THROUGHOUT THE YEARS, endeavoring to understand the unique character of spirit communication was a major concern of numerous sitters with Mrs. Osborne Leonard. If (as many of the observers believed) discarnate entities were communicating, how did they operate? In any case, what was happening when Mrs. Leonard produced her veridical information? If paranormal abilities of the medium's own mind were at work, what was the process? In an effort to explain, several sitters published exhaustive analyses of the material they had received. Their records are of great interest, regardless of their frame of reference.

Information about the modus operandi came from two sources: external-the observations and inferences of the sitters; and internal-statements by the controls and communicators, who, over the years, have given detailed, if highly complex, accounts of their problems and procedures.

As it was explained to Drayton Thomas, Feda and all personal controls make direct use of the medium's brain and body to transmit messages. While Feda is in control, Thomas says, the communicators are actually present in their "etheric bodies," occupying positions in space and visible to her. Communication is very often difficult because they have to adapt to an abnormal "intermediate" condition, and because of variations in the mediumistic "power."

Feda tried to amplify and clarify all this, but usually only succeeded in getting the sitter more confused than ever. Yet, as Lady Troubridge says, in their almost corn- plete ignorance concerning the conditions governing trance communication, Feda's word was worth at least as much as anyone else's. She pointed out that since Feda employs a limited vocabulary to describe the manner in which information is impressed upon her consciousness, it is difficult for her to explain what really happens. Beyond the occasional emergence of such terms as "I sense" or "I get an impression of," Feda is content to tell the sitter that she "sees...... hears," "feels," or "smells," the data received. (The medium's eyes, of course, are closed; and none of the sights, sounds, sensations, or odors described are perceptible to the sitter.)

Such observations, Lady Troubridge writes, "have led me to suspect that in many instances where Feda describes persons and objects, she uses the term 'seeing' merely as a habit of speech, and that the process involved may more likely be a series of impressions received by her telepathically bne at a time from some mind either in- carnate or discarnate as the case may be." This hypothesis would also account for the manner in which the descrip- tions are often given out, bit by bit, conveying to the listener the impression of someone finding isolated pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and dealing them out one by one for the recipient to fit together.

Troubridge continues:

It is surely incredible that Feda or anyone else should see a person minus his most striking peculiarity of features or coloring, and yet this must frequently be presumed to be the case if Feda's seeing is to be accepted at face value. I have myself known her to purport to see clearly a communicator whose appearance she minutely described, giving a perfectly accurate account of his features, complexion, and expression, including the fact that he was remarkably handsome, but she remained . . . ignorant that the most distinguishing features of his appearance were prematurely snow-white hair of remarkable abundance, and eyes of a peculiarly vivid blue.

Lady Troubridge says, "Without going further into the question of the examples that have struck me, I will merely say that I am as doubtful of the face value of what Feda terms 'hearing' as I am of her alleged 'seeing.' " But as to how mental impressions are telepathically conveyed to Feda, she goes into more detail:

Be they alphabetical letters, a name or word, or the description of a scene or of a mental state, I have often received a strong impression that as a description proceeded Feda knew as little as I did what would be the next brick in the edifice. She will often hazard an unlikely but correct detail with every appearance of diffidence, in an apologetic manner seeming to expect ridicule or expostulation from the sitter. She will make an accurate statement regarding some unlikely detail and go on to comment on the possibility of her not having correctly apprehended this particular point. Sometimes, it is true, her descrip- tions are such as might be given by a person contemplating an indi- vidual, a scene, or a picture, and recounting as they came to her notice the various details observed, but often the impression conveyed sug- gests an entirely different process.

This is especially true, it seems, of compound descrip- tions, when Feda combines in the description of one individual the characteristics of several persons known to the sitter and having identical surnames or similarity of appearance or circumstance or when she describes as one event matters of similar nature occurring upon two or more occasions.

If, Lady Troubridge suggests, we accept the concept that the facts related to us by Feda are either projected onto her brain, or are collected by her from some other mind incarnate or discarnate, then it would seem possible that the clarity of the impressions largely depends upon the conscious or unconscious concentration of the mind tapped or conveying the facts.

