Mr. N. Meade Layne (1882 –1961) was, in his own words, “not a scientist or mathematician,” but “an academician who . . . strayed into borderland sciences and psychic research.” He is known for his “Etheric Interpretation of the Flying Saucers,” which he produced in collaboration with the medium Mark Probert and others. He also wrote extensively on a variety of other esoteric subjects, including dowsing and the finer forces, during his tenure as editor of The Round Robin, which he started as “A Bulletin of Contact and Information for Students of Psychic Research and Parapsychology.” In 1951, Mr. Layne founded the Borderland Sciences Research Foundation for “the purpose of studying parapsychology and extended consciousness.”
This exchange of letters between Wolff and Mr. Layne begins with a letter in which Mr. Layne introduces himself with a verse that he has composed; it is titled “Aldebaran in Faery.” Mr. Layne also notes that he has some questions regarding Chapter XLIX of Pathways Through to Space, but that as a “stranger” he would not presume to burden the author with such matters. Wolff responds that he is much impressed with Mr. Layne’s poem, and that he recognizes “through it that you have acquaintance with that which men do not often find and, finding, do not always understand.” Wolff also notes that he “does not stand aloof from answering questions from ‘strangers’ about Pathways,” and that in fact, he is eager to learn of the problems that arise in the reader’s mind.
Mr. Layne writes with an inquiry about after-death states, to which Wolff responds with a letter and a 3-page essay titled “Essential Dying” under the heading of “Pathways Problems.”
Other letters involve an exchange of two issues of The Round Robin and an issue of The Flying Roll, a quarterly publication not available to the general public (Mr. Layne had gifted Wolff a subscription to each journal). Mr. Layne also forwards a letter from William C. Crump for Wolff’s examination (unfortunately, this letter is not included here). In the last letter in this exchange, Wolff commends Mr. Layne for his work, and particularly for his “balance between critical discrimination and open-mindedness [that] is hard to hold in work of the sort in which you are engaged”; Wolff then expounds on the problem of Mr. Crump. (25 pages)
