Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 13/16 by Estelle Roberts

One such was a headmaster of a large boy’s school, a man with a critical, well-trained mind. He first visited me about six years ago, seven months after his world had collapsed when his wife and younger son, Roger, were killed in a flood disaster. He knew no more of Spiritualism than he had read in the popular press, and was almost aggressively sceptical of it,

though out of courtesy for me he tried to conceal it. He came partly out of curiosity, but principally because friends had urged him to do so. Such, then, was his frame of mind when we met – certainly not the ideal conditions for producing a convincing demonstration.

However, I did my best, beginning with detailed portraits of his wife and son. What followed was later described by the man himself:
“I sat dumbfounded as a stream of references to the small things which had made up our world came through from the Other Side in a young boy’s language.

Mostly they were things which nobody but I could know about – Roger’s prized watch which had been found in the debris left by the flood; the mole on his thigh; the chipped tooth that had bothered us lest it interfered with his playing the clarinet; the present whereabouts of his playbox;

the photograph I had put away because I could no longer bare to look at it. Mention of all these and many more poured out in a torrent of words and in terms of expression that could have been no one’s but Roger’s.

“Then Estelle said: – ‘Your wife is speaking of a bruise on her left cheek.’ Immediately my thoughts rushed back to the dread I had felt as I entered the mortuary lest my dear ones be disfigured in death. Then had come the relief of finding that the only mark either bore was a small bruise under Alice’s left eye.

“As a result of that first sitting with Estelle I read all I could lay my hands on relating to psychic phenomena. And I kept going back for further sittings. With each new sitting I got more evidence, incontrovertible evidence, of eternal survival. My father came and spoke with me, as did Alice’s parents, a cousin and two old friends, each contributing substantial support to the concepts that were running in my mind . . .