CHAPTER EIGHT

 

MATERIALIZATION AND APPORTS

 

While I was living at Teddington we arranged a special direct­voice sitting in appreciation of the long service given to the circle by one of our members. It was an important occasion to each one of us as the sitting had been organized in collaboration with Red Cloud and we had reason to believe he might show himself.

 

Our circle comprised nine people, all of considerable psychic experience. The proceedings began with the trumpet becoming most lively, circling the sitters and touching first one and then another. This was followed by an animated conversation lasting some minutes between one of our member and the spirit voice of her father. Then the trumpet returned to the center of the circle where it remained still, its spots of luminous paint glowing in the darkness. Silence followed, a heavy expectant silence as if everyone knew that what had just passed had been no more than the prelude to the more serious business of the evening.

 

"Ectoplasm, look at it!" somebody exclaimed, and all eyes turned to a billowing cloud that was becoming slowly more visible as it grew in volume. All watched as the ectoplasm writhed in the still air and slowly brightened.

 

"There's a face in it," one of the sitters said quietly. "Does anyone recognize the face?"

 

"It's Donald," said his mother. "He was a doctor once before, he heals with Red Cloud now."

As mysteriously as it had come the face faded and was seen no more.

 

The trumpet came suddenly to life again. It darted swiftly about the room, accompanied by two luminous plaques, and for the first time that evening we heard Red Cloud speak.

 

"Give me the torch," he said. "Hold it out that I may take it from you.”

 

The torch he referred to was an ordinary pocket flashlight, its glass shielded by red cotton material, which I sometimes used in the course of a séance. Iris reached across to pick it up, and held it out at arms length. The next instant it was high over the heads of the circle, flashing on and off as though being tested. Then it switched on, and stayed on. Slowly it moved across the room to where ectoplasm hovered in mid-air and shone its little red light where the cloud was thickest. Again a face appeared, but not the same face. This time it was the strong, cleanly-etched features of Red Cloud. The materialization remained there clearly visible to all for about fifteen seconds. Then, as the first face had done, it faded. The red flashlight snapped off and the room was again in complete darkness except for the glow from the trumpet and plaques as they followed their apparently aimless courses between floor and ceiling.

 

But all was not over. Eschewing the use of the trumpet, Red Cloud's voice again filled the room. "I have something for all of you," he said. During the next two minutes he presented each sitter with a jewel, varying in size from tiny little brilliants to hexagonally cut pieces of onyx and jet measuring an inch-and-a­quarter in length. Gifts such as these are known as "apports." They are highly treasured by those lucky enough to receive them, and were especially cherished on the present occasion as mementos of a particularly memorable evening.

 

Two or three years later at the House of Red Cloud, my guide again materialized in the presence of some twenty people. The séance began when I entered a small cabinet raised a few inches from the floor and having a curtain across its front. I took a red electric torch into the box with me, and as soon as I was seated the lights in the séance room were extinguished. It was not long before Red Cloud was controlling me in deep trance and all heard him speaking in his characteristic voice. For a full description of what occurred I am indebted to Maurice Barbanell, who was present and who wrote this account in the Psychic News:

"I had a present from a spirit last week. Nearly twenty others had presents also.

 

Those who know very little of Spiritualism will read these words and smile. But this is not the first apport I have received.

 

Some years ago, at a direct voice séance, Red Cloud promised to bring me an apport. Last week, he redeemed the promise at his Wimbledon center.

 

The occasion was rather a special one. Once a year, Red Cloud holds a séance for the benefit of those who are closely associated with him. It is a sort of annual reunion - almost a party in fact.

 

He had previously asked for two luminous plaques and a red torch to be brought in to the séance room, so we knew there were going to be materializations.

 

The séance was an evening of laughter and joking. It was not doleful and weird, as our opponents think sittings usually are. Red Cloud insisted on bright conversation. Tenseness would ruin everything he told us right at the beginning, when he spoke through his entranced medium, who sat inside a hastily improvised cabinet.

