Hugh Lynn Cayce and Psychic Phenomena

Hugh Lynn Cayce (left) was photographed with his father and mother, Edgar and Gertrude Cayce, and his brother Edgar Evans Cayce circa 1940.

Hugh Lynn Cayce (1907-1982) was instrumental in expanding public awareness of his father's life and 'The Work,' as father and son referred to the psychic readings that came through Edgar Cayce while in a hypnotic trance.  Hugh Lynn Cayce's own psychic experiences are described in the biography Hugh Lynn Cayce: About My Father's Business (1988) by A. Robert Smith.

During one interview with Smith, Hugh Lynn commented: "The breadth of view of the Christ consciousness, I have said many times, is the most exciting material in the Edgar Cayce readings for me." 

In a July 1983 tribute article honoring Hugh Lynn Cayce in The A.R.E. Journal, Harmon Hartzell Bro observed: "I became convinced, years ago, that for Hugh Lynn the total structure of his father's work and thought became a paradigm or pattern for viewing the work of the Christ . . . He fell back on study of 'psychic phenomena' as the doorway through which he might enter into discussion of spiritual ultimates; did not his father and other psychics speak freely of such spiritual matters?  I think he used 'psychic' to mean what is now tentatively called 'transpersonal' among psychologists."

Smith wrote that another dimension of Hugh Lynn's commitment was his trying to comprehend the nature of his father's gift.  Hugh Lynn was quoted:

 

"I went to all kinds of psychics to try to understand Dad, sometimes to ask about him, but just to understand psychic ability.  I wanted to be sure he wasn't really a freak, that it was a universal quality with many facets to it.  I began by reading the literature.  I went back to the early British Society for Psychical Research and read everything that had been published, and then came on into the American Society and read all that.  Then I began to read the people mentioned in the readings.  D. B. Holmes was a famous one, an American who went to England and spent a lot of time there studying William James's work.  I spent a great deal of time checking out his psychical work with Mrs. Piper.  I didn't go to England or meet anyone until much later.  But I talked to people who had investigated the Margery case in Boston, a famous mediumist case.  I also got involved in the Andrew Jackson Davis material, and the man who had influenced Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science."

In the chapter "A Boundless Unconscious" of his nonfiction book Venture Inward (1964), Hugh Lynn Cayce described a psychic experience that illustrated to him how inadequate is our concept of time.  To introduce the passage, he recalled one of the channeled readings  (341-1 of December 10, 1923) that was left for them to interpret after being communicated through his father while in a hypnotic trance.

 

My life reading from Edgar Cayce, given when I was fifteen years old, contained a description of a previous life during which I was described as taking part in one of the Crusades.  The reading suggested that boredom with medieval village life was more the motive for the pilgrimage than the professed desire to free the "Holy City."  Apparently I had left a family.

During the Second World War I was drafted. My abilities in the field of psychic studies were not in great demand.  I was finally placed in a Special Service outfit attached to combat troops.  The day the war with Germany ended our company was stationed in a little Austrian village in the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden.  We had liberated some very fine Austrian beer.  I was consuming a canteen cup of this beer while seated in the yard of one of the neat little cottages of the village when my mind began to play tricks on me. The road through the village was crowded.  Remnants of the Austrian army, bedraggled, dirty, thin, and exhausted, plodded by.  American trucks raced back and forth, picking up airplane engines which were cached at intervals along the edge of the road.  The prisoners from a nearby work camp had been released—Poles, Russians, Czechs, and other nationals moved along the edge of the road, looking as if they were about to ask, "Which way is home?"  Trucks passed loaded with English airmen who had been shot down in some of the first Rumanian oil raids.  Imprisoned for years, now free, these men were singing, laughing hysterically, shouting and drinking.  They were headed for airfields from which they would be flown directly to England.  Excitement, relief, joy, confusion, and fear blended into an emotional wave which seemed almost tangible.

As I sat there looking suddenly something clicked in my head, and I saw before me a marching horde of Crusaders.  Men in armor on horses, men dressed in leather and walking with spears, servants riding and walking, some with leather coverings on their arms on which perched hooded falcons.  Little dwarfs acted as entertainers and were doing handsprings and tumbling feats ahead and to the side of the column.  It seemed that I was literally back in the time of the Crusades.

As quickly as the scene had appeared, a curtain was drawn across the mental images.  Now came a strange sensation of awareness of the village.  I knew where there was the ruin of an old building long ago, torn down as the stones were used for buildings in the village.  I knew where there was a stone bridge over a small stream, now filled in.  Perception was a mixed, confused pattern combining the so-called past and present.  My consciousness was torn between two periods of time.

Then came a peculiar sense of "it's over."  A cycle had been completed.  I had walked away to fight a war; I had come back to the very spot from which the departure had been made. I thought of my wife and child back home, of my father and mother who had died a few months previously.  I wondered if this were the completion of a karmic pattern.

All my attempts to relegate this to imagination and recall of studies of the Crusades, or to blame the beer, have not dimmed the peculiar sensation of getting caught in a timeless world of deep memory.

Yes, the next day without the assistance of the beer, I found what I thought might have been a bridge and the ruins of an old building.  This didn't help much; the sensation that something had ended was still with me.

Perhaps all that I can say now about the concepts of rebirth is that for me these ideas have raised many questions about the meaning of life.  As the basis for searching inward they become a point of departure.  Let us continue the search, withholding final judgment until the light is clearer.

 
Hugh Lynn Cayce commented that Venture Inward is "a compilation of my studies and observations of people who through psychic experiences have found themselves in touch with this seemingly boundless unconscious" with consideration given to "the value and importance of dreams as a doorway into the unconscious."

He mentioned that psychical research may encompass "a variety of automatisms such as the Ouija board or planchette, automatic writing, the pendulum, the dowsing rod, and even radionics machines"; while dreams were identified by Hugh Lynn as "excellent source material for the study of all kinds of psychic experiences, including what appears to be telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, communication with the dead, memory of past lives, astral projection, etc." 

 
At the age of 73, Hugh Lynn was hospitalized and A. Robert Smith visited him at Bayside Hospital.  Hugh Lynn related an experience similar to many of those that have come to be known as 'Near-Death Experiences' or 'Out-of-Body Experiences.' 

