Month: June 2021

At the advertised hour for the meeting to begin, I would leave the ante-room and take my seat on the platform. Sometimes we would begin with a hymn and a prayer; sometimes just a prayer. This would be followed by the chairmen’s introductory comments. Usually he was famous in some other field of activity and had a number of well-known people seated on either side of him. When he sat down, it was my cue to rise. I would walk to the front of the stage and, speaking into a…

CHAPTER SEVENCLAIRVOYANCE: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE In the course of a long career as a medium I have given clairvoyance in most of the principal public halls in the United Kingdom. My biggest meetings were, of course, at the Royal Albert Hall where, on most of the score of occasions that I appeared there, every one of the seven thousand seats was occupied. But, more often, my London appearances were at the Queen’s Hall, where I demonstrated many, many times, and at the Seymour, Caxton, Kingsway and Aeolian Halls. I asked…

“Would you like to tell us what it is all about?” I asked. Again he shrugged his shoulders, as though it did not matter whether he told us or not. “It’s the usual story,” he said, at last. “Out of work, down and out, broke! It wasn’t too bad while the wife was alive; when there’s two of you, you seem to make out better. But she died a couple of months ago, and somehow it took all the heart out of me. I’ve been trying for the last couple…

As I went into the room the mother sprang to her feet, anxious to know the result of the sitting. I assured her that the girl’s husband had returned and proved his survival. Tears were in the mother’s eyes as she clasped my hands, saying: “Mrs. Roberts, you have saved her life. Had he not come, I don’t know what she would have done. Several times the poor child has talked resolutely of taking her own life.” In that moment the full measure of the responsibility of my work dawned…

But, of Will she could tell no more than other mediums. His father, she said, told her he was looking after the boy, who was still alive on earth.But, because Will was suffering from amnesia, it was difficult for them to influence his mind. She felt he had (gone) into Germany, perhaps into the Russian zone. She could not pinpoint his exact position. Naturally, Mrs. P. and her daughter were disappointed. But the experiment was by no means a failure.Mrs. Roberts gave them information which they could not possibly have…

My visitor was much impressed by the events of our sitting; no less it seems by my involuntary hand gestures than by the message I had given him. He remarked to the newspaperman who accompanied him that while I was in communication with his wife, I kept clasping my hands in front of my face. I was unaware of having done this, nor could I later recall having done so. However, the significance of it was not lost on him. He explained that the movements of my hands had been…

Some years ago The People published a series of articles on Spiritualism. Written by Maurice Barbanell, the series aroused so much interest and correspondence that the Editor invited readers who were bereaved and who had never attended a séance to send him their stories. From those submitted, the Editor undertook to select a few readers to have sittings under rigid test conditions. Maurice Barbanell had no hand in choosing the readers whose stories suggested they were most in need of psychic help; and neither, of course, had I. With one…

And I say even though I cannot even yet regard their case as proved, the experience that happened to the mother of that murdered child in my presence last week has made it impossible for me to say any longer: ‘I do not believe.’ For it was something I shall never forget.” Suicide is no less an offense against the spiritual laws than it is against the laws of manmade civilization. And, as in the one so in the other; there are degrees of transgression. Both laws recognize there is…

That was not my only experience in last week’s investigations, although after that almost incredible sitting with Mrs. Roberts, the others pale away in my memory . . .I had a séance with another medium, Lilian Bailey. To her I took another bereaved mother from Birmingham, Mrs. Ethel Wright. Mrs. Wright lost her five-year-old daughter nine months ago – and the medium told her that the child died ten months ago.Mrs. Bailey also described the child quite fairly and added: ‘She wants you to give her love to her daddy…

Mrs. Wilson sat wide-eyed with wonder. Her whirling mind tried to grasp the immensity of the revelation.Mrs. Roberts turned to Mrs. Pugh. After a while she said:‘Your little boy is a dear kiddie, with brown curly hair. He is standing just beside you now.’ Mrs. Pugh gave Mrs. Roberts a toy which had belonged to her child. But the medium was not satisfied. She asked: ‘He says he wants to have the other toy you have brought with you in your bag.’Mrs. Pugh opened her handbag and produced a very…

‘Your little girl’, she said, ‘passed into the spirit world with a terrific shock. I have a feeling of constriction round the throat – of choking. Your little girl was strangled.’Now do you remember the case of Sheila Wilson? She was, in fact, strangled by a man who has since been executed for his crime. ‘This spirit,’ Mrs. Roberts went on, ‘passed over only a short time ago. She has been dead less than six months. It is difficult for her to communicate . . . she has not yet…

“Here and now I must admit that I am completely staggered and bewildered. The picture of the little girl you see on this page is that of Sheila Wilson. You may remember her, for three months ago Sheila, eleven years of age, was brutally murdered in a London house. I did not know Sheila. Until three days ago I had never seen her parents. But it happens that Mrs. Wilson read in the Sunday Pictorial that I was investigating claims of Spiritualists to be able to communicate with children in…