CHAPTER TWELVE

 

FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS

 

It is now more than thirty-five years since the world was startled by the publication in a psychic newspaper of a series of automatic writings entitled “My Life After Death” by Edgar Wallace. Although I had no part in the origin of this script that came through a medium in Wales, I was concerned ion establishing its authenticity.

 

During the last years of his life Edgar Wallace was always in the news as a novelist, journalist and a playwright. He was also a “character,” rich in eccentricities the public loves and, either by accident or design, he contrived brilliantly to live up to the reputation he had built up around himself. Indeed, so firmly was Wallace entrenched in the minds of the public, he continued to live in the memory as a popular legend long after he had made his physical exit from earth.

 

It is therefore not surprising that when Maurice Barbanell received a parcel containing spirit writings attributed to Wallace, he should take every precaution to establish their genuineness before publishing them. Publication, Barbanell knew, would subject them to the severe scrutiny of the skeptics, with each seeking some point by which to discredit them. How then, he pondered, could he be sure of their authenticity?

 

He submitted them for the examination of Hannen Swaffer, an intimate friend of Wallace in between the intervals when they were “enemies.” These intervals were due to their respective roles as dramatic critic and playwright. Swaffer’s verdict was that the script gave evidence of having been written by a trained reporter, which the medium was not, but he could not say that Wallace was the post-mortem author. Then Barbanell had a brainwave. He would consult Red Cloud, which he did at the next direct voice séance. The guide’s reply was to tell Barbanell to proceed no further until he, Red Cloud, had consulted Wallace himself. At the following voice séance Red Cloud reported that he had asked Wallace, who confirmed his authorship of the automatic writings, so Barbanell was free to go ahead with publication.

 

The publication of the spirit script, with its detailed description of life after death as Wallace had found it, produced the anticipated furor. Soon one of the major Spiritualistic controversies of all time was raging., with plenty of hard knocks taken and given by both sides. Robert Curtis, for fifteen years Wallace’s private secretary, was one of the leading antagonists, condemning any suggestion that the manuscripts could have emanated from his old chief. While the storm was raging, Wallace returned again to join the battle with a further psychic exhibition, typical of his self­assertiveness, that fanned the flames of controversy to new heights. He caused his spirit portrait to appear on a plate exposed during a test séance of psychic photography.

 

The anti-Spiritualists scoffed at the bare idea of a spirit picture. Nothing, they asserted, was easier to fake than a photograph. This is undeniably true, but what they conveniently chose to overlook were the test conditions under which the picture was taken. The plates used at the séance were provided by a Fleet Street Photographic agency after having been secretly marked by one of its representatives for identification purposes. They were loaded into the camera by the same representative. Two representatives of the agency were present the whole time the exposures were made. They personally removed the plates from the camera and took complete charge of their subsequent processing. From beginning to end the spirit photographer had no hand in taking, developing or printing the pictures other than to be present in the room and indicate the moment each picture was to be taken.

 

The likeness of Edgar Wallace which emerged from these stringent conditions was an excellent one and, because it was like no other photograph of him taken during his lifetime, even the scoffers could not maintain it was a copy of an old print. Fleet Street, and Wallace’s relatives, were challenged to produce a copy. They were never able to do so.

 

Meanwhile, at my direct-voice séances, Wallace was a thrusting and determined candidate to speak through the trumpet. But at first Red Cloud held him back. “He is not yet ready to speak,” he said. “He does not know how to use the power. We cannot have him harming our medium, however fierce his impatience. He will speak when I say he is ready and not before.”

 

In the event we had to wait only two weeks. At our next sitting Wallace came through. It was a truculent Wallace, who made it abundantly clear that he did not suffer gladly the fools he had left on earth.

 

“I wrote the script,” he said. “I sat for the photograph. What more do they want? It is damnably hard to be disbelieved when all you want is to make them understand. They can laugh, they can scoff, but I’ll show them where the truth lies.” He continued in this vein for some minutes, ending his censure of the world’s follies with a pointed reference to his secretary’s denial of the spirit writings.

 

“Tell Bob Curtis not to be so silly,” he said with disgust. “I’ll give him something to think about. You see if I don’t.”

