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

From that moment almost every word the wife spoke was charged with unassailable evidence. She spoke of some trouble with her knee cap which had been injured in a motorcar accident. She sent her love to Shakuntda, their eldest daughter, and to “Agye,” the diminutive of Agyavati, a friend of whom she had been very fond in Nairobi. She then spoke of “the three R’s” and gave me the name Rajan. Rajan, Mr. Dass explained, was the eldest of their three grandsons. He had been born two weeks after the…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 10, 6/7 by Estelle Roberts

“With regard to the writing itself, the character is not Dutch. It strikes us rather as English and is not my brother’s at all. This might be explained by the fact that the actual act of writing was not done by my brother alone, but with the help of a more experienced spirit, just as a small child writes its first letters with the help of one of its parents. In our opinion, however, this is a small point compared with the rest of the evidence. The signature is undeniable.…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 10, 5/7 by Estelle Roberts

“The message read:‘Mijn Vader BroederIkben heirIk vond het zeer moeielijk (te) spreek (en) Mijn les is moeielijker dan de uwe Ik kon de deur neit open doenIk moet een Brief SchrijvenIk zal morgen avond aan U (denken?) Wiltt U mij helpenOm het te doen SchriftAp.’Translation:`My Father BrotherI am here I found it very difficult (to) speak My lesson is more difficult than yours I could not open the doorI must Write a LetterI shall (think?) of you tomorrow night Will you help meto do it WritingAp.’“With regard to the conditions…

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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…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 10, 3/7 by Estelle Roberts

Mrs. Edith Hammerstrom testified that she was addressed by a spirit voice which, after giving his name, spoke to her in Swedish. A message came in Dutch from Dr. Goedhart who, before his passing, had represented Holland at former international gatherings. Mrs. Helene Fry was addressed in French by her sister in the spirit world. Described in a letter what happened, Mrs. Fry wrote: “I had the extreme joy of hearing my twenty-eight-year-old sister, Marguerite, who passed in childbirth in 1917, talking to me in the direct voice. Though I…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 10, 2/7 by Estelle Roberts

A typical example occurred many years ago in Holland when at the request of Estelle Stead, the daughter of W. T. Stead, the famous journalist and spiritualist who ended his earthly life in the Titanic, I gave a demonstration of clairvoyance in The Hague. It was beyond my capacity to repeat the strange Dutch sounds spoken by the spirit communicators, and so for my benefit the messages had to be translated into English by a spirit interpreter. I then repeated them aloud in English and, because few of the audience…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 10, 1/7 by Estelle Roberts

CHAPTER TEN,SPEAKING IN MANY TONGUES I have often been asked about speech in the spirit world. Is there one common language, or is there a Babel of all the tongues we know on earth? This is a difficult question, one which nobody can claim to answer with certainty. There is a strong school of thought which believes that there is no language, since none is necessary. This argument is based on the fact that thought is fundamental and common to both worlds. Speech, on the other hand, is essentially physical,…

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

As soon as she saw it lying in Lady Segrave’s lap, Iris went downstairs to the sitting room where, a few minutes before the circle began, she had arranged a dozen beautiful red roses, a gift to me. Counting them, she found only eleven and the lower half of the stalk of the twelfth. An extraordinary episode must be included in this account of the Segrave communications. It was both unexpected and dramatic. The story began to unfold when Red Cloud told Lady Segrave that a boy wished to speak…

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

“Don’t worry about D.,” Cottenham reassured him. “We are looking after her all we can.”“They are, indeed,” Lady Segrave acknowledged gratefully. “I am going out now much more than I was. I’m having dinner with Bill (a relative) on Monday. I’ll tell him I’ve been speaking to you, but he won’t believe me.” “Thank God that Mark, at least, has some common sense,” was Segrave’s comment.Later Lord Cottenham developed his own gift of automatic writing and regularly received messages from Segrave. Moreover he succeeded in making direct contact with Red…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 9, 8/10 by Estelle Roberts

“You remembered the 14th?” “Your birthday.”He explained, in one of his initial communications, that he did not find it easy to communicate, adding humorously: “I knew how to drive a boat or a car, but I’m hanged if I can get the run of this yet.” Later she asked him: “Are you with me in the car, Boy?” “Yes,” was the reply. “Do take care.”“Why? I am a good driver.”“Yes. So was I. . . .” The months slipped by as one séance followed another. Always Sir Henry and Lady…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 9, 7/10 by Estelle Roberts

