Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 14, 7/8 by Estelle Roberts

When Mrs. Roberts goes into trance her own personality simply disappears and that of Red Cloud takes its place. The personality of Red Cloud is a marked one. He is dominating and, at the same time, a very attractive character. Not only does he take charge of proceedings at the voice circles, speaking and commenting between the voices in a most intelligent and often humorous way,

but on the occasions when he speaks through the medium in trance, he gives addresses on all sorts of subjects. At these meetings there is no darkness, the lights being only lowered during the few minutes the medium takes to go into trance and again when she comes out of it. The going into trance is an interesting process to watch. Mrs. Roberts reclines in an easy chair, putting herself in as comfortable a position as possible,

closes her eyes and soon begins to breath stertorously. After a few minutes she sits up with a start. The expression of her face has quite changed. Her head is bent forward and her eyes are still closed. Red Cloud is here. He utters one or two words in a strange language and greets us.

A few questions may be asked or messages given and his lecture begins. In these discourses Red Cloud deals with many subjects, the meaning of life, the nature of our personalities, the survival of the soul and conditions in the spheres and their planes. He is never tired of exhorting us to do better.

He insists that this life is a school for the soul and that each man must work out his own salvation. For the most part his teachings follow those of the great religions of humanity bereft of their dogmas. He emphasizes the great values of truth and love and our responsibilities to ourselves and our fellow men.

Difficult as it is sometimes to follow him as he attempts to convey his meaning, speaking with his quaint accent and a somewhat limited vocabulary, somehow there is always the feeling that one is in the presence of a great soul possessed of the inestimable gift of wisdom.

Some of his ideas, those that are concerned with the power of thought, for instance, appear to me to be quite original.
It is, of course, impossible to test many of these views of his. Some may appear fanciful or to clash with our preconceived scientific beliefs.

But he is always ready to answer questions and is never at a loss for an answer. If one accepts him, as I do myself, as a genuine personality who speaks to us from a different sphere of existence, it is our duty at least to listen to his words. His ideals are very high ones and he is inclined at times to be dogmatic about them. Nevertheless he makes no claim to infallibility but to give us the truth as he sees it.