Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 14, 2/8 by Estelle Roberts

My first meeting with Mrs. Estelle Roberts was some years ago when paying a professional visit to her house. Subsequently I had several very interesting conversations with her on the subject of the spirits that she claimed to see.

As a medical man, of course, one not infrequently comes across people who are the victims of hallucinations. No doubt I ought to have at once suspected some mental derangement. No such idea however entered my mind. Mrs. Roberts was altogether too sane and sensible a person and not in the least worried by her visions, which she took as a matter of course.

Soon I began to realize that it had been my good fortune to meet, for the first time in my life, one of those strange people called mediums, about whom I had so often read in books dealing with psychical research and kindred subjects.

Mrs. Roberts, seeing me genuinely interested, was kind enough to invite me to some séances with another medium, at which I had the opportunity of observing some very remarkable physical phenomena. Later on she informed me that her guide, Red Cloud, had given permission for me to attend one of her own direct-voice circles.

Naturally I jumped at the opportunity, and since then have attended many of these directvoice circles as well as other sittings of a different nature. These other sittings are roughly of two kinds. In both, the medium goes into trance and Red Cloud speaks through her, no darkness being necessary. In the one the sitter is alone with Red Cloud, who talks to him and brings relatives and friends to communicate; whereas in the other Red Cloud gives discourses to an assembled audience.

In direct-voice séances the sitters form a rough circle with the medium who reclines in an easy chair. An aluminium trumpet, decorated with spots of luminous paint, is placed in the middle.
After preliminary prayer the lights are extinguished; the room being thus in total darkness, with nothing to be seen but the spots of luminous paint on the trumpet.

A hymn is sung, during which the medium goes into trance. Soon after, the trumpet begins to move about – touching various members of the circle. Very soon, the voice of Red Cloud is heard issuing from the trumpet, greeting the sitters. This is usually the time for the singing to cease and the gramophone to be turned on for the rest of the séance.