“That’s all right, Sir Henry. I am only sorry she was unable to come. Have you a message for her?”Sir Henry had. It was a brief personal greeting of no particular significance to anybody present but full of inner meaning, Lady Segrave volunteered, when it was telephoned to her. Before the séance ended, Barbanell asked Red Cloud’s permission to bring Lady Segrave to the next sitting. It was readily granted. A fortnight later Barbanell arrived with his guest. She was introduced to nobody present, though the handful of sitters who…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 9, 6/10 by Estelle Roberts

He did so and, in turning to his old friend Hannen Swafer for enlightenment, he could not have chosen a better mentor. Swaffer, who had his own home circle of sitters, invited Segrave to come and meet their medium. There Sir Henry had his first experience of psychic phenomena – a piano being lifted clear off the floor. He said that it was the only time in his life he had been too frightened to do anything but stare! His death on Lake Windermere came as a great shock to…

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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…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 9, 4/10 by Estelle Roberts

We sat every fortnight in an upper room in my house at Teddington, and for the first ten months we made no progress. It was most disappointing. Only the knowledge that we were sitting in response to Red Cloud’s request prevented me from giving up in despair. Nevertheless, he gave us his blessing and encouragement from time to time. At an early stage he asked that any donations resulting from these meetings should be paid to a medium who had fallen ill and was unable to work. Useful sums were…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 9, 3/10 by Estelle Roberts

It was not until I had had three or four years’ experience of trance mediumship that Red Cloud asked me to form a circle so that I could train for direct voice development. I was more than willing. There was no difficulty in organizing a circle having as its nucleus Maurice Barbanell, Hannen Swaffer, Shaw Desmond, and Constance Treloar. These four attended regularly and were augmented by some fifteen to twenty other persons, who varied from séance to séance. None attended without Red Cloud’s prior approval. Occasionally their names would…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 9, 2/10 by Estelle Roberts

Many times I have been asked what are the sensations of the deep trance state. It is a question I have never found easy to answer, any more than it is possible to describe the sensations of sleep. I sit in my chair, relaxed yet with a strong awareness of what is about to occur. What happens next can best be likened to the effects of an anaesthetic. From full consciousness there comes a brief period of light-headedness during which I hover between consciousness and oblivion. This is the moment…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 9, 1/10 by Estelle Roberts

CHAPTER NINE,DIRECT VOICE In clairvoyance, clairaudience, and psychometry the medium never loses consciousness. If she is a good medium she may lose some awareness of the material things about her, but no more than one would expect of any other artist who becomes completely absorbed by the work in hand. To all outward appearances she is as much alive to what is going on around her as anyone else who happens to be present. Inevitably there are certain dangers attaching to this, since it is one of the characteristics of…

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

The other instance occurred in late summer towards the end of a six weeks drought. The countryside was tinder dry and common sense should have told us not to smoke while lying comfortably back in the long brown grass. But Eveline is fond of her cigarettes. She relaxed with her eyes closed, a cigarette between her fingers. We must all have drowsed off because the next thing we knew was that the grass was on fire, and the blaze was spreading with alarming speed. We jumped up and tried to…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 8, 9/10 by Estelle Roberts

As a family we have always been fond of picnics, taking every opportunity to get into open country whenever the weather is fine. I have been on many such excursions with my daughter, Eveline, and her husband Bill, and on two of these there occurred unexpected psychic phenomena which are certainly worthy of record. We had driven to an unspoiled beauty-spot, enclosed on two sides by fine forest trees. Lunch was over and we were basking in the hot sunshine. Bill, always of an inquiring mind, was quizzing me about…

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

The circle comprised ten people and no sooner had I been entranced than Red Cloud delivered a lecture to those present. His subject, abstruse and involved, was the passage of matter through matter but its purport, several members of the circle later confessed, passed largely over their heads. Doubtless Red Cloud became quickly aware of this, for he said: “I will demonstrate the meaning of the words I have used. Here we sit within four walls, in an upstairs room, with its windows shuttered to exclude all light, and beyond…

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