ideas that we are especially fascinated by and which we are tremendously interested in. That is the reason we want to write. We think we have better ideas, better ways of presenting them; we feel we have the "open sesame" to the cave of romance, and that we can bring forth gayer and more perfect jewels than any literary Ali Baba who has gone before us.
"Hence, to say to the young writer, "You should write of this" or, "something along this line would be very interesting and remunerative thing to write about", this we cannot do, since each one of us must govern himself by that which is within him. Whatever he has ears to hear and eyes to see in life, it is most likely he will have hands to write; so that others may read and recognize them as something penetrating more deeply into human experience than they themselves have been able to do. (Now we must correct that since I always hated weak endings. But it's the thought I'm giving now, and I'll put the literary part of me to work afterwards.)"
"Hence there is no advice to be given to the ambitious young writer along the manner or subject he should employ. That was, is, and always will be a matter of individual choice."
"You choose your material, your method of presentation; your readers, if they like it, choose you from among other writers.
"Most of our lives are spent in jail: we are shackled down to duty or duties, barred in with convention, and sentenced by necessity to live and strive and die towards an extremely practical, useful and very often monotonous end. The writer, perhaps one of the freer of the free peoples, might be compared to the bird outside of all of this humanity who, free like the sunlight and the clouds, goes where he will and who, on lighting on the window-niche of the cell, gives cheer and inspiration, hope and freedom, to the shackled being within. He is the bird singing to the prisoner in Chillon's dungeons; he is the warbler who recites of the wind, the trees, the mountain tops and the eagle poised motionless in the air above, He sings of creaking pines and the rushing of waters, and the heavy surge of wind across a fearful bay, and the heeling of the live ship under men's feet, and the sting of salt spray, the surge of spicy smells from foreign ports, the hard stinging welt of frozen rope in the hand. He brings an intimate reality to the impotent being within - the joy of fighting tremendous, vital, primaeval forces. He brings, too, romance, swathed in silk, laden with perfume and ushered in with singing violins. He unlocks the gates to forbidden gardens, gives the imprisoned being freedom to walk down glamorous paths past magical flowers, through mazes of beautiful dazzling gardens, to invade the halls of beauty and sit at the seat of power.
"And the subtle magic of it all is but in a word, for the man, the reader, knowing he cannot go, still has within his reach the magic carpet of romance and adventure, folded up within two covers, one on either side around it. He has but to place himself on it and he is where he wills, he is what he wills, and he is supremely whatsoever he wills. Thus the writer, next to God, is eminently the creator.
"That's all. It's very disconnected. There was a slight interruption due to the slipping in the power. I lost out for a minute and Sterge took it. I was lost for a while, but he took me by. I have to depend on him a great deal because I am not the control that he is. I cannot hold my mediums, I seem to lack the necessary thing to hold them. I have on occasion used your son. Two nights ago he took me through a rough spot.
"I'll want to go over that a lot because, it being not myself, I want to be sure I have everything as I would have it. Goodnight."
Arthur takes control, telling us he is 'sweeping' again, getting rid of traces of other personalities. He allows T. G. H. to flash the red light on the medium's face. J. MacDonald's eyes are wide open, staring ahead but unseeing. Arthur tells us that he has his eyes fixed on a point the better to control. Arthur speaks to us while the light is shining full on the medium's face. The lower jaw is noticeably drawn under the upper, and the chin pulled down. Intermittent flashlight examination of the entranced medium lasts two to three minutes.
Control changes. Sterge speaks:
"Can you have good music for next time? Tonight when I had to spend so much time helping I did not have an opportunity to guard, and there was interruption. Music itself is a form of hypnosis on the medium and with this type of trance, if he comes up he is next thing to being awake. We need something to fix his ears on as well as something to fix his eyes. I want the control to be deeper and I can guard more when I do not have to assist."
Walter also speaks, asking T. G. H. if the other group does not return within the next two or three weeks to have Ewan brought to this sitting as he wants to start work on him again. He further says that Ewan's presence here will not affect the other work.
Sterge returns to close the sitting.
August 27, 1933
[Letter from MacKenzie King - Prime Minister - handwritten - not very legible.]
Above letter in printed form - printed in Ottawa on August 27, 1933 - first letter after visiting the Hamiltons.
Laurier House.
Ottawa
August 27, 1933.
My dear Dr. Hamilton;
"It is just a week ago that I was enjoying one of the most memorable experiences of my life as guest of Mrs. Hamilton and yourself. I would have written sooner to thank you for all your kindness to me had it not been that I was quite exhausted after my long trip when I got home, and also that I found not a few matters, after five weeks' absence, which required immediate attention.
"I just cannot begin to say how much I appreciate the time and trouble to which you and Mrs. Hamilton went on my behalf. I enjoyed, more than I can say, coming to know you both so well. Your generous hospitality is something I shall always remember.
