I sent a sample cassette to Paul
saying wouldn't it be a marvellous idea to have all of Dr. Mac's lectures available on cassettes. Little did I realize what I was getting myself into! However, the great stumbling block would be
not having a good working machine on which to play the wires. I made an offer to Paul to hunt for a wire recorder in Canada or USA if possible and send it to him.
Eight months passed, and two or three
old rusty recorders and $800. later, I managed to obtain an almost new Webcor machine, but only on loan as a temporary exchange. So it turned out that Paul ended up forwarding to me by mail all
the wires to be transposed here in Canada.
As a test start, Paul sent two
wires, The True Torch of
Progress and
Your Faith that Produces
Works. I had expected to
hire a recording company to do all the recording and proceeded with the first two, but a young technician -- no doubt in a hurry to get through the job of transposing a wire I'd left him with the
machine -- had tangled the wire of The True Torch of Progress, used a sharp object to poke about to find the broken end, and hopelessly damaged this wire. My heart sank the next day when I saw wire strewn over the floor in the recording
studio. It was only sheer luck that I had earlier attempted at home to play back on another specimen of a wire recorder this particular tape and had managed to record it also. It was all I had
left to work on in future when preparing a master cassette. For Your Faith that Produces Works, I returned the wire to Paul by mail after recording it but learned later that it had been lost, which was the only one
to suffer such a fate in the mails.
At the beginning of 1979 all was
physically prepared here and I had the task of transposing the recordings, over 100 wires, which first had to be played out to remove the dust of twenty years and checked for any flaws or
shortcomings, carefully rewound back onto the original spool, then played again and recorded onto a 7-inch magnetic reel tape. From there it was transferred from reel to a master cassette, from
which copies were then made. It took about two years of steady application during off hours from my regular job at the time.
It is rather curious when thinking
back on the chain of events, and moreso during the intensive work of recording, that the people around me who had a part in this are not here any longer. A gentleman who was president of an
antique radio association, The Cat's Whiskers no less, and who put me in touch with the person from whom I borrowed the vitally essential Webster wire recorder (Webcor), has now passed on. A mutual friend from work who gave me much
moral support is now gone to another province in Canada. A Hungarian technician who undertook the servicing whenever I had problems, and there were many, always seemed to phone or drop by when I
was in a dilemma, wringing my hands in despair of what to do next. All seemed to be provided for.
Often I couldn't help smiling inwardly
to think that Dr. Mac was certainly on hand to oversee the proceedings! The assistance came to me when it was required and then another phase followed. It was indeed a lesson for me in learning
to rely on the higher forces. I can distinctly recall particular moments when alone that I would suddenly turn around and look at a doorway sensing a presence although I could see nothing. And
there has been only one occasion during sleep that I experienced a vivid dream of contacting Dr. Mac, in a sense he affirmed how much life is truly vibrant and real in the higher realms, of which
we know so little in our world of effects and matter.
One amusing episode occurred when I
had to begin transposing the wires, knowing next to nothing of the mechanics but relying on intuition every step of the way. On the wire machine was a movable post over which the wire must cross
while passing along the magnetic head itself. It acted as a kind of safety device, a brake lever, to regulate the tension of the wire while moving. Unfortunately, in this case if the wire
happened to be a bit unsteady and caused a slight quivering tension, the lever activated the switch to stop the machine cold in its tracks. It also caused an abrupt stress on the tension and
broke the wire most of the time. This sensitive little bit of apparatus caused me no end of anxiety at first as it was impossible to control. What to do? The words kept going through my mind of
the first test lecture, The
True Torch of Progress, of
"taking off the brakes." That's just what I did! It was possible to tie the lever back from the path of the moving wire passing along, and from thereon the project went forward with fair success.
No more surprise brakes or breaks. No other major catastrophies occurred, thank goodness. Anyone who has ever used a wire recorder will quite understand the challenge of operating one without
mishaps.
This sums up the account of my
connection with the wires and it was with the assistance of many others that these recorded lectures were eventually made available to the public. It could not have been done at a more suitable
time, since the advent of economical cassettes has placed Dr. Mac's lectures within reach of all who treasure his works.