1st August 1985

I’ve been getting to know Tegan lately. She was the one who helped choose my name when I joined. I couldn’t think what to call myself, and I didn’t want anything too radical, so she suggested the variation of my real name. It’s fine.

Tegan was one of Silas’ first followers, so she’s been studying with him longer than I. She has a lot to say.

She apparently questioned Silas on his choice not to give this group a formal name. Tegan said she thought an official name would legitimise the group, but Silas thinks it would cheapen it. Silas thinks that a name would become the group’s definition, and he doesn’t think that his ideas can be epitomised into a name.

Tegan also thinks we should make flyers to advertise so that more people can hear about us. I probably don’t need to tell you what Silas thought of that idea, but I will explain because I want this diary to be an accurate tale of how Silas and his followers will come to change the way the world views parapsychism. To be frank, he is simply not interested in advertisement. He wants people’s attention to come to us organically, not simply as a result of bombardment. This isn’t business. It’s wholly personal, and Silas wants to keep it that way.

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This all makes me think about how I came to be follower…

It was roughly a year ago that I left my hometown. I don’t wish to give too many details of my life prior to this (the original followers made a choice to remain anonymous from their previous lives, and that is a tradition I would like the honour), but I experienced a painful childhood and then escaped to a marriage when I was seventeen. Within three years, it was my marriage I was escaping, as my abusive older husband attacked me and I was powerless to defend myself. I left everything behind, ran to the train station, and with every penny I had in my purse, I managed to buy a ticket as far as here. I wasn’t prepared with a place to stay, nor could I afford a hotel. I was devastated. I sat down on a park bench with my coat on top of me like a blanket, and I stayed there for probably hours, just wondering where I had gone so wrong in my life that I could end up homeless, broke, and trying to divorce my husband from afar.

I was thinking how hungry I was when a man walked by. He asked if he could sit next to me. He asked if I’d like to share a meal with him. Then he introduced himself as Silas Lynch. He told me he knew I was hungry. He told me he knew I was running away. That someone tried to hurt me. That I was ashamed that I couldn’t fight back.

He told me I didn’t have to run anymore. He told me he could teach me how to defend myself. How could I turn that down?

Lissy