Pole authored many pamphlets and books and was a lifelong pursuer of religious and mystical questions and visions, being particularly involved with the Baháʼí Faith and a quest for the Holy Grail of Arthurian Legend.
[3]: p20 Then in 1905 he added two friends to the interest and trips - Allen sisters who went in early September[3]: p20 and another 11–12 November[6]: pp48-9 - during the latter of which one had a vision of a woman's hand raising a cup out of a stream and returned.
[3]: pp28-30 [4]: p12 Of the origin, placing, and recovery of the cup, some processes and timings have been associated with Celtic and mystical thought and may have been a paradigm by which both Pole and Goodchild may have had a common framework of thinking.
[5]: pp93, 96–7 23 June 1907, Pole showed the cup to the Archdeacon of Westminster who invited then visitor Samuel Clemens who remarked upon it,[3]: pp17-8 and then to a group of notables 20 July including George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, Henry Pelham-Clinton, 7th Duke of Newcastle, Charles Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax, Reginald John Campbell, William Crookes and Oliver Lodge, and Whitelaw Reid, who gathered at home of Basil Wilberforce.
[5]: p93 Pole claimed it was at one time in the possession of Jesus[5]: pp90, 93 and provided the opportunity for a new wider religious framework in terms of respect for geography[5]: p93 as well as a breadth of ideas which later were taken up as a theme of New Age thought.
[5]: p95 Pole and his sisters and supporters began to host the cup in the upper room of his home in Bristol and called it "the Oratory"[3]: p26 which is a small chapel, especially for private worship.
[3]: p36 She sailed for England in June and stayed with a friend, Miss Hoey, and learned of the coverage and "find"[3]: pp36-7 and let Pole know of her experiences before the end of July that she had had visions of papers which would give an account of the cup.
[3]: p43 There he gained access to the gardens around the church but was stymied by a slab of marble blocking a tunnel but then there had visions of finding a lost library of Emperor Justinian,[3]: p45 [4]: p12 which would be a very significant factor the rest of his life in the quest.
On the way to meeting ʻAbdu'l-Bahá he had an encounter with a sheikh who thoughtfully observed a problem with imperialism: "A traveller walking through the streets of a town came across a house with its windows broken and its doors askew.
[22]: p8 In September visitors from India involved in the Brahmo Samaj movement came to see the cup in the oratory and felt it was bringing a chance for mystical awareness across people of different beliefs.
The thunder passed, and the hill was bathed in quiet light, and I became aware of a mighty Presence standing beside me, full of strength and illumination.…(which) made me comprehend the significance of many events that were to transpire….
January 1911 Pole appeared before the Bath Theosophical Society on behalf of the Baháʼís, in June at Clifton House he presided while Alice Buckton spoke at the meeting, then himself in early July on situations in Egypt, in August on the equality of women and men, and mention of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá coming in mid-September.
[3]: p60 And met[3]: p224 and developed a deep friendship with Scottish businessman[3]: p63 David Russell who himself warned Pole that he was convinced the "mental and other conditions" influenced visions and understandings of mediums and intuitive ideas one might have; a kind of "open-minded scepticism" which could be affected by senses of divided loyalties.
[3]: pp60, 83, 224, 229 In May Pole writes of an experience of being called to help "frigid souls" who had just died ("drowned") and were lost and feeling terrorized; he wanted to get better at aiding newly dead individuals.
[3]: p69 Pole wrote of his understanding of Baháʼí ideas of Armageddon prophecy in September to another long associated with the religion[37][38] - Mrs. Jane Whyte - also called a theosophist,[3]: p61 who also hosted ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and was the receiver of the tablet Seven Candles of Unity.
In November Pole published publicly about his ideas of the troubles of the War: All nations that look upon brute force as worthy of worship must share the blame for what has led to the present crisis.
[3]: p78 A year later in March 1917 he felt the presence of a soldier but it was not a communication yet,[3]: p3 and in August he began a process of automatic writing and this together with earlier work resulted in the book Private Dowding.
[3]: p93 Following this Pole was assigned to Military Intelligence and soon was alerted to the threat to ʻAbdu'l-Bahá - by the end of December was sending letters along multiple channels of concern to those with access to the government.
[51]: p114 In his visions Pole believed a new war footing of tension was rising up and cutting people off from the higher worlds especially in the strife in Ireland and Russia, a drawing of inspiration of racial consciousness meant to become wider but failing,[3]: pp117-8 and the flow of spiritual awakening was now misdirected and then was cut off in spring 1920:[3]: p119 for him examples of this were how things were going with President Wilson, the League of Nations, the Versailles Treaty, the Russian Revolution, and the like all resulting in a halt of the fortunes of the second coming, the dissipation of the envisioned spiritual resources and then they being halted.
[57] The initial question was whether to directly seek electing the Universal House of Justice which the newly appointed head of the religion, Shoghi Effendi, decided firmly could not happen until there was more work establishing local and national spiritual assemblies first.
[3]: p141 Pole did put together the resources for another trip to Constantinople on the quest in April which investigated the seaside entrance to a possible hidden library but returned home unsuccessful by the end of May.
[4]: p5 Pole is next found in newspapers in 1940 with the beginning of the promulgation of the Silent Minute,[72] and co-wrote The spiritual front, an issue each one of us must face fairly and squarely[73] with Waldron Smithers.
In the first he states: The primary mission of the Baha'i Faith is to enable every adherent of an earlier World-Faith to obtain a fuller understanding of the religion with which he stands identified and to acquire a clear apprehension of its purpose, which, in our modern world, will involve the emergence of a world-community, the consciousness of world-citizenship and the founding of a universal civilization and culture.
"[83] And second in a statement to the UN in 1947: "…this Faith is now increasingly demonstrating its right to be recognized, not as one more religious system superimposed on the conflicting creeds which for so many generations have divided mankind and darkened its fortunes, but rather as a restatement of the eternal verities underlying all the religions of the past, as a unifying force instilling into the adherents of these religions a new spiritual vigor, infusing them with a new hope and love for mankind, firing them with a new vision of the fundamental unity of their religious doctrines, and unfolding to their eyes the glorious destiny that awaits the human race.
[4]: p2 In 1958-9 Pole and a group of investors bought the Tor School, and previous Chalice Well lands[6]: pp166-7 established by Alice Buckton in 1913,[6]: p115 as a replacement and migration of the enthusiasm of original Bride's Well with a substitute "well".
[6]: pp141, 166 Pole re-cast the investment as a Trust with support by subscribers termed "companions" to allow visitors free access[6]: pp139, 166–7 to further the aims of claiming Christianity in Britain was based on Joseph of Arimathea coming to the island and his own feeling close to monastic Roman Catholic orders.
[74] In 1965 he wrote A man seen afar with the assistance of Rosamond Lehmann about the life of Jesus Christ through his visionary experience,[91] and still trying to make sure Winston Churchill was being remembered for the Silent Minute.
[17]: p351 "It was made clear that the Baha'i Revelation had dawned to bring new light and truth into the world as a leaven for all Faiths and all mankind, and was not to be considered as just one more religious organisation or sect.
[4]: p16 Writer Patrick Benham takes it further stating Baháʼu'lláh taught "not a new religion, but the initiation of a force to unify existing belief-systems, pointing to the divine origin of every faith.
[4]: p16 However this process of distinguishing the Baháʼís as a religion was not a matter of a secret teaching of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá as was common in other institutions of mystics, a kind of practice Pole was aware of among them.