When he mentioned his kidney-removal operation, he focused on the metaphysical aspects, especially an accompanying out-of-body experience:

"I was knocked out. The drugs were heavy. It was a four-hour operation.  I had bled rather heavily, and they had sedated me rather heavily.  I had a lot of pain with that kidney incision.  It was a big mass.

"I've had a lot of out-of-body experiences, or so I think, and so I know a lot about them, or at least I think I do.  But this one was very interesting.  They came and got me at the hospital, came to the window and yelled for me to come out.  I was in the operating room.  So I got up and went out.

"Some of them I knew and some of them I didn't.  Then we joined a group of Japanese, somewhere, and we walked along and talked with them, and I understood them.  They were talking in Japanese and I was speaking in English, but we all understood one another beautifully.  It was very nice.

"Some of the people I knew were alive, and some were dead—or so-called dead.  You know what Dad always said about that.  Someone asked him, 'How did you know when you are dealing with a dead one or a live one?'  And he replied, 'It's easy.  The live ones are over here and the dead ones are over where you are.'"

Hugh Lynn roared in the telling of this anecdote, and we laughed with him.  It was his way, one may conclude now, of whistling as he approached the grave.  But he had a much more important objective in recalling his out-of-body experience.  He had met the Christ and he was eager to tell us about it.

"I wanted to find Jesus.  So this boy thought he could help me find him, and he said to me 'I think He is over there on the other side of the water.  But I can't go over there with you right now.'  So I told him, 'I'll go.'

"I went and He was there.  I wanted Him to explain the loaves and fishes—how He did it.  And he explained it.  And when I came back to bed I was convinced that if anyone had given me a loaf and a fish, I could have multiplied the damn thing easily.  I knew exactly what it was all about."

"How did he divide the loaves and fishes?" we asked.

"I can't tell you, but I knew then.  What He did was explain that every grain and every piece of fish contained a replica of every other grain and every other fish in the universe.  And all you had to do was divide them and they would keep multiplying.

"It has always fascinated me that He didn't make just enough for everybody but that he produced an abundance.  It reminds me of something I did once.  I had heard that morning-glory seeds, which are so tiny, produced prodigiously. So I planted one morning-glory seed in front of our porch trellis.  After it came up and blossomed, I tied little bags on it and collected the seeds—three quart jars of morning glory seeds from that one seed.

"There is an abundance of everything.  It multiplies.  There is a quality of creativity in it, and what He did was awaken that quality of creativity.  And it just spread.

"Now He did the same thing with the fig tree, I think, only He reversed it.  He told them that it was dangerous for man to work against the laws of supply.  Remember the cursing of the fig tree when it didn't produce fruit?  They pointed to it and asked him, 'Why is it?'  And he spoke to it.  Now I don't think they got all that He said there, but I think he was illustrating that if you put the same kind of energy in reverse that it destroys.  Man is doing that right now with this world.  We're destroying it."

We nodded in agreement, and he paused to take a drink of water.  Surgery had not removed Hugh Lynn's pedantic bent.  He quickly returned to his metaphysical theme:

"Things are not at all what we think they are.  It's ridiculous what we consider the world to be. It brings home to me so vividly the little tiny statements scattered through the [Edgar Cayce] readings that I think are there just to pique your curiosity and to make you realize that maybe there is something else that you ought to take a look at."


This Jesus experience was not Hugh Lynn's first.  He had had three such encounters earlier in this lifetime, the first time as a teenager, the next time when he was about forty after the death of his father, and another time during a visit to the Holy Land.  "I think I dreamed about Him several times, but these were conscious experiences—or at least I think I was conscious.  You can call it an altered state if you want.  But I was more conscious than I am now."

His first encounter with the Master as an adolescent was one of the most important experiences of his life because "it turned me around."  Hugh Lynn declined to discuss it further.  He talked freely about his second encounter as "a turning point in my life."  He was in Texas not long after returning home from World War II in the late 1940s.  It was not long after his father's death in 1945, and Hugh Lynn was on a speaking tour to drum up interest in an organization based on Edgar Cayce's psychic readings.  "I was in Rudolph Johnson's beautiful home in Dallas—he was our attorney.  He had had readings from my father.  He was an old friend, had been on the board, and had invited about forty people into their home.  But I became ill before the meeting.  I was burning up with fever."

Johnson considered calling off the meeting but Hugh Lynn wouldn't hear of it.  A doctor was called.  He gave Cayce a shot of penicillin.  And after the people had gathered, Hugh Lynn got up to speak.  "The penicillin was beginning to work as I was speaking to these folks.  I don't know what I said, but in the midst of this talk suddenly on my left Jesus appeared.  I thought at first it was my father.  But Jesus was there.  He grinned at me, laughed at me really, and said, 'It is I.  You needn't be afraid.'  He reached out and touched me on the shoulder, and the fever broke.  I was drenched in perspiration.  When I say He touched me, I felt it—I felt the energy from it.  I was instantaneously drenched in sweat.  I wasn't saying a thing, just standing there, and the people in the room didn't know what had happened to me.  I think some of them thought I had seen my father because some of them said they had felt something there.  I didn't tell anyone that night, or for years afterward, what I had experienced.

"Then he smiled at me and said, 'Get to work.'  From that point on, I couldn't do anything that wouldn't work.  I'd call people up and ask them to do something and they'd do it.  Anything.  I couldn't say anything, write anything that didn't work.  Even my mistakes worked."

If Hugh Lynn had any doubt about what to do with his life, especially after the death of his father, it was resolved that night.  He had thought as a youth that he might be a missionary.  In college he majored in psychology.  After college he worked as a librarian, real estate agent, master of ceremonies on a radio show, scoutmaster, director of lifeguards and director of recreation for the city of Virginia Beach, and general manager of the fledgling A.R.E. [Association of Research and Enlightenment]  Until he was called into the Army during the war, he helped his father—but when he returned his parents were gone, and there was no plan for what to do or how to carry on with an organization whose purpose had been to encourage folks to request psychic readings.


In his own mind, however, he had a different concept of it: "I never thought that I worked for the A.R.E. I worked for Jesus."

 

Hugh Lynn also commented about his personal psychic experiences involving visions and dreams in the article "Communication with Edgar Cayce — Fact or Fiction?" in the January 1974 edition of The A.R.E. Journal.