 

And Wallace certainly did! He caused a replica of his unmistakable voice to appear on a Dictaphone cylinder for Curtis’ benefit. Try as Curtis would, and despite the willing assistance of experts of the Dictaphone Company, he could find no other rational explanation of how the voice came there than the straightforward one that Wallace, though dead, had recorded it.

 

Shortly after the passing over of the talented young actor­manager Dennis Neilson-Terry, his actress wife, Mary Glynne, and his actress sister, Phyllis, started to attend regularly at my direct­voice séances. The first time that Dennis’ voice was heard it was faint and feeble as it called his wife’s name.

 

“This is Dennis,” it added. “Can you hear me? I’ve got to get accustomed to this.”

 

“I can hear you,” Mary Glynne said, encouragingly.

 

With obvious effort the voice went on to give short messages to friends and relatives. Then it said: “This is terribly difficult but, don’t worry, I shall do better next time.”

 

My two visitors were present at the next sitting, anxious to renew their communication with Dennis and hopeful that he would be able to manage the trumpet more expertly. But when the trumpet eventually poised itself in front of Mary Glynne, it was not the voice of a man that emerged. It was a woman’s voice, cheerful, calm and confident.

 

“This is Aunt Laura,” it said.

 

“Oh, I was not expecting to talk to you,” Mary Glynne said, somewhat taken aback.

 

“Dennis brought me, dear. He’s with me now.”

 

“Aunt Laura,” Mary Glynne said, suddenly remembering something. “I thought of you earlier this year. Do you know in what circumstances?”

 

“Of course, dear. When you were in South Africa, you went to Port Elizabeth especially to find my grave. You put flowers on it.”

 

“Yes, I did. Did you say Dennnis was there?”

 

“He’s here and ready to talk to you. Give my love to your mother, and tell her I’m very much alive.”

 

“Hallo, darling,” came Dennis’ voice almost immediately, and there followed a conversation typical of such reunions. When it was over, Red Cloud addressed Mary Glynne.

 

“You see, little lady,” he said, “your man makes progress. This time he managed better, but still he is too tense. But each time he will improve; each time he will get better.”

 

“Red Cloud,” she said. “Please tell me. Why did you bring aunt Laura to speak?”

 

“For the greater proof, little lady. Everyone knew of your famous husband, even Medi here. Nobody knew of Aunt Laura – not even Medi here.”

 

On the next occasion that Dennis Neilson-Terry spoke to his wife he had immensely improved his speaking technique and was able to sustain an almost perfect conversation with her. In the course of it, he made a comment that was apparently irrelevant to what they were saying, yet it had a profoundly moving effect on his wife. “I have brought some flowers for you,” he said.

 

At the end of the séance Mary Glynne explained the significance of these words. She told us that she also sat with another medium through whom, a few days earlier, she had received a communication from Dennis. Ever seeking greater, more convincing, proof she had asked him for a text message, a few words only that he would repeat at her forthcoming visit to me.

 

“I will say,” he had promised, “I have brought some flowers for you.”

 

 

Emma Cunliffe-Owen was one of the most vital and kindly women it has been my good fortune to meet. She attended my voice séances over a long period and followed with the greatest attention all that transpired. She had considerable psychic gifts which, had she had the time and inclination to develop, could have made her a powerful medium.

 

There was one occasion when her father spoke through the trumpet and, in doing so, showed himself to be one of those communicators able to manifest with a perfect reproduction of their remembered earthly tones. With gay and cheerful abandon he reeled off the names of those of her family who clustered around him. There were her husband, Edward, and Grandfather Charles. There were Agnes and Jenny and Dorothy; Alexandra, and Henry and Frank and little Clare. To him it was just a grand family party. He talked a little about each one, and then he suddenly exclaimed: “And here’s someone else you know well. Tommy Lipton. Come and speak to Emma, Tommy.”

 

A new voice sounded from the trumpet as Sir Thomas Lipton, founder of the chain of grocery stores bearing his name and many times contender for the America’s Cup in his yachts Shamrock I to V, took over.

