Eileen Garrett and the "Fantastic Territory"

"psychic medium" and "trance medium" Eileen Garrett (1893-1970)

Ira Progoff is the author of The Image of an Oracle: A Report on Research Into the Mediumship of Eileen J. Garrett (1964).  The book presents transcripts of tape recordings of what was said during 12 sessions beginning in 1957 when Eileen went into a trance and four "control figures" ('Ouvani,' 'Abdul Latif,' 'Tahoteh' and 'Ramah') conversed with Progoff.  The author worked as a psychotherapist and "conducted pioneer research into the creative and social aspects of human personality."  One session was preceded by "an informal conversation with Mrs. Garrett which was picked up by the tape recorder."  The transcript of what becomes "Conversation No. 2 with Abdul Latif" begins with Eileen Garrett describing her appointment with a woman who was a cousin of a man that had consulted the medium six years previously.

And then she said, "I suffered a great loss."  And I said, "Yes, don't tell me any more.  Your husband, here he is, this is how he looked, his eyes, this is how he was, the mustache he wore.  This is what he did.  He was an engineer.  Yes?  Or he was a business man.  He should have been a priest.  These are all the things he was, these are all the things you lost.
 
She goes away and she says, "Perfectly remarkable."

Eileen went on to express to Progoff her intention of continuing to explore her own psychic abilities and extemporaneously described experiences when she found herself in a "fantastic territory."

EG:     . . . We can say that Eileen Garrett is communicating with the dead husband of Mrs. So-and-so.  And yet it is not certain.  Where does this thing come from?  Who is it?  So, Eileen Garrett came to the conclusion that she must push herself through contemplation beyond the light she sees in the tree, beyond expectation, beyond anticipation, and into exaltation, in other words, where the territory in which I am is boundless and endless.

In this territory I then see these people, living in houses in communities.  The houses are made of colored glass.  Their communities are quiet, are orderly.  They are going about something, but what they're going about, I don't know.  It's no good telling me that they had been people on earth because I don't believe it; but they are going about something.  They are taken up with themselves.  I have come across a bunch of philosophers sitting peacefully reclining, almost like Chinese vases.  I've gone so far that I have shaken one, to see if he is a piece of jade.  I find that he has flesh.  He is a person.  He lives.  I shake him.  He looks at me kindly.  I go my way.  All right.  Do they talk to me?  No.

While I am able to walk around them and examine them, they are in a strange community where there are bright, bright lights, blues, greens, yellows, but all kinds of lights and I cannot even conceive the color.  Here is the great difficulty that comes in a moment of emotion in all this, when you cannot any more find words.  So I am stopped.  I don't know what they are doing, I don't know what they are saying, and they don't seem able to communicate with me.  But I have walked around them; that's the thing.  I have touched their houses and have been within their halls.  They are objective; they are glassy; they're like sugar candy.

I've looked at their mountains.  I've looked at their green.  It's greener green than any green I can tell you.  The mountains are higher mountains than anything I can tell you.  And I have come back from that exhausted and said, "So?  What have I done now?  I have simply found that earth is no more than a modest reflection of what I have been looking at.  And after what I have seen, now that I'm here, it is pale.  It is insignificant.  It's colorless, it's small, it's constrained, and therefore all that I have done is to come back with a photographic impression of something that is happening over there.  Far from giving me peace of mind, this has left me in a further difficulty.  Now if I could remain longer with them maybe I could pinch some of them awake, maybe I could get some knowledge from them.  Maybe I'd find out why they were, who they were, and above all things, where am I.

IP:     When have you done this that you have been speaking of?

EG:     Two summers ago in France.

IP:     And how did you go about doing it?

EG:     I expanded myself until I had so much air that I myself was no longer.  But I had given myself directions beforehand what I wanted to do.

IP:     Yes.  And was anyone with you?

EG:     No.  I had come back.  I felt slightly nauseated.  I went home sick.  I went home and I wrote the whole thing down.  Now I would like to get out there again.  And be questioned when I'm out there.  But I would like someone who understood to be there to bring me back.  Now this would be the only use mescalin would have to me.  Because I have gone as far out as I can go in clairvoyance, to the edge of that cliff where the mind almost refuses to take in any more, because of the color, because of the need for more oxygen, because of the almost bursting point of exaltation in which one gets.

IP:     I'm wondering though if it could be done without that.  You said that what you saw there was an image.  How did you mean that?

EG:     They wouldn't talk to me.  And so when I broke into this place, they didn't any longer seem to be flesh and blood like they are when I sit down and tell Mrs. Doakes, "Your husband is there and this is what he says."  Now I have created another difficulty for myself: Is the husband there?  Is he saying this?  Where is he?  Where is he saying it from?  Is he saying it from this extraordinary fantastic territory and is that territory of the mind or is it territory into which I had escaped again?