I have had dreams of both my mother and father since their death, dreams which have been so vivid and so helpful that they do constitute, for me, proof of the survival of bodily death.  I have also had some conscious breakthroughs — small visions one might call them — which have sometimes involved more than one person.  They have brought me and those with whom I am closely associated physical, mental and emotional help that has been most compelling.  For the present, these experiences are too personal to relate in detail.

There is one peculiar story I would like to share with you in closing.  It involves my mother, Gertrude Cayce, who had many readings from Edgar Cayce during her lifetime.  In one of these she was given a life-seal.  It consisted of symbols which Edgar Cayce suggested be painted or embroidered and kept where she could see them.  This combination of symbols, he said, would speak to her unconscious and would be of help to her.  A friend painted the life-seal for her, combining the suggested symbols which included two red roses with crossed stems.  The reading indicated that the roses would stand for my brother and me.  When my mother died, this life-seal was on her dressing table.

Shortly after her death and while I was still overseas during World War II, Florence Edmonds, a close friend of my mother, had a dream in which my mother appeared to her and said, "When I communicate with Hugh Lynn, tell him that I will give him two red roses."

Upon my return from overseas, Florence told me of the dream.  She said she had not told the dream to anyone else.  I asked her to keep it to herself.  A few years afterward she died.  As time went on I looked in the numerous purported communications from Gertrude Cayce, for the symbol of two red roses as identification.  They were not given.

About three years ago I had a call from a man in a large eastern city who told me a strange story about his wife who had gotten into difficulties from playing with a Ouija board.  She had been directed to automatic writing, after which she began to hear voices.  She talked to her doctor about this, and he put her in a mental institution for a time where she was treated to help rid her of the voices.  Her husband told me she was back home again and that she was still hearing the voices but was no longer telling her doctor about them.  Apparently she had got hold of my book Venture Inward, and had asked her husband to call me to ask if I would talk with her on the telephone, allowing her to describe what the voices were saying to her.  She felt I might be able to help.  That same day I accepted a long distance telephone call from the man and his wife.  He was on one extension and she was on another.  For some ten minutes I listened to her repeat the strange, confusing pattern of words she seemed to be hearing — idle gossip, dirty stories, dire predictions, teasing kinds of comments about the lady personally.  It was a bewildering variety of nonsense, typical of the strange patterns of voices familiar to many disturbed people.  Suddenly the woman stopped.  Then she said, "Mr. Cayce, your mother says to give you two red roses."  She then hung up.

There is a rather beautiful conclusion to this story, for at that point, the voices which had been disturbing the woman ceased.

Remembering Mickey Rooney

A Polaroid photo was taken of me with Mickey in 1982 at a birthday party at his Westlake Village home.



On April 7, Internet news headlines reported that actor Mickey Rooney (Joe Yule Jr. 1920-2014) made his transition at the age of 93.  I had known Mickey while working for his agent Ruth Webb from early 1980 through March 1987.

When starting the job, I had been informed that I would be Mickey's assistant working in Ruth's home office, where I also was involved with the daily agency work.  I had been working as a story analyst (script reader) for Ingels, Inc. after majoring in cinema at USC.  Ruth had recently become active in film and television work after being a well-known stage agent in New York.  Before that, she had been an actress whose credits included Broadway productions.  The aspect of the job that I found advantageous was the prospect of opportunities for my (then) planned screenwriting career.  I eventually became a subagent myself.  My expectation continuously was that I would be there only for a few more weeks but this went on for more than seven years. 

 

Working as a talent agent, you see how competitive it is for every role so Mickey's long and eclectic career is something rare.  To be around Mickey was to notice his unusual energy level.  It is hard to put into words his frame of mind; it was something that had to be experienced.  His friend Richard Quine articulated this by acknowledging "he comes on so strong" in a Daily Variety article mentioning his "mile-a-minute ideas." 

 

Mickey loved to entertain people.  Sometimes when visiting the office he would answer the telephone to surprise agency callers.  Ruth specialized in older stars yet there were some younger clients as well.  Agency clients included Gene Barry, Shelley Berman, John Carradine, Yvonne DeCarlo, Dody Goodman, Kathryn Grayson, Julie Newmar, Martha Raye, Mamie Van Doren and Abe Vigoda, among many others.  In retrospect, it's amazing what nice and gracious people they all were.

My age was twenty-three when I met Mickey, who was making as much as $50,000 a week on Broadway (and later touring) in the burlesque musical "Sugar Babies" and had been nominated for an Academy Award for "The Black Stallion." 

 

Mickey's cronies called him 'The Mick.'  Something I noticed was that just about everybody who came into contact with Mickey felt as if they knew him because of having seen his movies.  After having experiencing intervals when he wasn't working, Mickey was enjoying every minute of his current success.

 

In addition to his acting, Mickey was also a music composer who played the piano and other instruments.  Mickey's idea of a good time was going to the racetrack and it was noticeable that the subject of horse racing had been a recurring one throughout his movie career.

 

There were times when Ruth worried about the possibility that he would decide to change his representation; perhaps, to one of the major agencies.  Ruth was diagnosed as a manic depressive (bipolar) while I was working with her.  One contributing factor seemed to be her reliance on medications, which had begun in New York when she needed to find a way to work longer hours.

 

In 1980 Mickey had to deal with the difficulties of being confronted with evidence that his attorney had forged contracts to embezzle a $10,000 holding fee.  Ruth had recommended the attorney to him but Mickey knew it was something she couldn't have foreseen.  

 

He thought it was unfair that actors didn't receive residuals for film and TV productions made before 1960 and instigated a legal appeal that brought him the support of more than one hundred of his fellow performers.  The appeal was refused as this agreement had been made by the Screen Actors Guild and could not be reversed.  Mickey took out ads in Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter thanking his fellow actors on April 28, 1983: "Even Though We Lost, Thank You For Your Support."     

While performing in "Sugar Babies," he simultaneously acted in movies, television shows, commercials, and the 1982 NBC TV series "One of the Boys."  When the sitcom had mediocre ratings, he was incensed by the lack of network promotion of the show.  In 1983 he accepted a cameo role in the "Celebrity" miniseries before realizing that it was an NBC production and he ended up walking off the set.  There was litigation over the incident yet Mickey explained his reasons for what happened and avoided financial penalty. 

