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Lord, Maud E. (1852-1924)

American direct voice medium who worked under her married name, Mrs. Maud Lord-Drake. She was born March 15, 1852, in Marion County, West Virginia, with a double veil, or caul, over her face. Her father was a Baptist deacon, her mother a Methodist.

She appeared before the Seybert Commission in 1885. Nothing more than hoarse whispers were heard and these were never simultaneous with the speech of the medium. Touches were also felt here and there, but the committee did not find the phenomena convincing. However, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle concluded that the members of the commission were prejudiced against Spiritualist phenomena.

Usually Lord sat in the middle of her circle and clapped her hands in the darkness to prove that she did not change position while the voices spoke from different parts of the room. Her favorite control was the Indian child "Snowdrop." She continued to work for 65 years, and she was reported to produce full-form materializations in daylight, independent music from a levitated guitar, independent voices and singing, clairvoyance, clairaudience and psychometry. At one point she was invited to Buckingham Palace, England, where she gave two readings to Queen Victoria.