Month: June 2021

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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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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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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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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“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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“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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“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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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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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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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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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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