What's with this Spiritualist Stuff?

When I was a little kid, we didn't go to church.  Dad worked such odd shifts, it seemed like he didn't ever have a set schedule.  Mom spent quite a few years buying and selling stuff at the Spring Valley Swap meet on weekends, so church was not in the weekend plan.  Sometimes, though, Mom would pack us kids up and drive us up to Park Boulevard on Sunday morning to dump us off at the Grace Lutheran Church Sunday School. I just hated it because we didn't know anyone, they didn't know us, and it felt like we were uninvited invaders.  Sometimes I would pitch a fit, and Mom would bribe me Jeff, and Tabatha into going with the promise of  Winchell's donuts from the shop on Washington and Dove Street. I found out later, by accident, that those Sunday church dumps were done so that Mom could dye Dad's hair without anyone watching.

Mom was always into spirits and psychic subjects.  Her favorite magazine was "Fate," which contained a bunch of short articles about ghost sightings, faith healings, etc.  Mom and Dad had a family friend named Cecil Cawthorne, who was a spiritualist member.  He didn't have his own church, and I am not sure if he was an ordained minister.  He was more like a traveling speaker who practiced natural foods healing and home seances. In May 1957, he regularly traveled to Tucson, Arizona to be a "guest worker" at the Creative Christian Fellowship church.

Cecil was born in 1904, the son of a London-born Episcopalian minister, and the nephew of old-time stage and motion picture comedian Joseph Cawthorn.

This is Actor Uncle Joseph Cawthorn's photo that I found on Wikipedia.  Cecil looked similar to his uncle Joe, with the same shaped balding head and same expression.

I mention his father and uncle because it appeared that Cecil inherited some traits from both of them.  He was a "man of God," and he was an actor, convincing gullible people that their dearly departed relatives were talking to them.

Cecil was at Dad's memorial service.

Cecil told us the story of how became a natural foods healer/psychic minister.  During his younger days, he was working in railroad industry, and there was a flash fire of some kind.  It burned his entire face, blinding him.  As he lay recovering in the hospital, in the depths of despair, he called out for help from Mother Mary.  "Mother of God, help me, I am blind and in so much pain," he cried out. Suddenly, a beautiful woman in long white robes appeared to him, put her hands on his face, and suddenly he could see just a little bit.  She told him to place honey in his eyes each day, and they would be healed.  He followed her instructions when he got out of the hospital, covering his entire face with honey and placing a drop in each eye. I guess it worked.  When I knew him, his vision was perfect.  (He showed us how he could read the phone book with no eyeglasses) His face was also perfectly smooth with no scars or wrinkles. And when I met him in 1971, he was almost 70 years of age, which back then was pretty old for a man.

Mom told me that Cecil healed me when I was an infant.  I had an infected umbilical cord that wouldn't heal despite the doctor's medications.  Lynda recalled that Cecil came over and advised Mom to dress the wound with honey and bandage it up. She thought he was just a kooky dude, and tried to hide the honey so they wouldn't experiment on me.  But Mom took his advice and I was healed up in a week or so.   So honey seemed to be Cecil's go-to medicine for burns and infections.

Lynda remembers an earlier time, in the 50s, when Cecil introduced Mom and Dad to the world of the paranormal and healing with food:

" He would come over to the house and give mom lessons in healthy eating.  Actually, it was healthy drinking.  One time he had Mom buy 50 pounds of carrots, and they juiced them.  His theory was that if you ate the right things, you would never need to use toilet paper, and I guess drinking huge amounts of carrot juice was his idea of getting the kids healthy and toilet paper-free."

After Patty and Susan were taken away and placed in foster homes, Lynda, along with Tim, Skippy, and little Darwin were dragged to a variety of local Spiritualist churches in San Diego. But the mother of all Spiritualist centers was Harmony Grove.

Harmony Grove has been around for over a hundred years.  Located west of Escondido, north of Rancho Santa Fe, and near San Marcos, this is a large rural property of rolling hills and California Live Oaks, and several buildings that are used for various Spiritualist activities. A number of spiritualist ministers conduct weekly message circles, light trance circles, deep trance circles, and seances.

Here is Lynda' memory of their Harmony Grove experience:

"I remember going to Harmony Grove for weekend visits.  It seemed like it took a long time to get there.  It was in the woods, or it was like a dirty park.  The church building was up on stilts with enough room for children to crawl underneath.  It was dirty and dusty, there were bugs, and there were no playground toys to keep kids occupied.  It was just a place where a bunch of old people were trying to talk to dead people. One time when Darwin and Skippy feel asleep, Tim and I went to the church building and crawled underneath.  The floor wasn't solid--we could see through some slats in the floor.  People were sitting on card table chairs and a guy was in front of them standing on a big board which made him look taller.  He had this big funnel-shaped thing in his hand and he was speaking into it.  He would call out someone's name, and say, "Are you there?" "Talk to me"  then he would try another name and ask again, "Are you there?"

