WCP3466

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5 Connaught Mansion

Albion Road

Stoke Newington

8.5.[19]04

Prof A R Wallace

Broadstone, Dorset

Dear Sir

I have to acknowledge receipt of your very instructive letter and kindly guidance which I will always appreciate and cherish.

I would also crave permission to say a little more. I would be brief — remembering too not to sacrifice the purport for briefness sake.

Your letter may be divided into 4 Sections

1^st Dealing with your 3 reasons, against the believe of the possibility of being in direct communication with the great seers & sages.

2^nd Your kindly advise for accurate notes

3^rd Your believe in Tolstoy’s¹ High Spiritual Influencers

4^th Your ? Re The "Sub-liminal self"

I could devote a whole letter as to how Moses made himself known or upon the care & preparation Swedenborg² has insisted I should take whenever I approach the medium. I must be careful in diet, in thought and must cover no new ground on the way to the medium. I must also avoid new [2]³ acquaintances on the same day, infact Swedenborg has asked for most detailed observances when coming to my Friday evening sitting. I well remember Ruskin⁴ giving me a dressing down because I had taken some friends into a chapel before my sitting. Ruskin said "that I had brought with me new condition which had fairly built a wall between the Medium & myself and before any accurate work could be done. The wall would have to be broken & cleared away."

But this is going away from my point when I really wanted to speak about was section 3.

Section 3. I am glad you made the proviso for now perhaps after I have said my say you may see fit to enlarge this section to two persons[?].

I refer to Mrs Brendley.

What I would say now is not to belittle Tolstoy, as I was born of Pontish[?] Parents in St Petersburg & lived the first 12 years of my life there. I mine or hers understand & love the Russian Character, their heart is so great even though their minds are in larking[?] cultivation. If I therefore also love [3]⁵and may I say understand Tolstoy

There are perhaps two classes of advanced men. Those who like Paul grew by bitter experience from the mini[?] to the clouds. The other who like Jesus grew from hill top to the clouds.

Tolstoy follows Paul our Elder Brother. Lets see who Mrs Brenchley follows.

Mrs Brenchley was born in North of England in 1860. Her mother died in 1870 — she left home for (school) (convent) the following year till she was 18 ie 1878.

The same year she was married into a distinguished spanish [sic] family — had one of the most painful experiences of married life — there being softening of the brain in the family for 3 generations — always falling on the first born. Through the grandfather of her husband — General Cover marrying a Mohammiden [?] Princess in time of the Crimean War.

Mrs B. having had a Roman Catholic Convent training and being of a highly sensitive and spiritual nature — being a born psychic & seer, was utterly ignorant of what marriage really meant, not [4]⁶ having had a mother or mothers advice in the matter:- After only a few months married life she was forced by her natural instincts to leave the house of her husband and his family who all lived together on account of the mental incapacity of the husband:-

There was one child by the marriage (who at the age of nineteen was placed in an asylum), and for 3 years she lived with a nurse and the child, on a hansome [sic] allowance, but being of an independent and energetic disposition she eventually freed herself from the family and entered Queen Charlotte's hospital — earning a living by nursing — midwifery — needle work — addressing envelopes painting cards, and went out twice to India and also to Egypt and Australia as training ladies nurse, ending with the position of nurse & governess to the princesses of spain [sic] & the present King of Spain.

Afterwards marrying her 2^nd husband a widower, Mr Branchley, with an understanding that they were not to live on the animal plane. And from which time her mediumship commenced -

[5]⁷ I would now skip some years and continue the narrative from the year 1900 when I first met her.

She was then perhaps in her greatest despair. Gradually her son was growing worse & worse she too was full of live & compassion for all she met — but she got little or none on the plane she sought it. Mr Brenchley being of a heavier nature he was as true & as honest as gold they worked hand in hand in their work but he cared little that the house was growing shabbier & shabbier every year, he had been used to know no refinement — she was brought up with all the refinement possible for the wealthiest family in Gateshead.

To him politeness read dishonesty, to her it was life — to her a caress the holding of a tender hand in sympathy was all — this he did not comprehend. As she had left the Roman Church she was cut-off from her relatives. One by one they died. One by one they left her nothing, not even for her son a lunatic. She was then financially in a deplorable state — at times [6]⁸the jarring in the home almost driven her to distraction — for she had not only her boy but two children of his and also one they had together to keep. and each one is as different in character and nature as it is possible for children to be all adding to the discomfort of the home. They were then obliged to sub-let the upper part of the house — and it has only been by a few friends that they have kept their heads above water since then. Never having more than a months rent in hand. This then was the time that made her since ring. I have heard her since cry out to God, asking what she had done to bring this about, she had harmed none in deed

or thought, on the contrary she always gave in fullness.

Let us look at her today, still as poor but in spirit how rich how full. You may see her in the parks crying with the prostitutes, or fallen sisters, you may see her with the men. You could have seen her in Oxford St, speaking to men & drawing tears from their eyes, you may have seen women [[7]⁹ molest her & spit in her face — you may even have heard one women ask her "how many men she could take in the night." Aye & not only from these poor & ignorant souls was she insulted but sitters would come and suggest that between them they might give birth to a second Christ. These then are some of the works which will the spirits of the higher friends have made her willing to do. 'to loose her life that she might gain it' then she might also help others to gain it too. It is reported how the prophets & saints cried out in the wilderness, was there ever a wilderness such as we have to day in the largest City in the world. No flowers grow there, only thistles & brambles and yet a flower lives there, a flower as pure as the lily, as holy as she is pure.

Pardon Sir — If I have left scientific methods, the ways of the heart sometimes are stringent.

Believe me very gratefully yours

Ernest Coates. [signature]

P.S. will ask Swedenborg & Myers¹⁰ to answer your question EC