"But what you are in yourselves, what you are achieving for science and religion and humanity; what you have received and recorded is what will be afterwards in my thoughts and remembrance. I expected very much from what I heard of your researches from others, but the results surpassed all expectations.
"I cannot thank you and Mrs. Hamilton enough for having taken me into your confidence, and having permitted me to share in the very rich inheritance which is now yours. It does seem to me that you are all singularly blessed, and that through you a great blessing is about to be bestowed upon the world.
"Had I not seen the photographs you have, and heard from your lips what you read and told me, also had I not had some previous experiences of my own and some knowledge of physical (psychical?) science, I just could not have believed that it was possible to proceed the lengths you have.
"I hope you will not fail to keep me in touch with your further discoveries and to send anything you may write (Dr. Hamilton's researches over 17 years are recorded in a book called 'Intention and Survival'): and that ... will let me have the promised quotations from Stevenson and the others.
"I shall promise to safeguard everything you tell or send me, and I shall be most grateful for what you have time and inclination to share than words can express.
"I shall always look back upon that afternoon, the day I should say, spent with you as a place of new and higher beginning in my life and life's interests. I feel I have come to a new plane of existence itself.
"For such a gift, you will all realize, adequate words of acknowledgment are not to be found. I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart, and that I do in fullest measure.
"With kindest remembrance to ... and best wishes to all, believe me, Dr. Hamilton.
Yours most sincerely,
W. L. Mackenzie King."
[The reference to the "quotations from Stevenson" deals with a series of prayers which were written down in the séance room while a medium in the group was in a trance. These were reported to have been from Robert Louis Stevenson. In the next letter, Mr. King calls them a "revelation" even if their origin is not of the supernatural.
The next letter, written to Mrs. Hamilton, was a response to the "booklet" of those prayers. Mr. King told Mrs. Hamilton that in his library (which his will ordered destroyed) was a selection of books on psychical research including works by F. W. H. Meyers, Sir Richard Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Flammarion and others.]
[This is the first of the three letters which William Lyon Mackenzie King wrote to Dr. T. Glenn Hamilton and Mrs. Hamilton in Winnipeg, proving in words of his own, rather than reports of others, his deep understanding of spiritual science. (Interpolated notes are from the Winnipeg Tribune, which, with other Canadian newspapers, obtained release of the letters from Mrs. Hamilton).]
Trance Writings:
After Elizabeth
The question of death appeals to every mind - its processes - the sensations which they cause in the human being, body and mind - what it brings to humanity - consciousness or oblivion; what, if anything, lies beyond.
These are all contained in one profound inquiry: What is Death? This series will reveal the truth ..."
(Signed) O. L.
September 5, 1933
[Letter from Dr. Hamilton to Mr. Stanley De Brath - Surrey.]
"... I have your letter ... that publication of Psychic Science is soon to be discontinued. We are both very sorry to hear that such a step had become necessary, but it does seem that these matters are always confronted with difficulties upon every hand. I had a letter from New York a few days ago and find that they too are having similar troubles with financing.
"... We are preparing a further article upon the "Katie" phenomena which will be forwarded in a few days. It will be very interesting and bring the matter practically up to date. I am afraid that it may not reach you before the 15th but it will be on hand at least within a short time.
"... We have not yet started work for the winter but hope to do so soon. It seems very hard to get the cooperation of the mediums in an effort that is so long drawn out and requires so much patience. But even if we did not get any further there is sufficient now on hand to make a lengthy and, I believe, important contribution to the scientific side of the subject.
September 7, 1933.
Jack MacDonald; Lillian Hamilton; Margaret Hamilton.
5:15 p.m. sitting commences
6:10 p.m. sitting closes.
Sterge and Arthur come first and converse with us for about five minutes. Stevenson endeavors to give a dramatization but has difficulty. Sterge returns to tell us that it was Stevie who tried to get through but slipped and that he was trying to give a reference he had not touched on previously, and it made it difficult to get through to it.
Robert: "A man's family, his parents, his forefathers, most often prove the hand of fate in deciding the child, the youth and a man's career. 'Thus has a Robertson always gone' or 'these are the lines the Robertsons will always follow'. These are the obstacles placed in the path of a youth. Should he desire to turn from the family roadway and meander off through other fields, on other trails, on other quests. Every inch of the way is blocked with relatives each having a large placard strapped on his chest and he sits squarely in the path: "This a Robertson has always done", and you rub your eyes and turn another way. "This will a Robertson always do", says yonder signpost, till, discouraged and beaten back by these unsympathetic formulae, the youth decides to pursue his life in a relative way and so turns down the family road.
"There are several ways of stifling family opposition. One is a secretive method, by which the child with keen perception perceives the dangers and the trials of a family heretic and keeps his ambitions and his ideals well to himself; until he, by secret achievements, has placed himself beyond their interference, and worthy of their recognition; or else, to pack his worldly goods within the confines of a linen square and hie himself from the family roof tree out and off to the world at large."
