April 2014
Dear Richard,
I was surprised to get any letters from anyone about Charles after all this time since his passing. It happens rarely at this time. I'd like to send you more things by Charles, but there isn't much left these days. Since my three sons are not interested in the paranormal or caving etc., I have sent most of his stuff to one of his former Publishers. Now that I am so elderly, I have tried to prepare for my own death by seeing that his manuscripts would not be lost for the public. My own family might have thrown them away, I fear.
Since I am Charles' second wife, Most of his past is known to me by what he talked about. I sent you one paper where he discribed a lot of his personal history. I can tell you that he was married at 21 years of age, and his wife was 16. They had five kids with Four daughters and one son. His marriage lasted around 35 years when they were divorced. He married me in 1974 when we were both middle aged. I was ten years younger than he was, however. Both our families were grown and on their own.
Charles told me that he had been raised in a Catholic family, and he was an only child until his parents adopted another boy who was a relative. He was about 5 years younger. Also, Charles' dad was mugged and robbed while Charles was still a child. His dad received brain damage from this and was placed in a mental instition for the rest of his life.
After graduation, he worked as a tool and die employee for a while. He worked at a few different jobs altogether and lived in a few different states. He was a car salesman and sprayed a substance on boats in Phoenix which caused him to go on diability because it had damaged his lungs. This was in the 1960's, I believe. Then, after many previous years of being involved in his Spiritual search through New Age type churches, he became a Minister, and started his own church a while after that.
Over the years, he had started different organizations to search for truth about Superstition Mt. gold stories, undergroud life, and psychic things. He wote many, many articles for different publications and was known as an authority by many, as well as being a noted psychic. I, personally, have run across his name in different books and Newsletters. He was even referred to in England and books overseas.
Charles and his first wife started a church in Phoenix about 1970 where they held Sunday and Wed. services, as well as psychic instruction classes. Charles taught an advanced class which I attended and learned a lot. I also played the piano for their services. It turned out that my middle son married Charles' oldest granddaughter. That marriage lasted four years, only.
Charles' life was very difficult over the years. He had his back injured at one time, nearly died of marlaria once, had eye problems where the doctor predicted he would go blind within a year. Charles had been known as a healer, and he just laughed at his prediction of blindness by the medical community. It turned out that this eye disease was cured within a year and he could see fine. He didn't have their help to cure him. He said that he just knew it would get better!
In 1971, Charles did die from a combination heart and stroke attack for 8 min., 3 min., and 1 min. (total of 12 min.) at the age of 51 on his birthday. As he lay dead in the emergency ward the doctors declared him dead after he couldn't be revived. The doctors left with an intern being left behind who decided to keep trying to revive him. Miracle of miracle, he did, but Charles was in a coma for the next three days. During the three days, he shared the fact that he had left his body and gone to the waiting room where he saw his family memebers and some friends. Then he left through the ceiling and sent on to be in heaven for the next three days.
After returning home eventually, it took him about 1 1/2 years to almost fully recover. He had to learn to talk, walk, and regain strength. After his death experience, his psychic abilities were even better, too. Also he decided it was time to divorce his wife after 35 years. He mentioned to me that he had stayed for his children and partly because he had been taught by the Catholic religion that once married, always married. Anyhow, he did divorce her after he recovered.
At that time, he somewhat retired and devoted his time to giving healings, psychic readings, and some writings again. He did to some lectures and substitute Sunday Services. At this time, he became involved in a publication for whom he wrote articles about the Shaver Mystery again. He then received a letter from a man who claimed to have been to a subsurface place, and he began to become interested in that. You know about his writings on the subject, and I won't go into that. It ended with us moving to a town in Arkansas. He died two weeks after we moved there on the date of Sept. 23, 1983. So, I decided to stay here, and I've been here ever since.
Charles' life was filled with so much eventfullness that it would take a book to tell it all. As it is, I feel that Charles was the best thing that ever happened to me. He made me happy and had the biggest influence in making me a better person!! He was just extra special in every way!!
I hope this takes care of your curiosity. As for me, I do not have a computer. Well, I guess I will call this enough for now. Oh yes, I'm healthy, happy, and going strong for my age, which means I,m slowing down, have a few ailments, and losing energy. I'm signing this as Charles usually did....
Love, light & truth,
Lorene
A couple days after receiving the above letter, a package arrived from Lorene containing copies of two of his books, I Search for the Portals and Selfology. I already stumbled across a copy of Portals that someone has scanned and posted online, but the paper the book was printed on was thin, so the text on the back of some of the pages bleeds through onto the images making it hard to figure out just was some of Uncle Charlie's "psychic photos" are supposed to be showing. She also sent copies of his Straight Talk articles that were originally published in The Hollow Hassle and reprinted in Shavertron. I have copies of the Shavertron versions, but what Lorene sent me seems more substantial, but that may be an artifact of single-sided copying and having them all in one stack instead of spread through a number of issues. I haven't yet compared the two versions to see if Richard Toronto shortened them up or not.
She also sent copies (some enlarged) of many of the images from Portals with circles and arrows and even a paragraph on the back of one of them describing what each one was. I will try to scan or take digital photos of them and see if I can get them into digital format and still preserve what we were supposed to be seeing in those photos.
A plea for help: I don't want to bother Lorene again (she has already done far more than I ever could have asked of her), so I'll throw this out to the internet: Any idea which publisher she is referring to in the first paragraph? I understand her desire to get Charles' materials into someone's hands who won't toss them into a dumpster after her death. I just finished scanning in an entire box of family photos and letter that my parents found sitting at the curb in trash bags the day after my grandmother's funeral. My cousin was going on and on about how great it was to finally get rid of all that "junk" that grandma wouldn't let her throw away. Knowing my cousin, my parents ran outside and sure enough, the entire family history was on its way to the landfill. In any case, if you have any information, just pop it into the comments. Thanks.
Spare time is a rare thing these days, but I'll keep chipping away at the pile.