 

When he was in Southern California, he resided with his considerate wife Jan and her sons from a previous marriage.  His son Tim was actively involved in Mickey's life at this time and they had purchased a ranch together.

 

Over the years since the '80s, I've occasionally read news articles about Mickey and his life.  Some interviews I saw suggested that he had become more introspective and presumably he had found more time for introspection.  Several years ago he received media attention when he spoke to the Senate Special Commission on Aging.  It was sad that he considered himself as having lost control of his life to become a victim of elder abuse and financial abuse.

 

Keeping in mind my recent articles about Edgar Cayce and talking poltergeist cases that provide insights about the meaning of such expressions as 'Oneness' and 'The Holy Ghost,' it is ironic to note that Mickey is one of innumerable actors who have performed vocally to play animals in animated films (his credits include the Disney movie "The Fox and the Hound") while Edgar's son Hugh Lynn Cayce reminisced about interacting with Mickey in France 1944 during World War II in the biography Hugh Lynn Cayce: About My Father's Business (1988) by A. Robert Smith.

 

During the seven years that I worked at the talent agency, there were times when it became clear to me that Mickey was trying to become a better person.  When I discovered that he was a steady and dedicated viewer of 'televangelist' shows, I was surprised.  He would occasionally write letters to the preachers appearing on these TV shows.

 

His wife Jan was accustomed to his temperament and she didn't give up helping Mickey to become a better person.  When Mickey and Jan both had roles on the 1982 Christmas episode of "The Love Boat," his character had a very unusual name: 'Angelarum Dominicus.'

 

He had been offered the role of Archie Bunker in "All In The Family" but that was a role that he was not willing to play.

 

I have been surprised when Mickey has expressed a homophobic perspective in media interviews and think this was due to the interpretations of Christian dogma familiar to him.  "Sugar Babies" producer Harry Rigby was in a same sex relationship and Mickey was on good terms with him.

In January 1984 Mickey celebrated his 60th anniversary in show business with Daily Variety publishing a special issue on January 27 and the mayor proclaiming the day "Mickey Rooney Day in Los Angeles."  The musical "Sugar Babies" had reopened in Hollywood the previous day.  Will Tusher quoted him:

"Mine," he says with visible satisfaction, "is a creative situation.  I've never been happier in my life.  I'm only concerned for the people who have not had the good fortune I've had."

 

Mickey had acknowledged Ruth the previous April upon receiving an honorary Academy Award in recognition of his 60 years of versatility in a variety of memorable performances.  Mickey had said: "The woman who put it all together was Ruth Webb, my agent, who picked up the pieces, picked up the pieces and put 'em back together."  Tusher reported the events leading to Ruth's role in Mickey's comeback.

When, as a result of a casting call that proved a false alarm in 1971, she ferreted out a forgotten and inactive Mickey Rooney in Florida and assumed his representation, it was indeed the day he was born again as an entertainer, and put back on the road to superstardom — and a depth of respect and recognition that even exceeds his juvenile halcyon days as Andy Hardy.

Webb overcame a residual of misinformed resistance to book Rooney on the dinner circuit, sat with him for 10 days to nurse him through a nervous breakdown in the aftermath of his seventh marriage, took him into her Hollywood Hills home to help him recuperate afterward, was overwhelmed by her personal witness to his awesome talents, learned his moods, refused to be driven off by his tantrums, has remained at his beck and call around the clock, helped restore his self belief and his belief in his fellow man, negotiated his renaissance in the hit show, "Sugar Babies" . . .

 

There were two times when I almost became a professional screenwriter because of opportunities made possible by Mickey.  I adapted the novel Bob: Son of Battle when a producer was interested in the project although the funding source was eventually lost.  There was also an occasion when Roger Corman had financing for a low-budget movie if a script could be found.  Mickey had provided a screenplay—one of the many zany travesties he had written—called "The Search for Sonny Skies" aka "The Famous."  Everyone thought the script was terrible so I almost completely rewrote it to be a black comedy/thriller "Whatever Became of Sonny Skies?" designed as a vehicle for Mickey based on the premise of the actor who played Sonny Skies (a variation of the "Mickey McGuire" two-reelers of the 1920s/30s) attempting to make a bizarre comeback.  Ultimately, Mickey was only willing to star in one of his own scripts.  I was destined to become a metaphysical author. 

 

Most of the time, I found Mickey to be a good-hearted delightful person who was considerate with people as he had known hard times of his own.  He was generous with his friends and family and considered it important that all of his fan mail be answered, employing a publicist's wife to do this. 

  

Mickey was still represented by Ruth when I gave two weeks notice before leaving the agency in 1987.  After Mickey eventually ended his professional relationship with her, Ruth gained media attention with her partner agent Sherri Spillane by representing people whose names became known to the public after being involved in scandals, including Tonya Harding, John Wayne Bobbitt, Joey Buttafuoco, Divine Brown, and a variety of individuals promoting some form of connection to the O.J. Simpson trial.

 

How it all happened was explained in the cover story of the January 12, 1996 Los Angeles Reader, "Scandal Queens" by Samantha Dunn.  After signing Harding and Bobbitt, Sherri recalled that somebody kiddingly said to her, "What are you going to do next, get Joey Buttafuoco?"  She decided that wasn't a bad idea. 

 

A word of advice for young people — be very careful about what job you accept as you may be there longer than you think and, most importantly, be certain that any job you do is in harmony with your spiritual beliefs.  And for all those rich and successful performers who have not been loyal to the agents, managers or publicists responsible for helping them to get where they are, this may be a sign of a genuine lack of altruism.

 

Mickey’s best-known films include "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," the "Andy Hardy" series, "Boys Town," "Babes In Arms," "National Velvet," and "It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" co-starring Rooney as Ding ‘Dingy’ Bell.

Mickey was a child star in "Mickey McGuire" two-reelers before garnering acclaim for Andy Hardy and other roles.

Although Mickey was offered solo star billing above the title for "Sugar Babies," he insisted Ann Miller receive equal billing.

Ruth and Sherri dressed tongue-in-cheek for their Los Angeles Reader interview.

This was the photo of Mickey used at the agency while I worked at Ruth Webb Enterprises, Inc.

