Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 12, 9/13 by Estelle Roberts

In saying that I believed Colonel Fawcett was dead, however, I was wrong. Some weeks later Red Cloud was delivering a trance address, and at the end he spoke to Reeves about Fawcett. He told him that Fawcett was alive. He said that Fawcett’s psychic powers were now so highly developed that he could indulge in astral projection and travel without permanently taking leave of the body.

This, in fact, had occurred on the occasion of the earlier psychometry reading and accounted for my believing him dead. Red Cloud’s words made a great impression on Reeves, who had long acknowledged Fawcett to be one of the most highly-developed mystics of his time, and particularly so because the message I had transmitted concerning the injured leg had recently taken on some significance.

It had had no meaning for him at the time, but he had since recalled Fawcett describing him, shortly before he left for South America, how his horse had been brought down beneath him and, in rolling over, had injured the muscles of his leg.

Twelve months after Red Cloud had made this disclosure, Reeves brought a woman to see me. Following the invariable practice when a newcomer was introduced, he made no mention of her name for her reason for coming to see me. The three of us held a séance and I was not kept waiting for an intimation of my visitor’s identity.

Red Cloud at once addressed her as “the little Fawcett lady.” He told her that the two young men who had accompanied Colonel Fawcett to South America had passed over from fever, but that her husband was still alive. He described Fawcett as “an advanced psychic who had learned great occult wisdom. Men would give kingdoms for the knowledge that is now his.”

He mentioned a necklet the Colonel had given his wife, and assured her that nothing was to be gained (it was now eight years after the start of the expedition) from further searching for Fawcett. He confirmed that the white man whom Stephan Rattin, a Swiss explorer, had met in a native village two years earlier had really been Fawcett. This was particularly interesting because Rattin’s claim had been carefully investigated by the authorities and rejected.

At intervals during the next three years Reeves had private sittings with me in which Fawcett’s name was often mentioned. Then, on July 14th, 1936, Red Cloud said: “I have something to say now that will interest you greatly. Your friend Fawcett has come over to our side.” He made no mention of the precise date, probably because time as we know it has no meaning in the spirit world.

The Fawcett story might well have ended there as far as I was concerned but for the action of Maurice Barbanell. Reeves had kept Barbanell closely in touch with each new development and Barbanell, as an editor, was profoundly interested. He came for a special sitting in the hope that Red Cloud would fill in the gaps in the strange Fawcett story.

And, as usual, Red Cloud did not fail him. He described Fawcett’s life in the fever-ridden jungles of south America; how he had been held prisoner in a tribal village, watched over benevolently yet jealously by his captors; how he had learned their magic while he practiced and extended his own great mystic gift, and how from time to time he was sick with the fever which, in the end, drained the last of his earthly strength.