Very few men from a family with very strong family traditions go without the fold, but if men do they're always exceptional since only an exceptional man can find his way out and achieve recognition despite their clutching hands ..." (medium is silent)
L. H.: "That's fine, Robert."
Robert: (after a short rest of two minutes) "I've been to Stirling Castle and a great place is that. No pen could transfer it into adequate words. It is an historical monument typifying a people. It's a storehouse of memories, a place wherein tales of mighty deeds vibrate in the air around the silent corridors. The Castle has a personality made up from the past, the savagery, butchery, debauchery, beauty, romance, gaiety, high idealism, fevered patriotism, blending one into the other and remaining hallowed and tempered by the years, resolving themselves into this disturbing and inspiring influence not infrequently found in places that have been the heart of human emotions for years and years,
"Stirling Castle comes before the eyes as a monument of the past, to the ears as the sound, half muffled, of battle axes; and amid the rushing sound of the wings of time, to the nostrils it comes with the sweet odor of rough and hallowed romance. Now afar off from all the scenes of strife, it stands a holy pile."
Medium sits back. Then Stevenson attempts to give what seems to be a dramatization from one of his works: (speaking with Cockney accent) "God! I can't see! Strike me blind, mates! I can't see!"
(Medium breathes heavily, half sobbing. Puts L. H.'s hands into his pockets and whispers: "Search him! Search him!")
Sterge comes at once:
"Here I am again, a fairy flew in at the window. He (Stevie) stands there smiling and says he'll come back sometime and tell you the story of the Five Frantic Fiddles."
L. H.: "That sounds interesting."
Sterge: "Not half so interesting as the title. He says you weave the story around the title."
"Yes, in my time it was thought that Gabriel d'Annunzio was going to be the great man of Europe, not so much in literary things, but politically. It was thought that he had his hands on the pulse of Italy. Gabriel d'Annunzio was the man of the future, they said. Isn't it strange what tricks are played on us by life; for he stopped there, and there is a story of why he stopped and how it stopped him, and there is an experience that I want to relate someday, that I know of, that made him fall short of being a great man. I want to show that it was not d'Annunzio's choice, for we do not choose always. Perhaps he would have made a greater name for himself. That is historic and I want to tell you. Fortunately, I know the truth. (Laughs)
"Did you know I had a contract once to write a piece for the saxophone? It is very sad; I got the contract and an advance and then never delivered the composition. It was not strictly honest, but a lady wanted it. She ordered it and paid some in advance;, but I was too sick and I never got it done for her."
Arthur and Sterge speak briefly before closing the séance.
September 8, 1933
Letter from Students Society For Psychical Research - in Belgrade - reminding of request for materials - also stating that they were able to do an exhibition with charts and so on - expresses admiration for Dr. Hamilton's work.
September 15, 1933.
J. MacDonald (medium); Lillian Hamilton; T. G. Hamilton; Margaret Hamilton (recorder); J. Hamilton.
8:15 p.m. sitting commences
9:30 p.m. approximately, sitting concludes.
Medium shows a restlessness of trance onset, rocks back and forth, rubs hands over knees. In the space of one or two minutes Sterge speaks, conversing with us freely for five minutes or so. T. G. H. is then called to the phone. In his absence a new control manifests, speaking with great difficulty.
New control:
"Gustave ... Gustave ... chastened! Yes ... I speak English ... Yes, I am chastened ..."
L. H.: "Have you a message for us?"
Gustave Geley.: "Yes, for you. Two months' time my colleague said. I come to say, yes, yes, yes! ... Volunteer come to tell you. ... I volunteer to come to tell you.... my colleague said so; I say so, so we shall give you the information ahead of the actual occurrence. I shall stay and talk to you, now I can stay.
"I can say that I over here have made considerable progress, much of it due, naturally, to my work. I must confess I had the wrong idea about several things; but we are in the process of being aligned, and my mind is beginning to think and my eyes see. Sometimes before, you know, I was tempted to divert my mind from the path taken by my eyes and my ears. I am coming to you, I believe, to do materialization work. My colleagues will also be there to help. Incidentally, I know your secretary is making annotations of what I am saying. If I should exceed her capacity I wish you to stop me as I know you will be anxious to take down even what little I say. I do not mind being interrupted to ask things, since communication, even to a scientist, is a tremendous emotional experience; and it is hard to combine the joy of the discoverer with the mature and sane outlook of the scientific observer.
I must make my exit; my felicitations, my congratulations to you. My cooperation is made evident by my speech, I hope. I hope to make it more evident by my material aid. Goodnight."