Queen Fastrada Jewelry + Raffle

This spring I had the honor of designing some jewelry for Fine Linen Drama's performances of Pippin (an absolutely brilliant show as they performed it!). These pieces were made for Queen Fastrada, a rather magnificent, fabulous, and twisted queen.

The set is available through Fine Linen Drama's raffle-- chances are just $1 and there are many other beautiful costume pieces made by hand by other local artisans.

The three pictures below are courtesy of Alyssa Jean Studios, and the "in-action" pictures are from Fine Linen Drama's website and facebook page, which you should check out if you would like to see the other costumes!

Queen Fastrada's Circlet by Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe, photographed by Alyssa Jean Studios

 The circlet is crafted out of non-tarnish sterling silver plated wire, glass beads, and crystals. It was a challenging piece-- I have some in-progress pictures near the end of this post that prove that I had no idea what I was doing when I was crafting this! Interestingly, the circlet also looks really cool (and eccentric) if worn upside down.

Queen Fastrada's Necklace and Earrings by Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe, photographed by Alyssa Jean Studios

The necklace-- oh the necklace! This piece was so fun. I was sitting at the table in my dorm with a cup of tea, a show on Netflix, a bunch of silver wire and blue beads, and time to bend and hammer and design. I really do love wireworking!

I could honestly spend an entire post raving
 about the play and all of the actors, but
since I'm writing about Queen Fastrada,
I'm only sharing pictures of Lesley in
costume! Check out finelinendrama.com
for others. :)

Seeing some of my jewelry on stage was a huge honor. :)

I snapped some pictures of my own before the pieces found their way to the theater:

Here's the promised work-in-progress shots:

Tonight I went to see Pippin for the second time and got a picture with Queen Fastrada!

(If you are interested in pieces like these, check out Fine Linen's raffle, or contact me so I can make and customize one for you!)

'Gef': A Modern Sphinx as an Esoteric Lesson about Oneness

Doarlish Cashen with Mr. Irving and daughter Voirrey outside their front door.  The house was located on an isolated farmstead on the Isle of Man.

This sketch shows the Bell House during the 'Bell Witch' case of the 19th Century.  The location was a farm at the Red River in Tennessee.

In the 1936 book The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap: A Modern Miracle Investigated, Harry Price and R. S. Lambert presented a compendium of anecdotes and commentary about a case that they equated with "what is alleged to be a supernatural visitation."  The events took place in the vicinity of a small farmstead on the Isle of Man where lived James T. Irving, his wife and their daughter Voirrey in a remote house.

They reported experiencing a bizarre series of events where an unseen communicator had been heard that often claimed to be a mongoose.  The family described seeing an animal like a mongoose on different occasions and had been able to take photographs of it.

In their chronicle about Gef the Talking Mongoose, Price and Lambert noticed some parallels to poltergeist cases.  They wrote:

Many of the events related by Irving can be classified by those experienced in psychical research as belonging to the class of ‘poltergeist’ phenomena. Amongst these are Gef’s habit of throwing sand and small stones, also metal, wooden, and bone objects, at persons in or near Doarlish Cashen; the thumping, scratching, rapping, and banging noises which he makes behind the paneling and in the rafters of the house; and the movement of furniture.

At the time Price first learned about the Gef case, he was already a well-known investigator of ‘psychical phenomena.’  He sent an inquiry to Irving, who responded by sending him a letter providing a short account of what had happened.

After having heard "barking, growling, spitting, and persistent blowing" sounds of an animal nature in his house, Irving gave imitations of animal calls and each time named the animal.  In the following days, "one had only to name the particular animal or bird and instantly, always without error, it gave the correct call."  Then, Voirrey recited nursery rhymes and they were accurately repeated.

Price and Lambert wrote: "We are told that ‘the voice is extremely high pitched, above the human range, with a clear, sweet tone.’"

The authors divulged the early circumstances that established a pathetic context for the relationship of the family with the mysterious encroacher: "The Irvings decided to tolerate the animal, though previously the farmer tried to kill it by means of gun, trap, and poison. It eluded all attempts at capture, dead or alive."

When the family threatened to move, Gef told them, "I am a ghost in the form of a weasel and I will haunt you!"

As the family got to know Gef better, they overcame their fear of him — or should I say ‘of them’?  The book includes an Appendix offering notes about Gef’s activities. In December 1931, a statement is found where Gef is reported to have mentioned the pronoun "us."

The incident reads:

"During the absence of Mrs. Irving from home, Irving goes down to the local school to meet Voirrey, and fetch her home.  Leaving Voirrey outside at play, he enters the schoolhouse and converses with the mistress, Miss Creer, chiefly about Gef. On leaving the school with Voirrey, while proceeding home up the glen after dark, Irving hears Gef’s voice calling out: 'What did you tell Miss Creer about us?'"

The authors mentioned that soon after Gef attached himself to the family, Irving saw a large stray cat striped like a tiger, outside the house.  It was a tailless Manx cat and that evening Gef squeaked out: "It was me you saw, Jim!"

A note for March 21, 1932 reads: "I have recently discovered it to be an Indian mongoose, several of which were turned loose a mile away by a farmer . . . about the year 1911 or 1912."

Price and Lambert reported that the animal had said he was born on June 7th, 1852 (almost eighty years previously) in Delhi, India and had been chased and shot at by natives.  To test him, Irving asked him to speak Hindustani and some of the resulting vocabulary was listed for Price and Lambert.

The authors reported in their book that the Irvings had first called their prodigy ‘Jack.’  But during the summer of 1932 this was gradually softened to ‘Gef,’ and the animal said he liked the name.  Gef told the family about visits to the nearby town of Peel and divulged what people there were doing and saying.

Some of the occurrences in the home involving physical objects impressed Irving as showing enormous strength entirely out of proportion to his size.

Gef revealed to the family that he knew phrases of different languages, including Russian.  Gef was also a singer.  One night: "Gef sang three verses of ‘Ellan Vannin,’ the Manx National Anthem . . . then two verses in Spanish, followed by one verse in Welsh; then a prayer in pure Hebrew . . . finishing up with a long peroration in Flemish."

