extraordinary physical beauty and had been selected in her youth by Max Reinhardt to create the part of the Madonna in "The Miracle". She was also a personality of exceptional warmth, magnetic charm and spiritual intuition. She also possessed a great capacity for inspired lectures, naturally, on the subject of the Master and his spiritual significance. It was always she who gave the discourses at Carnegie Hall or Steinway Hall to capacity audiences of 350 or 400, usually on a Sunday evening, during the winter season. On Thursday evenings, at their home on East 67th Street, she gave more intimate talks to smaller audiences that filled the large duplex studio. All the talks were absolutely free, including the literature; by the Master's order, no donation or admission was charged. Only the Discourses, when available, were allowed to be sold. Countess Nadine Tolstoy, widow of the son of Leo Tolstoy, was the third member of the team, whose main function was to get to know those who came and showed a deeper interest in the Master. If interested, one could have a personal interview with her or sometimes with the Princess. It was in some of these more intimate talks that some of the spiritual 'links' were forged that are still in existence today — and, incidentally, where one might learn and hear a great number of anecdotes or 'Baba stories.'

Two of the old Stokes group were also strong members of this group, John Bass, and Darwin Shaw, who lived in Schenectady but who came down at some expense to himself, to be with the group, often introducing Princess Matchabelli's talks, as he had a pleasant appearance and voice. He was later to develop into quite a speaker himself.

To supplement these public talks, and the private interviews, very informal Sunday afternoon teas were held, where discussion was general but inevitably on spiritual subjects, and to which those were asked who had shown more interest. As is typical of all religious work in a great metropolis like New York, those who came represented a tremendous but typical cross-section of 'spiritual seekers,' — those who are not satisfied with the orthodox religions, nor with the current agnostic, intellectual materialism of our day. Just as varied were their opinions and reactions to Meher Baba, from outright abuse to a firm and living faith that endured and transformed their lives.

This Meher Baba group, which was not yet called 'The Group' in those days, differed, of course, in one vital respect from all the other esoteric religious groups in New York, whom one might facetiously call our 'rivals' and many of whose members did indeed, join us. We had a living Master to offer. Most of these groups either teach "metaphysics" (an odd and special perversion of the term to mean 'mental science'), or various forms of occultism, often with rituals and ceremonies dating back to the occult societies of the past, especially the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons. Some, like the Sufis, Theosophists, Vedantist and Arcane Societies, offer a Westernized version of Eastern thinking; others are devoted to a Master or Adept of the recent past, such as the Ouspensky group, the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda group, the Self-Realization group, devoted to Swami Yogananda.

Inevitably, we became familiar with them all, and often attended their lectures and meetings, to learn what they were offering and perhaps to meet a new "soul." We found that those who had had some contact with Eastern thought, especially in regard to the subject of Masters, Avatars, and God-Realization, were better prepared to understand and grasp Meher Baba as a living Master The poorest prepared, in this respect, were the orthodox Jews and Christians. The idea of any human being reaching God-consciousness (let alone announcing it, to boot) was inconceivable to the first; to the second, the possibility was always there, of course, but the framework of dogma allowed only One to have achieved it. Many were the long and lively philosophical discussions one had on such points with the 'newcomers,' and one's knowledge of the metaphysics of all the major religions came in handy, in refuting an argument.

Another distinctive feature of the group at this time, one not so apparent to the outsider, but interesting from the psychological point of view, was its complete dominance by one person — Princess Matchabelli. Not only was her personality more forceful than the other two women, but she was in virtually absolute control of many 'internal' situations for another, unusual reason. She was able, as she claimed, to get in