Tim and I had to cover our mouths to hide our laughter.  The people seemed very intrigued and were waiting for something to happen.  The man with the funnel kept saying, "I feel you," and then Tim decided to give them something to get excited about.

He knocked on the floor, then Funnel Man said, "Knock three times if you are with us," and Tim knocked three times. And very quietly Tim said, "I am here, do you see me?" Then we got out of there as fast as we could go, laughing after we got safely out of earshot.   On the drive home, Mom and Dad couldn't stop talking about the presence of the spirit at their church service.

So of course, the next weekend, they wanted to return for more spirit visits, and Tim and I couldn't resist the temptation to give the old people what they came for.  This time it was my turn.  As soon as Funnel Man starting calling out a female name, I was happy to say, "I am here!" It was fun pretending to be a "spirit visitor." At least we were keeping ourselves, and the naive people above our heads, entertained.

Our big mistake this time, however, was not waiting until the little kids fell asleep, and sure enough, Skip tracked us down, and in a loud voice said, "Hey, what are you guys doing here?"  Well, next thing we knew, there were some grown ups looking at us under the church, and our little game was over.  The guy said, "Well, there are your spirits!"

Of course, Mom and Dad were really mad and embarrassed.  We got a good beating for what we did!  We never went back to Harmony Grove again!
I remember going to other spiritualist churches in San Diego to hear the spirits, and each time there was some person with the speaking funnels.  Seeing the funnel would always  remind me of the fun we had with those people in Harmony Grove."

Thanks Lynda for a funny memory!  Maybe you and Tim were able to show some of those people that they shouldn't be so gullible.

Harmony Grove was nearly destroyed on May 14, 2014 in the Cocos fire, which was set by a 14 year old girl.  Their bookstore burned to the ground, but their library was spared.  Half of their cabins burned down and their church too, but their cinder block seance room wasn't touched.  The group is  in the process of rebuilding their grove.

And here is Tammy's story about her Spiritualist experiences:

After Dad died, Mom's interest in Psychic stuff was rekindled.  Cecil started coming over again, not to give us carrot juice, but to conduct various types of spirit communication.  Mom was trying really hard to contact Dad, and Cecil did his thing.  He came late at night, when the kids were in bed.  They set up a card table in the living room, the room where Dad's heart stopped beating.  I had to sit there in the dark, with a candle burning and Cecil had some kind of odd flashlight.  Cecil had a tape recorder and he told Mom he had a tape of some spirit who had been talking to him regularly.  He popped the tape in and played it. It was lady talking about blue and green auras.  I remember sitting there in the dark, holding Mom's hand thinking, "What is this crap and why do I have to waste my time here?" There was also lots of talk about energy, and time spent looking up into the darkness trying to see the spirit Cecil said he saw there.

Mom had Cecil do his seances in 1972 and 1973.  Then I think she gave up on that method and started making me do the Ouija board with her. During this time, Mom started taking us kids to the Swedenborgian Church. It was a little white church in University Heights, near Hillcrest, and was there from 1927 until its closure in 2016. This church was within a few blocks of where Cecil lived at that time on Park Boulevard. There were maybe 20 people in the church, including us, and the minister called on spirits during the service. The organist was a creepy looking, ancient man with useless white eyes.  He was tiny and skeletal, with wispy white hair that matched the color of his eyes.  His organ music wasn't like normal Catholic or Lutheran  songs.  It was like scary ghost movie music, and it made the hair on my arms stand up.  Watching this old man, I marveled at his ability to play the organ while blind, and also pondered the question of why those faith healers failed to help him. I guess maybe Cecil never clued him in on the secret of using honey to make his eyes see again.

Mom also liked to read fortunes with her special fortune cards. She had two different sets of cards:  Zolar:

  Gypsy Witch:

I laid out the cards in the method used for fortune telling to take these photos.  The Zolar fortune was sort of okay, but the Gypsy Witch fortune is not too good.
I think its time to put these cards back in Mom's desk drawer for another 30 years or so!

 Mom also had a daily dice roll game, consisting of 3 tiny dice.  You had to shake them in their little metal container, using your left hand only.  Then roll them, add it up, and look at the yellowing cracked paper that tells you your daily fortune.

I rolled 12:  A Letter or other interesting news.  That one was always one of my favorite fortunes, because I loved getting mail when I was a kid.

Cecil died in San Diego in 1987,  nine months after Mom died.

Mom always told me that when she died, she would come visit me often and let me know she was still around.  She has been dead since 1986, and I have never received a sign of her presence. Maybe it is because I don't have Cecil, a seance, and a Funnel to call her with.