Control changes: "Oh, Mother Mary ... Mary mother ...twixt hell and heaven ... (has great difficulty in speaking coherently) ... Mystic ... Mystic ... mystical union of (rubs shoulders and arms) ... cold damp earth ... and I buried them there, buried them in her coffin ... put them beside her so that we ... it was a tribute I could only give her and I put them in there, there with the body, for the great part of me was buried there. But she would not have it so, I saw her many times up there ... I would go under a tree, and I saw her face up there among the leaves ... I could sense her touch and I went part way up to meet her, and there was a mystical union. I knew she had been but translated and I knew I could translate but part of myself, and so I could have a mystical union with my loved one. She ... (becomes more agitated, and rubs my shoulder).
"You bring me back ... to speak again ... I speak from the planes of light ... I speak from a climbing mysticism that transcends all
knowledge. I know I shall see Him, for I am of Him and He is of me, and we are one. We are united over here. Beauty is proved the guiding light, and faith a ladder which I have climbed to her. And now I no longer live wan, sad-eyed and forlorn beneath trees in an English garden, - I am with her in the plane of light, and we are one ..."
Christiana is here but she is not speaking. I am only speaking because I came tonight at your control's invitation. But I have been here before; many times have I been here ... goodnight."
Control changes. Medium coughs and laughs: "That's him!" (Points to T. G. H.). Gives muscular action, as he says that is the best to get the medium down. After about three minutes violent exercise (movement of arms and legs) medium's head falls forward between knees and he gasps and coughs: "I got him down, I got him down, he is out, Ham! He's fighting hard, but he's down."
Medium stands: "You can't see in the dark but I can. I can guide him around here alright. I won't hurt him."
Medium turns around several times in the center of the circle, then stops. Walter gives a long speech on T. G. H.'s "dumbness", and begins to turn medium around again. Then has him sit down and speaks to Ham:
"I just came to look around and make sure it was as good as could be expected. My contact is still established. I'm working and expecting to work with you and I'm not a bit disappointed and I don't want you to be. I'm back at the old stand open for business at the usual prices. Be sure to keep the room dark after you've done your installation. Use the red light. I'll try to gather power. And I'll try to work on the woman to get her to come myself. I'll do my best to talk her into it and I'll get Ewan down better. But whenever you sit I want you to try and get your chairs in order. Try not to be late, get things in order before they come into the room. Being late is part of the trouble. You help Ham and make him have everything here each time. You see I'm a railway man, and we like starting on time. I must go; so long."
After a moment of silence in which the medium seems to be very deeply asleep, moaning a little, Sterge speaks again.
Robert speaks: "I am here the now. I'm no' going to do verra much. I expect next time I'll finished the letter. Then we'll go over it and I think I'll lengthen it, change parts and put parts in. We'll try to finish it next time. I'll no come through because I wanted to help the others. We all want to work together. I think it's a big thing to give time from my time to his (Walter's) work.
I ken Christiana's friend and know him well. I'll no stay very long. I'll be back next time, and I hope ye got work that will be of interest to ye ..."
Sterge returns to close the sitting.
September 22, 1933.
J. MacDonald; Lillian Hamilton; M. Hamilton (recorder)
6:36 p.m. sitting commences
7:39 p.m. sitting concludes.
The gramophone is turned on, medium begins to mutter, whistle to music. Sterge speaks to ask us to leave the music off after the record is concluded.
Medium becomes silent, then breathes noisily, trying to talk in his throat.
"Oh ... am ... I ... my ... my ... colleagues ... I give you greeting. Gustave ... good evening ... (speaking with more strength and assurance). Now I am controlling, not wasting so much energy. It is definitely easier now. Full strange too that it should come of a sudden. Indeed, I believe it is like any sport or accomplishment ... suddenly your consciousness of your ability to do it descends on you in a heap, and you're doing it. That's the way this struck me. Each time I come I find it difficult to get beyond mere words of greeting. But I have more purpose than this. I wish to come to your circle and discover with you ... Indeed, I come in complete reverence of both your activity and your personal accomplishments in the line of psychical research."
L. H.: "We have read your books very carefully with much interest."
Geley: "To say that sounds platitudinous, but it comes from the heart. I thank you. I must say I tried to keep my standard as high as possible for only by holding it so will the world see it. I commend you in the maintenance of your highly held standard. I will come again and talk with you, perhaps soon. In the meantime I must not occupy more time in your circle. At present I can only come to get; these others are coming to give, and theirs is the greater right, being sacred. Good evening."
Arthur speaks to us briefly, reminding us of his approaching birthday. We chat for three or four minutes.
Robert next speaks. We chat with him on various subjects in the course of which conversation he says:
"It was said that brevity was the soul of wit. I've often wondered about that. It seems that there is wit and there's wit and that brevity has its place, and perhaps may represent in conversation the very soul of wit; but the very spirit of wit is when the brilliance and humor is sustained and not cut short. Brevity is a falling star in the night; but sustained, cultivated and expanded wit has with it all the rich enjoyment of the night sky, not the grandeur of one passing star.
