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…

Read More

Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 14, 1/8 by Estelle Roberts

CHAPTER FOURTEEN,THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY In the pages you have read I have tried to give a picture of the life of a practicing medium. For reasons I have already explained – because I have no recollection of what transpired during trance séance, and because I deliberately try to erase from my mind after sittings for clairvoyance or psychometry and personal messages I have relayed – comparatively little of what I have written is founded only on memory. I am fortunate, however, in possessing, a vast number of…

Read More

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

But Polly wouldn’t listen. It couldn’t be true that Tony was dead – everyone was sure he was a prisoner. Mrs. Roberts had made a mistake! She had been stupid to come. She went home – angry that she had wasted her time going to Esher and yet at the same time very depressed. At Littlewood there were so many little things which had to be done which hurt her almost unbearably. Ronald’s clothes to be put away – the black suites with a white stripe which he had always…

Read More

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

Looking back, I realize what a sad and tragic moment this must have been for “Polly.” Her son, Ronald, a brilliant young man with a distinguished parliamentary career before him, had shortly before been killed in action. Meanwhile her younger son, Tony, was reported missing. There was, however, reason to believe that Tony had not been killed but was a prisoner-of-war and, mother-like, Polly clung heroically to this hope. These were the circumstances which led to Polly’s visit to me. For the details of our sitting I quote Barbara Cartland’s…

Read More

Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 13, 11/13 by Estelle Roberts

“Within one or two days of their passing.”My visitor nodded. “There was such a knocking,” he agreed. “I live in a flat,” he explained, “and just before the newspaper published the account of their death there was a continuous hammering on my door. I went to see who was there, but there was no one to be seen. Do they say where they were going in the aircraft?” “To engage in new work; to take up a new appointment overseas. Now there is a message for Lord Dowding. It is…

Read More

Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 13, 10/13 by Estelle Roberts

The next morning Barbanell sent a telegram to Mrs. Burgess, briefly outlining the facts and telling her he was writing to send full details. He received a telegram in acknowledgment and, some days later, a long letter confirming the information, her son had given us. “I really cannot tell you how I feel about it,” she wrote. “It is just wonderful. The suspense has been awful, but the load is lifted now. He must have seen me weeping and talking to his photograph. We were all the world to each…

Read More

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

Later, assisted by Red Cloud at a direct-voice séance, the boy spoke through the trumpet, and gave conclusive evidence of his existence in the spirit world by referring to documents he had left on earth and his knowledge of the manner in which his parents were dealing with them. Our war-time direct-voice séances were significant for the youthfulness of the majority of the voices we heard coming through the trumpet. Only on a few occasions could the parents or friends positively identify a voice from its individual quality, but nearly…

Read More

Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 13, 8/13 by Estelle Roberts

“It was on a ship, at Dunkirk,” I told her. “The ship was sunk by a bomb and he was one of the many who could not get to the boats. There is something else – an old infirmity of your husband’s. He walked with one foot turned in slightly as a result of a football injury. Last night you spoke to him; you said out loud. “Buddy if you are really dead, come through tomorrow and prove it.”“Yes,” she said in tears. “Last night as I was going to…

Read More

Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 13, 7/13 by Estelle Roberts

This was followed by a boyish voice issuing with difficulty through the trumpet. “Hullo, there! Can you hear me? It’s ‘Cobber’ Kain.” Everybody present knew who “Cobber” Kain was. From the earliest days of the war this young New Zealander had been flying with the R.A.F., and by shooting down many German machines he had become one of the great aces. Tragically, on the eve of taking a spell of well-earned rest, he fell victim of a flying accident. “We can hear you, Cobber,” the circle replied in chorus.“Segrave brought…

Read More

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…

Read More

Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 13, 5/13 by Estelle Roberts

