We can act as if there were a God and feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full of special design; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.

- William James

One summer day about 20 years ago, I went into Livingston’s Photography Studio in Sylva to pick up some pictures and met a remarkable man named George Meek. George had just opened a large pack of photographs and, turning to me, said, “What do you think?” The pictures were unusual — all of smiling, attractive folks with their eyes closed. I said, “Are they asleep?” George gave me a perverse smile. “Not exactly,” he said. “They have all been dead for 200 years.” I asked where and when the pictures were taken, and George said they all appeared on TVs in Sweden. “They are trying to contact us,” said George. “These are photographs from ‘the other side.’” I noted that they were all young and beautiful. George said, “In Eternity, you can be any age you wish.”

Thus began a friendship that lasted for a decade. Gradually, I learned that George had been a successful engineer in Florida and that he had become wealthy from several patents, investments and a shrewd business acumen. He had taken “early retirement,” and used his life savings to establish a research project in Franklin — Metascience, Inc. — for the purpose of investigating and compiling data on, for want of a better word, “psychic phenomena.” George used his considerable life savings to establish Metascience and pay the salaries of a full-time staff. In addition, he published a monthly newsletter with a world-wide circulation.

When I visited Metascience, the office was a beehive of activity with ringing phones, a colorful assortment of visitors, and secretaries who dealt with an impressive daily correspondence. Over the years, Metascience Inc. acquired an impressive library of books, tapes and recordings, and I was inevitably drawn to them.

Meek was generous to a fault and encouraged me to read everything. I did exactly that. I read novels that were dictated by spirits (to surviving loved ones), waded through detailed accounts of reincarnation, listened to tapes of alleged conversations with the dead. (The messages were often found on answering machines and sound-activated tape recorders.) I looked at thousands of photographs which had been mailed to George  often depicting figures standing in a cloud-bound Eternity — by his “contacts” in half-a-dozen countries: I read William James, H. G. Wells and Edgar Cayce, the “Seth” books and the documented accounts of the J. B. Rhine experiments at Duke University. I talked to visiting psychics and channelers, pored over Kirlian photographs and read the life of Peter Hurkos. Did I believe any of it? Well, no, I am afraid I didn’t ... but I wanted to.

Each day, the mail truck brought a deluge of strange tapes, videos, and testimonials. There were endless recordings of “white sound”  that static-choked realm on short-wave radio where messages inexplicably occurred — in which hearty voices allegedly from people who had “crossed over” long ago, sent greetings. There were transcripts of channeling sessions with Winston Churchill, Jesus and Roosevelt, murky photographs, and eerie music. I remember a recording that a noted German film-maker sent, claiming it contained the voice of his mother, dead for a decade. He had left a sound-activated recorder in the woods to capture bird songs and had gotten a message from Momma. “How are you my little Fedor?” she said. I wanted it to be true. When I looked at the faces of the Metascience staff, I saw the same hopeful yearning. “Make me believe it!”

As time went on, I became aware of a visitor who came to the office repeatedly — an elderly lady, attractive and frail, who had to be carried in and out of the office. I learned that this was George’s wife and she was dying. The two of them together were a memorable sight. Gruff, stern George, agitated and devoted as a teenager, as they whispered and laughed together. George brought her examples of “new evidence.” They held hands as they read, but invariably she would tire and apologize, and one of George’s assistants would carry her from the room as she smiled and waved goodbye to all of us. Now, I understood. The entire Metascience operation existed because this stubborn, determined man wanted to know that he would never lose his wife.

I began to understand why George accepted some highly questionable data, photographs that looked “doctored.” I would sometimes ask how he knew that the photographs, the messages and the monitored radio and television broadcasts were not forged. It would be an easy deception. “Perhaps,” he would sometimes say, “but then, perhaps not. It could be genuine.” Eventually, I wrote grants for Metascience and was amazed to discover that there were foundations that endorsed Metascience research. Meek admitted that many gave money anonymously, stating that they preferred not to have the general public know that they nurtured “quasi-scientific research.” I even learned that near the end of his life, Thomas A. Edison worked on a transmitter/receiver which would connect “this world and the other.”

Eventually, the funds were exhausted and Metascience disbanded. The staff dwindled to a single, faithful secretary and I took a bad teaching job in Brevard. I only heard by chance that George’s wife had died shortly afterwards. Several years later, I saw George in downtown Franklin, a frail, distracted man struggling with his keys and the lock on his car door. I spoke to him, and told him that I was pleased to see him and that I often thought of him. He smiled and with his usually courtesy apologized for not having the vaguest idea who I was. I learned later that he died a few months after that chance meeting.

I find myself thinking about George Meek frequently. Was Metascience Inc. misguided and foolish? Would he have been better advised to have used those funds to acquire medical attention for his wife? Take a vacation? Sit together in the twilight and sing old songs? Would the time that he devoted to attempting to verify the fact that Eternity existed and that he would be with his wife forever — would that time have been better spent sharing the dwindling precious moments of their mortal lives?

One fact is certain. George Meek was not a fraud, and if the “factual data” that Metascience developed was “questionable,” George didn’t know it .... or refused to know it. When I remember the entire episode now, George seems admirable, for he was capable of that desperate gamble, that beautiful gesture. And, finally, I would like to think that he was right! I would like to think that he and his wife are wrapped in each other’s arms in Cloud Land for eternity. Perhaps, I will wake some night, having gone to sleep on the couch, and see my TV, all snow and frizzy static ... and there will be George and his wife, eternally young and waving serenely at me from some place over the Rainbow ....

I would like to believe that.

(Gary Carden is a writer and storyteller who lives in Sylva. He can be reached at gcarden498@aol.com)

 

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