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Word Gems exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
George Sherwood Eddy
The following excerpt, which describes independent writing, is from Mr. Eddy’s book.
OWING TO THE GRADUAL APPROACH TO PSYCHIC EVIDENCE
for survival which I have felt compelled to make because of the
prejudice of so many readers, I have reserved some of the strongest
evidence until the simpler phenomena had been presented.
The sensitive or psychic whose work we shall now examine is not a
professional medium and has not had to support himself by the
exercise of his gifts, but has always been financially independent
and engaged in business. He is E. A. Macbeth, of Rhinebeck-on-Hudson.
It was fortunate for me that my Quaker friend introduced
me first of all to this remarkably gifted man. His gifts
include the direct voice, where his control and our departed friends
speak with their own voices and not through the lips of any
medium; independent writing, where no human hand touches
the pencil or paper; healing of unusual cases by direct psychic
means without the use of medicine; the gift of psychometry,
and finally of various forms of physical mediumship which, as
the most difficult, I shall refer to last of all.
Dr. Macbeth is wholly unlike his control: Father Tobe, who is
by far the most remarkable I have ever known or heard of in the
psychic field. He was a doctor of philosophy in Ireland a cen-
tury ago, and finally came to America. The day of his “death’ —
which he calls his birthday in the other world—was April 2,
1852, almost a century ago, at Elizabethtown, Kentucky.
I myself have no psychic gifts whatever nor any desire to have them,
but I have talked with this great personality literally by the hour
with his rich deep voice, like a Russian bass, not only heard by a
score of persons who were often present but in a voice that often
could have been heard by an audience of a thousand people. We
freely asked scores of questions in the course of these three-hour
sittings. I have exchanged jokes with him when everyone present
was in peals of laughter at his keen Irish wit. There was never
anything morbid or unnatural in these sittings. They were, how-
ever, deeply spiritual and we always began with the Lord’s Prayer
and certain Christian hymns.
Dr. E. A. Macbeth was at one time a practicing physician
and has been for many years fully engaged in various forms of
business. I have had sittings with Dr. Macbeth more than a score
of times, with from one to twenty persons present. We always met
informally as a group of friends, and no question of finances was
ever raised nor was any sitting or service of healing by Macbeth
ever paid for to my knowledge during the entire decade. I think
he could have been deeply offended by any offer of payment. I
have known Dr. Macbeth intimately as a personal friend in many
relationships and I have never had any occasion to question his
natural integrity. In every sitting where mental mediumship, or
psychometry, or independent writing is used, there is always
full light; but where physical mediumship is involved, where the
direct voice is used, or healing is sought, the sitting often takes
place in the dark.
This darkness makes possible a necessary technique that is
perplexing to the beginner. I may be pardoned for reminding
such a beginner that not only are photographic plates developed
in the absence of light, but the conception of all life takes place
in the dark. Seeds sprout in the dark but grow into the light. The
womb is in a dark ruby light which does not affect the fetus and
it is in such darkness that a photographic plate could be devel-
oped. The power of physical mediumship and the production of
the direct voice is multiplied in the dark. Of course, this gives
room for fraud if one is dealing with chicanery, but fraud seldom
gets very far except with the credulous, and cannot validate
itself under the scientific controls demanded by the critical mind.
I will begin by giving my records of a few typical sittings
with Dr. Macbeth. On June 14, 1938, a group of friends gathered
at Dr. Macbeth's apartment in the Hotel Ansonia at Broadway
and Seventy-third Street, New York. There were present Dr.
Henry Hardwicke, then secretary of the New York Society for
Psychical Research, my secretary, Miss Barbara Parker, my wife
and myself. There was also present a young lady, Miss R. D., who
was an instructor in a leading university. She had become alarmed
at her recent discovery of her own psychic gifts and afraid that
her academic career and means of support might be jeopardized
if it were discovered that she had such gifts.
