The Silent Word Published in Australia in 1978, it is an account of the life of Meher Baba up to the beginning of 1929.
It starts of in a lofty style and you can hear Francis declaiming his poetry but after a few pages it settles down to no nonsense clear expository prose. The lofty opening is just to relate Meher Baba to the sacred and semi-legendary past.
The Silent Word was compiled from talks Francis had with various mandali, especially Eruch, during his decade long stay in India with Meher Baba. He was also able to make extensive use of mandali diary records from earlier years of Baba’s life and teaching. It contains some material not found elsewhere and makes a compelling and immediate narrative of fascinating, and at times staggering, activities and events. It is the sort of book you can open at any page and find yourself absorbed in the teeming detail of Meher Baba’s life.
This book takes its place amongst the astonishingly intimate, detailed and accurate accounts of an Avataric life. If and when Baba is recognised by the generality as the Avatar of the Age, there will be wonderment indeed at the amazing fidelity which has produced these accounts of “the nobility of a life supremely lived, of a love unmixed with desire, of a power unused except for others, of a peace untroubled by ambition, of a knowledge undimmed by illusion.”(Meher Baba Discourses, III, 7.)