Where Two Worlds Meet

Where Two Worlds Meet
Arthur Findlay

DEDICATED toJOHN CAMPBELL SLOAN
who, for fifty years, has given to mankind, without thought of reward or of his own convenience, the use of his body to supply the substance necessary to enable those who have died to vibrate our atmosphere with their voices and so speak to us.

FOREWORD

DURING the Second World War, Mr. John Campbell Sloan kindly gave his services from time to time, without charge, at the houses of different people, so that they and their friends might obtain the phenomenon known as the Direct Voice. Miss Jean Logan Dearie, who lives at 16 Atholl Gardens, Glasgow, W2, attended some of these meetings and took verbatim shorthand records of all that took place.
She accumulated twenty-four records of that number of séances, and in December 1950 she wrote to me to ask if I thought anything could be done to make the contents of these documents known to the public. I asked her to send them on to me, and,
after reading them through, I realised that they formed a valuable addition to the records of the séances I had already published in my book On the Edge of the Etheric. When everything was satisfactorily arranged between us, I set about putting them into shape for publication as a book.
Miss Dearie is an expert stenographer, and is employed as private secretary to one of the principals of one of the leading business concerns in Scotland. Her ability and integrity are undoubted, and I am satisfied, after careful enquiry, that the records given in this book are accurate. Fortunately, this can be checked, because she had sent, at her own expense,
and after the lapse of only a few days, a carbon copy of her record of what took place at each séance to each person who was present. I therefore wrote to seven of the regular sitters to ask them if I could
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announce in this book that they were satisfied that everything she recorded was accurate, and that nothing had been omitted or added which did not happen.
To this request I received not only the testimonials I wished, but, besides these, each one expressed his or her appreciation of Miss Dearie in warm and affectionate terms, her kindness, her unselfishness and her willingness to help on all occasions being stressed. Moreover, they asked me to record that each and all were completely satisfied that they had spoken to
those who claimed to be the persons they had known on earth by the names they gave. Nothing will ever change this opinion, and I have their authority for making it public in this book.
As to the correctness of Miss Dearie's verbatim shorthand reports, this is what they wrote to me:
MR. G. H. MORITZ, LATE HEAD OFFICE MANAGER,
UNION BANK OF SCOTLAND, GLASGOW.
"Miss Dearie's records are accurate in every way, as I read them over after each sitting."
MRS. MORITZ.
"I consider that Miss Dearie's records are word perfect'."
MR. ALEX. HART, M.A. GLASGOW UNIVERSITY,
FORMERLY SCHOOLMASTER AT PORT GLASGOW AND DEPUTY HEADMASTER AT GREENOCK, NOW RETIRED.
"Miss Dearie's excellency made me give uptaking notes."
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MISS MCROBBIE, SCHOOLTEACHER, PERCY STREET
SPECIAL SCHOOL, MARYHILL, GLASGOW.
"Miss Dearie's notes were well arranged and singularly clear. She never omitted anything. My own notes which I took were almost identical with those she sent me. She is a woman of great integrity."
MISS COLQUHOUN, 265 KENMURE STREET,
POLLOKSHIELDS, GLASGOW, S.I.
"I sat at most séances when Miss Dearie was present taking notes. She sent me all the records, which I read over, and I found her to be so accurate as to be word perfect."
MRS. BOWES, 107 ST. ANDREW'S DRIVE, MAXWELL
PARK, GLASGOW, S.I.
"It gives me much pleasure to add my testimony as to the excellence of Miss Dearie's recordings of the sittings with Mr. Sloan."
MISS ELIZABETH DUFF, RETIRED HOSPITAL NURSE,
I2 CLEVELAND GARDENS, GLASGOW, W.2.
"I wish to state that Miss Dearie's records of Mr. Sloan's séances are accurate in every detail, and were taken down by Miss Dearie exactly as they came through from the other side."
I much regret not being able to give Mrs. Lang's testimony, but she has passed on. She and her husband were regular attendees at Sloan's circles when, between 1918 and 1924, I was also a regular sitter. For them both I had a high regard and they were held in much esteem by everyone. She joined her husband and son in 1948.
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it is very gratifying that these tributes have been paid to Miss Dearie, as she did a remarkable piece of work, the importance of which she did not realise at the time. She made twenty-four complete records of the Direct Voice covering the years 1942 to 1945, and I doubt if this wonderful phenomenon has ever before been so carefully and accurately recorded over such a long period. Other stenographers have made records in the dark of what the voices said, as in the case of Miss Millar, who acted as my note-taker when I was investigating the phenomena produced in Mr. Sloan's presence, but I know of no other whose notes run into nearly 150,000 words as do these twenty-four records made by Miss Dearie.
