A collaboration formed after loss
Rafferty lived in Santa Ana, California. He and his wife Carrie shared a long friendship with Charlotte Elizabeth Dresser. In their books they appear under the familiar names F. R., Sis and Dee. Their introductory account describes extensive travel together before Carrie died late in 1917. Rafferty says he had expected no continued personal life after death. Experiments with table-tipping, followed by a Ouija board and Dresser’s automatic writing, changed his convictions.
Little secure biographical information is available about his earlier life beyond the records connected with this collaboration. Dresser’s surviving letters document the friendship, while the books preserve Rafferty’s own account of how it developed into a sustained investigation. He described almost daily communication over several years with speakers whom they identified as Dee and her companions. This was the participants’ interpretation of their experiences; the surviving narrative does not independently establish those identities.
Selecting, questioning and writing
Spirit World and Spirit Life was published by J. F. Rowny Press in Los Angeles in 1922, with a copyright notice naming Rafferty. Dresser’s preface assigns him the task of selecting and editing the writings. He grouped fragments from different occasions under subjects such as communication, spiritual surroundings, study and service. An inserted address to readers invites accounts that either support or contradict the descriptions, giving his Santa Ana postal address for replies.
