The Mediumship of Ethel Post-Parrish
Ethel Post-Parrish became a prominent American physical medium. Her phases of direct voice and materialization attracted worldwide attention. She was also a splendid clairvoyant and an outstanding platform message bearer.
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 to numerous tests to prove the truth of her remarkable manifestations of physical mediumship, her genuine desire was to bring comfort and happiness to humanity through her extraordinary gift.
Photos of Precipitated Silks
Portrait of the Spirit known as Silver Belle, who materialized and spoke through the mediumship of Ethel Post-Parrish. A Spiritualist Camp was established by Ethel Post-Parrish in Silver Belle's name, in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.
Silver Belle Materialization Séance Epharata, Pennsylvania, 1953
Ethel Post-Parrish, Medium
Jack Edwards, Infra-Red Photographer
Animation of Silver Belle Photos
Someone I met online sent me this video many years ago. The creator animated the Silver Belle photos to simulate the materialization that happened in 1953.
Side by Side Photos
For easy comparison
Maurice Barbanell’s First Hand Account of the Silver Belle Séance
I have had many striking demonstrations of the power of the spirit, as the Bible calls it, with mediums in Britain and America when I have attended materialisation séances. While on a lecture tour in America, I was invited to a séance in Pennsylvania, where I saw a materialisation and the medium at the same time, and proved it was not an hallucination by touching them both.
The medium was Ethel Post-Parrish, who, because it was the first time that I was present at one of her séances, invited me beforehand to search the room and the cabinet, the usual curtained-off enclosure. To please the medium, I made my scrutiny, although I knew that the evidence of genuineness would be in the results— as they were.
The room in which the séance was held was about forty feet long, and it was illumined by a good red light. Several forms materialised, and walked the whole length of the room. The outstanding figure to appear was Silver Belle, an Indian girl who said she was the medium's guide, mainly responsible for producing the phenomena. She proudly dis- played a gleaming star on her forehead, and drew my attention to her two long, dark plaits. Her hair was entirely different in colour and texture from that of the medium.
Silver Belle came to me although I was seated at the end of the room, at the greatest distance from the cabinet. Taking my arm, she asked me to leave my seat and to accompany her across the room until we reached the cabinet. Then she invited me to go inside and make sure that the medium was there. Not only did I see Mrs Post-Parrish, I was told to touch her hair and to feel all down one side. All the time Silver Belle remained outside the cabinet. I was thus in the position to say that I stood between the medium and the materialised form, seeing them both and touching them both at the same time. When I announced this fact, Silver Belle took my arm again and walked back with me to my original seat.
Barbanell, Maurice. This is Spiritualism. London, UK: Spiritualist Press, 1975. pp. 191-192,