Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 12, 1/13 by Estelle Roberts

CHAPTER TWELVE,
FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS

It is now more than thirty-five years since the world was startled by the publication in a psychic newspaper of a series of automatic writings entitled “My Life After Death” by Edgar Wallace. Although I had no part in the origin of this script that came through a medium in Wales, I was concerned in establishing its authenticity.

During the last years of his life Edgar Wallace was always in the news as a novelist, journalist and a playwright. He was also a “character,” rich in eccentricities the public loves and, either by accident or design, he contrived brilliantly to live up to the reputation he had built up around himself. Indeed, so firmly was Wallace entrenched in the minds of the public, he continued to live in the memory as a popular legend long after he had made his physical exit from earth.

It is therefore not surprising that when Maurice Barbanell received a parcel containing spirit writings attributed to Wallace, he should take every precaution to establish their genuineness before publishing them. Publication, Barbanell knew, would subject them to the severe scrutiny of the sceptics, with each seeking some point by which to discredit them. How then, he pondered, could he be sure of their authenticity?

He submitted them for the examination of Hannen Swaffer, an intimate friend of Wallace in between the intervals when they were “enemies.” These intervals were due to their respective roles as dramatic critic and playwright. Swaffer’s verdict was that the script gave evidence of having been written by a trained reporter, which the medium was not, but he could not say that Wallace was the post-mortem author.

Then Barbanell had a brainwave. He would consult Red Cloud, which he did at the next direct voice séance. The guide’s reply was to tell Barbanell to proceed no further until he, Red Cloud, had consulted Wallace himself. At the following voice séance Red Cloud reported that he had asked Wallace, who confirmed his authorship of the automatic writings, so Barbanell was free to go ahead with publication.

The publication of the spirit script, with its detailed description of life after death as Wallace had found it, produced the anticipated furore. Soon one of the major Spiritualistic controversies of all time was raging, with plenty of hard knocks taken and given by both sides. Robert Curtis, for fifteen years Wallace’s private secretary, was one of the leading antagonists,

condemning any suggestion that the manuscripts could have emanated from his old chief. While the storm was raging, Wallace returned again to join the battle with a further psychic exhibition, typical of his self-assertiveness, that fanned the flames of controversy to new heights. He caused his spirit portrait to appear on a plate exposed during a test séance of psychic photography.

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