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Hello again everybody! Today I’ve been inspired to talk about people like myself who aspire to work for the spirit world with spirit. For the past 18 months or so I have been going to spiritualist churches with the lady who is overlooking my mediumship development and seeing how different mediums work.
My teacher was taught her trade so to speak the old fashioned way and she continues her learning and my development in very much the same manner. She does not mix her words and is very strict on the discipline and the need for "back to basics", for anyone that is developing their gift.
She constantly tells me that no matter how well your mediumship is developed there will be times when you need to go back to basics and use the skills of control and discipline to communicate with those that are on the other side of the veil. As we travel to different workshops run by different churches I’m constantly getting to see and experience the different types of ways that one can work with spirit, e.g. - psychometery, flower readings, the use of ribbons, blind reading, and working with psychic energies. It is very much like an apprenticeship and you have to serve your time so that you can perform to the best of your capabilities.
Too often now I have seen fresh faces in development classes that are able to give evidence from the spirit world and go onto proclaim that they are a medium! Do these people not know that what they are doing by going out and giving evidence from spirit without the correct teachings is wrong and can have a devastating effect on somebody’s life! God forbid but these people are messing with ones emotions/feelings and life. These people maybe grieving and to have someone proclaim they are a medium in front of them could be more damaging to themselves.....Many of us younger mediums forget all the work that has been done before us by other great mediums. These mediums must be remembered for what they have been able to give us today...here are a few that I like to remember.............
ETTA WRIEDT (1859-1942)
Throughout the pages of spiritualistic history, there have been a number of physical mediums who have been able to produce the phenomena of direct voice. All forms of mediumship are a very special gift. Trance, Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, automatic writing give considerable and valuable testimony to the workings of spirit. Materialisation, if it ever comes back into the light would be fantastic. But today we have what is probably the most magnificent manifestation in the form of Independent Direct Voice.
There are few mediums to-day who are able to produce this phenomenon. But, at the turn of the 20th century there were quite a number. Mrs. Everett, Mr. Cecil Husk, Mr. CE Williams and George Spriggs, but to name a few but the one that stands out was Mrs. Etta Wriedt.
Etta Wriedt was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1859 and died 3 July 1942 aged 83 years. Etta was a professional medium who ever only charged one dollar for a successful séance. She would never sit in a cabinet and never went into trance. Quite often she joined in the conversation with those from the otherworld who were communicating.
The Control of Mrs. Wriedt was a spirit called Dr. John Sharp, who professes to having been born in Glasgow, in the 18th century but lived all his life in the United States as an apothecary farmer. He died in Evansville, Indiana.
Another control of Etta Wriedt during some of the five trips she made to Great Britain was that of the famous “John King” or better known as “Sir Henry Morgan” of 250 years ago. John King at that time was the control of Mr. Husk a blind medium who used to manage Mrs. Wriedt’s séances whilst in England. He explained that he was better acquainted with English people than Sharp, and he would be able to obtain better results from the English sitters. However Sharp, was always in the background, and on visits to Scotland, Sharp took over control again.
Mrs. Wriedt came to Britain for the first time in at the invitation of WT Stead in 1911, (then editor of a psychic journal “Borderland”) she was then at the age of `51. (Stead, died the following year, 1912, on the Titanic). She came again in 1912 and 1913 when Admiral W. Usbourne Moore made the arrangements. Again in 1915 and 1919 but during this time her sittings were mainly confined to Scotland.
During the sittings in Britain, for which John King claimed responsibility of all the phenomenon, flowers were taken from vases and handed to sitters, invisible fingers often touched the sitters who were also rapped by the trumpet to urge a reply when a person hesitated to answer promptly after being spoken to. Luminous discs as bright as the moon were seen to move around the inside of the circle. Sitters were often sprinkled with drops of water, wafted with cool air and heavy objects around the room displaced. Stead frequently communicated and gave many particulars of his death. He said he was struck on the head and never felt the actual sensation of drowning.
Mrs. Wriedt could clairvoyantly read names that were shown to her. When she called out the name and if it was recognised by one of the sitters, it would immediately be heard in the trumpet. If a name met with no recognition, Johns King’s voice would break the silence saying. “You had better clear out, my friend, nobody knows you.”
Sir William Barrett heard voices simultaneously with Mrs. Wriedt. Professor Henry Sidgwick came through.