Irving argued with Gef that he must be a spirit, or he could not have the knowledge which he possesses.  Gef once advised Irving: "I’m not a spirit. I am a little extra, extra clever mongoose."

Gef was reported to have killed rabbits for the family.  "Having killed a rabbit, he would tell Irving where he had placed it — generally in a convenient position near the house."

Once when it was suggested to Gef that he was a spirit, he explained, "If I were a spirit, I could not kill rabbits."

According to the book, at various times Gef called himself a "tree mongoose," a "marsh mongoose," and an "earthbound spirit."

Harry Price learned that somehow Gef knew him to be "the man who puts the kybosh on the spirits."

On the same night of October 25th, 1934 in the course of conversation, Gef referred to the Gresford Colliery Disaster, Einstein, and Sir Isaac Newton, and said "I’ll split the atom."

Gef was quoted as saying on November 2nd: "I am a freak. I have hands and I have feet, and if you saw me you’d faint, you’d be petrified, mummified, turned into stone, or a pillar of salt."

When the question was first raised about Price coming to the house, Gef was quoted as saying: "Ask Harry Price whose was the invisible hand that scattered the violets about the room at night.  You know, Olga and Rudi Schneider."

The note for January 19, 1935 reads:

Gef in high spirits and sings hymn, "Jesus, my Savior, on Calvary’s Tree."  Asks Irving who God is, and on his replying: "I do not know," replies: "Jim the infidel." Afterwards Gef sings six verses of "The King of Love my Shepherd is."

Irving also reported that Gef’s laughter ranged from what sounded like a precocious child to the chuckling laugh of an aged person to a distinct type of maniacal laughter that the family felt themselves fortunate to not hear very often.

During a demonstration of his arithmetician abilities, when Irving remarked that Gef took a long time calculating on one occasion Gef replied, "My rectophone wasn’t working."

Once when Mrs. Irving commented, "You know, Gef, you are no animal!," Gef replied: "Of course I am not!  I am the Holy Ghost!"

When Price and Lambert visited the house, Gef was unheard and unseen. Something Irving told them was: "The fact that Gef can enter and leave my house, as he has done hundreds of times, without being seen by us, look as often as we like, compels us to think that invisibility is a possibility."

Price and Lambert also quoted Irving as telling them: "Out of doors, when walking side by side by Voirrey, Gef’s voice appears to be in the air, and not a foot away from the back of my head . . . Indoors, the voice moves about as quick as wireless, so rapidly in fact that obstructions to his bodily movements do not seem to exist."

Gef also became a subject of investigation by Dr. Nandor Fodor, a psychoanalyst and paranormal researcher who wrote about the Isle of Man case in 1937.  This information is included in his 1951 book Haunted People.

When Fodor visited the Irvings, Gef was elusive yet details learned by Fodor provide further information about the case.  Gef’s declaration of being a ghost in the form of a weasel and I shall haunt you was supplemented with some further words: "with weird noises and clanking chains."  Gef was also quoted as saying "I am the fifth dimension" and "I am the eighth wonder of the world."

A rumor had spread that the talking mongoose was taking bus rides. One witness interviewed by Fodor was John Cowley, described as "a motor mechanic at Peel, the very man who fixed up the electric trap under Bus 81, to kill Gef when he next stole a free ride."  Cowley was quoted as saying:

"It did not work. Nor the wire cage which I placed baited under the waiting room to stop the stealing of sandwiches. Mr. Irving told me where the electric trap was fixed. He said that Gef knew all about it. This animal, or whatever it is, knows a darn sight too much. He seems to hear what we talk in the bus-shed, behind closed doors, in the early morning hours, when no one is about."

Cowley added that Mr. Irving made him and the other men feel uncomfortable by telling them every ridiculous thing they’d been doing.

Concerning the sad trouble over the fur sample that had been sent to Harry Price, Fodor related that Irving had told Gef about it.  "The expert thought it was that of the dog," Irving informed Gef, who answered: "He should not think, he should know. He damn well does not know what I am."

Fodor reported about the rabbits killed by Gef: "One eye of the rabbit is always poked out and there is a clot of blood on its nose, sometimes behind the ears."

At the time of Fodor’s visit, Gef was reported to have caught 244 rabbits.

Fodor explained further about the family: "The only meat they knew was rabbit, when Gef provided them, or when they caught them with snares . . . Most of the rabbits had to be sold because they fetched seven-pence apiece . . ."

A 1970 article about ‘the talking mongoose’ appeared in Fate magazine.  The writer, Walter McGraw, stated that he was an acquaintance of Nandor Fodor and had interviewed Voirrey Irving. The question McGraw most wanted answered was what happened to Gef?

Voirrey says she does not know.   The last she remembers his being around the farm was in 1938 or 1939.  He seemed to go away for longer and longer periods of time, and then he just never showed up again.  He had made no statements about leaving; there had been no good-byes; he simply was gone.

Price and Lambert wrote in The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap that "in the whole history of such phenomena there is no known case of a poltergeist assuming the form of a talking animal, and conversing with human beings intelligently and at length"; however, they ignored incidents documented in what is known as ‘The Bell Witch’ talking poltergeist case.

The first book about this case was published in 1894 and is entitled An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch and Other Stories of the World’s Greatest Unexplained Phenomenon by M. V. Ingram.  The book includes many eyewitness testimonials.

A profusion of supernatural phenomena was experienced by the Bells, whose double log house, weather-boarded on the outside, was located on the south bank of the Red River in Robertson County, Tennessee, an area north of Nashville.  Richard Williams Bell called his memoirs Our Family Trouble and described a variety of strange phenomena witnessed by the family.

The unexplained events began in 1817, including a strange knocking at the door and on the walls of the house.  An account of the initial vocal manifestations was provided by Richard Williams Bell.  At first there was a whistling sound, followed by whispering.

"The witch continued to develop the power of articulation, talking freely, and those who engaged in conversation with the invisible persevered in plying questions to draw out an explanation of the mystery, and again the question was pressed, inquiring, ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ and the witch replied, stating the second time, ‘I am a spirit who was once very happy, but have been disturbed and made unhappy.’  Then followed the question, ‘How were you disturbed, and what makes you unhappy?’  The reply to this question was, ‘I am the spirit of a person who was buried in the woods nearby, and the grave has been disturbed, my bones disinterred and scattered, and one of my teeth was lost under this house, and I am here looking for that tooth.’"

