Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 13, 6/13 by Estelle Roberts

Despite himself, Colonel Castello was interested. He readily admitted that he had his son’s diary and that there was a pressed flower between its pages. But he could not say off-hand whether the pages which enclosed it referred to the boy’s stay in Greece. (This proved to be the case when the Colonel checked it on his return home.)

Of the building of the car he was, of course, well aware, but he had no knowledge of the existence of the red notebook and subsequent searching for it during the next few weeks failed to produce it. Yet in the end it was this same notebook which finally convinced Colonel Castello that survival of the spirit was more than just a feminine fancy.

Several months after his first visit to me the book was found in a little-used drawer. It contained the full plans and details for assembly, exactly as the son had described.

From that day, both the Colonel and his wife became regular members of my direct-voice circle, where they enjoy many conversations with their son. Bill, it seemed, delighted in giving proof of his continued existence, for he made it a practice to furnish new items of evidence.

For instance, he confronted his father one day with the information that earlier that day the Colonel had gone to a drawer at home in which were two steel precision instruments. He had taken one of these and placed it in his pocket, where it now remained. At the end of the séance Colonel Castello put his hand in his pocket and drew out the instrument for all to see.

Nearly always Bill Castello ended his messages to his parents with the cheerful exhortation with which he had concluded his last letter: “Keep the Castello flag flying.”

Thus it was that Colonel Castello changed from rigid scepticism of all things psychic to a complete acceptance of Spiritualism. He described his conviction in the words: “Bill has given such remarkable evidence that my whole outlook has been changed. After living in many parts of the world and mixing with people of all religions, and including so-called heathens, it fell to Bill to point out the true way. When he was on earth I was his guide and mentor; now he is mine.”

Father and son are together once more, the Colonel having passed a few years ago. Mrs. Castello continued to sit with me, receiving abundant evidence from them both. For a short while Bill was his father’s guide and mentor, but with the knowledge he had gained the Colonel soon readjusted himself to his new life.

At all this direct-voice séances, it was Red Cloud’s invariable rule that no spirit communicator who on earth had been a celebrity should be allowed to speak unless it was to a personal friend in the circle. It was therefore with some surprise that the sitters heard Red Cloud announce one night: “Hold on! Here is a visitor who has not been before and is not personally known to any of you tonight.”