A Footnote To The Previous Post

[poliphilo]

Tony Robinson was investigating the paranormal on TV last week. At one point a professional sceptic offered to show  how spiritualist seances were worked. A bunch of stooges sat round a table in total darkness, the "medium" called for a spirit to manifest itself  and the "medium"'s assistant came in- soundlessly-  and moved some objects around.

This was supposed to prove that the famous, physical medium, Helen Duncan- who sat in semi darkness and produced ectoplasmic manifestations of actual, dead people- was a fake. 

When Robinson pointed out there was a certain disparity between knocking things over in the dark and producing walking, talking spooks, he was told that Duncan's sitters were obviously imagining things. 

Ah, but of course. 

Comments

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

Wow! That would be a MAJOR research fail, considering I stuck a couple of search terms into google and that article was on the first page. Quality of the BBC these days, I dunno...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed.

Thank you for the link, btw- that's a fascinating site.