Month: June 2021

“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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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