 

This was made of four pieces of wood with some curtains draped over the front. It stood about five feet in height. `Wendy's house,' Estelle's daughter laughingly called it.

 

 

They insisted that I should examine the cabinet and the room, so that I could say I had done so.

 

It did not take long for the materialization to begin. The two luminous plaques were lifted by invisible hands from the floor. Soon there could be seen between them the silhouette of a face. It was Red Cloud.

 

'John,' he said, calling me by the nickname he gave me years ago, `come forward.' I felt my seat and stood within three or four inches of the cabinet opening.

'Give me your hand,' I was told. A masculine hand - certainly not that of Estelle - grasped mine.

 

'Feel my hair!' said Red Cloud. I did so. It was long and silky and reached almost to where his shoulders would be. This was extraordinary, because Estelle's hair is crisp and wiry and inclined to be crinkly.

 

Standing so close to him, I could see the beard on his fine, oval face. When I told him, he asked me to feel that also. I did. It was a short beard, soft and silky in texture.

 

'It is very soft hair,' I said. One other person had this privilege, Mrs. Constance Treloar, who felt Red Cloud's hair and beard. 'This is known as bearding the guides,' I said jokingly. Red Cloud laughed.

 

At least six times I left my seat and stood very close to the materialized form of Red Cloud. Twice, to show himself as clearly as he could, he arranged for the light of the red torch to be focused on his face. It was a handsome face, with eloquent eyes. I could see the ectoplasm which was draped round his figure. His height I judged to be several inches taller than that of his medium.

 

Here was a 'miracle' - a materialization of a 'dead' man who could move and speak who had life and volition. Incidentally, the voice that came through his moving lips was a little softer than I have usually heard it, but it was undoubtedly the voice of Red Cloud as I have often heard it through his entranced medium and through the trumpet at his direct voice séances.

 

Then the guide invited all the sitters to file past the cabinet so that they could see his face. He held the two luminous plaques quite still for almost two minutes, as far as I could judge, while, one by one, the sitters went to the cabinet and filed past.

 

Shortly afterwards, we all saw an extraordinary spectacle. The curtains of the cabinet were slowly parted. At one end, there stood a materialized figure, holding the red torch which illuminated another materialization, dazzling white in appearance. To me, the illuminated figure seemed to be seated.

The most striking part of the materialization was the fact that in the center of the forehead there was a bright, scintillating jewel.

 

After that came the apports. We saw, by the two luminous spots painted on the trumpet, that it was moving. It tap­tapped on the ground. Soon we heard a rattling sound inside it.

 

'This is for John; hold out your hand, Rachel,' said Red Cloud, addressing Constance Treloar - Rachel is the name that he has given her.

 

When she did so, the apport fell into it. She passed it to me. I could feel it was a jewel of some kind.

 

This process was repeated again and again until everyone in the séance room had received a gift from Red Cloud. It was always the same procedure - the trumpet tapped on the floor, there was the rattling sound and then the apport shot into Rachel's hand.

 

'Where do they come from?' I asked Red Cloud. Laughingly, he replied, 'The Land of Anywhere.'

 

Red Cloud says that nature spirits help him to produce the apports. The trouble is that, once they have them in their possession, they are reluctant to let them go, and they have to be cajoled.

 

All the time these apports were being produced, Red Cloud was jesting, laughing in his characteristic way, treating it all as a huge joke.

 

When the lights were switched on, flowers which had been placed on the top of the cabinet and just in front of it were found all round the room, some of them on the laps of sitters. Just where I sat, there had been put a small bunch of violets.

 

We all examined our gifts. Mine was a beautifully cut amethyst. One or two had sapphires, while others had aquamarines. One had a small cross - I noticed it was hallmarked 'Sterling silver' - another had an Eastern charm.

When you have received an apport brought by a 'dead' man, the 'miracles' of the Bible do not seem so far-fetched."