 

“I’m glad of this opportunity to thank you for remembering me,” he said.

 

“It was little enough.”

 

“It was a great deal.” Then, addressing the circle at large, he added: “She decorated the carriage in which they brought my body home. Purple cloth, green laurels, and yellow chrysanthemums.”

 

“You did so much for others,” Emma Cunliffe-Owen said. “It was time someone did something for you.

“I did something for you, Sir Thomas,” Hannen Swaffer interjected with a chuckle. “They got me out of bed to write your obituary notice.”

 

“Did they?” came the delighted reply. “Well, you can make it your business to tell them I am not dead after all."”

 

“Dorothy’s still here, waiting.” It was Emma Cunliffe-Owen’s father interrupting these pleasantries on the girl’s behalf.

 

“Mother, this is Dorothy,” came a girl’s voice. “Yes, darling.”

 

“Mother, you have wonderful psychic gifts. Why don’t you use them?”

 

“They are not sufficiently developed, darling. There is so much one needs to know.”

 

There followed a long exchange of the kind you expect between mother and daughter, a conversation of no consequence to anyone but the two principals concerned.

 

When it was over Mrs. Cunliffe-Owen acknowledged it had been one of her most rewarding evenings.

 

Shortly after the events I have just described, Lord Northcliffe, the founder of the Daily Mail, and the man who transformed Britain’s newspapers, came as a spirit visitor. He refused to give his name and, though his voice was clear and firm, nobody could at first fix his identity. It was Louise Owen, his former secretary, who guessed. As soon as she mentioned his name, Hannen Swaffer and Shaw Desmond, who were present, both knew that she was right.

 

"Lord Northcliffe," Louise Owen said.

 

"Alfred Harmsworth," he corrected her. "No use for titles here." "I thought it might be you," Desmond said.

 

"Being fey, you doubtless would," Northcliffe returned quickly. "What a dreadful mess you people have got the world into!" he

went on despairingly. "Nothing but war and starvation and futility. Why can't you all get together and achieve something?"

 

"You haven't changed. I've had to listen to many a lecture from you," Swaffer said.

 

"The whole world must band together to stop war," Northcliffe continued, ignoring the interruption. "This gathering into rival groups is plain suicide." He went on at great length, periodically teased and baited by Swaffer and Desmond, but never bothering to rise to their challenges.

 

A close relative of Canon "Dick" Sheppard, one of the most famous and best-loved of all clerics, visited me for a private séance for clairvoyance. He returned to give her this message: "I did not realize I was about to die. I sat down at my table feeling no more than tired and when I woke up I was in this other world. I grieved only for the shock of my passing on those around me."

 

Later he came again to my séance room and spoke this time in the direct voice. Dick was upset and his voice came with great difficulty. He was worried because of a claim that he had spoken through a medium at a public meeting. This, he said, was not so. He then asked that a message be given to his daughter, urging her to go ahead with the plans for his memoirs, and giving the name of somebody who was opposed to their publication. He sent affectionate greetings to George Lansbury, adding that he and Lansbery's son were firm friends. He rounded off what he had to say with the words, "God's blessing be on you all."

 

Dick spoke for no more than three minutes, yet during the brief time his command of the trumpet increased beyond belief. He began more haltingly, and with greater effort than any other spirit communicator the circle could recall, yet he finished almost eloquently. Questioned on it, Red Cloud Replied: “He was anxious and distressed when he started, but these things passed with the delivery of his message.”

 

 

Among the twenty people in my Teddington séance room one evening was the well-known geographer, E. A. Reeves. For over fifty years Mr. Reeves was on the staff of the Royal Geographical Society. During the greater part of that time he was Map Curator and Instructor in Surveying to the Society. In this capacity he had known the leaders of all the major expeditions of discovery to leave the shores of Britain during the first half of the century. Men like Scott, Shackleton, Fawcett, and Watkins had been his friends as, indeed, had been many other explorers and scientists.

 

Reeves, a frequent visitor to my séances, spent a great deal of time in the study and investigation of psychic phenomena, invariably making a thoughtful and intelligent contribution to each problem that arose. On the particular evening I have in mind, his brother, who had been drowned, nearly fifty years earlier, had just spoken to him, when another was sounded form the trumpet.

