Garyswordz

Intuition involves a paradox.

We all make judgements on the basis of available information. Bad judgements may result from flawed information and, or, inadequate or incomplete experience. Our judgement leads us to believe that a sequence of events that happened in the past will repeat itself in the future. Judgement becomes interchangeable with intuition.

Yet intuition often has little to do with facts, information, or balanced judgement. Very occasionally, I buy a lottery ticket. The odds of winning the uk lottery jackpot are 45million to one against. I recently had a heart operation during which there was a 1 in 5 chance I would die.  I hoped that I would win the jackpot even though the evidence was that I would not, I hoped that I would survive the operation even though the evidence was that I might not.

Intuition seems to me to be about a balance of hope versus probability.

Whatever happened to the heroes

Plato

Swedenborg

Victoria Helen McCrae Duncan (25 November 1897 – 6 December 1956) was a Scottish medium best known as the last person to be imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act 1735 for fraudulent claims. She was famous for producing ectoplasm which was proven to be made from cheesecloth.[1][2][3][4]

Early life

Victoria Helen MacFarlane was born in Callander, Perthshire on 25 November 1897, the daughter of Archibald McFarlane, a slater,[5] and Isabella Rattray. At school, she alarmed her fellow pupils with her dire prophecies and hysterical behaviour, to the distress of her mother (a member of the Presbyterian church).[5] After leaving school, she worked at Dundee Royal Infirmary, and in 1916 she married Henry Duncan, a cabinet maker and wounded war veteran, who was supportive of her supposed paranormal talents. A mother of six, she also worked part-time in a bleach factory.

In 1928, the photographer Harvey Metcalfe attended a series of séances at the house of Duncan. During a séance he took various flash photographs of Duncan and her alleged “materialization” spirits including her spirit guide “Peggy”.[6] The photographs that were taken reveal the spirits to be fraudulently produced, such as a doll made from a painted papier-mâché mask draped in an old sheet.[7]

In 1931, the London Spiritualist Alliance (LSA) examined Duncan’s method. An early examination of pieces of Duncan’s ectoplasm revealed it was made of cheesecloth, paper mixed with the white of egg and lavatory paper stuck together.[8] One of Duncan’s tricks was to swallow and regurgitate some of her ectoplasm, and she was persuaded to swallow a tablet of methylene blue before one of her séances by the LSA committee to rule out any chance of this trick being performed, and because of this no ectoplasm appeared.[8] The committee in a report concluded that the “material was swallowed by Mrs Duncan at some time previous to the sitting and subsequently regurgitated by her for the purpose of exhibition.”[9]

Harry Price investigation

A piece of ectoplasm from one of Duncan’s early séances was obtained and secured in a bottle of distilled water. It was given to the psychical researcher Harry Price who was originally enthusiastic about the sample. However, when he gave the sample to a chemist for an analysis it was discovered to be made from egg white mixed with chemicals. Price would later duplicate Duncan’s ectoplasm with similar substances.[10]

In 1931, Price paid Duncan £50 to perform a number of test séances. She was suspected of swallowing cheesecloth which was then regurgitated as “ectoplasm”.[4][11] Price had proven through analysis of a sample of ectoplasm produced by Duncan that it was made of cheesecloth.[12] She reacted violently at attempts to X-ray her, running from the laboratory and making a scene in the street, where her husband had to restrain her, destroying the controlled nature of the test. According to Price in a report of the mediumship of Duncan:[10]