How she did it is best explained by herself :
"I started off with a new notebook for each séance, which I held on my knee, and put my thumb (left hand) at the beginning of the top line before the light was turned out. When I reached the end of a line, I moved my thumb down a space, and continued doing this until I felt I was at the foot of the page, when I turned over and just guessed where a line started on the next page. I was not always on the line, but my notes were fairly straight and regular, and the writing always legible. I never looked down at
my notebook while I was writing, but looked about me just like the other sitters, and so was able to see all the spirit lights and phenomena that occurred. I never felt it tiresome taking the notes, and have no doubt I received help from the other side with that work."
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In the evenings, after each séance, she transcribed her notes on her typewriter, but they were on thin wartime paper, single spaced, and not easily grasped. No differentiation in type or colour was made between those who spoke on earth and those who spoke from the other side. Every page, therefore, had to be gone through carefully, paragraphed and re-typed to make
this quite clear, so that the printer could put what each side said in different type. This exacting work took me and my secretary over three months to complete, and only then was it possible to realise the value of these documents.
These recorded conversations could now be so easily read and understood that they were suitable for printing in book form. Then I had to get confirmation from the sitters that everything said to them was correct and understood. This was gladly given and in every case their replies confirmed that what was said was correct. After that, numerous notes and explanations had to be added to the text to explain what took place. Only when all this was done was I able to set about writing the Introduction, making my comments at the end of each chapter, and writing the summary which comprises the last chapter.
Miss Dearie, as I have said, made a verbatim record of every sitting she had with Sloan, twenty-four in all, but here I give only nineteen, because it would have made the book both long and expensive to have included them all. Those omitted were just
as evidential and interesting as the ones here published, but I had to draw the line somewhere and these nineteen chosen are representative of them all. Another point I wish to emphasise is that all the
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thirty-four different people who attended the Meetings at various times were really present, as is shown at the beginning of each chapter, and their home addresses are known. Consequently the names given are those of real live people, and I am grateful to
them for allowing their names to be published and their private family matters to be made public. Finally, this book gives an exact copy of what Miss Dearie transcribed. The text of what was said, both on this side and from the other, has been scrupulously adhered to, and only on a few occasions have I had to leave out something said from the other side. This has been done by request, because the remarks made were of such a personal and private nature, but, on every occasion, I have made a note to say that an omission has been made by request. Otherwise, I repeat that what was said on both sides is exactly as it is set down in Miss Dearie's original records.
I wish to express my thanks to all who have helped me in the preparation of this book and answered my many questions, but especially to Miss Dearie, Mr. Hart, Mr. Moritz, my brother, Mr. John Findlay, and my wife for reading over the printer's proofs. Mrs. Calvert, my Secretary, has been so accurate and expeditious in typing out Miss Dearie's records, that
to her also a special word of thanks is due.
May I conclude this Foreword with a personal remark? It was in 1931 that I published On the Edge of the Etheric, and during these past twenty years I have written over two million words on Spiritualism, its evidence, its philosophy, its history and its teaching. This number of words would have filled thirty average sized books, and I have expended the necessary
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time and energy only to spread the truth and increase knowledge. I have made no money from this work, as my books have never been sold above the cost of printing, binding, selling and advertising them.
I have made arrangements for them always to be kept in print.
ARTHUR FINDLAY
Stansted Hall,Essex
July 1951

