It is a very moving story to me. I had forgotten it and my reply until a reader named Audrey reminded me (thanks Audrey!). Thinking over the circumstances, I picture you spending an unspecified time answering that phone call after which you found the tea lady in the office kitchenette and then you "raced down the stairs to check the entrance" and found the door securely closed and alarmed and no one in the entrance way. It's possible that this man was a real physical man and that your answering the phone call was a long enough time for a man to go down the stairs and out the door and out of sight at a normal pace. But if so, the question would still remain how he opened the door to go without triggering the alarm, since as you said, opening the door for whatever reason would have set off the alarm bell in your office which you would have heard.
There is no physical possibility that you imagined the man or the note since Tony saw and read the note and confirmed that it was real. The note was certainly not a mere figment but a real object made of real paper and written upon with real ink or pencil and the address was real and written in Tony's real handwriting, though he did not recall writing it.
There's a perfectly rational explanation that fits all the evidence. The man was a real physical man but real, physically present in the hallway in the building in 1971, only for the purpose of giving you the note and his message. Having delivered his message and the note he then went on his way not by going through the door but by dematerializing just as he had come not by opening the door but by materializing in the hallway. However, the piece of paper did not dematerialize, rather it kept its material existence long enough for you to show it to Tony. The Annunciation which the messenger spoke was not written on the paper; the function of the note was to assure yourself and Tony and now all of us who read your account so many years in the future that the incident and the messenger could not possibly have been a figment of your imagination.
Maybe you are just making up a story. Maybe you'll now say, "Ha ha! I was lying. I made it all up just to make a fool of you and all my readers and myself." That would be a "rational explanation" for a lot of our modern believers in Rationalism. I dare say that you won't say that, that you are not lying at all. I don't find that "explanation" probable enough to even bother arguing it. There's no use bandying foolish words with prejudiced people.
Our materialistic culture is specifically informed and challenged by this incident. There will be readers who will insist that the incident could not possibly be real. There must be, they will insist, a "rational explanation". I would reply, and so should you I think, that there is a perfectly rational explanation since there is nothing at all irrational in accepting what the evidence plainly tells us. What is irrational, motivated by prejudice and not by observation and reason, is to try to 'explain away' what our senses and reason so obviously and specifically tell us. The resemblance between your experience and the Annunciation of Mary in the Gospel of Luke will occur to the common materialistic skeptic and prompt such a person to say you imagined it all or you are telling a fib. But your messenger, angelic as he seems, has already anticipated this argument by giving you the real material paper note and by Tony reading it. So your angelic messenger anticipated the future in this small (but very significant!) way as well. He was not bound by time or space. So we may take his message even further: he informs us that our physical being and every physical being is real in time and space but also that nothing is always real in time and space because there is another reality which contains time and space and transcends it and has absolute power over it all. What was his purpose, why is your son "important" and to whom? That's for Others to know, I suppose, and for us to find out, maybe. After all:
"Not as the world gives give I unto you" – Jesus, so they said.
"Why do you doubt your senses?" – Marley's Ghost in Dickens's "A Christmas Carol "
"There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreampt of in your philosophy" – Hamlet
I loved your description of how you commuted to work every day, although hectic sounds like an enjoyable ride. I did similar here in US from NJ to NY on and off for many yrs. I spent time in London in 70s and adored it there. Also curious to know what other language you speak and what was your job that you used it for? I'm bilingual as well. Enjoying your story, wedding sounds lovely.