 

 

A fortnight after this we held another materialization séance. On this occasion to spirit figures materialized, Red Cloud and another guide known to us as Archael. Archael, playing the more prominent part, was materialized for an hour, permitting each of the sixty sitters present to file past within two feet of him. Throughout this time he held a red torch so that its rays shone on his head and shoulders. When everybody was again seated Red Cloud called upon Constance Trloar to hand him a pair of scissors. He then cut a lock of hair from Archael's head and handed it to her. It was about six inches long, fine and silky and, for the benefit of the skeptics among my readers, bore no resemblance to my own. Archael's hair was straight, quite different from mine in texture, and unmistakably fairer than my own, with its signs of grayness and its permanently waved curls.

 

The lock was subsequently examined by Clarksons, the theatrical wig-makers, and pronounced to be genuine hair. I have it in my possession today and also a document signed by all those present testifying to what they had seen.

 

One of the most pleasing forms of psychic phenomena are apports, gifts from spirit world to friends on earth. As has already been shown, they usually comprise gems of a semi-precious nature, though occasionally they include small precious stones like rubies and emeralds. Generally speaking they have no very great intrinsic value, though they are highly prized by those who receive them. Because the stones are never in the rough, uncut state of nature when they are passed to the recipients there has been much speculation as to where they come from. Since they have been cut and polished by man, it is argued, somebody must presumably have owned them at some time. How have they come into the possession of spirit guides, to be given away later as apports?

 

Red Cloud is quite clear on this point. There can, of course, be no question of their having been stolen from their rightful owner; that just does not happen. The explanation is that at some time or another they have been lost and abandoned. Many are dredged from the sea.

 

Red Cloud has several times made gifts of this nature to those who sit with me, usually warning us in advance of his kindly intention. Not unnaturally we look forward to such occasions with keen anticipation. I remember the discussion of a promised distribution of apports between my daughter Iris, her husband Kenneth, and Charles Tilson-Chowne, whom I later married. A good deal of light-hearted banter went on between them as they speculated on what each of them might receive.

 

"Its all very well for you people," Kenneth said, "you've all had apports before. I haven't, and I think that entitles me to something especially nice."

 

"What would you consider to be 'especially nice'?" Iris asked.

 

"Oh, I don't know. Something interesting . . . something unusual. Could I have something from Egypt, do you think?"

 

"You'd better be careful," I warned him with a smile. "If it comes from Egypt, it will be probably be a beetle. I'm sure it's all you deserve."

 

"A beetle will be fine," Kenneth said with great satisfaction.

 

Iris, knowing that it would probably be her task to hand out the apports as they came from the trumpet added: "I hope it is a dead one. I hate beetles."

 

There were fifty sitters when we met to receive Red Cloud's gifts and there was a strong atmosphere of expectancy as I took my chair in the center of the darkened room. Red Cloud entranced me and then addressed the company through the trumpet. He was in high good humor as he welcomed us to his "party" and hoped we would enjoy our evening.

 

Then the trumpet took flight and darted around the room like a glistening firefly. A moment later, when there came a loud rattling inside, it paused in its gyrations and delivered its apport into Iris' cupped hands. As it did so Red Cloud's voice pronounced the name of the recipient.

 

One after another the gifts came rattling down inside the trumpet, sometimes delivered into Iris's hands, sometimes directly into the hands of the sitters for whom they were intended. They included exquisite little stone figures, likenesses of Buddha, and precious and semi-precious stones. Many of the gifts were much too large to pass through the narrow neck of the trumpet - as was clearly demonstrated at the end of the séance - yet pass through they did, and without any outside help. After about thirty gifts had been distributed, Iris was called by Red Cloud to receive Kenneth's gift. As the apport came rattling through the trumpet, Red Cloud said: "Take care. It is frail and easily broken. You are fortunate my son, in this granting of your wish. To you is given a sacred beetle of Egypt."

 

"Where in Egypt does it come from?" Maurice Barbanell asked. "Abydos," came the instant reply, spelled out letter by letter.

 

So it was that Kenneth received his beetle from Egypt, and a very beautiful specimen it was - brilliant green, edged with gold. Though it was no more than a hollow shell and extremely fragile, it was perfect in every detail. Kenneth was fascinated by it. Determined to find out more about it he took it to the British Museum where it was pronounced genuine. Abydos, he was told, was quite likely its source.