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

MR. JOHN SLOAN is a unique man, an individual which nature seldom produces, and all his life supernormal occurrences have taken place in his presence. When he is present in a dark room with other people, voices speak which claim to be those of individuals who have once lived on earth and who were known by the names they give. When Sloan is not present these voices are not heard. He is called a Medium, because he supplies unknowingly something from his body which unseen people can use to make themselves heard on earth. This something is the nexus between this world and Etheria, usually known as the Spirit World.

This substance is called Ectoplasm, and will be explained later, but, besides having this to a much greater degree than have ordinary people, he can see men, women and children who are unseen to the majority of people. This is called Clairvoyance. Besides this, he is clairaudient, because he can hear them speak when other people beside him do not. In the séances recorded in this book everyone heard what the voices said, they were objective, and this phenomenon is known as the Direct Voice. When only the Medium hears voices it is called Clairaudience.

But that is not all, because he can become entranced, a condition similar to a person being under
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an anesthetic, and in this state he is unconscious of his surroundings. Then he cannot see or feel anything, but he can be used by an unseen intelligence to say what that invisible person wishes him to say. When he becomes normal he is unaware of what he has said or done during his period of trance. Moreover, he has other abnormal faculties, because, when he is present, objects can be moved without apparent touch, and have been seen floating about the room without any physical contact. This is called Telekinesis, or the movement of objects without physical contact, and finally, what are called apports have been brought into a room where he is.

Apports may be anything one can handle, and these objects are put, by someone unseen, into the hands of the person present or placed on his lap. On one occasion a lighted cigar was put between the fingers of a visitor when he was talking to Sloan in his house. Amazed, he looked about and finally went outside, to find the owner of the cigar looking for it everywhere on the pavement.

On one occasion I left a gold match-box, having my initials on it, in my overcoat ticket-pocket. I said nothing about this to anyone, hung up my coat in the entrance passage, entered the séance room, locked the door, put the key in my pocket, put a mat up against the bottom of the door and took my seat with the others sitting around in a circle for the séance about to begin. Two trumpets were in the middle of the circle for the voices to speak through, and it was not long after the light was put out when a trumpet came in front of my face and a metallic object was rattled inside it. A voice said: "Please put out

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your hand," when something was heard to slide down the inside of the trumpet into my hand. It was the same gold match-box that I had put into the ticket pocket of my overcoat. When the séance was over I found the window still tightly shuttered, the mat was at the door as I had placed it, and the door was still locked. That is what is called an apport.

Finally, Sloan is unique because these gifts, if they may be called so, do not interest him. He has never exploited them for money; in fact, he is quite indifferent about money. Consequently, he has given séance after séance over the past fifty years, and never received a penny. He was paid nothing for attending the Meetings recorded in the pages which follow. Instead of gaining anything from them he put himself to both trouble and expense to be present. He has received gifts from grateful sitters from time to time, but he never asks for anything and never expects a reward for his services.

Sloan's home town is Dalbeattie in Kirkcudbrightshire, and when quite a youth he went to sea, to return to take up drapery, and later tailoring. Then he went to Glasgow, to return home to Dalbeattie, and there he married. His wife, whom he had known since childhood, was a clerkess in the Post Office at Edinburgh. After that, he settled down in Glasgow to follow different occupations. He was employed for several years in various departments of the Post Office, then as a packer in a warehouse, and in middle life he again went to sea for some years, returning to Glasgow to open a small newsagent's shop. This was followed by other forms of employment, and then lie settled down in a cottage at West Kilbride in Ayrshire, where lie spent the happiest years of his life until his wife passed on.

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Later on I shall have an opportunity of referring to the fine character of Mrs. Sloan. In his early days she called him Jack, when the children came he became Daddy to her, and finally she always called him "My old man," a name which he loved so well to hear from her. It was the name she called him with her last gleam of consciousness before she passed on, and now she returns and uses the same name in the same affectionate way as she did on earth.

All his life Sloan has worked honestly and well for his living, which was never more than that obtained by an average working man. In character he is modest, humble and retiring, straightforward, upright, and has high principles, though he himself admits that sometimes he grumbles and can be somewhat stubborn and dour. Never a whisper has been uttered detracting from his uprightness and honesty of purpose. He has a quiet manner, is of slight build, has read very little because of poor eyesight and has rather a dreamy expression. His kindness and unselfishness can be seen by his willingness to sit at these séances, because he knew the comfort and upliftment they meant to his many friends, and the friends they brought with them. No one was ever unwelcome if he was a genuine enquirer into the life beyond.

So much for Sloan, the Medium, but how is it that these voices, which this book records, are produced, and heard though the speakers are unseen? As we proceed it will be told how it is they speak to us, but we must accept what they have to tell us

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because we have no means of proving this for ourselves. Before we can understand what they tell us it is necessary to comprehend something of the real world in which we live, and only then are we able to appreciate this wonderful phenomenon. We must, first of all, know something about the laws pertaining to matter, the substance which makes up this world of ours. Secondly, we must know something of our own make-up, what the human being really is, what life is, and what the difference is between a thing that is alive and one that is dead. When we come to understand these two problems, much of the mystery hitherto surrounding mediumship disappears and knowledge takes the place of ignorance.