“Mrs Wriedt,” writes Barrett, “doubtless had heard the professor’s name, but he died before she visited England, and I doubt if she, or many others who knew him by name, were aware that he stammered badly. So I asked the voice; ‘Are you all right now?’ not referring to his stammering. Immediately the voice replied; ‘You mean the impediment in my speech, but I do not stutter now.’ I went to Mrs. Wriedt’s séances in a somewhat sceptical spirit, but I came to the conclusion that she was a genuine and remarkable medium, and has given abundant proof to others, beside myself that the voices and the contents of the messages given are wholly beyond the range of trickery or collusion”.
Mr William Jeffrey, a merchant from Glasgow, became so interested in Mrs. Wriedt’s mediumship, that he invited her to a number of séances in his own home.
The first voice that was heard was that of Mr. Jeffries wife, who welcomed all there to her house, addressing several by name including Mr. Galloway, Mrs. Birrell, and a visitor from London. Her voice, which was quite clear, said: “O Willie, I’m awful’ glad to be here, an’ speak in my home to you and all these friends.” My wife addressed us in her earnest, homely and rapid way, “I trust you will have a pleasant evening.” Then she went round the room and spoke to each member of the family. The voice never altered when talking to a Bella or Sally in a loving way, or prefixed ‘Mr.’ or ‘Mrs.’, to a person’s whom my wife would have addressed in that way.
Fifteen of the Seventeen sitters received a message, I think they were satisfied and many were delighted. Owing to my wife being able to manifest through Mrs. Coates some months previously, I had looked for her to make herself known according to her promise on that occasion. Yet, what took place was beyond my wildest anticipations. It was simply marvellous. The medium Mrs. Wriedt was a stranger, whom I met for the first time that morning. The séance was hurriedly convened by wire and phone, and took place in a room hastily prepared for the purpose. If the results are not evidence for spirit return, then I am at a loss to know what could be more valuable or important.
Mrs Wriedt was the proof of her own genuineness. She was never in trance and talked naturally through all of her séances, often giving the names and descriptions of spirit visitors, and indicating for whom they have come to communicate with. While talking she was often interrupted by a spirit voice, and the two would talk simultaneously. Then the voice can be heard in full light as well as in the darkness, though, for obvious reasons the latter condition is best. Two voices were often heard speaking at the same moment about matters unknown to the medium or each other. Sometimes three, and on very rare occasions four. A voice has been heard to sing whilst another one talked. One gentleman was reported to have heard it when the medium was downstairs in the drawing room, forty feet in distance, with the séance room door locked.
Mrs Wriedt, who spoke only her natural language of Yankee, not even proper English, yet spirits have been heard to speak Arabic, Croatian, Serbian, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Hindustani, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Welsh, Scotch and Gaelic.
Ethel Post-Parrish (1932-1985) became a prominent American physical medium. Her phases of direct voice and materialization attracted world-wide attention. She was also an excellent clairvoyant and an outstanding platform demonstrator.
In 1927 Ethel Post-Parrish opened a church and established a school for the education of Spiritualist ministers and the development of mediums in Miami, Florida. To escape the intense heat and humidity of Florida’s summers, in 1932, she opened a summer camp and school for mediumship in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. This is called Camp Silver Belle so named for Mrs. Parrish's Indian guide Silver Belle.
While she submitted too many tests in order to prove the truth of her splendid manifestations of physical mediumship, her real desire was to bring comfort and happiness to humanity, through her wonderful gift.
EMILY S. FRENCH Emily S. French was born on the 10th July 1831, was an outstanding Trance and Direct voice medium of Buffalo, New York, and a relative of President Grover Cleveland. From infancy she had unusual abilities. She could not remember a time when she was unable to see people and hear voice...s which were neither seen nor heard by others. There came a period in her young womanhood when, with a pencil in each hand, she could write on different subjects simultaneously, easily conversing at the same time. Automatic writing was not then known or understood.
Emily was investigated by the famous Buffalo attorney, Edward C.Randall and James H. Hyslop who intended to expose her as a fraud but was over time, and after completing many exacting experiments testing her powers, they were completely convinced that she was indeed the genuine article. They also conducted remarkable experiments to prove that the voices did not originate in the vocal organs of the medium.
Her Spirit control, an Indian named Red Jacket had an exceedingly loud, masculine voice that would fill a hall with a seating capacity of 2000 people. The medium at that time was a frail old woman with a weak heart and was deaf, yet the sitters could hear every remark of the communicators.
For 22 years Emily S. French assisted Edward C. Randall's spirit rescue circle, where "earthbound spirits" were helped to cross over. She gave her mediumistic services without charge.
Emily S. French passed to the Higher Life in her 81st year on the 22nd June 1912 in Rochester where she had spent most of her adult life.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article....love, light, and laughter always.....kev
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