 

"This is Watkins, Mr. Reeves, Do you remember me?"

 

"Gino, my dear boy," Reeves replied, taken aback by his unexpected visitor, "of course I do."

 

"You know the story, I expect. I was drowned in the Arctic. I was out seal-hunting, went under the ice and that was that. Please tell Sir William I have spoken to you." (Sir William was the current President of the Royal Geographical Society.)

 

Reeves knew the story only too well. Gino Watkins had led an expedition to Greenland, where his death occurred as the result of an accident. How it happened had not been definitely established. All that was known was that he had gone out alone in his kayak canoe and that the tiny craft had capsized.

 

To this brief spirit return there was an unexpected sequel. Some days later, Reeves, walking in Hyde Park saw a horse and rider approaching him. When they reached him Reeves noticed that the rider was a man he had known slightly in days gone by, one who had no small reputation as an Arctic explorer. The rider halted his horse and said surprisingly: "Ah, Reeves, I was keeping an eye open for you. I understood you have been in communication with Gino Watkins."

 

"Yes, that is so. But how did you know?"

 

"He told me so last night - in a sort of dream, I suppose you'd call it. Did Watkins tell you what happened?"

 

"He said he went under the ice."

 

"Ah, quite likely. The same thing once nearly happened to me."

"I'm interested in that dream of yours," Reeves said. "Do you often have dreams like that?"

 

"Now and then. I'll tell you something else. I knew before I left home this morning I should find you walking in Hyde Park."

 

"Well, I'm glad I didn't disappoint you," Reeves said with a smile. "It's not often that I come this way."

 

The Watkins story does not end there. Nearly two years later John Myers, whose mediumship was responsible for the Edgar Wallace spirit extra, had held a séance at the British College of Psychic Science. The face of the "extra" on one plate bore a remarkable resemblance to Gino Watkins. Indeed, so strong was the likeness that Reeves and others to whom he showed the picture had no doubt that it was Watkins. A few months passed and Reeves arrived at my voice circle bringing his son, who had recently returned from abroad. During the sitting the son enjoyed a lively conversation with his departed but now present elder brother which ended with the significant words, "Tell Father that Watkins has got his photograph through."

 

One of the most intriguing of the world's unsolved mysteries - unsolved, that is to say, by material evidence - was the disappearance of the famous explorer, Colonel P. H. Fawcett, in a South American jungle. Expeditions have tried to solve the riddle, books have been written on it and explorers have debated it, but nobody as yet has been able to advance a solution that meets all the facts in terms of material evidence. But what of spirit proof? Here we stand on much firmer ground - so firm, indeed, that we can speak with certainty where others can indulge only in speculation.

 

Fawcett was a remarkable man. A fine soldier, an experienced surveyor and intrepid explorer, he was also a mystic of a high order. His last expedition began in 1925 when, with his younger son and one other companion, he penetrated the Brazilian hinterland. It was a journey from which he never returned. - in the physical sense. Several explorers claimed to have met him, or found traces of him, but none of their claims stood up to searching investigation. With the passage of years there could be only one logical conclusion - that Fawcett and his party had perished in the forests. But of the date and manner of their passing no real evidence has been found.

E. A. Reeves numbered among the many friends Fawcett left behind him. The two men had many interests in common, which included a life-long study of psychic matters. When Fawcett was reported missing, Reeves had a growing conviction that the explorer would find some means of getting in touch with him, even though the normal channels of communication were closed. No such message reached him, however. Eventually he concluded as had the world at large, that he had heard the last of his old friend.

 

Then he recalled a pocket aneroid barometer that Fawcett had used on a previous Brazilian expedition, and which the missing man had left in his keeping. It would be an interesting experiment, he thought, to include the barometer, without disclosing the reason, among the objects submitted at my next demonstration of psychometry. Some clue, he argued, might be provided in my delineation. Accordingly the barometer found its way into the heterogeneous collection of articles that invariably clutter my tray on such occasions.