It would appear that, so long as the communicator can keep his mind exclusively on one fact or event which he desires to give as evi- dence, Feda's descriptions will be relatively clear and accurate. Should, however, the communicator's mind wander ever so little, his irrelevant thought will be just as likely to reach Fcda, and when it does it will appear in some form in her narrative. Feda apparently cannot always disentangle relevant from irrelevant impressions.

Supposing, for instance, I, being deceased, wished to describe through Feda my country residence and its garden with ornamental pond, and I should allow the thought to cross my mind that upon some particular occasion friends who came down to view the garden had admired the pond and particularly enjoyed a good supper of lobster salad. I might easily appear in Feda's utterances as a demented spirit who asserted that I had owned an ornamental pond in which I kept lobsters and grew salad! I have known an improbability of this kind followed by indications denoting excitement on the part of the communicator. I have known this excitement either bewildering Feda, or being interpreted by her as denoting the spirit's eagerness to em- phasize that the unlikely statement is correct, and I have been unable to resist picturing myself as an unfortunate communicator fully able to gauge the extent to which my communication had gone wrong, and making matters worse by conveying telepathically an unintelligible chaos of excitement and dismay.

In order to get clarification of Feda's problems in receiving information, Drayton Thomas asked his personal communicators for their explanations.

His sister Etta said:

It depends upon conditions. At one part of a sitting, or perhaps during one whole sitting, Fcda sees rather than hears. Experienced communicators find out early in the sitting which would be the best method for the occasion. With some mediums it may be necessary to give everything in symbols; other mediums receive it all by impression, and this notwithstanding the fact that it is being spoken to them. Others think they are seeing clairvoyantly when they are not seeing but are being told. You will notice that Feda says of someone, "He has thick hair." But if, when you inquire about the moustache, she cannot see it, you may infer that she is not really seeing, but is being told about it, and yet is not able to explain through the medium's mind or brain what the actual method at the moment is. Feda under- stands more than she can say, and she can get our messages in different ways.

When I speak, Feda is frequently puzzled as to my meaning and fails to catch it either quickly or accurately. That is when I am unable to make my meaning reach her in the form of words. If I then project a thought of some concret object, Fcda may remark "I see so-and-so," but though she may seem to be seeing the object, it is really my thought of it which has reached her.

Etta added:

Your father says it is something like finding all windows and doors locked except one; on entering the house through that one others can be unlocked from within. They may have to walk round and round trying one place and another first; it is that which gives people occa- sion to conclude that they are fishing, fumbling at it.

It does not matter while your father talks mentally, but when he speaks in voice it does matter. Although you cannot hear his voice, it sounds like a real voice to Feda while in the medium.

To Feda, the voice of the communicator sounds like the voice of the sitter, she hears them both from inside the medium, and she does not always hear both voices equally well.

It is a noteworthy fact that for a period, rarely more than twenty minutes in any one sitting, Feda will speak as if she were receiving from dictation. I can often at these times catch each softly whispered sentence before hearing it repeated in the clear Feda voice. This dicta- tion method always reaches a high degree of accuracy, and I realize that I am receiving, not merely the communicator's thoughts, but also the characteristic diction. When, however, Feda relapses into what appears to be her own phrasing of the message the precision and ac- curacy become markedly less.

C. D. T. Sometimes for minutes on end you seem to get their very words. I wonder what it is that makes that possible.

FEDA. Mr. John says, "We find at one sitting that we can go on the dictation method, and at another we have to make pictures without dictation, and these we transfer, or we assist Feda in transferring, to the brain of the medium. Whether we shall do the first method or the second method it is not in our power to determine. We have to accommo- date ourselves to your conditions. I am inclined to think- and I have exchanged ideas with many serious investigators and we are all agreed-that it is nothing whatever to do with our ability to communicate; except, as I once remarked to you, some of us have a temperament that fits us for com- municating more than others."

