Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 8, 7/10 by Estelle Roberts

The demonstration ended with an avalanche of a dozen or more apports gushing from the trumpet like water from a tap. Everyone present had been named and given an apport, but most remarkable of all was the unexplained manifestation of a piece of garnet on the bedside table of a women who had hoped to attend our meeting but had been prevented from doing so at the last minute. On another occasion Red Cloud used a different technique to bring an apport to a sitter. It was the more remarkable…

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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…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 8, 5/10 by Estelle Roberts

The lock was subsequently examined by Clarksons, the theatrical wig-makers, and pronounced to be genuine hair. I have it in my possession today and also a document signed by all those present testifying to what they had seen. One of the most pleasing forms of psychic phenomena are apports, gifts from spirit world to friends on earth. As has already been shown, they usually comprise gems of a semiprecious nature, though occasionally they include small precious stones like rubies and emeralds. Generally speaking they have no very great intrinsic value,…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 8, 4/10 by Estelle Roberts

The most striking part of the materialization was the fact that in the center of the forehead there was a bright, scintillating jewel.After that came the apports. We saw, by the two luminous spots painted on the trumpet, that it was moving. It tap- tapped on the ground. Soon we heard a rattling sound inside it. ‘This is for John; hold out your hand, Rachel,’ said Red Cloud, addressing Constance Treloar – Rachel is the name that he has given her.When she did so, the apport fell into it. She…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 8, 3/10 by Estelle Roberts

It did not take long for the materialization to begin. The two luminous plaques were lifted by invisible hands from the floor. Soon there could be seen between them the silhouette of a face. It was Red Cloud.‘John,’ he said, calling me by the nickname he gave me years ago, ‘come forward.’ I felt my seat and stood within three or four inches of the cabinet opening. ‘Give me your hand,’ I was told. A masculine hand – certainly not that of Estelle – grasped mine.‘Feel my hair!’ said Red…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 8, 2/10 by Estelle Roberts

But all was not over. Eschewing the use of the trumpet, Red Cloud’s voice again filled the room. “I have something for all of you,” he said. During the next two minutes he presented each sitter with a jewel, varying in size from tiny little brilliants to hexagonally cut pieces of onyx and jet measuring an inch-and-a quarter in length. Gifts such as these are known as “apports.” They are highly treasured by those lucky enough to receive them, and were especially cherished on the present occasion as mementos of…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 8, 1/10 by Estelle Roberts

CHAPTER EIGHT,MATERIALIZATION AND APPORTS While I was living at Teddington we arranged a special direct-voice sitting in appreciation of the long service given to the circle by one of our members. It was an important occasion to each one of us as the sitting had been organized in collaboration with Red Cloud and we had reason to believe he might show himself. Our circle comprised nine people, all of considerable psychic experience. The proceedings began with the trumpet becoming most lively, circling the sitters and touching first one and then…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 16/16 by Estelle Roberts

Two years prior to this, Red Cloud had bewildered Margaret and me by speaking of a highly evolved spirit being who was helping Sir John and who had first been in touch with him many years previously in India. Time after time he spelled out the name, but for some reason I could never get beyond the first six letters – MAHAMO. Six more letters followed these but, try as I would, I could not get them. The first six letters, however, were sufficient for Sir John; he knew the…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 15/16 by Estelle Roberts

It was in 1954 that Sir John came to see me for the first and only time. Even then he was an old man, unable to get about as he could have wished. Ever since it has been his daughter, Margaret, who has come in his stead. Many times she has visited my house and carried back messages from Curzon to her father. The occasion of Sir John’s solitary visit was a memorable one. The sitting began inauspiciously enough until I mentioned the name, Curzon of Kedleston. Instantly Sir John…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 14/16 by Estelle Roberts

“I learned that Estelle was a healer and eagerly asked her if she would treat a friend whose spine had been injured five years previously. She readily agreed though the doctors said the injury was incurable and the unhappy girl was resigned to spending the rest of her life in a spinal jacket. Estelle gave her healing, and for six months there was no apparent change. Then, quite suddenly, there was some improvement, and we dared to hope again. The improvement, once started, advanced apace. In a matter of weeks…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 13/16 by Estelle Roberts

