Mother, look!” A materialised
form began to develop, surrounded in ectoplasmic drapery.
Speaking excitedly, she
greeted her relatives in turn. Oh,. my dearest, I ll be with you, she
told Mr. Zerdin. “Daddy, I am here,” we heard. Then came, “My sister and
my dearly beloved,” followed by, “Mother, I am alive! Mum, I am! My
darling mum, my love.” The room was filled with perfume.
Belle announced that she had
helped the spirit visitor to materialise. “She wanted you all to see her
and know she was there,” she added. Then addressing Mr. Zerdin she said:
“You are coming back. You are not going for good. There is something I
have handed to your wife to give to you to take away with you. It is not
an apport. It is a present.” Mr. Zerdin was told to hold out his hand,
in which a rose was dropped. “I helped her to find it,” said Belle,
adding, “oh, dear, why did you drop it?” Belle picked up the rose from
the floor and handed it to Mr. Zerdin’s wife, who passed it to him, and
threw kisses. “Don’t let anyone touch it,” she said. “The hands that
have given it to you are no longer material, but they ;re the hands of
love.
At this point, the figure,
more solid in its materialisation, moved towards Mr. Zerdin and appeared
to kiss him. He greeted his wife by name and they embraced.
“Look at the figure,” Belle
said to me. The form moved round the room. The face was distinctly seen.
It appeared to be protected by fine ectoplasmic gauze, and was draped
with a shawl of gossamer, weighted with fine dew drops that felt very
cold when the garment was thrown over you, and you passed through it.
The figure went over to her mother and father, showed her face and threw
kisses. An odour of ozone mingled with perfume filled the room.
When Mr. Zerdin commented on
the wonderful sitting the family were having, Belle said: “Exceptional
people get exceptional sittings. See what love and sympathy can do.
Then the atmosphere was
lightened by a touch of comedy. I was listening with interest to all
that was being said. My elbows were resting on the gramophone, and my
chin was in my cupped hands. Suddenly the gramophone was pulled away,
and I found myself on the floor. Belle laughed at my predicament, but I
am afraid I did not see the joke. Victims never do. The gramophone had
been taken to the other side of the room. When I had recovered from my
unexpected downfall, the gramophone was brought back to me by the unseen
operators. The gramophone is a large cabinet, and as there were over
fifty ten and twelve inch records inside, it required a great amount of
power to move it.
Once again the scent of
perfume pervaded the room. Belle said that it came from the bouquet that
Mrs. Zerdin had brought when she materialised.
Finally the spirit voice of
Mrs. Zerdin was heard asking her husband to take the red rose from his
buttonhole and to place it in her materialised hand. When he did so, she
placed it to her lips and took it away. After the sitting we searched
the room to find out whether the rose Mr. Zerdin had given his wife was
still there, but it had vanished.
One evening, some time later,
we were holding what we thought would be an ordinary sitting, but from
the beginning we realised something unusual was about to happen. The
atmosphere was electrical, quite unlike the customary conditions. The
eleven sitters all commented upon it. We all felt buoyant as if some big
load had been lifted off our shoulders.
A strong, unknown, male
addressed us in impressive tones saying that it was a memorable
occasion. The speaker announced that we were to be presented with
apports, which we were asked to value more than gold. These would be
gifts for three of the oldest workers in our cause associated with the
medium.
First of all, Belle insisted
on taking a hand in the proceedings in her usual jocular manner. She
blew a small whistle which she had taken from one sitter at a previous
meeting and then handed it to him. Then she said to me, “Let me come
past you.” I felt her brush by.
A few seconds afterwards, she
told another man, “Here, take it out,” and laughed. “Take out what?” he
asked.
“There is something in the
trumpet, take it out,” said Belle. She pushed the trumpet towards him.
He put his hand in and pulled
out his tobacco pouch. “Where did you get this?” he asked. “From your
coat pocket outside,” said Belle.
“How did you know it was my
coat?” was the next question. “Never you mind,” replied Belle, "I knew
it.” She then said we were going to have a wonderful evening and, coming
over to another sitter, gave him his pipe. This article had been taken
from the pocket of his overcoat which was hanging in the hall.