C. D. T. That I can understand.

FEDA. Mr. John says, "On many occasions I have come here prepared to dictate to Feda; and I have thought, 'Now the material I have in hand today needs the dictation method,' but I find myself unable to dictate. I find a condition which makes it advisable to switch over to some other topic, unless the material I have in hand could be shown pictorially. It is limiting-it holds us up."

C. D. T. Have you noticed, Feda, what previous condition is best for a sitting that is to have much dictation in it?

FEDA. Yes, I have noticed. If Gladys has not been writing letters, or thinking about letters, or reading letters that the post- man brought, and she has been just thinking of nothing at all that morning-especially to do with words-then I get the dictation well. But if she does letters she thinks all the time, "This person needs to know so-so, and even if I don't write now this person wants me to say so-so." Now that isn't good for the conditions. She has worn herself out a bit about words, you see.

C. D. T. Is it that you don't, then, hear the words plainly?

FEDA: Well, I think it is that I can't get them, can't catch them in her mind because her mind is tired of them, her mind has already had enough of words.

C. D. T. You don't find the dictated sentences are there for you?

FEDA. No. Etta says I am convinced that an area of the conscious mind, or that part of the brain in which the conscious mind works, has over it a kind of sensitized material like- let us say-wax, and if it has been used for one thing it won't take another impression. The "wax" will take something else, but it won't take what it has already been used for. Now that is what Etta says, and she is right. If you take Gladys of a morning when she hasn't been worried or done letters but is just ready for a trance, that's a very good dictation time.

Feda often takes some unimportant thought from a communicator without his desire and she will use it to fill up and keep things moving; for a long spell of silence would make Feda lose hold of the medium. This accounts for trivial matters being brought in disconnectedly at times.

Your father says that he refrains from saying many things which he wishes to give lest they should come through in a distorted form. Feda feels that also, for she does not always make the medium's voice speak as intended. Feda touches something which wakes the medium's mind and then it goes off on its own account.

C. D. T. Feda, can you hear the words spoken by the medium?

FEDA. Yes, but cannot stop her speaking if what she says is wrong. Often Feda cannot get the power to check the words.

One doesn't want to waken anything of the brain. When a ques- tion, or a suggestion, comes from your side, it's likely to bring a response from your side. You might affect the brain of the medium, because her brain belongs to the physical world you belong to. It's only with a certain amount of difficulty I operate on it.

She replied:

Yes, if it is more natural for a medium to put them in a certain way, then, although I might give them in my way, yet they would go through in hers. If she were fond of the word "extraordinary" and I of "extremely" hers would be given, rather than mine. We have to contend with Feda's mind and personality as well as the medium's. Owing to Feda's practice in helping things through the medium, it is easier to get things through; she can manipulate the medium's mind better than we can, and yet she herself is a difficulty. If I wish to speak to you of two things, one very pretty and the other uninteresting to Feda, it would be more difficult to get the latter owing to her preference for the former.

At another time when John had been trying to bring up a new subject, he explained how difficult this ordinarily was.

It is a curious thing that I have known about this for some time, but was unable to broach it until now. Something which Etta has been saying today made, as it were, an opening for this, the one subject leading to the other. This difficulty is due entirely to seance conditions. There is difficulty in introducing an entirely new topic, introducing it to the medium's brain and to Feda. I frequently prepare the ground by using words which lead up to my subject, something akin to it, in whatever I am talking about previously. The difficulty lies in this intermediate condition, and the association of ideas is all-important.

John once described the difficulties encountered by the communicator, as he attempts to have his thoughts transmitted through the mind of another human being. "Speaking through a medium," he said, "is analogous to passing stones through a sieve; part will go through while the residue will not."

Comparably, William James has indicated that we might assume that the organism of the medium "not only transmits with great difficulty the influences it receives from beyond the curtain, but mixes its own automatic tendencies most disturbingly therewith. [Richard] Hodgson himself used to compare the conditions of spirit communication to those of two distant persons on this earth who should carry on their social intercourse by employing each of them a dead-drunk messenger."