After Mr. Bell took up a portion of the floor to look unsuccessfully for the tooth, the witch was said to have laughed and declared that "It was all a joke to fool ‘Old Jack.’"

The next information presented as having been offered by the disembodied voice was:

"I am the spirit of an early emigrant, who brought a large sum of money and buried my treasure for safe keeping until needed.  In the meantime I died without divulging the secret, and I have returned in the spirit for the purpose of making known the hiding place, and I want Betsy Bell to have the money."

The spirit told them where the treasure was to be found; however, after a hard day’s labor the spirit was said to have laughed and ridiculed them for being so easily duped.

Among the people interviewed by Ingram was Mrs. Nancy Ayers, whose father and grandfather were friends of the Bell family.  Ayers was quoted:

"The witch talked almost incessantly, gabbing and spouting about everything that was going on in the country, seemed familiar with everybody’s business, telling things that no one present knew anything about, called strangers by name and telling where they were from before they could introduce themselves.   It would also quote scripture, discuss doctrinal questions, sing songs, and pray eloquent prayers . . ."

Richard Williams Bell reported that the "first exhibition of a religious nature" was an exact mimicking of James Johnson’s prayer and commentary made by the old gentleman on the first night he and his wife visited for the purpose of investigation ". . . so perfect that it appeared like himself present."

Repeatedly, the haunting presence seemed to have intimate knowledge about everyone who visited the Bells.  The family eventually used the nickname Kate for the mysterious spirit.  The use of the word ‘witch’ is a reflection of how witnesses to the events perceived the spirit based upon cultural traditions.

Ingram—in explaining public perception among witnesses of the case—used the word superstitious, a word that greatly implies irrationality in our time yet his purpose is obviously meant to convey belief.  He wrote:

There were many superstitious people in the country who believed the witch was a reality, something supernatural, beyond human power or comprehension, which had been clearly demonstrated.  This is the way many reasoned about the mystery.  Kate arrogantly claimed to be all things, protesting the power to assume any shape, form or character, that of human, beast, varment, fowl or fish, and circumstances went to confirm the assertion.

Ingram observed further —

Kate the witch never slept, was never idle or confined to any place, but was here and there and everywhere, like the mist of night or the morning sunbeams, was everything and nothing, invisible yet present, spreading all over the neighborhood, prying into everybody’s business and domestic affairs; caught on to every ludicrous thing that happened, and all of the sordid, avaricious meanness that transpired; divining the inmost secrets of the human heart, and withal, was a great blabbermouth; getting neighbors by the ears, taunting people with their sins and shortcomings, and laughing at their folly in trying to discover the identity of the mystery.

. . . People now concluded that a good spirit had been sent to the community to work wonders and prepare the good at heart for the second advent.

In Our Family Trouble, Richard Williams Bell wrote about two reverends who preached at the same hour on Sunday mornings with their churches located thirteen miles apart:

"The company was treated one night to a repetition of one of Rev. James Gunn’s best sermons, preached in the vicinity, the witch personating Mr. Gunn, lining the hymn, quoting his text and prayer, and preaching so much like Mr. Gunn, that it appeared the minister himself was present.

"It so happened that both ministers came to visit our family that evening, finding quite a crowd of people gathered in, as was the case every day during the excitement.

"Mr. Gunn asked the witch how it knew what he had preached about? The answer was, ‘I was present and heard you.’

"Someone suggested that Brother Fort had the advantage of the witch this time, that having attended Brother Gunn’s service, it could tell nothing about Brother Fort’s discourse at Drake’s Pond. ‘Yes I can,’ was the prompt reply. How do you know? was the inquiry. ‘I was there and heard him.’ Then assimilating Rev. Fort’s style, it proceeded to quote his text and repeated his sermon, greatly delighting the company.

"Then it told Calvin Johnson that it was the spirit of a child buried in North Carolina, and told John Johnson that it was his stepmother’s witch."

What this meant was explained by Nancy Ayers.  She said that on one occasion her father asked Kate to tell him something about itself.  The witch or spirit’s nickname for Nancy’s Grandfather was "Sugar Mouth."  Kate was recalled to have replied:

"‘Well Jack, if you will agree to keep it a secret, and not tell old "Sugar Mouth" . . . I will tell you.’ Of course Father agreed to that. ‘Now,’ says Kate, ‘I am your stepmother.’ Father replied, ‘Kate, you know you are lying; my stepmother is a good woman, and the best friend I have. She would not do so many mean things as you are guilty of.’ ‘Now,’ replied Kate, ‘I can prove it to you.’ Grandmother Johnson had an unruly servant who would go wrong, irritating her very much, and the old lady was constantly after Rachel, raising a sharp storm about her ears.

"Father said the witch at once assumed the voice and tone of his stepmother, and got after Rachel. ‘Tut, tut, Rachel, what makes you do so,’ imitating grandmother exactly."

In the testimonial written by Richard Williams Bell, numerous examples of voice phenomena were provided in the reports of the communication offered by the unseen Kate.  Once, the voice of a family slave named Harry was heard when two Shakers on horseback were approaching the house.

Recalling the comment in The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap about no known case of a poltergeist assuming the form of a talking animal, it is ironic to mention that one of the bizarre stories told by a Bell family slave named Dean occurred when he was hunting an opossum and a rabbit began conversing with Dean’s intended quarry.  The rabbit was said to have suddenly grown in size to be bigger than a man and then hit Dean over the head with a stick to punish him for the cruel treatment of the opossum.

M. V. Ingram received a written report from Reverend James G. Byrns, whose objective was "to state faithfully some of the facts impressed upon me, as I have so often heard them detailed" by his father and other witnesses to the events.  Here is an excerpt of the report.

"It seemed to prefer talking with John Johnson and Bennett Porter more than any other persons, perhaps because they were more disposed to humor and gas [chat] with it than were others.  Bennett Porter was Mr. Bell’s son-in-law — married to Esther Bell.  The witch promised him one night to go home with him that the family might have some rest.  Then it said, ‘Bennett, you will try to kill me if I visit your house.’  ‘No, I won’t,’ replied Porter.  ‘Oh, but I know you,’ replied the witch, ‘but I have been to your house.  Do you remember that bird you thought sung so sweet the other morning?’  ‘Yes,’ replied Porter.  ‘Well that was me.’  Then continued the witch, ‘Bennett, didn’t you see the biggest and poorest old rabbit that you ever saw in your life as you came on here this evening?’  ‘Yes,’ replied Mr. Porter.  ‘Well that was me,’ said the witch, and then bursted into laughter."