 

Charles, my husband, had received gifts on a number of occasions from Red Cloud. These he invariably kept in a little leather bag. When his turn came now to receive an apport, Red Cloud spoke with a jest in his voice of the good fortune which had enabled Charles to make this collection of trophies. This time, he said, he would represent Charles with two apports taken from the leather bag. There followed a rattling in the trumpet and out came a large piece of onyx and a piece of jet which Charles at once recognized as his own. To make sure, subsequent examination of the contents of his apports bag showed these two to be the only pieces missing.

 

The demonstration ended with an avalanche of a dozen or more apports gushing from the trumpet like water from a tap. Everyone present had been named and given an apport, but most remarkable of all was the unexplained manifestation of a piece of garnet on the bedside table of a women who had hoped to attend our meeting but had been prevented from doing so at the last minute.

 

On another occasion Red Cloud used a different technique to bring an apport to a sitter. It was the more remarkable in that it took place in broad daylight. In this instance the sitter was a woman doctor who regularly came from Bournemouth to sit with me, not only from her own interest in Spiritualism but also to represent others who were unable to make the journey. Charles, she and I were at this séance. Red Cloud, controlling me as usual when I was in deep trance, talked to my visitor for some time. Suddenly he said, "Take the medium’s hands in yours."

 

She did as she was bid. Red Cloud spoke again: "What do you see in them?"

 

"Nothing," she replied, looking carefully at my hands and turning them over. "Nothing at all."

 

"Close the fingers of her left hand till they are clenched in a tight fist. Now fold the fingers of the right hand round it."

 

Again she followed instructions.

 

"Envelop the mediums hands within your own and wait."

 

She sat clasping my two hands while Charles looked on, wondering what would happen next.

 

Suddenly she said excitedly: "There's something hard in my hand. It's getting bigger."

 

"Be still," Red Cloud admonished her. "Do not release your clasp."

 

According to Charles, perhaps a full minute elapsed before Red Cloud spoke again. "Unclasp your hands," he said.

 

She did so. There lying in the palm of her right hand was a circle of black onyx, the size of a halfpenny.

 

I have welcomed the serious investigator or the intelligent skeptic to my circles. The occasions when they have not gone away with a great deal to ponder have been rare indeed. I recollect one sitting with particular satisfaction as it was held under test conditions principally for the benefit of one man. He was introduced to me as a specialist in mental disorders, but apart from that I knew nothing of him, nor where he came from.

 

The circle comprised ten people and no sooner had I been entranced than Red Cloud delivered a lecture to those present. His subject, abstruse and involved, was the passage of matter through matter but its purport, several members of the circle later confessed, passed largely over their heads. Doubtless Red Cloud became quickly aware of this, for he said: "I will demonstrate the meaning of the words I have used. Here we sit within four walls, in an upstairs room, with its windows shuttered to exclude all light, and beyond is the medium's garden. What is there in the garden that you would like me to bring here?" Charles said afterwards that his mind flashed to the garden roller but was deterred from asking for it by the knowledge that some of those present would accuse him levity. Shaw Desmond answered Red Cloud's question. "May we have a budgerigar from the aviary at the bottom of the garden?" he asked quietly.

 

"The little Desmond man" - this is a typical Red Cloud epithet - "has asked for a budgerigar," the guide said. "It shall be so."

 

As he finished speaking, one of the two luminous plaques on the floor took flight and darted quickly around the room. Then it returned to the center of the circle, where it remained poised in mid-air, its glowing phosphorus background showing the clear-cut silhouette of budgerigar.

 

"Come forward each of you and touch it." Red Cloud requested. "The bird has no fear; it is entranced."

 

One by one the sitters responded and felt the bird, amazed to find it warm to the touch, and equally amazed that it did not fly away. The last sitter to come forward was Mrs. Treloar. As she put out her hand to feel the bird, Red Cloud said: "Pluck a feather from its breast. It will feel no pain. Do this so that the little doctor­man may not think I have hypnotized you into believing you have seen this bird. Pluck the feather and give it to him as proof of the bird's presence here tonight."

