I had never heard of Bessy Manning. I did not know whether there was a Mrs. Manning, or whether there was a Canterbury Street in Blackburn, but my confidence, built on years of experience with Red Cloud, was such that I knew the spirit information was correct. On the following morning, without the slightest doubt in my mind, I sent this telegram to Mrs. Manning at 14, Canterbury Street in Blackburn: “Your daughter, Bessy, spoke to us at Red Cloud’s circle last night.” I received no reply, so I telegraphed…

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The trumpet slowly moved towards me and a voice, obviously belonging to a young girl, said: “I will, All right. I will . . . “From long experience I knew that the way to get the best results was to encourage the communicators to speak, not to ply them with questions which could have a rebuffing effect. “Come along,” I urged, “you are going to try to give me a message. Come and talk to me.” The voice replied: “I will if I am allowed to talk. A kind man…

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“Shingi had set his heart on achieving a certain speed at the trial run. My husband was timing him. One lap had been just finished and he was at the beginning of another when the boat overturned.“His statement was correct. He achieved his speed.” One of the difficulties in writing a book from the medium’s viewpoint is that when you have been in a deep trance you are dependant on the memories of those present for an accurate description of what transpired. Because of this the presence of the shorthand…

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CHAPTER ELEVEN,MORE DIRECT VOICE Sir Henry Segrave helped another speed-boat victim to prove his identity when a Japanese visitor attended one of my voice séances. The communication she received not only set her own mind at rest but dulled the edge of grief of her son’s suffering. She was Mrs. Kingi Yano and her son was named Haro. Her husband and his brother, Shingi, had collaborated in racing motor boats and had won deserved reputations at this sport. Then came the day when Shingi was killed while practicing for a…

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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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“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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“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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“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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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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