In the latter half of the 1960s, when I was in my early twenties, I took a particular interest in matters of the mind. In fact I recall that when I was around 12 or 13 I showed an early fascination with the subject, wanting first to be a psychiatrist, then reducing my ambitions to psychologist and finally psychiatric nurse when I was persuaded by my mother that my aspirations were 'beyond my status in life'. As it turned out, my life took a completely different technological path, and the mind became for a while just an absorbing but private interest.  A chance remark today – the twenty ninth of December 2000 – about Ralph Waldo Emmerson, stirred up memories from over 30 years ago. It was shortly after my daughter was born in 1965, and an enterprising insurance salesman called Mr Bean (or Been) arrived on my doorstep in Clayton in Victoria. He was an unusually oldish man for the job – probably in his late 60’s or early 70’s with a kindly face all crinkled up with smile lines, graying hair, and a slight stoop. Somehow we got talking and he was one of the first people  who accepted my ‘single mother’ status without shock or censure. As he called by each month to collect the insurance premiums, our talks continued over scones and tea and one day he presented me with a copy of the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emmerson.  How I devoured them. The essays on Self-Reliance, Compensation, Intellect, Spiritual Laws, and ‘The Over-Soul’-  all inspired me. Around the same time, I discovered a book of inspirational verse by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, an American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, (in the past few months I've discovered she was also a spiritualist) and also became involved with a Para-psychological Society at Monash University where I then worked. What a mental feast I was devouring. I was young, I mixed with people who inspired me, and I read work which fed my intellect like sugar feeds yeast, and with my colleagues I felt we could solve the problems of the world. In fact if world leaders had listened to us as we sat around the open fire at the local Notting Hill Hotel the answers were there ! - well, we thought so anyway. Through involvement with the Para-psychological Society I also started to explore the idea that mankind had hidden or untapped or unfocussed mental potential beyond that we regard as ‘normal’. And more specifically to question, did I?  I recall we researched the work of Professor Rhine at Duke University and conducted our own experiments with ESP using Dr Rhine’s symbols. I don’t think we achieved any conclusive results with ESP. We researched water divining too. Here I had some success. After a radio interview – perhaps talkback? – we were contacted by a dear and very elderly lady living in a small town called  Kalista in the Dandenong hills to the back of Melbourne. Her husband had named Kalista in the early days when they settled there, and she lived in the tiniest little timber cottage I’ve ever seen. It was painted green, and was just two tiny rooms, the first and main room with a small wood stove set into a brick chimney on the rear wall, and furnished with just a simple table and chairs. The gardens were a mix of untidy lawn and lush colourful rhodadendrons, with large patches of green-white  lily-of-the-valley in the shade by the house. It was her late husband who had the gift of water divining she told me, and handed me a piece of heavy 8 gauge fencing wire bent into an ‘L’ shape, about 24” x 12” in size. She asked me to hold it by the short side and to point the long wire ahead of me while I walked around the yard to see if I could pick up where the water was. I don’t know who was the more excited when a strong force seemed to pull the far end of the wire towards the ground. By criss-crossing the yard I picked up what I believed was a channel and another spot where the result was stronger than anywhere else. Apparently I’d found the same underground source as her husband had many years before, and the spot where he’d sunk a well for their original supply. Further experiments, using the same piece of wire which the dear lady insisted on me keeping, were conducted on the sports fields to the rear of the university. Using the same technique, and observed by others who marked the path I indicated, we plotted an apparently distinct water course crossing the grounds in several places. Then afterwards we checked with the water authorities as to the placement of underground pipes taking water to the University Halls of Residence. We had a match. Another person who contacted us after a radio program was a Mr Scott who lived in a nearby suburb. He also was elderly, claiming to have clairvoyant abilities, and in particular to be practiced in the use of a pendulum. He invited several of us to his home one evening, and demonstrated his abilities by gently swinging a pendulum threaded on a piece of cotton, over pieces of paper on which were spelt out questions and sums. Depending on the direction in which the pendulum swung, he would tell us whether the answer was yes or no, or true or false. The results were remarkably accurate. At the end of the evening as we were leaving, he called me back, and said something like “I want you to have the pendulum Lynda, it’s time to pass it on now”. I was intrigued and politely tried to resist, for the pendulum was an attractive amber colored ‘stone’ with a pattern of what looked like an English rose cut into one surface, and I was concerned in case it was valuable. However he insisted I take it, telling me the following story. “I was traveling through England in the 1920’s and met some gypsies". he said. "An old woman gave me this and showed me how to use it. She said I had to keep it with me always and it would bring me good fortune, and not to be apart from it. She went on to say that I’d know when the time had come to pass it on, and who it had to go to” “So I’m sure” he said. “You’re the one to have it. But you have to remember the Gypsy’s words and keep it with you always, and pass it on when you know the time is right - and you’ll know the person it’s got to go to”