Apologies, Frances. In the comments on one of your pieces (sorry, can't find it now), I suggested that Gurdjieff or Ouspensky or someone had also received visits from a mysterious maharajah. I have just been reminded that it was in fact Edgar Cayce, The Sleeping Prophet. Dark Journalist mentioned it in his show today starting at the 2:37:35 mark:
Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I read that the entrance and exit to your building was automatically alarmed and that you had not nor had anyone switched off that alarm even for a moment and yet this strangely garbed man came and went without the alarm being triggered. To top that, this strangely garbed man handed you a scrap of paper on which was written the address of your intended husband's parental home written in his handwriting and you only found out what the address was when your intended told you. I'll leave it at that. Such things do happen. I've personally been told similar stories of paranormal experiences and have read others which I have no reason to doubt and rational reason to credit as sincere. This information has convinced me because the stories have an air of credibility to me and I take my training in our language seriously and thus I take my skills in analyzing statements seriously. Maybe you are trying to fool us all, odd and silly as that would be – what possible reason could you have for doing that and thus exposing yourself to ridicule? But all of the people whose similar accounts I have personally heard and all of the accounts I have read and found consistent and credible cannot possibly have been fabrications. These accounts, both heard and written, fit into a consistent whole. They describe a consistent picture. The physical reality of our bodies is a location in our time and space of our consciousness, describable as our souls., but it is not the only location. There is another dimension, a dimension out of our time and space into which those who die enter and some people who have died can and do pass back and forth between our material world and that other place. Consciousness can exist outside of dead and living bodies. All of human written history testifies to living persons' experiences confirming that fact. It is the basis of every religion testified in every written record going back 5000 years. Beyond the bare fact that the spirits of the dead can manifest themselves to the living there is a veil of the unknowable well symbolized by the angel with a flaming sword guarding the Garden of Eden in Genesis. Thank God the tyrants of this mortal world will find out that fact when like all of us they pass away. It is enough that ghosts and spirits can tell us by their manifestations that the soul is real and enduring. Having accepted that on good evidence I have been revolutionized in my outlook on life and death.
Oh how unburdened we were then! Ignorance really was bliss...for behind the scenes evil forces were cooking up their stew of murder and mayhem.
Although our roots are very different, and the soil to which they are sunk literally worlds away- there is a bright sweetness forever living in our hearts. We remember when- with great clarity and, I think, because of these memories- we are all the more furious, all the more driven to expose the lies and theft.
Regardless of how these particular milestones turned out- the joy remains.
Dear Francis, I'm woefully behind in expressing my appreciation for several of your pieces - mainly because of the exhausting amount of info I read, may comment on, try to file sometimes, and share with my oldest son on his chat site.
First) My husband has heard your name and some of your pieces for a few months now. Today after much prep in the kitchen while having one of my herbal study sessions blaring, I asked him what he'd like to view/hear while we eat. He said for the hundredth time, nothing about the fuckerie please. (I listen to many people you do, docs, scientists, John OLooney etc and others a lot). So I said, "How about something fun, like Francis Leader's reminiscences?" He was dubious it would be fun. He knows you as one of my EMF experts along with RF Kennedy.....
He absolutely loved all 3 episodes. So fun! And we both enjoyed the three so much, I had to show him your post from July 31st. He said, "These are better than the 'Outlander' books". So thank you for an enjoyable Sunday dinner. Your marriage to Tony was so sweet, at least so far(!) compared to both of our first marriages circa 1976 and 1979..... Love, love your photos from the last free from total materialistic, mammon corporatism (in my mind) decade as well. WE did have real childhoods and wondrous adventures as young adults didn't we!
Second) The morning your poem about your son was in my email, I shouted some of it to said husband in the next room and he said, "When did you write that?" I said, "I didn't, Francis Leader did". He said, "My God, it sounds so much like us with Rhy's experience." I said, "I know." Rhy is our oldest son..... who has told me for 6 years that this is happening to thousands - at least - of men all over the world. Some details differ, but it is so similar to our heartbreaking experience and the mental calisthenics we all have to do to maintain.......something. Our hearts? Our minds? Extremely artificial phone conversations with grandchildren we have not seen for 6 years. Whose births we drove a continent to attend. Thank you for writing that for us.
Third) Ok, this is where we have nearly decided you are actually CIA spying on me. (Joking) Right after you posted the poem for your son, you posted a piece on the Royal Institute/ Chatham House. There is a picture of me - unless I threw it away - standing in that doorway. My sister has worked there since the late '90s. And may still. She lives in Saffron Walden still I suppose. Long story short, I have not seen or spoken with her in 11 years. And I haven't read that piece yet, but intend to.
I'm glad your life has been documented well enough to electronically share.
Thank you for your gift of writing and generosity in sharing.
If you are to ever find yourself in our Southeast Alaskan rain forest, our kettle will be on and our fire warm.
SUNDAY IN MEMORY LANE (Episode 4)
https://francesleader.substack.com/p/sunday-in-memory-lane-episode-4
Padre Pio
It is a very moving story to me. I had forgotten it and my reply until a reader named Audrey reminded me (thanks Audrey!). Thinking over the circumstances, I picture you spending an unspecified time answering that phone call after which you found the tea lady in the office kitchenette and then you "raced down the stairs to check the entrance" and found the door securely closed and alarmed and no one in the entrance way. It's possible that this man was a real physical man and that your answering the phone call was a long enough time for a man to go down the stairs and out the door and out of sight at a normal pace. But if so, the question would still remain how he opened the door to go without triggering the alarm, since as you said, opening the door for whatever reason would have set off the alarm bell in your office which you would have heard.