Of course, I often wonder about wit, and wisdom, and whimsicality and all the other w's. Wisdom's a fine thing, a grand thing; and wit's a shining star in your crown, and whimsicality's a tender beautiful thing that stirs us in the deeper parts of our being; but it seems to me there are deeper things than wisdom and wit, things that touch the human personality more deeply. He who can give a good song (and by songs I mean poetry as well), strikes something that seems to me to be deepest of all. People will admire (?) men who have wit and wisdom, but the man who has songs and poetry, who lives and talks them, can command the affection of a whole people and their undying loyalty.
I want to go over that again some time. I no' got it right. You can mark this - material to be looked over. N.B. Do not overlook this!"
Medium is silent for a moment, then moves feet and breathes heavily, moaning a little. Throws himself back in his chair.
Robert speaks: "I'm still here. I wanted to say something the night about the Master of men. I only wish that in the written gospel one of the four had been able to record a more intimate picture of Christ's earlier life. I should like to see Him more as He grew up. In my minds eye I have often watched Him and often woven a picture of His life ... But, withal, it seems to remain not the life of Christ, but my idea of the life of Christ. If I could only have touches on his personality to add fire and reality to it!
"I know many great sayings have been recorded; but how happy I would have been if I had been able to record the innumerable unrecorded sayings. Discernment such as His did not come in momentary flashes: it was a steady, constant, beautiful flow of clear restrained thinking. Christ has so little to say about specific morality; guide-posts He undoubtedly did set up, but never do we find Him making Himself the all-sufficient judge for all posterity on one or any case of morals. Christ knew the illimitable variations of human emotions and human experiences and never once, study Him as we will, do we find Him setting down iron-bound moral codes ...
"I can't do it! Try as I will, I can't do it. It just won't seem to come through. I'm no' at all satisfied. It's very poor. It makes me angry and makes me feel like taking off my coat and going to fight. I have things I want to say, and I can't say them. It's like sending out my words on crutches: they're paralyzed, so impotent! I want every word to be a d'Artagnan, live, vital, in good taste, and ready to stand on its feet and fight the world! I dinna want to marshal a bunch of scarecrows and send them out; that would be very foolish of me. I must try to control better. Part of the fault lies with my inability to control. I'm sometimes temperamentally incapacitated - a grand apron to hide behind. It's the de'il in me and I'm going to put the thumbscrews on him."
L. H.: "Can we help you in any way?"
Robert: "No, I'm going to do it myself." But dinna feel downcast, for that's when the de'il exults. But I'm rolling up my sleeves to have at him.
"I'll no' work at the letter the night because I'll no' do it the way I want it. I'll try to subdue both he and me, and I may come back later. Chuck up your chin, lass, and I'll chuck mine."
Control changes. Medium's voice becomes high-pitched, and his hands move about quickly as he talks, with a fluttering motion:
"Me come to talk, Feda says, to talk. Feda come to talk. Feda talking hindering my medium not well ..."
L. H.: "Come and use one of our mediums, Feda."
Feda: "Fine, I'm going to. My medium is slowing up. Oh, pretty room! Oh, all sorts of cameras and boxes and chairs and pictures, and oh, all sorts of wires, all queer."
L. H.: "Not like your medium's room, Feda."
Feda: "Oh, no, my medium's room is nice. This is ... interesting, like Mr. Lodge's room. I know him. Oh (medium turns to his right), there is a bell-box. I've been here before. Oh, I know who's missing, Grandpa!"
L. H.: "Grandpa came with you last time. Can't you bring Grandpa again?"
Feda: "Sure, maybe grandpa is still interested in this work."
L. H.: "You are an excellent control, Feda."
Feda: "Oh much comes from the medium, not Feda. I came to put him down deeper.
"Oh, you got some books, one, two, three cases full and one, two, three more. Oh, that's an awful lot of books. Oh, wait a minute. You've got some more books ... Feda can't see them, no, not well. I have a clue for a treasure hunt ... we'll have no map, just directions, and we'll go no further than Feda can see. One, two, three; one, two, three; books, books, books, looks, looks, looks. Misses can see ..."
Sterge: "I tried to help then but I did not do very well, and so I come back and wield the baton."
We discuss conditions necessary to get the best results. This discussion last three or four minutes, after which Sterge brings the sitting to a close.
September 27, 1933.
J. MacDonald; Alex Kent; Lillian Hamilton; Jim Hamilton;
M. Hamilton (recorder).
7:50 p.m. sitting commences.
Sterge comes within a minute, is introduced to Alex. We chat for a moment or two, and then Sterge says that we will go on with the regular work and have a party afterwards, as it is Jim's birthday.