Feda once said to the communicator: "I cannot get that . . . try again. " Then she turned to C. D. T.:

Do you know there are times when I really hear him, and yet get only muddled sounds, not properly formed sounds. He says it again, and if it does not get clearer he has to show it, or get it through in some other way. He does not always know when he has failed to make Feda hear, and goes on with it. Then, if asked to repeat, he may not know what part Feda has not heard, and then there is a muddle of mistakes. He says there is a good deal to learn about it still.

The omission of important parts of a message easily reduces it to confusion. Feda is aware of gaps in her transmission, although she does not always mention them at the time. It is particularly unfor- tunate when she fails to notice that a fresh topic has been begun; for, by running on with the new subject as if it continued the previous one, she risks making the whole appear untrue. I recall how, during my first sitting, facts which correctly related to a second person were given as if applying to one who had just before been described. The result was that, at the time, I regarded this section of the sitting as inaccurate, and only on examining it afterwards did the merging of two distinct descriptions, both of them minutely correct, become apparent.

FEDA. Feda cannot hear all he says all the time. Isn't it a nuisance? Have to catch parts, like when many things are thrown at you and you catch what you can. Feda rarely hears all that is said.

FEDA. After a sitting is over Feda sometimes finds that there has been someone present who did not get into the power, although they had tried to do so. But although they did not get in themselves, some of their thoughts became mixed up with those of the communicator. This often happens when more than one spirit person is present and when the communicator is not well known to Feda. It is not always easy to know who is giving the messages.

FEDA. Feda sees and feels it, but does not hear.

C. D. T. Cannot they make their words plain to you?

FEDA. When they concentrate on one thing, and one thing only, it becomes hard. While talk flows it is easy, but when it comes to one thing, or one word, and no other will do then we stick fast. When speaking fails thev show something, or try to make Feda feel.

(During the early part of this sitting Feda had been unsuccessful in giving the last name of my fathcr's old colleague, Benjamin Browne, although I had clearly recognized that he was the person alluded to, both from the description and the name, Benjamin, which came through. We spent some time over it, and I even went so far as to ask Feda whether the name required was not that of a color, but Feda was unable to put it through. When my father was controlling he remarked:)

You must wonder what is doing when you ask for a simple name like Browne and I cannot give it.

C. D. T. Was Browne the name you wanted Feda to say earlier in the sitting?

FATHER. Yes, and so I got it here. I dropped the attempt till I could introduce it myself.

It would certainly seem, from the communicators' comments, that the medium's receptivity is variable, that her brain and mind are not always equally responsive. Material which is at one time given easily becomes at other times an obstacle to effective transmission. One explanation for this is frequently mentioned by the controls: "the power," as Feda calls it. Drayton Thomas felt there was indeed evidence for the reality of this emanation, and discussed it at considerable length. His communicators attributed much of their difficulty to variations in its amount, consistency, or other conditions. They described it as existing in space, and explained that:

Medium and sitter are surrounded by a cloud of this power. Anything within this area is visible to Feda; but should a communicator remain outside it he would be invisible to her, and she could only with some difficulty obtain information from him by "sensing." Upon his entering the zone or sphere of influence, Feda would be able to see and hear him.

This power is said to emanate from the medium in a cloud-like form; the sitter also contributes some small amount. The emanation is kept fresh and living by a continued flow from the source. When this flow ceases, the sitting automatically ends, and towards the end, as it is gradually reduced, the communication becomes less successful.

As we shall see in the next chapter, Thomas' hypothesis regarding direct voice phenomena was based on his belief in the reality of this emanation:

There are times in Mrs. Leonard's sittings when the communicator, while transmitting messages through Feda, will suddenly speak a few words in the direct voice. I have frequently heard my father do this. Many of Mrs. Leonard's sitters have noticed the same thing. My father tells me that it seems to him that the speaking of a few words in this manner is made possible by the emanation being, for a brief interval, sufficiently dense to form a covering for the vocal organs of his etheric body. He adds that he is not able to produce this direct voice at will, but only under very favorable conditions.