 

Presently I picked it up. I had, of course, no idea of it or whence it came. I must confess that I even failed to recognize what it was. At such moments the medium is less concerned with the nature of an object than with its vibrations. From its general shape and appearance within its little leather case I assumed it to be a traveling clock. This error, however, in no way detracted from the clear-cut picture it revealed to me. I spoke at once of distant travel, of steaming forests and of primitive peoples running around naked. I could see a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat and around his waist was a belt to which a similar "clock" was buckled. I said that because of the strong psychic force exerted I believed the man to be dead.

 

At the end of my reading I inquired who was the owner of the "clock."

 

"I am," said Reeves.

 

"The man who owned it before you is sending you a message," I said. "He asks if you remember his injured leg and wants you to know that it is now quite well."

 

"I can't recall he ever injured his leg," Reeves said thoughtfully. "You say the man is dead?"

 

"I think he must be. The psychic forces are so strong. Who is he? Do I know him?"

"Colonel Fawcett."

 

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 made a great impression on Reeves, who had long acknowledged Fawcett to be one of the most highly-developed mystics of his time, and particularly so because the message I had transmitted concerning the injured leg had recently taken on some significance. It had had no meaning for him at the time, but he had since recalled Fawcett describing him, shortly before he left for South America, how his horse had been brought down beneath him and, in rolling over, had injured the muscles of his leg.

 

Twelve months after Red Cloud had made this disclosure, Reeves brought a woman to see me. Following the invariable practice when a newcomer was introduced, he made no mention of her name for her reason for coming to see me. The three of us held a séance and I was not kept waiting for an intimation of my visitor's identity. Red Cloud at once addressed her as "the little Fawcett lady." He told her that the two young men who had accompanied Colonel Fawcett to South America had passed over from fever, but that her husband was still alive. He described Fawcett as "an advanced psychic who had learned great occult wisdom. Men would give kingdoms for the knowledge that is now his."

 

He mentioned a necklet the Colonel had given his wife, and assured her that nothing was to be gained (it was now eight years after the start of the expedition) from further searching for Fawcett. He confirmed that the white man whom Stephan Rattin, a Swiss explorer, had met in a native village two years earlier had really been Fawcett. This was particularly interesting because Rattin's claim had been carefully investigated by the authorities and rejected.

 

At intervals during the next three years Reeves had private sittings with me in which Fawcett's name was often mentioned. Then, on July 14th, 1936, Red Cloud said: "I have something to say now that will interest you greatly. Your friend Fawcett has come over to our side." He made no mention of the precise date, probably because time as we know it has no meaning in the spirit world.

 

The Fawcett story might well have ended there as far as I was concerned but for the action of Maurice Barbanell. Reeves had kept Barbanell closely in touch with each new development and Barbanell, as an editor, was profoundly interested. He came for a special sitting in the hope that Red Cloud would fill in the gaps in the strange Fawcett story. And, as usual, Red Cloud did not fail him. He described Fawcett's life in the fever-ridden jungles of south America; how he had been held prisoner in a tribal village, watched over benevolently yet jealously by his captors; how he had learned their magic while he practiced and extended his own great mystic gift, and how from time to time he was sick with the fever which, in the end, drained the last of his earthly strength.

 

"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 over sometime during the early summer of 1935, a date which, as Barbanell already knew, though I did not, had been independently established for Reeves by two other mediums.

 

Perhaps one day all the circumstances of Fawcett's disappearance and his eventual fate will be established from the material evidence to which this world attaches so much importance. Should that day ever come, I am certain the facts will be as related by Red Cloud.

 

An unusual incident occurred one evening at a direct voice séance. Among those present was Mrs. Hutchinson, whose husband and son had both been doctors before passing to the spirit world. Mrs. Hutchinson was no stranger to psychic phenomena. On several previous occasions she had had a number of conversations with her loved ones, especially with her son who had met an untimely end on a motorcycle. On this particular evening she arrived carrying a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. She brought it into the séance room, placing it on her lap when she joined hands with her neighbors.

During the sitting she again conversed with her son, though neither made any mention of the parcel.

