by Harold Sherman

THERE IS AN OLD mystical saying: "When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears." This seemed to have been borne out in our case because, in July, 1921, while serving as newspaper reporter on the Marion, Indiana, Chronicle, I was assigned to cover the Redpath Chautauqua Program and to review the lecture on "Crime and Criminology" by the Chicago policeman and detective Harry J. Loose.

There was nothing in what he said on the platform to indicate that Mr. Loose possessed any unusual psychic powers, but when I felt strongly impelled to call at his hotel that evening and seek a personal interview with him, he astounded me by calling me by name and stating that he had known he was to meet me at this time for the past three weeks! He then explained that a highly spiritual woman, ninety-six years of age, who resided near Boston, had given him the equivalent of a college education while he slept at night; and that she was attracting young people to him on this lecture trip who had a potential for psychic development, who needed encouragement. He said she could "tune in" on the minds of such people as she mentally surveyed the towns he was to be in—and transmit to the ones she wanted him to meet the impulse to seek him out. According to Harry, he had been waiting in his room for me to appear!

There followed three of the most remarkable and inspiring hours I have ever experienced on this planet, during which Harry told me more about myself than I had been aware: He predicted that I would go to New York City in two years or so in pursuit of a writing career; that if I kept up my interest in the higher powers of mind, we would likely meet again in this life; but that it might be as long as twenty years, because he had a "mission" to perform and would be dropping out of sight for a time after his lecture tour was completed.

At midnight Harry asked me to excuse him for the next half hour as he always communicated with: Mrs. Loose from twelve to twelve-thirty. He said he would receive for the first fifteen minutes and send the last fifteen; that "Mother Loose," as he called her, opened his mail in Chicago and would make a list of other matters he needed to know about. As he received information, he would make a note of it and take care of what commanded his attention.

Harry had been stretched on his bed in his BVDs when I came in, this hot July night, and had drawn up a chair, on which I was now seated, beside the bed, as though expecting company. I sat watching him, fascinated, as he lay on his back, commencing to draw deep breaths, eyes closed. Occasionally, during the first fifteen minutes, he would raise up and make some notes on a that he had placed on the bedside table. After a time pushed the pad away and remained unmoving. Finally, almost exactly at twelve-thirty, he opened his eyes, smiled at me, and said, "I have been permitted to let you see this little telepathic practice of mine. You and your Martha should be able to do this in time—if you continue to work at it." (We have never become this accomplished, but we have accurately sensed each other's thoughts for years.)

When I left the presence of this most unusual man that night, deeply moved, I could hardly wait to get home and report to Martha. As he shook my hand in a clasp that conveyed a feeling of indescribable warmth and assurance, Harry's last words had been:

“Harold, your development is all up to you. Up to now, your mind has been filled with wonderment and doubts. You and Martha have been asking yourselves, 'Could these higher powers of mind really exist? Could it be mostly imagination or hallucination or wishful thinking? What can you really believe or accept as the truth?' It's a long journey and you'll have many disillusionments, but when you may be assailed with doubts, perhaps you will remember this night and take new heart. Goodbye until we meet again!”

The impact of that great personal adventure made as deep an impression on Martha as it had on me. It carried us through almost the next twenty years; our change of residence from Marion, Indiana, to New York City, as Harry had predicted; my struggles to gain a foothold in the writing profession, first as juvenile sports-story author, with its many ups and downs; while devoting much of my spare time to a study and practice of telepathy, as we sought greater and greater knowledge concerning mysteries of the mind. During this time we tried on several occasions to make contact with Harry Loose, but letters addressed to the Chicago Police Department and Redpath Chautauqua Circuit were returned, marked "no forwarding address" or "whereabouts unknown," seeming to confirm Harry's statement that he would not be available for a time, while on a "mission."

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In the late 1930s Sherman in New York and explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins in the arctic conducted mind-to-mind experiments, detailed in their jointly authored book, Thought Through Space.

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With the finish of these experiments and with time to study and evaluate them, it became clear to me that I had, in my way, been able to receive specific and detailed impressions of events from Wilkins' mind, comparable to the type of communication that Harry Loose and his wife had apparently demonstrated years before. I had never doubted the validity of what I had witnessed that night in the Marion Hotel, and my memory of it had given me the faith that if I persisted, I would hopefully, one day, acquire the ability to duplicate what the Looses had done.

Thinking of them so strongly renewed my desire to make contact with Harry again. . . . Wilkins and I received some 10,000 letters from people all over the world, following publication of a feature article in the March 1939 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, telling about the success of our long-distance telepathic adventure. We divided the mail between us and set out to try to reply to all the interested correspondents, a task which took some months.