There is no physical possibility that you imagined the man or the note since Tony saw and read the note and confirmed that it was real. The note was certainly not a mere figment but a real object made of real paper and written upon with real ink or pencil and the address was real and written in Tony's real handwriting, though he did not recall writing it.
There's a perfectly rational explanation that fits all the evidence. The man was a real physical man but real, physically present in the hallway in the building in 1971, only for the purpose of giving you the note and his message. Having delivered his message and the note he then went on his way not by going through the door but by dematerializing just as he had come not by opening the door but by materializing in the hallway. However, the piece of paper did not dematerialize, rather it kept its material existence long enough for you to show it to Tony. The Annunciation which the messenger spoke was not written on the paper; the function of the note was to assure yourself and Tony and now all of us who read your account so many years in the future that the incident and the messenger could not possibly have been a figment of your imagination.
Maybe you are just making up a story. Maybe you'll now say, "Ha ha! I was lying. I made it all up just to make a fool of you and all my readers and myself." That would be a "rational explanation" for a lot of our modern believers in Rationalism. I dare say that you won't say that, that you are not lying at all. I don't find that "explanation" probable enough to even bother arguing it. There's no use bandying foolish words with prejudiced people.
Our materialistic culture is specifically informed and challenged by this incident. There will be readers who will insist that the incident could not possibly be real. There must be, they will insist, a "rational explanation". I would reply, and so should you I think, that there is a perfectly rational explanation since there is nothing at all irrational in accepting what the evidence plainly tells us. What is irrational, motivated by prejudice and not by observation and reason, is to try to 'explain away' what our senses and reason so obviously and specifically tell us. The resemblance between your experience and the Annunciation of Mary in the Gospel of Luke will occur to the common materialistic skeptic and prompt such a person to say you imagined it all or you are telling a fib. But your messenger, angelic as he seems, has already anticipated this argument by giving you the real material paper note and by Tony reading it. So your angelic messenger anticipated the future in this small (but very significant!) way as well. He was not bound by time or space. So we may take his message even further: he informs us that our physical being and every physical being is real in time and space but also that nothing is always real in time and space because there is another reality which contains time and space and transcends it and has absolute power over it all. What was his purpose, why is your son "important" and to whom? That's for Others to know, I suppose, and for us to find out, maybe. After all:
"Not as the world gives give I unto you" – Jesus, so they said.
"Why do you doubt your senses?" – Marley's Ghost in Dickens's "A Christmas Carol "
"There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreampt of in your philosophy" – Hamlet
What a beautiful bride! I am loving these stories of your life. Thank you, Frances.
The photo of the four of you outside the church was a real bonus Frances. Thanks for including. x
I loved your description of how you commuted to work every day, although hectic sounds like an enjoyable ride. I did similar here in US from NJ to NY on and off for many yrs. I spent time in London in 70s and adored it there. Also curious to know what other language you speak and what was your job that you used it for? I'm bilingual as well. Enjoying your story, wedding sounds lovely.
Great story of your memorable wedding day. You were a beautiful bride for sure. 🥰
Apologies, Frances. In the comments on one of your pieces (sorry, can't find it now), I suggested that Gurdjieff or Ouspensky or someone had also received visits from a mysterious maharajah. I have just been reminded that it was in fact Edgar Cayce, The Sleeping Prophet. Dark Journalist mentioned it in his show today starting at the 2:37:35 mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-DgrBOv0hQ&t=893s
You are in excellent company!