Etta once said:

It seems that no one yet understands the unique character of a sitting. . . . It is a no man's land between the two conditions, yours and ours. It is considered that communication concerns earth people and spirit people, whereas there is also the peculiar bridgeway which has to be used and which belongs neither to one nor to the other, yet has some of the characteristics of each. Here lies all the difficulty. Medium and sitter are in part working in a condition which is not entirely theirs, and we work in one which is not entirely ours. It is a pooling of resources which creates the bridge. One gets out of one's depth sometimes on both sides.

Modern psychologists might question the distinction between "mind" and "brain"-indeed, Drayton Thomas himself did. But John insists there is a definite difference. He is sure that Feda is wrong in thinking that she works the medium's brain. "It is the mind in the brain which Feda works," John says. Whatever it is, Feda assures us it is not always easy to exert this influence successfully to insure that the message is taken up and voiced.

Etta adds: "Strange, but it is the human instrument which makes it so difficult. If only a mechanical one could be made! But mind is the bridge between the spirit and the physical."

A discussion of the modus operandi of mediumistic trance would not be complete without consideration of the role of the sitter in communication. Drayton Thomas writes:

There are reasons for thinking that the sitter is a factor making for success or failure. In taking notes for several first-time sitters I have been struck by the wide differences in result. I notice that a stolid unresponsiveness militates against success, much as it would check conversation in social life. Feda speaks of "deaf and dumb" sitters! I have occasionally received good evidence from a communicator who was a stranger to me, yet later, when his friends came to share my sitting, the evidence given was inferior. Such instances indicate that differences of result may not depend entirely upon the communicator and medium.

Besides the influence of manner and mental attitude, I think we have to reckon with a Psychical difference in sitters. The presence of certain people seems . . . to inhibit communication.

Feda, how do you distinguish between thoughts coming from the communicator, and those in the sitter's mind?

FEDA. It is a different feeling altogether, very different. I have trained myself to lean towards the communicator and to shut off the sitter. I do not like sitters to be in front of the medium, but like to have the communicator in front. I concentrate on just that place and so shut off other places. Your father says, "Even that would not prevent Feda getting a thought and not knowing it was from the sitter, if the latter happened to be willing something very strongly. A sitter might will his thought fifty times and miss, but Feda might accidentally take it the fifty-first time."

C. D. T. And would not Feda realize from whom it came?

FATHER. Not unless she were very careful and on the watch for interference.

The communicators allege that there are two main difficulties in trying to communicate directly by means of the tnedium's organism. One is their own failure to remember, due to the limitations imposed on them by their possession of a foreign organism. The other is their imperfect control over the brain and nervous system of the medium, which often prevents them from getting her to utter words which will express the ideas they want to convey. Any special effort by a com- municator to get the medium to utter a particular thought of his is liable to be unsuccessful at first. The medium's brain seems to stick. It is then best for the communicator to turn to some other topic. If he does so, the process which he started in the medium's brain by his original attempt may eventually work out to a successful conclusion. He must then be ready to pounce on it and to revert to the original topic. These remarks may be compared with the experience which one has when one tries in vain to remember a name, and has it (as we say) "on the tip of one's tongue" and yet cannot utter it. Often, if one turns to other things, the name will suddenly come to one.

The ostensible communicators use expressions which imply that they feel themselves to be located in various parts of the medium's brain. I will mention, for what it may be worth, a curious remark of the John-persona. "When I talk easily I find myself in the forehead of the medium, not in the brain, but just above the eyes in front . . . When I lose the sense of being just there I find it difficult to express myself . . . I . . . find myself drawn to different parts of the head." It is difficult to see what interpretation to put on these statements; but it may be worth while to recall the old theory that the pineal gland is an important center in connection with certain kinds of paranormal experience.

I think it is worth while to remark that none of us has the slightest idea of how in detail his body comes to express by speech or writing the ideas that he wishes to express. The process is voluntary and deliberate in the sense that one would not be saying or writing what one does unless at the time one wished to express certain ideas. But it is certainly neither voluntary nor conscious in the sense that one deliberately does something to the appropriate parts of one's brain, as one deliberately and consciously strikes the appropriate keys of a typewriter. It is therefore hardly surprising that the Feda-persona should give a confused and confusing description of what she does when she tries to make Mrs. Leonard's organism express a certain idea.