At this sitting on June 14, 1938, the young lady, Miss R. D.,
was first tested for her psychic gifts and was asked to give a reading
for Mrs. Macbeth, which she did by looking at the palm of
her hand, stating correctly many facts about her life. She then
described the aura of every member of the group. Mine was
exactly the same as stated independently by two great psychics in
different states, and by others who confirmed it later. Dr. Mac-
beth said that the young lady had very remarkable gifts of clair-
voyance, clairaudience, and clairsentience, but that she was at the
parting of the ways and would have to utilize and acknowledge
these gifts or suppress them. He believed it would be dangerous
to suppress them. Although her exercise of these gifts might cause
persecution and a certain loss of prestige, he maintained that the
alternative might be even more disastrous, and he strongly advised
her to take her gifts as a God-given responsibility and acknowl-
edge them.
Dr. Macbeth then gave us an example of psychometry. It
was the first I had seen. Dr. Hardwicke, secretary of the New
York Society for Psychical Research, gave him his watch. Mac-
beth then told the history of the watch and just who had given it
to Dr. Hardwicke. He described every member of his family, call-
ing them by their names and some of them by their nicknames.
Dr. Hardwicke s daughter had been killled and badly smashed up
and disfigured in an automobile accident a few weeks before.
Macbeth said that every member of Dr. Hardwicke s family was
psychic and that his daughter before her death knew she was go-
ing to be taken and had said good-bye to her friends, saying that
she would not see them again. At a session for materialization a
few days before, Dr. Hardwicke told us that his daughter had
materialized, crossed the room, called her father out under the
light, had thrown back her head and said, “Look at me.” The doc-
tor saw her face, beautiful and whole, with no sign of the scars
that he had seen on her face just before she died, after the auto-
mobile accident. Dr. Macbeth went on and told some twenty-
five points that were correct with regard to Dr. Hardwicke, his
family, and the history of his watch. Dr. Hardwicke said it was a
perfect reading, wrong in no single detail. Dr. Macbeth then took
an object given by each of the other members of the group, and
told the story of the trinket or watch or object and the persons
connected with it, without as complete accuracy, however, as in
the case of Dr. Hardwicke.
I will now mention one or two instances of Macbeth's
independent writing taken from my records. On November 29,
1937, I went with my wife to the apartment of Dr. and Mrs.
Macbeth in the Hotel Ansonia. Dr. Macbeth is one of three or
four people known to several of us in this country who has the
fully developed gift of independent writing. In automatic writing,
a person holds a pencil or pen and writes, supposed to be guided
by an unseen control in the spiritual world. The obvious limita-
tion is that one can never be sure whether any or all of the ma-
terial is furnished or “colored" by the conscious or unconscious self
of the person doing the automatic writing. In independent writing,
no human hand touches the pencil or paper. I have witnessed
this a number of times.
On the first occasion, we carried into the room a heavy, flat,
hardwood table about four by three feet. Everything was done in
full light. Macbeth placed a new ten-cent Woolworth pad of
paper on the table and we all placed our hands upon it lightly for
a few minutes. We then opened every leaf and made sure that
it was a fresh pad with nothing written on any page. Macbeth
then placed the pad of paper, with a small pencil beside it, in the
center of the table, covered it with a dark cloth which four of
us (he and his wife, my wife and I) held lightly with our fingers
a foot above the table, thus leaving a dark cabinet over the
tabletop about a foot high, but with everyone’s hands always in
sight, in full light.
Presently there were three distinct taps on the pad to indicate
that "Father Tobe,” the control, was beginning to write. We
could feel the cloth vibrate under our hands, and could hear a
slight sound upon the pad of paper. For about ten or twelve min-
utes the writing continued. There were then three gentle taps on
the pad, quite clear and distinct, to indicate that Tobe had fin-
ished.
Together we lifted the cloth and there lay the Woolworth
pad with four clearly written pages in fine writing in pencil.
We tore these off one by one, from the glued pad, and the four
pages were handed to me and I read them aloud. I have in my
hand these four pages, signed by Father Tobe. They are written
without punctuation points, but clearly and grammatically. Tobe
referred to our son and daughter, who he says were with him,
and expressed the hope that they would be able to communicate
directly with us in the future. Here is the independent writing:
My dear Friend: I have tried very hard indeed to [Signed] Tobe
Several years later, Dr. Macbeth was giving a public demonstration of independent writing before several hundred persons and got a signed message from Dr. Floyd Tomkins for a member of his family who was present. It was so evidential and convincing that when she met Dr. My loved ones I must come and bless this reunion All love to you. [Signed] Floyd W. Tomkins
I have before me the photostatic copy of this writing and of
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