Mary S. Vanderbilt: a Twentieth Century Seer

Mary S. Vanderbilt A Twentieth Century Seer by Mary E. Cadwallader was published in Chicago in 1921, by the Progressive Thinker Publishing House. (161 pages)

The Publisher has copy-edited this book to improve the formatting, style and accuracy of the text to make it readable. This did not involve changing the substance of the text.

"I have found Spiritualism a good thing to live by, and I have come pretty close to finding it a good thing to die by." M. S. Vanderbilt.

Prefatory Note:

.....It is fitting to preserve for posterity a record of some of the achievements of Mary S. Vanderbilt, but to attempt to glean even a tithe of the work of this marvelous medium and seer of the twentieth century would mean to give a history of the Spiritualist Movement, so closely was she identified with it in New England especially, her chosen field. We have had to depend upon incomplete transcripts gleaned here and there from the newspaper accounts which inadequately record a meager idea of what was accomplished through the medium-ship of this gifted seer. The preparation of this volume was the labor of love of one to whom the friendship of Mrs. Vanderbilt was a rare boon and whose appreciation of her mediumistic gifts was second to none.
.....We trust the reader will appreciate the difficulties surrounding the preparation of this memorial book, collated as it was from so many sources.
.....May it prove an inspiration to sorrowing hearts as it goes forth on its mission of love.
Mary E. Cadwallader

Excerpts:

.....Like the mediums in Modern Spiritualism, people will say to them: "I will stand by you," and other people have the same thing said to them: "If any trouble comes I will uphold you, and I will show them how I appreciate the comfort you have brought to me." But when you have been in your hour of Gethsemane, you have forgotten it and, like in the case of Jesus, they have stood still and denied us, and so we find today in our Modern Spiritualism, that men and women come and demand of the mediums the things they want to know. If they are told 101 things that are just as true as the one thing they wanted to know, and they are proven to be true, they will cast aside the 101, just because they did not receive just the one they wanted; and so if there has been a manifestation of the Nazarene that manifestation belongs to Modern Spiritualism, and even though at home they hold communion with their souls, and whether they are in the work before the world, they can say "Christ is my elder brother; Christ is my pattern; Christ is the medium whose mediumship I long to have my life lighted by."
.....That is the divine principle of living, and then we say the Master forgave his enemies, so we forgive ours. The Master said: "I did not come to convert the good, or the godly, but the ungodly," and he allowed the Pharisees to judge who were the ungodly; and so today in the ranks of Modern Spiritualism we say you come into our midst and if it is impossible and conditions are right, perhaps someone there will give you a message that will prove the individuality of your loved ones.
.....Modern Spiritualism says to you: The Master said love one another. And so we take their motto; it is a divine principle. Then we find the great field of Socialism opening before us, and we see there is no text, or creed, or dogma needed, but that one that is as old as time itself, that was spoken by the blue river of the Nile; the wonderful text that was spoken by the Ganges long before Buddha was born; the mighty text that was spoken by Zoroaster while the fire burned; the mighty text that was written when Confucius was compiling their sacred Bible for unborn generations; the text that again fell from the illuminated lips of the Master, when he said: Do unto others that they should do unto you......