Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 8, 6/10 by Estelle Roberts

Iris, knowing that it would probably be her task to hand out the apports as they came from the trumpet added: “I hope it is a dead one. I hate beetles.”

There were fifty sitters when we met to receive Red Cloud’s gifts and there was a strong atmosphere of expectancy as I took my chair in the center of the darkened room. Red Cloud entranced me and then addressed the company through the trumpet. He was in high good humor as he welcomed us to his “party” and hoped we would enjoy our evening.

Then the trumpet took flight and darted around the room like a glistening firefly. A moment later, when there came a loud rattling inside, it paused in its gyrations and delivered its apport into Iris’ cupped hands. As it did so Red Cloud’s voice pronounced the name of the recipient.

One after another the gifts came rattling down inside the trumpet, sometimes delivered into Iris’s hands, sometimes directly into the hands of the sitters for whom they were intended. They included exquisite little stone figures, likenesses of Buddha, and precious and semi-precious stones. Many of the gifts were much too large to pass through the narrow neck of the trumpet –

as was clearly demonstrated at the end of the séance – yet pass through they did, and without any outside help. After about thirty gifts had been distributed, Iris was called by Red Cloud to receive Kenneth’s gift. As the apport came rattling through the trumpet, Red Cloud said: “Take care. It is frail and easily broken. You are fortunate my son, in this granting of your wish. To you is given a sacred beetle of Egypt.”

“Where in Egypt does it come from?” Maurice Barbanell asked. “Abydos,” came the instant reply, spelled out letter by letter.
So it was that Kenneth received his beetle from Egypt, and a very beautiful specimen it was – brilliant green, edged with gold.

Though it was no more than a hollow shell and extremely fragile, it was perfect in every detail. Kenneth was fascinated by it. Determined to find out more about it he took it to the British Museum where it was pronounced genuine. Abydos, he was told, was quite likely its source.

Charles, my husband, had received gifts on a number of occasions from Red Cloud. These he invariably kept in a little leather bag. When his turn came now to receive an apport, Red Cloud spoke with a jest in his voice of the good fortune which had enabled Charles to make this collection of trophies. This time, he said, he would represent Charles with two apports taken from the leather bag.

There followed a rattling in the trumpet and out came a large piece of onyx and a piece of jet which Charles at once recognized as his own. To make sure, subsequent examination of the contents of his apports bag showed these two to be the only pieces missing.