 

She did as she was instructed, returning to her seat with three little feathers held between her fingers. As she sat down the bird disappeared from sight.

 

The skeptical doctor was naturally interested in the feathers at the end of the sitting, examining them with great care. I watched as his eyes roved around the room, taking in every detail, but finding nothing that could even begin to explain the phenomenon he had just witnessed. He offered no explanations - how could he? - But he returned many times to learn more of Red Cloud's philosophy.

 

 

As a family we have always been fond of picnics, taking every opportunity to get into open country whenever the weather is fine. I have been on many such excursions with my daughter, Eveline, and her husband Bill, and on two of these there occurred unexpected psychic phenomena which are certainly worthy of record.

 

We had driven to an unspoiled beauty-spot, enclosed on two sides by fine forest trees. Lunch was over and we were basking in the hot sunshine. Bill, always of an inquiring mind, was quizzing me about Red Cloud and the demonstrations of psychic power he had so often given.

 

"Will he come to you wherever you are?" he asked. "I believe so. He has never failed me yet."

 

"But out here, amid the trees and sunshine, would he come here?"

 

"I don't see why not." "Try," Bill urged.

 

"I'll ask him first," I said. I did so and Red Cloud willingly agreed to control me.

 

From what Bill and Eveline told me afterwards, I gather that Red Cloud took the opportunity to deliver a little lecture on metaphysics to which the two listened with attention, if not always with comprehension.

 

"Does that mean," Bill interrupted at one juncture, "that you can control the elements - the wind, the rain, and what have you?"

 

"Watch," said Red Cloud, "and I will show you. Turn your eyes to the line of trees that stand behind you. See how still and unmoving they are. No wind disturbs their branches, no breeze rustles their leaves. But if the medium points her hand to the left, see what happens. The wind bends the tree-tops to the left. If she point to the right, they bend to the right. Does that answer your question, my son?"

 

It certainly did. As a practical demonstration, it left the pair breathless and they could hardly wait to tell me about it. I cam out of trance to hear them both talking at once.

"You pointed to the left and all the trees bowed to the left," they said. "Then you pointed to the right and they bowed to the right. It was incredible!"

 

"I have no difficulty in believing it," I told them sincerely. And, indeed, I had not.

 

The other instance occurred in late summer towards the end of a six weeks drought. The countryside was tinder dry and common sense should have told us not to smoke while lying comfortably back in the long brown grass. But Eveline is fond of her cigarettes. She relaxed with her eyes closed, a cigarette between her fingers. We must all have drowsed off because the next thing we knew was that the grass was on fire, and the blaze was spreading with alarming speed. We jumped up and tried to stamp out the flames, but it was useless. Fanned by a warm breeze the flames were advancing rapidly towards where our car stood with several others. Parties of nearby picnickers hurriedly collected their belongings, with the drivers running as fast as they could to remove their vehicles from the danger zone.

 

Bringing up the rear of my family's retreat, I was suddenly frightened. The fire was clearly out of control and there was nothing we could do but save ourselves and our belongings. But untold damage might result to other people's property as a consequence of our careless action. Desperately I cast about for something we could do that would halt this conflagration. Then I thought of Red Cloud. He had said he was master of the elements; he could help us now. I stopped running and invoked his aid. Then I raised my hand and stood still and silent. And as I did so the flames died down, as if by a miracle. It was a moment I shall never forget however long I live.

 

The world of the supernormal ranges from the spectacular and seeming miraculous, such as the episode I have just described, to the insignificantly trivial that is hardly worth recording. Nevertheless, it is the trivialities which, coming unbidden into our thoughts, mostly make up our day-to-day life, and often bring entertaining glimpses. I have known many amusing intrusions into my domestic life of which the following is a fair example.

 

I was slightly unwell and had to remain in bed. During the morning Iris came to my room, saying that Charles had gone to do the household shopping.