The Pendant

I never saw Mr Scott again. I’ve tried to honor his request though, and still have the pendulum, though with several eventful mishaps. The hole through which the cotton was threaded was very fine, and I took it to a jeweler to have it enlarged so that it would take a gold wire loop through which I could thread a chain. On picking up the pendant there was a fine surface chip where the larger hole was drilled, and the jeweler was distraught and angry. He just about threw the pendant at me, wouldn’t take any money for the job, and said something about it having broken his machine. I still don’t know what happened. At least I could then wear the pendulum as a pendant on a chain, and it rarely left me, however on one rare occasion when I was removing it, it fell to the bathroom floor, causing a small piece to splinter off the surface. Following that mishap which distressed me greatly, I had (a different) jeweler polish out the chip and  encase one side and the edge of the pendulum in gold.  I asked the jeweler to tell me what it was made of, whether it was glass or something else. He said that although it had broken similar to glass, it definitely wasn’t glass and he wasn’t sure what it was. I checked with another jeweler once in Darwin – he also tested it but remained mystified. So the pendant remained, being worn day and night and never being removed. Until earlier this year when in late March, I decided that I’d remove it due to a mild rash on my neck. Over the next three days my husband was diagnosed with glaucoma, he was admitted to hospital with an unrelated convulsive seizure, and I received a phone call to say my brother was dying. On the fourth day, I suddenly realized that this calamitous string of events had coincided with removal of the pendant. Maybe just horrible coincidence but I’m not taking any chances. The pendants gone on again – and won’t be removed willingly until the time comes to pass it on. Back to the 60’s. In my insatiable quest for knowledge and exploration of the mind, I also dabbled in palmistry. Perhaps the word dabble is a bit mild, because I did quite a bit of it and I was good at it. Too good. Finally at an orientation week display (all the clubs and societies set up tables to attract new members), when I was reading palms of anyone who happened by, I found I was having difficulty in keeping to myself the ‘bad’ things which I saw in hands. I was in danger of causing real distress to people by revealing what I saw of their state of health or relationships or whatever. After that, I refused to do any more personal readings. It was taking an emotional toll on me anyway, and it wasn’t very scientific because I realized I could be accused of being influenced by the persons appearance, dress, or demeanor. I experimented then with various inks and found a printers ink which enabled a very clear hand print to be taken. These were then provided to me anonymously through a third party, and a reading was done, keeping as much to past events and ‘safe’ areas as much as possible. The only payment I asked for was feedback as to the accuracy of the reading, and the feedback was very good. I recall that around this time I also started writing poetry. Probably very bad poetry because I never kept any of it, but the mention this morning of Ralph Waldo Emmerson brings back teasing snippets of one of my poems.. I think I’d been puzzling that Professor Rhine, who was taking a cool scientific and dispassionate approach to investigating extra sensory perception, was believed (something I’d read no doubt) to attribute to God any supernatural powers he might find in man. On the other hand, Ralph Waldo Emmerson, product of an earlier era who might have been expected to attribute mans extra strengths and abilities to God, seemed to prefer instead to describe some more natural phenomenon he called the ‘Over-Soul’ and God didn’t rate too much of a mention. So my half remembered snippets of bad poetry include “The Oversoul”, said Emmerson “Is not a trifle menacin’” But what was singularly odd He never once considered God … another place another time Another bloke by name of Rhine Expounded his philosophy “It’s all explained by God you see” I do remember there were a number of verses, but their detail completely eludes me. Perhaps that’s well. Copyright:  Lynda Cracknell December 2000 PS: A friend who read my story did some more reading of Ralph Waldo Emmerson and assures me there were quite a few references to God - I stand corrected for my apparent youthful misrepresentation. :-)

Working at the Computer Centre at Monash University