Mrs Estelle Roberts displayed a
wide variety of the gifts of the spirit,
including mental mediumship, physical
materialisation, direct-voice
phenomena, and
remarkable healing powers.
In the
1950s, she was responsible (with the help of a
small handful of other notable mediums) for
getting the Spiritualist religion legalised and
respected in Great Britain because she visited
the Houses of Parliament and gave stunning
demonstrations of clairvoyance to the Lords and
Ladies of the Realm and to the MPs. So convinced
by her abilities were the MPs that they rallied
to the Spiritualist Cause.
Famed late Novelist and
Health Guru, Dame Barbara Cartland described in
her autobiography how her mother, Mary, received
astonishing facts through the mediumship of
Estelle Roberts, which hardened sceptics would
find impossible to rationalise
Dame
Barbara's mother, Mary, had received news that
one of her sons, Ronald, had been shot and killed
in action in the War; and in the same year she
endured further agony concerning the fate of her
other son, Tony, who was reported missing.
"My
mother wrote to every man in the Lincolnshire
Regiment who was taken prisoner," writes
Dame Barbara Cartland. "Several replied that
they had heard that Captain Anthony Cartland was
a prisoner."
At
Dame Barbara's suggestion, and using the
pseudonym of Mrs Hamilton, her mother booked a
sitting with Estelle Roberts. Dame Barbara
records that:
Estelle
suddenly announced, "You have come to
consult me about your sons. They are both here
beside you."
"Not
both," said Dame Barbara's mother,
defensively. "One is a prisoner."
Estelle
Roberts shook her head. "No," she
insisted. "They are together. The youngest
one tells me that he was killed the
day before his brother. Now they are both
talking together; they have so much they want to
say to you."
But
Dame Barbara's mother refused to listen, certain
that Tony was still alive. "What a waste of
money!" she commented after the sitting.
But
Estelle Roberts had been correct - the next year
a letter arrived from the Ministry of Defence
stating that Tony had indeed been killed in
action on May 29, exactly one day before the
death of his elder brother, Ronald."
Because
Estelle had made this announcement even before
the government had received any news of the
missing boy, she could have received this
information only from the spirit world.
____________________
The
autobiography of Estelle Roberts is called Fifty
Years a Medium (Corgi Books: 1975). There
was also an earlier version titled: Forty
Years a Medium
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Psychic
News founder-editor, Maurice Barbanell, attended an Estelle Roberts
physical seance in Teddington (Middlesex,
England). He records in his book This is Spiritualism that a spirit girl contacted the
circle, wanting to relay a message to her mother
on Earth. Through
a lightweight aluminium seance trumpet the young
girl's voice 'very slowly, but distinctly' said,
'My name is Bessy Manning. I died with
tuberculosis last Easter. I have brought my
brother, Tommy, with me; he was killed by a motor
car... Tell my mother that I still have my two
long plaits. I am twenty-two, and I have got blue
eyes. Tell her I want her to come here. Could you
bring her? She is not rich - she is poor... She
is so unhappy.'
Mr Barbanell said, 'I
must know where she lives' - and without
hesitation Bessy replied, '14 Canterbury Street,
Blackburn.'
Mr Barbanell contacted
Mrs Manning and two letters arrived from her.The
first expressed her happiness on having received
the first telegram, and in the second she
aplogized because Mr Barbanell had needed to send
another telegram, explaining that she lacked the
money to reply by anything other than a letter.
She confirmed that Bessy
had died the previous Easter from TB, and later
verified that her son, Tommy, had been killed by
a car nine years earlier. 'Oh, the glorious
happiness to me and mine! I have to thank you for
the great joy you have given to me. How can I
ever thank you enough?'
Maurice Barbanell
considered this spirit communication as 'flawless
evidence for the after-life. No theories of
telepathy or the subconscious mind can explain it
away... Mrs Manning had never met Estelle
Roberts, or corresponded with her or any member
of her family'.
Subsequently, Mr
Barbanell paid for Mrs Manning to travel to
Teddington in Middlesex to attend a direct-voice
physical seance with Estelle Roberts, and Bessy
Manning duly returned and was overjoyed to speak
with her mother. She stated that her brother
Tommy was again present with her.
Mrs Manning said to her
daughter, 'Bessy, this is wonderful. You know how
your mother loves you, don't you?'
'It is
wonderful. God bless you, Ma,' replied Bessy.
When Mrs Manning asked
whether Bessy ever visited home, she said that
she did, adding that she had often seen her
mother pick up her photograph, speak to it and
kiss it, and Mrs Manning confirmed this.
Bessy also reported that
on that very morning she had heard her mother
talking to her father about mending his boots,
stating exactly what had been said - and this was
also verified by Mrs Manning. "I am the
happiest woman in the world," she said.
Upon returning to
Blackburn, Mrs Manning wrote to Mr Barbanell
thanking him for his kindness and verifying
further evidence from her daughter:
'Just before the
end, she said, "If it is possible at all, I
will come back."
'I knew she would
keep her promise. I heard my own daughter speak
to me in the same old loving way, and with the
self-same peculiarities of speech.
'She spoke of
incidents that I know for a positive fact no
other person could know'.
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