Medium's head is bowed, and he becomes silent. Then Robert speaks:
"I'm back all right, and I'm trying to get a deeper control as I talk. (He, the medium) is in better shape the night. He didna seem to respond last time, but I'll get him down this time ... that's better. I'm getting him down now. I'll be getting on with the work."
L. H.: "Your work's being greatly appreciated by our friends, Robert"
Robert: "I'm glad. I wish I could give you more of myself. Iwish I did not have to give so much of my time to getting control of him ... but I can't get consistent work through ... but I'm getting better, and I do feel that I can get work after work, idea after idea, almost paragraph after paragraph through consecutively. Now I can control with the steadier ... control ...
"... I've got to take you on a wee trip the night ... to a place away out in the mountains. There is a lots of crevasses there. Ye're away up in Scotland, and you cross over East and South until you land in the fog-topped mountains of the Alps. And we'll wander among them and ye'll come to the place where there's a great healing center. It's called the Davos sanatorium and it's for the benefit of tubercular patients. It's a huge sanitarium and I've been there. I liked it fine, only I was rather tired and found it hard to get down to consistent work. I was rather short of cash, too. It was a daily occurrence for me. I had all sorts of ways of raising money - they were fairly successful too, and brought in the pennies but not the pounds. I got tired of sticking around doing nothing, so we got together and made wee picture books. I didna cut out paper dolls, ye ken, I wasna that far gone - I had a jackknife - the kind that wears holes in your pocket - and I cut figures out in blocks of wood, and we put ink on them and made pictures. The pictures were extremely un-technically correct, the last word in the Ink-a-art (ye've heard of the Incas, no doubt). We had lots of fun and when we got the wee pictures printed, we put a verse to each picture. And so we put a picture here, and a verse there, and we peddled them to the tourists. They took some of them, and probably just looked at them and then threw them away. I just did the verses and a cutting, not the printing.
"I had a very culpable (capable?) assistant; he was my sales agency and my printing press. You see, he had a wee printing press and he had a contract for printing the menus at the hotel at Davos. But he lost his job; he made too many mistakes and went through an awful depression. He lost his job through bad printing. Ye ken the song "The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls"? Well, he was printing the programme for the music, and the tenor was to sing and he made a mistake and had "The Harp That Once Through Tara's Hells" and there were some patriotic Irishman there and so he lost his job. And he had to take on an outside job, for I'm afraid the music and hotel business fell off after the historic error. We blamed it on the boy, and gave him a severe talking to, and the boy felt very bad when standing before the mirror ..."
Without any perceptible break in the flow of speech, Sterge speaks at once, telling us he comes again to put the medium "down deeper".
Sterge: "You know St. Germain-au-Fouberg? March 26, 1918. Born in St. Germain-au-Faubourg, Mort March 26, 1918.
"Maurice Maeterlinck, a distinguished academician, playwright, mathematician, and physicist, invited me to compose the musical score of his opera Pelleas et Melisande on his presentation. I agreed, and I have written the score for him. I try to throw aside all the old traditions of the opera - my score must not limit the words.
"Composers of operatic scores had been limiting the lyric for so long that often, to my mind, the lyric had developed into the merest banalities. The music tied the characters down, clothed them in the heaviest mail, so that they appeared top-heavy. My aim was to so build up the music that gave lyric power and wove a beautiful scintillating net, lifting them up, a net linking the whole opera together into a beautiful whole. That was my desire and my aim, and I do believe I accomplished it.
"Any man who disregards old traditions and teaches in the new manner must suffer to consequences: first, all the radicals side with him, which is a bad thing; second, all traditional musicians will be against him, another bad thing. Doing anything outside the line of your traditional work is to bring ... people who will rally around your standard and be not wanted, who put words in your mouth, and close your hand and shove it into someone's face. Before long I found myself being quoted as saying things I did not say, and being forced into a radical bravado foreign to myself. When you do anything new you draw to yourself the person who has tried in the traditional manner and failed. If you succeed you draw all the more. I did succeed, and I drew such a following - failures after the traditional manner and radicals, and a few who did understand what I was trying to do. Those composed my followers, rather a motley group ..."
Medium ceases speaking, begins to pound his knees with his fist and move his body back and forth. Sterge tells us that it is easier thus to control him, to make him hammer like that.
Medium becomes silent for a moment, then Robert speaks again:
"Perhaps we could do a wee bit of rhyme for the baby."( Jim).
"Said an old man on the date of his birth
As he examined his steadily increasing girth,
I say it with pride,
My expanding inside,
Has been caused by continual youthful mirth."
"How's that for one on the spot? That's just my present to the wee lad. That's looking into the future."
After Robert is introduced to Alex, he speaks briefly and goes. L. H. also had to leave.
Sterge returns and chats with us, he and Jim having great fun punning. Arthur talks at considerable length, telling us of his life and work and education.
Sterge closes the sitting.
9:05 p.m. sitting closes.
