Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 9, 5/10 by Estelle Roberts

The characteristic tones of the spirit communicators were not always recognizable – which is not entirely surprising when you remember that all were reproduced through the same artificially constructed larynx – but occasionally sitters were dumbfounded by the resemblance. One such was a Mrs. Ellen Hadgeld who was so deeply impressed by what she had heard that she wrote to the Press about it.

It was not, she said, so much the characteristic of phrasing which had convinced her that she was speaking to her departed daughter, though these would have been proof enough, but the tonal quality of the voice itself. It would have been nobody else. She concluded with the words: “Even had Mrs. Roberts wanted to, she could never have reproduced by any means other than true Spiritualism, the voice of a girl she had never met.”

More often, however, it is the typical phrasing and verbal expression that provide the real proof of identity. Few people go through life without acquiring at least one or two habits of speech which are individual to them, and those who knew them well are rarely slow to recall them when they hear them again. And, if further evidence is needed, there is always the factual proof which spirit communicators are at pains to supply to clinch their identity and demonstrate their survival.

As our sittings became more successful, more and more voices came through, each one distinguishable from the last even though, in the early stages, few were identifiable from tone alone. Sometimes the conversations would be long and intimate, at others the talk would be general. The trumpet would move quickly around the circle, stopping here and there and gently nudging the sitter with whom it wished to speak.

Most of the communications were brief and were not repeated at later meetings, but there were important exceptions to this rule. Notably among the exceptions was Sir Henry Segrave, the racing motorist who lost his life in an attempt on the world’s motorboat record at Lake Windermere. The story is that Sir Henry first became interested in Spiritualism while preparing his attack on the land speed record at Daytona Beach in Florida.

I never heard the precise details but this is the broad outline as recounted to me. While in America, Sir Henry received a letter from an unknown correspondent in Britain. The writer explained that at one of a series of séances he attended a message of warning addressed to Segrave had come, claiming to emanate from some former ace of the motor-racing world.

The writer then quoted the message in full and expressed the hope that it would be of some interest and value to Sir Henry in his new attempt on a world record. Apparently it was of great interest and value, and its Spiritualistic source so aroused Segrave’s curiosity that he determined to look more closely into the subject when he returned to England.