28 May 1927 – Rudolph Valentino Sheik Deceased Film Star Makes Spirit Return

Mrs. McKinstry, Spiritualist Medium, is writing a Scenario at his Dictation. Passionate Desert Romance Being Written at the Instigation of the Ghost of the Famous Movie Sheik. It*s a spook Rudy dressed in his Arab turban, and from the spirit-world he has appeared to one of ‘his former wives and a  spiritualist medium.” Its a chastened Rudolph too, for his purpose in returning to this earth in spirit form isn’t to revisit the scene of his former amorous triumphs, but merely to write a movie scenario. Madame Natacha Rambova the divorced second wife is reported to be in frequent communication with the spirit of her departed former husband. to Natacha the late movie star is said to have given various odds and ends from the world beyond. Mrs. Carol McKinisry, former pastor of the Universal Spiritual Church announces that the spirit of Valentino is also a frequent and welcomed visitor at her pastorage, and Mrs. McKinstry goes Natacha one better because she declares Valentino has selected her as a medium for giving to the world the scenario for a new motion picture. If the late screen hero continues his visitations and goes through with the complete plot. Mrs. McKinstry hopes that in the bright electric lights outside the motion picture houses there will, sooner or later, appear this illuminated sign: The Warning From Out of the Ages. Naturally, being a phantom, he cannot do the writing himself; he is obligated to employ a living manikin a spirit medium. For a number of weeks Mrs. McKinstry notes from the spirit of Valentino, and she hoes that nothing will interfere to interrupt the full and complete scenario of what she believes will be an excellent picture. The perfect lover of the screen has had the advantage of an experience which no living scenario writer shares. He has died, been buried, and has had opportunity to observe and study conditions as they exist in what spiritists call the great beyond. In life he seems to have had no longer able to show himself personally to his innumerable admirers When his spectre first appeared to Mrs. McKinstry she was making her pastoral residence in Corby Castle at Binghamton, and there her subsequent interviews with him took place to her nearly the whole of his scenario. It is surely to be regretted that the scenario does not deal with matters that have relation to the Great Beyond. Its story is of life, and living people a tale of a love triangle, staring with scenes in an American City and thence where the hero appears as a sheik of true Valentino pattern. He did not look at all like a ghost says Mrs. McKinstry, “but as he did in life.” ON some occasions only his head and shoulders appeared, but at other times he was plainly visible at full length, standing his feet raised a foot or so above the floor, as if he were starting to ascend. He would appear gradually taking perhaps twenty minutes to materialize fully. You should understand that he took on a material substance he talked in a audible voice, now and then, while dictating, of a motion picture scenario. He seemed inpatient when I asked him why, and said in a strange that though dead, I still have an interest in life. My favorite hours of study are in the middle of the night. It is then that I am able best to concentrate, while all is quiet, and to converse with the spirits of the dead that come to me. Mrs McKinstry is a plump young woman of attractive appearance, dark eyed, with black bobbed hair, short-skirted, and by no means the conventional picture of a seeress. She says that probably she would never have suspected her possession of her remarkable gift if it had not been for a vision she saw some years ago while etherized for a surgical operation. His aim in writing the scenario is I think not so much literary achievement as a desire to make people think more seriously of spiritual things. Before he finishes he may perhaps tell something about what he has seen in the world beyond the veil. As yet, however, he has said nothing about the spirit world, and, inasmuch as he has refrained from questioning him on the subject. Mrs McKinistry calls herself a “conscious medium”. That is to say, she does not go into trances and act merely as a mouthpiece through which spirits talk, while herself unaware of what they are saying.  A piece of apparatus very important as an aid in her work is a ball of quartz crystal, into which she gazes intently. seeing strange visions therein. The ball rests in the saucer shaped top of a small china stand which contains a couple of ounces of in some way, not understood by the seeress herself, the sand helps. She believes that her own special spirit guide or control, who is constantly at her elbow when she interviews ghosts, was a medium and accustomed to use sand connection with a divining crystal for what purpose is unexplained. When I look into the crystal, concentrating my mind upon it she says. When I look into the crystal, concentrating my mind upon it I see persons and scenes. The persons maybe thousands of miles away, the scenes very distant. Yet they are real I see pictures which usually have some meaning purely symbolic yet which offer suggestions that enable me to answer very important questions put to me. I can see the crystal visions use as well in a bright light but my practice is to use a dim light one shaded electric burner because it tends to quiet the nerves. when taking dictation I sometimes fasten a black bandage over my eyes. It is difficult to write with bandaged eyes but I manage it sufficiently well to be able to read afterward what I have written.  Mrs.. McKinstry is seems, was not the first living person to interview the spectre of the movie sheik. Before he appeared to her she had heard that Valentino had ‘come through’ from the spirit world with messages for his wife/Natacha Rambova, communicated through a medium. Thus was the ‘less -surprised when he turned up without a previous warning. It was on the night of Dec 7 and I was seated at a table in my little study. When I became conscious of a powerful spirit influence in then room. The spirit manifested itself that I felt disturbed and sought to resist its intrusion upon my labors.