Ingram’s interview with Nancy Ayers, who was born in 1819, demonstrates how importantly the events were regarded by the families of those who witnessed the occurrences.  She related what she had learned about Kate from family members.

Ayers told Ingram that her father, John Johnson, once said to Kate: "Tell me where you live, and who and what you are, anyhow?’

The response reported is "I live in the woods, in the air, in the water, in houses with people; I live in heaven and in hell; I am all things and anything I want to be; now don’t you know what I am?’"

In 1934 Bell descendant Charles Bailey Bell, M.D. brought forth additional recollections that he wrote were handed down by his grandfather, John Bell Jr., a brother of Richard Williams Bell.  The Bell Witch: A Mysterious Spirit included three chapters describing recollected conversations between the spirit and John Bell Jr.  The spirit was said to have spoken all languages fluently.

Charles Bailey Bell wrote in the Preface of his book that his father had said that he thought Richard Williams’ manuscript was true, but he was too young at the time to understand the Spirit.

John Bell Jr.’s recollections of the Spirit included "a last farewell" in 1828 when Frank Miles was also present.  The Spirit was quoted as then saying: (quote) "I will be here again in another seven years, to which one hundred will be added."

Charles Bailey Bell wrote:

The Spirit assured John Bell Jr., that it would make itself known to a Bell descendent of his, as it did to him.

Charles Bailey explained that his book was published in 1934 on account of three reasons: (one) the depression, from which people were suffering; (two) because so many church people were doubting the divinity of Christ; and (three) due to "the fact that the Spirit said it would be back in the year 1935" — "I believe the reader will agree with me that my grandfather and father would both think now would be the proper time to publish these recollections."

The anticipated year of 1935 is the same year that The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap was written. The book was published the following year, 1936.

In Our Family Trouble, Richard Williams Bell shared another detail correlating with the Gef case.  This information concerned the wife of a brother, Jesse, who was living away from the Bell household.

This passage began:

"Kate, as before intimated, visited the family of Brother Jesse Bell quite often, making demonstrations, but never to the extent of the manifestations at home. Jesse’s wife, whom the witch called ‘Pots’ . . ."

The word is ‘P — O — T — S’ as in ‘pots and pans.’

What is significant here about the nickname is that ‘Pots’ is also the nickname selected by Gef for Mr. Irving.

It is reported on Page 29 of The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap: "The mongoose usually called Mr. Irving ‘Jim’ or ‘Pots’ . . . .

*

The preceding article is the paper that I contributed to the April 10, 2014 Symposium on Gef, the Talking Mongoose.  It was read today (in absentia) at the Senate House Library of the University of London.  The Library is the repository of Harry Price's original texts, photographs and materials from the Gef case.

This event was described as "A half-day symposium exploring the history, meaning and legacy of one of psychic investigator Harry Price's most extraordinary cases, that of Gef, a very talkative but elusive mongoose claimed to have lived with a family on the Isle of Man in the 1930s."  The Symposium was followed by a showing of the film "Vanished!," based on the case, and introduced by its makers, Professor Brian Catling and Tony Grisoni. 

The other lectures were entitled:

"On the trail of the Dalby Spook: an archival and anecdotal quest"

Christopher Josiffe

"Crossed Lines of the Dream Operators: a conversation concerning Gef, The Radiant Cat, and WS Burroughs' Third Mind"

Robin Klarzynski

"Animal Apparitions and sexual symbolism in poltergeist cases: the example of Gef the talking mongoose"

Alan Murdie

"Reading the Mongoose, the mongoose reading"

Richard Espley

"Gef on television?  Nigel Kneale's "Beasts" and the Desacralization of Modernity"

Craig Wallace

Concerning the mythical ancient Sphinx whose riddle seems to be an esoteric metaphorical exercise, the answer attributed to Oedipus seems superficial.

Sphinx: "What animal is it that in the morning goes on four feet, at noon on two, and in the evening upon three?"

Oedipus: "Man, who in childhood creeps on hands and knees, in manhood walks erect, and in old age goes with the aid of a staff."

The Sphinx was said to have thereupon perished after casting herself from her rock. 

Perhaps, such a collapse was not because her riddle had been solved but because of the hopelessness brought by the realization that the mind of man was then only capable of thinking of himself.

It seems to me that an alternative answer for the riddle of the Sphinx is "One."  Considering the riddle from a perspective keeping in mind what has been learned from transcendental communicators, one notices that the numbers four and two and three together equal the number nine and it has been explained by those speaking to us from beyond our physical Earth plane how the number nine can be representative of One and Oneness: ". . . nine principles of the Universe that in collectivity are one," as the Council of Nine were quoted in a previous article.

As chronicled in the case study of my unexpected spiritual awakening presented through verbatim transcripts of interviews and journals, Testament (1997), the year was 1995 when I went to Oklahoma to investigate "America's Talking Poltergeist".  The magazine article had left unmentioned one important fact about the case.  The family had Bell ancestry as the mother of the family had married Carlton Bell before her current relationship.  Although the family had reported that many different voices had been heard with their names often given, the central being manifesting in the case was known as 'Michael.'

One memorable incident from my interviews in Centrahoma was when the mother of the family, Maxine Mc Wethy, told me about one of the many strange an unexpected things said to her by ‘Michael.'  Maxine said:

"Once I had a little black and white dog that Brenda gave me — an Australian Shepherd. That was the best little old dog . . . Well, one time it got so full of ticks and everything you find around here that the poor thing couldn't even walk on its hind legs.  Twyla and I were out there and she was picking ticks off of him and Michael hollered, ‘HELP ME, MAXINE’ — just like he was concerned about it."

 

I took these photos of the front and back of the Centrahoma house during my visit in August 1995.

 

 

5/1/14 Update: An article about the symposium was published yesterday in The Wall Street Journal:

"In England, Researchers Investigate Case of the Talking Mongoose"