A Footnote To The Footnote
Jan. 9th, 2009 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloMy friend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pickwick points out that Helen Duncan was investigated by the psychic researcher Harry Price, who proved her to be a particularly squalid fraud. Unbelievably the Robinson programme managed to convey the impression that Price had given Duncan a clean bill of health.
Duncan's ectoplasm was regurgitated cheesecloth. It's extraordinary that her effects should ever have fooled anybody (just consider the photographs in Price's article) but they did.
I once attended a seance in the Duncan tradition. The medium sat in a cabinet, under a red light and spoke in the voices of a succession of dead people- none of whom had anything interesting to say. Ailz says her grandfather came through, addressing her by a name only he ever used. There was no cheesecloth, but people said the medium's face changed as the different spirits took control. I couldn't see it myself.
We gave the medium a lift home afterwards. She was an odd personality- nervy, vulnerable and confiding- who believed- apparently quite sincerely- that she was some sort of a space alien. Knowing we were pagans, she told us a story about how she'd once had pagan friends to visit and they'd done a ritual in an upstairs room while she stayed in the living room- and she'd looked up from her armchair to see a huge man with horns and goat's feet peering round the door at her- whom she left it to us to identify as the Great God Pan.
The seance we attended was for free- for her "friends"- but I think she usually charged. Apparently she had a big following in Finland.
pickwick points out that Helen Duncan was investigated by the psychic researcher Harry Price, who proved her to be a particularly squalid fraud. Unbelievably the Robinson programme managed to convey the impression that Price had given Duncan a clean bill of health.Duncan's ectoplasm was regurgitated cheesecloth. It's extraordinary that her effects should ever have fooled anybody (just consider the photographs in Price's article) but they did.
I once attended a seance in the Duncan tradition. The medium sat in a cabinet, under a red light and spoke in the voices of a succession of dead people- none of whom had anything interesting to say. Ailz says her grandfather came through, addressing her by a name only he ever used. There was no cheesecloth, but people said the medium's face changed as the different spirits took control. I couldn't see it myself.
We gave the medium a lift home afterwards. She was an odd personality- nervy, vulnerable and confiding- who believed- apparently quite sincerely- that she was some sort of a space alien. Knowing we were pagans, she told us a story about how she'd once had pagan friends to visit and they'd done a ritual in an upstairs room while she stayed in the living room- and she'd looked up from her armchair to see a huge man with horns and goat's feet peering round the door at her- whom she left it to us to identify as the Great God Pan.
The seance we attended was for free- for her "friends"- but I think she usually charged. Apparently she had a big following in Finland.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: interesting
Date: 2009-01-10 10:08 am (UTC)There are so many questions I'd like to ask you- I don't know where to start.
And I don't want to burden you either.
But I've always wondered what it must be like to be a medium- to see and hear things that other people can't. It seems like it would be an enormous privilege, but I suppose it could be oppressive too. Do you have techniques for screening the information? Do you have guides?
There, I wasn't going to ask questions, but I can't help myself....