Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 10, 4/7 by Estelle Roberts

“The séance was held in a small room in complete darkness. Mrs. Roberts was the medium and a Mrs. Treloar presided. Besides ourselves there were seven other people present. As soon as all were seated, our hands were linked up, so that no hand was free.

“After a few moments, the voice of Red Cloud was heard, loudly and clearly greeting his visitors. Spirit voices were soon heard making their identities known and speaking to their friends in our midst. Then Red Cloud announced that a young man, who had no previous experience, would try to come through.

“After some noises, which to us sounded very much like breathing exercises, a voice very slowly and deliberately spoke the following: ik—zal—het— niet—kunnen-doen’ (I shall not be able to do it’). These words were repeated two or three times and it should be remarked that,

although we could not recognize the voice, to us the Dutch was pronounced perfectly clearly and without the slightest accent. In one word, nobody but a born Dutchmen could possible have repeated them, especially the ‘i’ in ‘ik,’ the z’ inzal,’ the h’ inhet,’ and the oe’ indoen’ without a trace of fault.

“Despite this, it was obvious that the communicator was very excited and found considerable difficulty in speaking. This was soon confirmed by Red Cloud, who told us that another experiment was about to be tried. He then requested a Mr. Buckingham to leave the circle, after linking up the hands of his neighbours.

Mr. Buckingham was then instructed to place on the floor, outside the circle, a blackboard which was hanging on the wall of the room and which, we were afterwards assured, had hung unused on the wall for as along as anyone present could remember.

“When Mr. Buckingham had resumed his seat in the circle, linking up hands as before, Red Cloud announced that he had placed the right foot of the medium on that of the sitter to her right, where it must remain throughout the séance. After a few moments’ silence the sound of scratching came from the direction of the blackboard and we knew that some spirit was busy with the chalk.

Then more spirits came to communicate with their friends, and our attention was distracted from the sounds of writing. Then, interrupting a conversation that was going on between a spirit wife talking to her husband in our circle, came the sound of something brittle being dropped to the floor.

I thought I recognized it as the sound of a stick of chalk falling and breaking. The spirit wife heard it, too, and broke off what she had been saying to tell us excitedly that the young man who had come for the Dutch gentlemen had been writing a message. She was very excited about it.

“At the close of the séance, when the medium, who had been in trance, had recovered consciousness, the lights were switched on. We saw that a message had been written in Dutch on the blackboard. The two halves of a stick of chalk were lying on the blackboard, evidently broken in falling.