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Oliver and Raymond Lodge. Life Beyond (6) Raymond wants to encourage people to look forward to the certainty of a rational Life Beyond Death.
Raymond continued to talk with his father, Oliver Lodge, through Feda, Mrs. Leonard’s guide, and sometimes directly through the medium.
SIR OLIVER - You know the earth is rolling along through space. How do you keep up with it?
FEDA - It doesn’t seem like that to him
OLIVER - No, I suppose not. Do you see the stars?
FEDA - Yes, he sees the stars…..only he feels closer to them, not appreciably closer, but they look clearer….. There’s one more mystery to him yet. It doesn’t seem day and night quite by regular terms, like it did on the earth.
OLIVER - But I suppose you see the sun?
FEDA - Yes, he sees the sun; but it seems always about the same degree of warmth. He doesn’t feel heat or cold where he is. The sun doesn’t make him uncomfortably hot. That is not because the sun has lost its heat, but because he hasn’t got the same body that sensed the heat. When he comes into contact with the earth plane, and is manifesting, then he feels a little cold or warm – at least he does when a medium is present – not when he comes in the ordinary way just to look round. When he sang last night [at a private gathering holding a séance] he felt cold for a minute or two.
OLIVER - Did he sing?
FEDA - Yes, he and Paulie had a scuffle. Paulie was singing first, and Raymond thought he would like to sing too, so he chipped in at the end. He sang about three verses. It wasn’t difficult, because there was a good deal of power there. Also nobody except Mrs. Kathie knew who he was, and so all eyes were not on him, and they were not expecting it, and that made it easier for him. He says it wasn’t so difficult as keeping up a conversation; he just took the organs there, and materialized his own voice in her throat. He didn’t find it very difficult, he hadn’t got to think of anything, or collect his ideas; there was an easy flow of words, and he just sang.
RAYMOND - I DID sing. I thought I’d nearly killed the medium. She hadn’t any voice at all after. When I heard myself that I had really got it [able to sing through her] I had to let go. Raised the roof, and I DID enjoy it !
FEDA - He was just practising there, Raymond says. At first he thought it wouldn’t be easy.
OLIVER - Raymond, you know you want to give me some proofs. What kind of proofs do you think are best? Have you talked it over with Mr. Myers, and have you decided on the kind of proof that will be most evidential?
RAYMOND - I don’t know yet. I feel divided between two ways: one is to give you objective proof, such as simple materializations and direct voice, which you can set down and have attested. Or else I should have to give you information about my different experiences here, either something like what I am doing now, or through some other way. But I don’t know whether I will be able to do the two things together.
OLIVER - No, not likely, not at the same time. But you can take opportunities of saying more about your life there.
RAYMOND - Yes, that’s why I have been collecting information. I do so want to encourage people to look forward to a life they will certainly have to enter upon, and realise that it is a rational life. All this that I have been giving you now, and that I gave to Lionel, you must sort out, and put in order, because I can only give it scrappily. I want to study things here a lot. Would you think it selfish if I say I wouldn’t like to be back [on earth] now ? I wouldn’t give this up for anything. Don’t think it selfish, or that I want to be away from you all. I have still got you, because I feel you so close, closer even.
I wouldn’t come back, I wouldn’t for anything that anyone could give me.
FEDA - He hardly liked to put it that way to his mother.
RAYMOND - I did enjoy myself that first time that Lionel came – I could talk for hours. [Sir Oliver looks at his watch quietly. Raymond notices !] Don’t go yet.
FEDA - He says he thinks he was lucky when he passed on, because he had so many to meet him. That came [about], he knows now, through your having been in with this thing [psychical research] for so long. He wants to impress this on those that you will be writing for: that it makes it so much easier for them if they and their friends know about it beforehand. It’s awful when they have passed over and won’t believe it for weeks, - they just think they’re dreaming. And they won’t realise things at all sometimes. He doesn’t mind telling you that now, just as first, when he woke up, he felt a little depression. But it didn’t last long. He cast his eyes round and soon he didn’t mind.
RAYMOND - But it was like finding yourself in a strange place, like a strange city; with people you hadn’t seen, or not seen for a long time, round you. Grandfather was with me straight away; and presently Robert. I got mixed up between two Roberts. And there’s some one called Jeannie…who calls herself an aunt. Is she my Aunt Jennie ?
OLIVER - No, but your mother used to call her that.