The voice stopped as abruptly as it had begun and in the silence that followed, Red Cloud’s voice was heard quoting the words: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” The fourth member of the quartet was Flight-Lieutenant Bill Castello, D.F.C. On earth he had been a keen racing motorist and his war service covered raids on Germany, occupied France, Libya, Albania, Iraq and Greece. In all he had made over fifty operational sorties and the citation for his D.F.C.…

Read More

Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 13, 4/13 by Estelle Roberts

At this point Red Cloud intervened to enlist the help of the sitters, from which those present guessed that the next speaker would be making his first attempt at direct voice. There was a pause and then came the words: “Dick Stevens here. I want to speak to my wife.” It was Flight-Lieutenant Stevens, D.S.O., D.F.C. and bar, better known as “Cat’s Eyes” and the subject of a notable painting in the National Gallery. The picture, entitled “Portrait of a Night Fighter,” is by Eric Kennington. For some time prior…

Read More

Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 13, 3/13 by Estelle Roberts

At this juncture good-humored protests of impatience came from the trumpet as others clamored for possession. It was David White who triumphed. He had ended his earthly life at the age of twenty-two when the submarine Olympus was lost off Malta. He spoke first to his mother, giving her messages of love for members of his family. “Dad is with me,” he assured her. The father had passed on a few months after the son. “Oh, it’s nice to talk!” David exclaimed with boyish enthusiasm. “Can you all hear me?”…

Read More

Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 13, 2/13 by Estelle Roberts

After war had been declared Red Cloud said: “There would have been no war if each of you had accepted the responsibility that lay on your individual shoulders. War came because man could not raise his thoughts from the abyss of fear to an acknowledgment of the Godhead that is within him. I said there would be no war because there should have been no war, and to have prophesied otherwise would have been to cast down man’s mind to the lowest ebb from which there could have been no…

Read More

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

CHAPTER THIRTEEN,WAR In October 1938, Red Cloud made one of his rare predictions and it was wrong. He said there would be no war. I have been many times asked how Red Cloud could have been thus in error, and have never had difficulty in giving what seems to me a satisfactory reply. Indeed, the answer is to be found in Red Cloud’s own teaching. Always he has taught that there is no such thing as destiny, that nothing in this life is preordained. It therefore follows that any prophecy…

Read More

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

Only three or four times have I encountered the psychic phenomenon known as “independent voice.” This is a spirit voice which is heard not through the trumpet or through the mouth of the medium. It emanates seemingly from mid-air, sometimes at a considerable distance from where the medium is sitting. Curiously enough this rare phenomenon occurred on two separate occasions with the same sitter. He was a man named Sumpter who had come for a private sitting for clairvoyance. We sat together in broad daylight. I was transmitting spirit messages…

Read More

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

“It is a photograph of your grandfather. You brought it as a present for Estelle.”For a few seconds Terence looked dumbfounded, and he said: “I don’t have to ask how you know. Red Cloud of course.”“Yes, Red Cloud.” “But what I don’t understand is how he knew. I was setting off to come here and I only thought of it at the last minute. It just occurred to me Estelle might like it.”He was quite right. I was delighted to have it. As I have already pointed out, Shaw Desmond…

Read More

Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 12, 11/13 by Estelle Roberts

“This, of course, could be the only explanation. Somebody must have placed the shawl on my head. None of the sitters present could possibly have done so. Apart from the fact that no responsible member would break a circle in the midst of a séance, it would have been impossible for anyone to have done so and to be undetected. All hands had been linked and had remained so throughout, as was testified by every member present. My husband Charles, who was a wonderful healer, with a fine record of…

Read More

Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 12, 10/13 by Estelle Roberts

“How long ago is it since he passed over?” Barbanell asked.“Your time is difficult for me,” came Red Cloud’s reply, “but this I can tell you. It was at the time of the showing of his portrait.” This was a reference which enabled us to place the time of Fawcett’s death almost to within a few days. In the summer of the previous year John Myers had been experimenting as usual with his spirit photography and among the “extras” had been one of Fawcett. This meant that Fawcett had passed…

Read More

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…

Read More