September 29, 1933
Letter from Prime Minister McKenzie King to Lillian Hamilton:
[Handwritten letter]. [barely legible when enlarged]
The Second Letter
[Out of that August luncheon and a booklet of prayers went this revealing second letter in his own handwriting to Winnipeg from Laurier House:]
Laurier House,
at Ottawa,
September 29, 1933.
Dear Mrs. Hamilton;
"I received yesterday, your very kind letter and "the booklet" which ... has so kindly prepared for me. I just cannot begin to tell you the pleasure, I should say the delight, which I have experienced from the reading of both. The excerpts from the "Dawn" (the seance name of a medium in the Hamilton sittings) and Stevenson, are even more wonderful than I had believed them to be at the first time you read parts of them to me. The exquisite diction and the beauty of the teaching would make them exceptional were there nothing in the nature of a revelation about them. When one considers their transcendental origin, they become truly marvelous. I am glad to have the photograph of the written script of the Spurgeon sermon. All this is amazing beyond words, but not in the least incredible once one sees it as the breaking of new light upon our realm of ignorance in regard to the spiritual forces at work about us. It is also very simple and natural, once one begins to admit its reality and genuineness.
"The world, however, has always rejected the simple things. Like Naaman of old, it does not want to be told to bathe in the waters of Jordan, where they are close at hand; it wants pomp and miracles, the very thing in which it professes not to believe.
"Mr. ... happened along on Thursday morning and brought me the bound copies of the Daily Sketch (London, England), so that Thursday I really spent the greater part of the day, as I did that Sunday in Winnipeg, in company with Dr. Hamilton and yourself."
[Note: these issues of the Daily Sketch contained a series of articles on Dr. Hamilton's researches and were written when he was in Britain to attend the centenary of the British Medical Association and give speeches to various psychical societies under the direction of Miss Mercy Phillimore of the London Spiritualist Alliance. He and Mrs. Hamilton visited with the widow of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who had been a guest at a sitting in their Winnipeg home].
Reread Articles
"I have read with intense interest the articles in the Sketch, but wish to reread them again in the course of the next week or two. I hope the doctor will not mind my retaining the volumes that long. Please tell him I shall see that it is returned within a fortnight at the outside.
"I shall deeply value the privilege of keeping in touch with the progress of your researches; and if I ever find a means of helping them along, I'll not fail to do what I can towards that end."
Yours very sincerely,
W. L. MacKenzie King
October 6, 1933
J. MacDonald (medium); Lillian Hamilton; Margaret Hamilton (recorder).
7:30 p.m. sitting commences.
8:30 p.m. sitting closes.
Music supplied by gramophone. Media moves feet about, claps hands, slaps knees and chest. After two or three minutes of this preliminary 'exercising' a control speaks:
"Oh, my children, what are you doing again? Did you not have enough of hate that you are drawing the clouds of war about you again? Is not hate an incestuous thing, a leprous thing that eats at the soul, that breeds incestuously of itself? Oh, you of my Fatherland, tear away those clouds that gather over you! You are breeding hate and hate is an incestuous thing that breeds on itself! You will have war, I tell you, war again, and you will be the cause! National love is a great thing, but national hate is horrible, ugly! I deplore your attitude but I cannot see a way to avoid the trouble that is coming to you. You are sitting in the lap of folly. There is a possibility of a great man saving you but he is not of our people. Why should it be that Kultur should tear aside the culture of Goethe, Heine, and Schiller, all the great of our land? I ... I ... We have no man strong in love for Germany; we only have men strong in hate for others. (Medium breathes loudly and rapidly). The mark! ... They bear the mark! .. (sighing) . Oh, I am afraid for you! (Whispering). I can hear the swords rattling in their scabbards and there will be sorrow and blood and death ...!!
Sterge: "Here I come! I had to let him through; he has been around all afternoon, ever since the boy came. I had to let him speak, he is so anxious for his country."
L. H.: "Is he our German friend (the doctor)?"
Sterge: "Yes. We of course, are all anxious here, for we see the cloud and it is worse than it was. You in your country must keep out the old world hates. You have a few of them but you must try to keep them out." Sterge goes on to tell us that he feels very discouraged about world conditions, which leads him to speak of the time when he was a soldier, taking compulsory military training in France for three years, and how his illness overtook him at the outbreak of the war.
Medium becomes silent, then "grunts" a little. L. H. remarks that Robert is coming, that she can tell by the grunts.
Robert: "Aye, you are right, it's me and my wee way o' coming through. Ye know, I'm like a dog coming out from under a pile o' leaves; first a couple o' sniffs, then the nose and a pair o' bright eyes and then he stands up and shakes off the leaves and there he is! Of course, like the dog, I'm often a wee bit the worse for wear, and bring dirt and the bugs and worms and crawly things wi' me - a regular zoological Museum!