FEDA - He has brought that doggie again….He’s got a cat too, plenty of animals, he says. He hasn’t seen any lions and tigers, but he sees horses, cats, dogs and birds…….He has met a spirit here who knows you…..Someone called G……..Golt – he didn’t know him, but he is interested in you, and had met you.
RAYMOND - It’s surprising how many people come up to me and shake me by the hand, and speak to me. I don’t know them from Adam. But they are doing me honour here, and some of them are such fine men. I don’t know them, but they all seem to be interested in YOU, and they say, ‘Oh, are you his son? - how-do-you-do ? ! ‘
OLIVER [noticing that Feda is losing control] - Well, good-bye, Raymond, then, and God bless you.
RAYMOND - God bless YOU. I do so want you to know that I am very happy. And bless them all. My love to you. I can’t tell what I feel, but you can guess. It’s difficult to put into words. My love to all. God bless you and everybody. Good-bye, father.
SITTING with Mrs. Kennedy on December 17th, 1915.
RAYMOND - I have been here such a long time, please tell father I am here – Raymond.
OLIVER - My boy !
RAYMOND - Dearth father ! Father, it was difficult to say all one felt, but now I don’t care. I love you. I love you intensely. Father, please speak to me.
OLIVER - I recognize it, Raymond. Have you anything to say for the folk at home?
RAYMOND - I have been there today; I spoke to mother. I don’t know if she heard me, but I rather think so. Please tell her this, and kiss her from me.
OLIVER - She had a rather vivid dream or vision of you one morning lately. I don’t know if it was a dream
RAYMOND - I feel sure she will see me, but I don’t know, because I am so often near her that I can’t say yes or no to any particular time.
OLIVER - Raymond, you know it is getting near Christmas now?
RAYMOND - I know. I shall be there; keep jolly or it hurts me horribly. Truly, I know it is difficult, but you MUST know by now that I am so splendid. I shall never be one instant out of the house on Christmas Day. [Raymond steps aside for Paul to communicate. When he has left, Raymond returns.] I have brought Mr. Myers. He say he doesn’t often come to use this means, but he wants to speak for a moment.
The spirit of FREDERIC MYERS - Get free and go on. Don’t let them trammel you. Get at it, Lodge.
OLIVER - What does that mean?
MRS KENNEDY [the medium] - I haven’t an idea.
OLIVER - Has Myers gone right away?
MYERS - I have spoken, but I will speak again, if you keep quiet [meaning Mrs Kennedy]. Do cease to think, or you are useless. [That is to say, if the medium puts her own thoughts into the communications, Myers himself will not be able to come through clearly]. Tell Lodge I can’t explain half [of what] his boy is to me. I feel as if I had my own dearly loved son here, yet I know he is only lent to me. [to the medium] Pardon me if I rarely us you. I can’t stand the way you [get] bother[ed].
MRS KENNEDY - Do you mean the way I get nervous if I am taking a message from you?
MYERS - Yes I do.
OLIVER - Is Raymond still there ?
RAYMOND - Yes.
OLIVER - Raymond, do you know we’ve got that photograph you spoke of ? Mrs Cheves sent us it, the mother of Captain Cheves, you remember him ?
RAYMOND - Yes, I know you have the photograph. [They continue talking about other photographs]. It is ripping to come like this. I enjoyed it.
OLIVER - Before you go, Raymond, I want to ask a serious question. Have you been let to see Christ ?
RAYMOND - Father, I shall see him presently. It is not time yet. I am not ready. But I know he lives, and I know he comes here. All the sad ones see him if no one else can help them. I am not expecting to see him yet, father, I shall love to when it’s the time.
OLIVER - Well, we shall be very happy this Christmas I think [in spite of Raymond’s death earlier in the year]..
RAYMOND - Father, tell mother she has her son with her all day on Christmas Day. There will be thousands and thousands of us back in the homes on that day, but the horrid part is that so many of the fellows don’t get welcomed. [since most people are unaware of their presence, and think by their death, they no longer exist !]. Please keep a place for me. I must go now. Bless you again, father.
To be continued. Reviewed, abridged and condensed from “Raymond” by Sir Oliver Lodge. Methuen and Co Ltd., London. 1916 Other spirit communications from Frederic Myers can be found in "The Road to Immortality" by Geraldine Cummins, and in scripts produced by another medium a round the same time as these communications from Raymond.
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