One such was a headmaster of a large boy’s school, a man with a critical, well-trained mind. He first visited me about six years ago, seven months after his world had collapsed when his wife and younger son, Roger, were killed in a flood disaster. He knew no more of Spiritualism than he had read in the popular press, and was almost aggressively sceptical of it, though out of courtesy for me he tried to conceal it. He came partly out of curiosity, but principally because friends had urged him…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 11/16 by Estelle Roberts

Normally I make a practice of deliberately trying to erase from my mind as soon as my sitter has left whatever messages may have passed. After all, such messages, being personal to my sitter and the communicator, are no concern of mine. For this reason I often don’t remember from one week to another what has transpired. On the whole, the cultivation of this “professional absence of memory” works very well, but it can occasionally be embarrassing as when the sitter, who has probably spent the whole week pondering the…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 10/16 by Estelle Roberts

After the sitting the Dudleys opened the envelope and studied its contents, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. They also showed me a photograph of their mother. There could be no doubt that the spirit figure I had seen was the same person, though she had appeared younger and more beautiful. Occasionally a medium is granted the satisfaction of a crosscheck on the evidence given which becomes more impressive and convincing as proof piles on proof. A remarkable instance of this was set in motion when a woman telephoned my home…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 9/16 by Estelle Roberts

I always remember with pleasure an occasion when Mr. Ewart Dudley, whom I knew well from his regular visits for healing, brought his sister to my house for a séance. It was a particularly satisfying meeting because, unknown to me, my two sitters had prepared for it carefully and intelligently and the results were gratifyingly convincing. The sitting began unremarkably enough. One or two relatives came with short spirit messages and were at once recognized by the brother and sister. Then I said: “Ah, here comes someone rather special; she…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 8/16 by Estelle Roberts

I must confess that although under the Act, as it stood, I could have been arrested as a rogue or vagabond, I had been neither deterred nor frightened by the thought of such a happening. My family rested a little more peacefully after the amendment, however, because it was customary for Hannen Swaffer, when on the same platform, to challenge the Police generally on duty at the rear of the Hall, because of the large audiences, to arrest me. There was no longer the need for them to carry my…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 7/16 by Estelle Roberts

These two Acts, which had the effect of making séances illegal and denying religious freedom to Spiritualists, were still on the State Book at the end of the Second World War. A campaign to repeal the sections which affected mediums began to gather momentum, and a vigorous attempt was made to end this archaic legislation. A Spiritualist Member of Parliament, Mr. T. J. Books, invited me to attend the first of a series of all-party dinners in the House of Commons, the purpose of the gatherings being to enlist the…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 6/16 by Estelle Roberts

I opened the meeting with a flat denial of Red Cloud’s “vindication” rumour. Red Cloud, I reminded my audience, was a spiritual teacher and unconcerned with my material affairs, however distasteful they may be to me. In saying this, however, I was not entirely right. At this meeting Red Cloud delivered one of his lectures, speaking, as always, through me after I had been entranced. The trance address lasted some thirty minutes and when it was over he turned briefly to the subject of my recent sufferings. Speaking of the…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 5/16 by Estelle Roberts

More recently that other mass-selling Sunday newspaper The People published a series of articles on survival after death, basing their findings in some instances on certain of my cases. I was not unnaturally proud when they named me among the five best- known women in the country, but I was embarrassed by the unexpected response. During the next few days over five thousand letters from people all over the world came pouring in to me. Most of them were from strangers, though from their wording they might have been from…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 4/16 by Estelle Roberts

It was at one of these “overflow” meetings that Ishbel, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair received convincing proof of her husband’s survival. As a result, she became an enthusiastic Spiritualist. When, at the age of eighty-four, she joined the House of Red Cloud, she thought nothing of flying back from Paris expressly to attend my direct-voice séances. During his earthly life the Marquis had been deeply interested in Red Cloud’s teaching, and had actually passed into the next world while peacefully reading one of his guide’s lectures. At another of…

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Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 7, 3/16 by Estelle Roberts

The receiving and transmitting of messages is always a most exhilarating experience. I feel myself vibrating with the power of the spirit as I walk from side to side of the platform, pointing to people in all parts of the audience, even to the back of the gallery. Some messages are short and to the point, others long, and some so involved that they have little meaning to anyone but their recipients. Then, usually after about three-quarters of an hour, Red Cloud comes to me and says gently, “Sufficient.” He…

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