simply lovely & Beautiful, an enjoyable read that I can connect with. Respect & X2 All
Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I read that the entrance and exit to your building was automatically alarmed and that you had not nor had anyone switched off that alarm even for a moment and yet this strangely garbed man came and went without the alarm being triggered. To top that, this strangely garbed man handed you a scrap of paper on which was written the address of your intended husband's parental home written in his handwriting and you only found out what the address was when your intended told you. I'll leave it at that. Such things do happen. I've personally been told similar stories of paranormal experiences and have read others which I have no reason to doubt and rational reason to credit as sincere. This information has convinced me because the stories have an air of credibility to me and I take my training in our language seriously and thus I take my skills in analyzing statements seriously. Maybe you are trying to fool us all, odd and silly as that would be – what possible reason could you have for doing that and thus exposing yourself to ridicule? But all of the people whose similar accounts I have personally heard and all of the accounts I have read and found consistent and credible cannot possibly have been fabrications. These accounts, both heard and written, fit into a consistent whole. They describe a consistent picture. The physical reality of our bodies is a location in our time and space of our consciousness, describable as our souls., but it is not the only location. There is another dimension, a dimension out of our time and space into which those who die enter and some people who have died can and do pass back and forth between our material world and that other place. Consciousness can exist outside of dead and living bodies. All of human written history testifies to living persons' experiences confirming that fact. It is the basis of every religion testified in every written record going back 5000 years. Beyond the bare fact that the spirits of the dead can manifest themselves to the living there is a veil of the unknowable well symbolized by the angel with a flaming sword guarding the Garden of Eden in Genesis. Thank God the tyrants of this mortal world will find out that fact when like all of us they pass away. It is enough that ghosts and spirits can tell us by their manifestations that the soul is real and enduring. Having accepted that on good evidence I have been revolutionized in my outlook on life and death.
Oh how unburdened we were then! Ignorance really was bliss...for behind the scenes evil forces were cooking up their stew of murder and mayhem.
Although our roots are very different, and the soil to which they are sunk literally worlds away- there is a bright sweetness forever living in our hearts. We remember when- with great clarity and, I think, because of these memories- we are all the more furious, all the more driven to expose the lies and theft.
Regardless of how these particular milestones turned out- the joy remains.
✌💟
You spread so much love in your Memory Lane musings, Frances! Thank you!
lovely memories! Frances & Tony are the cutest couple ever!
Dear Francis, I'm woefully behind in expressing my appreciation for several of your pieces - mainly because of the exhausting amount of info I read, may comment on, try to file sometimes, and share with my oldest son on his chat site.
First) My husband has heard your name and some of your pieces for a few months now. Today after much prep in the kitchen while having one of my herbal study sessions blaring, I asked him what he'd like to view/hear while we eat. He said for the hundredth time, nothing about the fuckerie please. (I listen to many people you do, docs, scientists, John OLooney etc and others a lot). So I said, "How about something fun, like Francis Leader's reminiscences?" He was dubious it would be fun. He knows you as one of my EMF experts along with RF Kennedy.....
He absolutely loved all 3 episodes. So fun! And we both enjoyed the three so much, I had to show him your post from July 31st. He said, "These are better than the 'Outlander' books". So thank you for an enjoyable Sunday dinner. Your marriage to Tony was so sweet, at least so far(!) compared to both of our first marriages circa 1976 and 1979..... Love, love your photos from the last free from total materialistic, mammon corporatism (in my mind) decade as well. WE did have real childhoods and wondrous adventures as young adults didn't we!
Second) The morning your poem about your son was in my email, I shouted some of it to said husband in the next room and he said, "When did you write that?" I said, "I didn't, Francis Leader did". He said, "My God, it sounds so much like us with Rhy's experience." I said, "I know." Rhy is our oldest son..... who has told me for 6 years that this is happening to thousands - at least - of men all over the world. Some details differ, but it is so similar to our heartbreaking experience and the mental calisthenics we all have to do to maintain.......something. Our hearts? Our minds? Extremely artificial phone conversations with grandchildren we have not seen for 6 years. Whose births we drove a continent to attend. Thank you for writing that for us.
Third) Ok, this is where we have nearly decided you are actually CIA spying on me. (Joking) Right after you posted the poem for your son, you posted a piece on the Royal Institute/ Chatham House. There is a picture of me - unless I threw it away - standing in that doorway. My sister has worked there since the late '90s. And may still. She lives in Saffron Walden still I suppose. Long story short, I have not seen or spoken with her in 11 years. And I haven't read that piece yet, but intend to.
I'm glad your life has been documented well enough to electronically share.
Thank you for your gift of writing and generosity in sharing.
If you are to ever find yourself in our Southeast Alaskan rain forest, our kettle will be on and our fire warm.
jill
Absolutely adorable
cos i read so much i tend to race through articles but with these memories i take my time, they are most enjoyable!