As the conversation progressed, Ira and Eileen considered an 'unconscious' or 'subconscious' source of psychic information with Progoff observing: ". . . something took place spontaneously that got you onto another dimension or aspect.  Somehow your consciousness opened then."  Eileen asked:

EG:    Then what is the process by which it happens?  What happens?

IP:     Supposing that you wanted to do that deliberately.  Could you do that deliberately?  For example, now, at this moment?

EG:     No.

IP:     But if it would happen.  It happens when you are walking down the street.

EG:     It won't.  Not with then.  Why that one?  Why this one?  Why?  What choice?  What is the trigger?  What is it?  Do you see?  I'm not troubled about whether they live or die or whether I see death or I didn't.  I want to know what area I'm in.

Eileen soon thereafter stated: "At any rate, let me go to sleep and then explain it."  Ira replied: "All right, let's try it with Abdul."  The transcript continued with Ira spelling some of the utterances phonetically —

EG:     (Moans, groans, heavy breathing, yawns, etc., as Mrs. Garrett goes into trance.)   Eet ees I, Oo-way-nee [usually spelled 'Uvani' by Eileen].  I give you greetings, friend.

IP:     My greetings, Ouvani.

EG:     Peace be with you, your life, your work.  You would speak with me?

IP:     Well, Ouvani, I would like to speak with certain persons who are working with me psychologically and I wanted to discuss their qualities.  But I had thought that Abdul Latif would be the one for this.

EG:     Well, I will withdraw so that Abdul Latif, may his name be blessed, may present himself to you.  So be it.

IP:     Thank you very much.

EG:     (Further deep breathing, moans, groans as Mrs. Garrett deepens trance.)  Well, well, my friend, it is well with thee?  (Note: This was said in a hearty, extroverted manner with a much fuller tone of voice than that used by Ouvani.)

The transcript of the ensuing conversation provides what Progoff described as "a fairly representative instance of . . . a clairvoyant reading of the characteristics of a person who is not present." 
 
It is the concept of a shared subconscious and Superconscious Mind among humanity and all living organisms—an aspect of spiritual ‘Oneness’—that may have been meaningful for Eileen and Ira as they attempted to develop a perspective of her trance mediumship.   

During "Conversation No. 4 with Tahoteh," the transcendental communicator mentioned: "But you cannot take us away."  Ira then asked: "Who is 'us'?"  The following is the response transcribed by the author.
 

EG:     You cannot take us.  We must remain with her, for the sake of the conflict and for the sake of the work.  We are the ideas.  We are in a form.  We are in the cup which she hands to others.  We are the breath.  We are the life.  That we are fitted into the different aspects according to the need that we have—not you—the need that we have, to fulfill our obligations in this life experience.
 
IP:     All right.  And now let me ask you what is perhaps for me a most important question.  Now you have said some things about the life situation of your instrument and of your relation to her. That is, that . . .
 
EG:     And yet I have not the relation to her.
 
IP:     Yes?  How do you mean?
 
EG:     The wine that you pour into the cup is not very interested in the cup, is that true?
 
IP:     Yes, except that it must have the cup.  The cup must stay whole.
 
EG:     But in order that the wine reach your lips the cup stays whole.  But it does not matter to the wine whether the cup is of the most exquisite floral design or whether it is of a crude material.  It is sufficient to the wine that it is placed in a form which will hold it, and then it is given out from that form.  Does that clear a little bit?
 
IP:     Yes, now if I were to recall the whole context of our discussions, if I recall the point that was made at one time—I think again it was the first time, Tahoteh, that we spoke—that the person who comes to know the giver of the word will come to know him in the form in which his contact is made and in accordance with his unique life pattern.  Now, would this be correct or not: That your instrument has come into contact with you, Tahoteh, as giver of the word, has come into contact with the Giver of the Word, by means of these forms or entities in the way in which she has come to experience them.  That this is the form in which the word reveals itself and manifests itself to her and through her.  But would it be true that this may take place in another form, for another person?

EG:     To take place for you, I have fulfilled practically the thing which I have come to do with you.  Not quite, not quite, but what I have done, you see, is to come in a form that has for you a sympathy.  You like this form.  This form strikes a chord in you that you do not yet comprehend.  But this image, this system, call it now what you like, has impregnated you, for all time.  You are now going to look into every aspect of that that I have been.  You must; you cannot help yourself.  The seed has been sown.  And that seed is of this particular seeder that you call Tahoteh.  Now, you must go find the branches of him everywhere until the time will come that you will not know at what point is Tahoteh.
 
IP:     Yes.  At what point he is Tahoteh, and . . . ?
 
EG:     At what point . . . he is you.  This is the creativity of this force.  Therefore, I should be giving this to you in the quietude of your own senses because this is now part of that search, until you will yourself be gathered into that community.

Another book with transcripts of transcendental communication through Eileen's mediumship is Health: Its Recovery and Maintenance (1929) — a topic of a previous blog article.

 

This image accompanies the blog article "Visitors from the Ascended Realm in Comparison".