Observations placeholder
Thomas, John F - Case Studies Bearing Upon Survival - The Gum Case
Identifier
025362
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Again, too many assumptions. E L T is Mrs Thomas and already the assumption is made that it is her, whereas by reading Dr Thomas’s perceptions Mrs Soule would have been able to get this information easily. Notes by the Rhines.
A description of the experience
Case Studies Bearing Upon Survival – John F Thomas
CASE 17. THE GUM CASE
The story of the chewing-gum incident, although not a very "spiritual" one, as E. L. T. herself recognized, is unusual alike in subject matter and in significance. It goes back into the almost forgotten habits of the younger days of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas more than twenty years before, when Mr. T. had been an addict to the gum chewing habit and his wife, of course, his “severest critic." By good-natured “joshing," however, Mr. T. was driven eventually to a discontinuance of what was to his wife an undignified performance. For twenty years, then, the habit of not chewing gum prevailed until one day in March, 1927. A friend at the office had offered him a piece of gum and, contrary to his custom, Mr. T. for some reason this time yielded. A few days later, seated in his living room at home, he whimsically drew the lone piece of gum from his vest pocket and was in the unaccustomed act of unwrapping it when his daughter- in-law, Florence, came through the room, and exclaimed in mild surprise,
“Why, Mr. Thomas, you chewing gum?"
“Just for fun; someone gave it to me," was Mr. T.'s reply as nearly as he remembers it.
Florence's surprise was natural, since no one in the Thomas household had used gum within her period of contact with it. At the time of this incident no one was in the house except Florence and a Swedish work-woman whom the Thomases had in to help with the cleaning on Saturdays. This woman had been much devoted and considerably indebted to E. L. T. and is considered entirely trustworthy by the family. She was in the kitchen, clearly out of sight and sound, at the time here mentioned. About a month later, April 11, 1927, E. L. T. said through Mrs. Soule,
"I have been watching everything that has been going on among my friends at home—
(Yes, we think you have.)
and always with the idea that I will recall something here."
(Well, you know you have recalled a number of remarkable things' so you are getting that through all right.)
“Yes, and I will continue. I want just now to say something about gum
(All right.)
gum chewing and someone who has taken to it as a little habit which is not so serious, as a kind of joke, for I have seen a piece taken from a vest pocket, unwrapped, and put in the mouth with a little smile and someone cried out, ‘You chewing gum!'
(Was the one who cried out a lady or a gentleman?)
A lady, and the answer was, ‘Just for fun; someone gave it to me,' then there was a, general laugh. Gum chewing is not tolerated in our family, is it? "
(No, not very seriously.)