As I was writing Walter D. Germain, head of the Crime Prevention Department, Saginaw Police Force, Saginaw, Michigan, I suddenly had the feeling that he might know the whereabouts of Harry J. Loose; so—acting on impulse—I added a postscript: "Would you happen to know the present address of Harry J. Loose, former Chicago policeman and detective in charge of Hull House? If so, I would greatly appreciate your sending it to me."

By return mail came Loose's address! He had retired and was now living at 123 Elizabeth Street, Monterey Park, California. I wrote Harry at once, filling him in on our family background and a few highlights on what had happened since our first memorable meeting. I also sent him a copy of my little book Your Key to Happiness to acquaint him with the philosophy of life Martha and I had evolved up to that time.

An immediate reply came from Harry, indicative in every way of the unusual nature and character of the man as I had remembered and been inspired by him. [This was] the first of many treasured communications we were to receive from February 4, 1941, until the time of his passing, November 21, 1943.

Greetings!

May I thank you for your letter. I was not given to expect it until later in the month.

With a good wife and two beautiful and dutiful daughters, you are very fortunate. . . . I am pleased with your writing success. I congratulate you. You have been helped—as you helped yourself.

I live on a very modest income, in an old brown house in a small and humble suburb of Los Angeles. I drive downtown in twelve minutes. My lot is large but I am a sad farmer. My time is not occupied physically.

Intelligences with whom I am in contact have accomplished much in service to this atom of a world. I serve in a very humble capacity. My mission has not been completed. I have progressed but had hoped for release and much greater progress before this. Much has been done in regard to the crisis looming for this nation, but the forces in opposition are of tremendous psychic power. An untaught, untrained mind could not comprehend. [We were within a few months of the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the outbreak of the Second World War.]

Long-distance telepathy—or short-distance—is much in use and operates perfectly. It has been in operation for thousands of years amongst certain groupings in all periods. Its method is very simple when once understood. Time or space is nothing. There is nothing else real but mind. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing."

I do not know your present development. I have to be careful. I do not want to talk over your head and be misunderstood.

Remember to watch for a tremendous book which will be published in about two years. It has been now thirty-five years in the building. It is not mine but I had something to do with it. You will recognize it when it appears. It will clarify so very much that is already in our present-day Bible. It is a true spiritual revelation to this age written by intelligences who have never been earthbound and who have to do with the governing of this tiny earth in this very limited part of the universe. Please believe every astonishing word. It is the truth. I know.

I talked with you on the night of July 21st, 1921, in my room in the old Marion Hotel. I knew so little myself then. Life is all an individual proposition—whether there will be growth or not. No one can grow for you. This applies hereafter just as much as here. You will not be satisfied to sit on a damp cloud and play on a four-string harp forever. You would get very tired of it after the first few hundred years. You will find that you will be kept very busy instead of cloud-sitting.

With every good thought to surround and support you and yours—Sincerely, Harry J. Loose.

This was the start of a flow of astounding letters, each one an individual revelation in itself, as Harry informed and instructed us, step by step, giving us an enlarged vista of life and the universe; a broadened concept of the Creator and creation; a beginning grasp of our purpose on this planet; and the suggestion that each human creature comes into this life with a potential mission to perform in service to humanity.

This idea of each person being born with a mission—a debt, so to speak, to society—which he or she was given the free-will opportunity to pay, was new to us. It was new and yet it appealed to our sense of logic and rightness. It helped give us a feeling of rhyme and reason behind all things observing as we did the interrelatedness and interdependence of all forms of life, one upon the other.

At the time Harry Loose came into my life again, I had been writing a play, which had been arousing much interest, based on the life of Mark Twain. The Broadway producer who had taken an option on the play died suddenly and I was left with feelings of uncertainty concerning it. However, Harry Loose assured me that Hollywood would buy the play and I would soon be coming to the coast. There didn't seem to be any immediate prospect at the moment, but an unexpected long-distance phone call from Warner Brothers and the then-famous producer, Jesse Lasky, put me on a plane for Hollywood to negotiate a deal.

As exciting and as important to my writing career as this development was, my number one interest was a reunion with Harry, whose one-time meeting so many years ago had had the greatest influence on Martha's and my life. But there was more, much more to come, not the least of which was to be our association with the "tremendous book" to which Harry referred in his first letter to us

During our stay in Hollywood while I worked on the screenplay, "The Adventures of Mark Twain," for Warner Brothers (in 1941 until May of 1942), Martha and I spent each Sunday afternoon and evening in the presence of Harry Loose, either in his modest home in Monterey Park or in our Canterbury apartment in Hollywood.