Get it in writing!

This article was inspired by a comment that I came across in one of Dion Fortune's occult novels.

The speaker, a man, decides to send a male colleague who will make a good impression to talk in person to a woman about property matters: 

“It is my experience that women take things in much better when they are told than when they are written to. As a matter of fact, being out of their depth when it comes to house property, they judge the man and not the scheme.”

From The Sea Priestess

This may at first sight seem rather patronising, not to mention just not true! However, the speaker does qualify what he says: he is not generalising about all women, just the ones he has been involved with in connection with his estate agency business.

The context of his remark is not relevant to this article; it is the underlying propositions that some people prefer to receive information in person and that the messenger is sometimes more important than the message that are of interest here.

While I much prefer to get information in writing and see the message as being more important than the messenger, I know from experience that some people do indeed want to be told rather than written to and often are more influenced by the teller than by the tale.

Passing on information in person
I suspect that many of the people who prefer to do everything in person are extroverts and/or feeling types! They just want company; they want human contact and personal attention so they look for pretexts to arrange a get-together.

Introverts may find it frustrating and annoying when such people want to meet rather than just exchange emails, however despite my personal preferences I can see that there is something to be said in favour of passing on information in person.

Did distress signals attract a predator?

Some posts on here contain material that supports the proposition that distress signals often attract predators. A particularly good example of this phenomenon can be found in the article that features a predator with a pram. 

It is advisable to be very wary of anyone who suddenly appears in our lives when we are in a distressed state.

The predators usually attack in person, but they sometimes sense the distress remotely.

This reminds me of yet another incident of interest; it happened many years ago. 

I received an email one evening from someone who was in a bad way. He was tormented by the feeling that he hadn't tried hard enough to persuade someone not to leave him. He was convinced that she would have stayed if he had only managed to get his feelings across to her and begged her desperately not to go.

I disagreed; I said that he was wrong to blame himself. I told him I knew from experience that once someone's mind is made up in such situations there is nothing that can be said or done to change it.

We exchanged a string of messages. I became more and more affected not only by the state that I sensed he was in and the messages that he was sending but also by the distressing memories from the past that I was digging up and giving as examples for his benefit.

Our conversation was suddenly interrupted by a new email message. It was from someone I didn't know who had heard on the grapevine about my freelance services and wanted to discuss the possibility of my doing some database work for their company.

All my warning bells went off! The abrupt arrival, uncanny timing and rather peremptory tone of the message gave me some bad feelings about the sender. I felt threatened; I sensed possible trouble ahead! 

A few words from a Celtic exorcist

The thought-provoking proposition that people of Celtic origin are particularly open to certain unseen influences was first mentioned in an article about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novella The Parasite.

A list of writers of interest with Celtic connections followed, and there are references to this heritage in a few other articles.

The Reverend Dr. Donald Omand, a Scotsman and a Church of England exorcist, is another example of someone who attributes his psychic powers to his Celtic origin.

From his book Experiences of a Present Day Exorcist (1970):

“...the gift of ‘second sight’, so prevalent among people of Celtic origin...”

“Ferguson was a strange mixture of devil and saint, as is so often found in Celtic peoples.“

“Being called on so often to counter the machinations of Black Magicians, I have learned how they achieve their ends. If I did turn from Jekyll to Hyde, I should be more dangerous than most through the feyness which has been passed on to me by my Celtic forebears, I am afraid to think uncharitably of people, even of those who may wish to harm me, for I know what the result may be.”

It is lucky then for everyone he encountered that Dr. Omand always used his powers for good rather than evil!

He has some amazing stories to tell and much to say about topics such as witchcraft, ill-wishing and curses in his book: