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THE following letters have been received by me in "automatic writing," from my son Christopher during the first two years of his new life. Friends to whom I have shown them have suggested that the information given about conditions in the "etheric" life is of interest and may be helpful. Matter exclusively personal has been omitted: otherwise the letters are given exactly as he wrote them, except for some compression to avoid repetition.

A brief account of his earth life may give readers a background for the better appreciation of his letters. Christopher was a rather timid and self-conscious child, very affectionate and with a vivid sense of colour and a great love of nature. His nursery days were difficult for him owing to the illness of his brother Philip who was three years his senior and whose mind became affected by an attack of encephalitis lethargica at about the time of Christopher's birth: the boys were at home together under a governess until Philip was eleven years old. His eldest brother Lancelot died at school at the age of eight: Christopher was then only two-and-a-half years old and so can scarcely have remembered him.

Christopher went to a small day school when he was five, to a preparatory school at eight, and to a public school at thirteen-and-a-half years of age. His various schoolmasters found him a difficult boy to teach, and his reports were generally to the effect that he was capable of much better work than his results showed: an exception was his Eton music-master's report, which praises Christopher for his industry as well as his aptitude with the flute.

In June 1940 we decided to send him to America with our youngest son David, who is frequently mentioned in the letters. The boys sailed in July 1940 and were in the care of my cousin, Theodore, or as he is called by the boys "Uncle Toby," until he died very unexpectedly in May 1942. "Uncle Toby's" influence with Christopher was admirable and profound, for he was deeply interested in education and was also a psychologist and a mystic; under his guidance Christopher developed markedly in character. Part of "Uncle Toby's" earlier life had been spent gold-mining in Siberia: he spoke Russian fluently and had great sympathy with the Russian people. I think that this may account for Christopher's first attempts to help soldiers on the battlefield taking place in Russia.

After "Uncle Toby's" death Christopher was "adopted" by a family in Portland, Oregon, and his brother David by another family until such time as passages home could be obtained for them. This proved difficult but eventually in March 1943 Christopher was given a "priority" passage as he was nearing military age: he sailed from New York about March 25, 1943. The rest we know from him in these letters. The only official information we have received was on May 15th, 1943, that his ship was "greatly overdue and must be presumed lost by enemy action" and we have been unable to trace any survivor.

I have been asked to add a note on the way in which these letters come to me. Readers of Letters from Lancelot will have seen the explanation of this in the Appendix to that book. I wish now to amplify this explanation. The writing is not "automatic" in the sense that I am unconscious of what is being written: it is in fact more akin to an ordinary conversation between my son and myself except that as my etheric hearing is only slightly developed, the talk on his part has to be written: for this purpose Christopher uses my hand or, according to him, its ectoplasmic extension. If my mind is fairly free I become aware of his presence as soon as he arrives, but if I am preoccupied with thought concentrated on other subjects it may be some time before he can gain my attention which he says that he achieves by a "gentle tap on the brain cells."

If a stranger tries to communicate with me, I only become aware that someone in the etheric life wants my attention without realising any distinct personality. With my sons or other near and known relatives I feel this personality at once and I know who is with me before they begin to write. This knowledge of a definite and previously known person is to me a safeguard against any deception—subconscious or by other entities. I seldom "write" without this knowledge and never without the knowledge that someone is present who wishes to communicate.

In view of the efforts of psychologists and others to explain all communication from the next life between those who love each other as a "wish-fulfilment" due to grief, emanating from the subconscious mind of the one in earth-life, I ask that it should be noted—

(a) That I was in clear communication with the etheric life for many years before any child of mine had died, and

(b) therefore I never felt the grief which I know is felt so bitterly by mothers who have not yet my knowledge, and which it is my earnest desire that my sons' letters may relieve.

If any reader who is seriously interested would care to ask questions concerning these letters or the method of their communication, enquiries may be addressed to me at Cox's Mill, Dallington, Heathfield, Sussex, England.

R.M.T.