"... I've been trying for weeks to finish my letter. I've never yet got satisfactory conditions, but I'm trying to pop it through when the opportunity comes and then we'll go back and work on it. I'm very hopeful I'll be able to do a lot with it and considerable expansion of the material I have."
Robert now gives us a brief dissertation on story writing.
"The thing about a story is this: if I'm writing a story about you and don't make you a very interesting character, no one will take an interest in you. But ye've got to make the reader interested, to create a character that your reader will take to his heart, and feel that he wants to help and cheer him on. Now, if I'm going to give the impression that I've choked our good friend here (L. H.), I've got to raise the action up almost an octave higher to a pitch of hysteria, almost, when I'm writing about it. If she calls me a "hound" while I'm choking her, that wouldn't sound so horrible on paper. Things have got to be tuned up to more than concert pitch to give the effect of reality. Even conversation has to be "stepped up". So, you have it to put everything in superlatives, almost, if you want to get the same effect as reality. That is, I'm translating an emotion from me into a character through paper, and paper's got a high resistance, and so I've got to have a transformer and step up into a high-voltage so that it produces in the reader the same effect as watching the performance. So drama in story must be written beyond concert pitch. That's a rule. Conversation must be higher in pitch than normal natural conversation, and if this is to be transmitted through the mediumship of paper to the emotions of the writer it has to be 'stepped up'.
"And now, ye ken, there is things about conversation that ye've got to notice - all conversation has to be economical; it has to do with the problem of the story as much as possible for the sake of economy and drama and strength. Paper's a queer thing, ye ken, it's no' a real screen of life, unless ye take tweezers and pick out a lot of things. It's like a picture - if ye painted nature exactly as you found her there'd no' be a very perfect picture from the artistic point of view. The artist weeds out the incongruous in his mind. So we as writers must work towards the solution of the problem, add to the drama, and illustrate the reaction of the characters to the situations, and remember, they must act in character ..."
Robert pauses. L. H. tells him of sending some of his work to one of Canada's first men, and how much the gentleman in question has appreciated them.
Robert: "I'm glad of that. I would like to write something some time for him."
"You will find a little surprise in one of your back sittings. Ye'll have to brush up on your Latin. That's one clue. I'd advise you to look up the Latin word for emperor. It's no' something I put through, and that's another clue. If you'd take everything that happened and read what you said, I'd say you'll no' be very long in finding it. We'll say it happened one time when the good man was here. That makes it very easy, too easy! Oh, I'm surprised at myself! The prize is a poem to the lady who presents definite proof to Robert Louis Stevenson first."
Robert now dictates further work on his letter:
"One of the most common faults among writers is the embellishing of the unimportant. Detail is fine in its place but only give it the honor due to its place in the story. Two things are important - the character and the action (that is, I'm no' referring to the style of writing). The story must be given first place if you're going to have people read it; the story must move where its events and adventures are things written in the mind. Some writing I have seen is like a sponge: it's picked up everything. And I would plead with the young author to suggest things which may be embellished by the mind of the reader. But pray, or pray, the young writer, the young fledgling in the fields of art, not to set every detail down in permanent black and white. It is by far the greater art to suggest constructively to the reader's mind the thing, than to construct the surroundings minutely for the reader. That is why those whose prose sings lead all writers in storytelling, for they have the magic of transforming their readers and bringing them into a glorious world where their imagination is a glorious rover ..."
"I canna go on ... I'm stopping now ... I just got stuck. I guess we came to the swamp and our feet left the narrow pathway and we fell into the slough. Do ye ken John?"
M. L. H.: "Oh, yes, we were brought up on him."
Robert: "Then ye ken the Slough of Despond. Of course I got my Bunyan parenthetically and that's a joke ... I have to go on now. Goodnight."
Medium is silent, then grasps the pencil and indicates he wishes to write. I guide his hand over the page.
Sterge: "That was just a visitor, a friend of mine - my musical godfather."
Medium says: "No ... no ... no ... ah, ah ... I come ... brother Arthur... back, I come back! ... I'm fine! ..."
L. H.: "How do you like it Arthur?"
Medium: "Yes, great! ... Yes! (pats L. H.'s hand). Better than I believed ..."
L. H.: "Have you seen mother and dad?"
Control: "Oh, yes, much. Mother is younger, she's fine. It's good over here! ..."
L. H.: "Do you follow our work?"
Control: "Yes! I have come often to you and to them. I come often. I can't stay now, but I'm coming again. We have to learn and I'm learning. It is through your Arthur's help that I was able to come. He said that one should talk when one has the opportunity. I am going but my love goes to my family and to all my relatives. My sister, goodnight."
Medium coughs a little. Sterge returns: "There, I am back just like Peter Pan!"
L. H.: " Thanks him for letting Arthur come.
Sterge: "I must go, the sands in the hourglass of good conditions are running low. I am very happy. I hope you are, too, despite war clouds. Au revoir."