 

The séance ended and, I was coming out of trance, I became aware that there was something on my head. "What is this?" I demanded, and put up a hand to find out. As I did so the lights were switched on and I was revealed draped in a beautiful Spanish Shawl.

 

Mrs. Hutchinson quickly looked down at her lap. There was the brown paper folded exactly as before and held in place by the knotted string. She picked the parcel up and it was as hollow as an empty eggshell.

 

"I don't understand," she said. "I brought the shawl as a present for you. I was going to give it to you afterwards. It was a present to me from my son. You have brought us both so much happiness, I was sure he would want me to give it to you."

 

"It seems he has forestalled your kindness and given it to me himself," I said.

 

"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 cures achieved by his work in the House of Red Cloud, was intrigued by an incident which occurred one evening at a direct voice séance. Earlier that day he had given healing to a woman he had been treating twice a week for a long time. Recently the sufferer had shown great improvement. She was so delighted that she had suggested to Charles that it might be sufficient if she now came only once a week, thereby enabling him to treat a new patient. Charles replied that he would have to ask Red Cloud.

 

That evening, recalling this incident, he told Red Cloud he wished to ask a question.

 

"And I will tell you the answer before you ask the question," Red Cloud said with a chuckle. "The little lady need come only once a week. There’s a little bit more evidence for you, Zebedee."

Zebedee was the name by which Red Cloud always addressed Charles - he had his own names for all his intimate friends. As he said it now, he tapped Charles lightly on the knee with the trumpet. The evidence he referred to was that nobody but Charles and his patient had the least idea than any discussion of her treatment had ever taken place.

 

"And Zebedee," Red cloud went on, "tell the medium that the little McKenna man will be coming this evening. He will bring a photograph of his grandfather for her."

 

This information came as a complete surprise for everybody. Terrence McKenna was the grandson of Sir Morrell Mackenzie, now one of Red Cloud's spirit doctors, but once an illustrious member of the medical profession. Terence had given us no warning of his intended visit so that everyone was agog to see whether he carried out Red Cloud's promise.

 

We need not have wondered. He arrived just as Charles was seeing a member of the circle to the door. Under his arm was a flat parcel, and the circle member, enjoying the moment, said: "I know what you've got there."

 

Terence, somewhat taken aback, replied: "Do you …..indeed. And what have I got there?"

 

"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 was a born investigator. Never would he accept any claim at face value if it offered an opportunity for further research. He was therefore the ideal person to check some unexpected details given regarding strangers.

Red Cloud told the twenty members of one direct voice sitting in my house that he was concerned for a man and woman living in a small Yorkshire village at an address which he gave in full. He said that on specified days the couple spent regular hours each week on private conversation in memory of their much loved son. The boy was, known to them by a pet name, and he too had his own nickname for his father. Red Cloud gave each of their names. Nobody in the circle had ever heard of these village folk. Red Cloud added that the mother was suffering from a painful internal ailment which could and should be cured.

 

"At this moment," the guide said, "the woman is writing a letter to the little man Desmond.. It will reach him in two days time. It will tell him the things I have told you and will ask for guidance which he will gladly give.

 

Two days later the letter arrived. The name, address and pet names were exactly as described. The woman even made mention of the internal trouble from which she was suffering. It was astonishing, unsolicited evidence which Desmond investigated down to the last detail and in doing so, he was able to give the help for which the couple had asked. I have always thought this to be a remarkable instance of the so-called dead watching over the living, instructing them how best to meet the troubles that beset them, and where to turn for help when the burden becomes too great.

 

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 from a private sitting for clairvoyance. We sat together in broad daylight. I was transmitting spirit messages to him when I was interrupted by a strong voice coming from near the ceiling in the far corner of the room. Astonished, we both sat silent, listening. The voice stopped as abruptly as it had come, and Mr. Sumpter said to me, "That was my brother."

 

For the next fifteen minutes we discussed what we had heard. I had never known of an instance of independent voice taking place in daylight and readily agreed that he should bring his wife on his next visit, in the hope that it could recur and convince him he was not the victim of hallucination. I reminded him that it was unlikely we should get a "repeat performance," but he was most anxious to try.