At the conclusion of the fourth seance we led the medium to a settee and called for the apparatus. At the sight of it, the lady promptly went into a trance. She recovered, but refused to be X-rayed. Her husband went up to her and told her it was painless. She jumped up and gave him a smashing blow on the face which sent him reeling. Then she went for Dr. William Brown who was present. He dodged the blow. Mrs. Duncan, without the slightest warning, dashed out into the street, had an attack of hysteria and began to tear her seance garment to pieces. She clutched the railings and screamed and screamed. Her husband tried to pacify her. It was useless. I leave the reader to visualize the scene. A seventeen-stone woman, clad in black sateen tights, locked to the railings, screaming at the top of her voice. A crowd collected and the police arrived. The medical men with us explained the position and prevented them from fetching the ambulance. We got her back into the Laboratory and at once she demanded to be X-rayed. In reply, Dr. William Brown turned to Mr. Duncan and asked him to turn out his pockets. He refused and would not allow us to search him. There is no question that his wife had passed him the cheese-cloth in the street. However, they gave us another seance and the “control’ said we could cut off a piece of “teleplasm” when it appeared. The sight of half-a-dozen men, each with a pair of scissors waiting for the word, was amusing. It came and we all jumped. One of the doctors got hold of the stuff and secured a piece. The medium screamed and the rest of the “teleplasm” went down her throat. This time it wasn’t cheese-cloth. It proved to be paper, soaked in white of egg, and folded into a flattened tube… Could anything be more infantile than a group of grown-up men wasting time, money, and energy on the antics of a fat female crook.

Price in his report published photographs of Duncan in his laboratory that revealed fake ectoplasm made from cheesecloth, rubber gloves and cut-out heads from magazine covers which she pretended to her audiences were spirits.[9][13] Psychologist William McDougall, who attended two of the séances, pronounced her “whole performance fraudulent” in an appendix to the report.[14]

Following the report written by Price, Duncan’s former maid Mary McGinlay confessed in detail to having aided Duncan in her mediumship tricks, and Duncan’s husband admitted that the ectoplasm materializations were the result of regurgitation.[9][15]

Duncan frequently had nosebleeds during séances; William Brown suggested that this was another of Duncan’s hiding places for her fake ectoplasm.[16] In 1936, psychical researcher Nandor Fodor offered money to Duncan if she would be filmed with an infrared camera during a séance; she refused.[17]

1933 conviction

In a séance on 6 January 1933 in Edinburgh, it is alleged that the spirit of a little girl called Peggy emerged in the séance room. A sitter named Esson Maule grabbed her and the lights were turned on and the spirit was revealed to be made from a stockinette undervest.[10] The police were called and Duncan was prosecuted and fined £10.[18] The undervest was used as evidence which led to Duncan’s conviction of fraudulent mediumship at the Edinburgh Sheriff Court trial on 11 May 1933.[19]

The spiritualist journal Light endorsed the court decision that Duncan was fraudulent and supported Price’s investigation that revealed her ectoplasm was cheesecloth.[20] Duncan’s husband was also suspected of acting as her accomplice by hiding her fake ectoplasm.[4]

Ectoplasm sample

Historian Malcolm Gaskill who examined holdings from the Society for Psychical Research at the Cambridge University Library found a sample Duncan’s ectoplasm.[21] The ectoplasm was proven to be a made from a length of artificial silk.[22] In 2018, the sample was displayed at the Spellbound exhibition on the history of magic, at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.[21] The sample is now held at Cambridge University Library and a photograph can be seen on their website.[23]

HMS Barham sinking

During World War II, in November 1941, Duncan held a séance in Portsmouth at which she claimed the spirit materialization of a sailor told her HMS Barham had been sunk.[9] Because the sinking of HMS Barham was revealed, in strict confidence, only to the relatives of casualties, and not announced to the public until late January 1942, the Navy started to take an interest in her activities. Two lieutenants were among her audience at a séance on 14 January 1944. One of these was a Lieutenant Worth who was not impressed as a white cloth figure had appeared behind the curtains claiming to be his aunt but he had no deceased aunt. In the same sitting another figure appeared claiming to be his sister but Worth replied his sister was alive and well.[9] Worth was disgusted by the séance and reported it to the police. This was followed up on 19 January, when undercover policemen arrested her at another séance as a white-shrouded manifestation appeared.[24] This proved to be Duncan herself, in a white cloth which she attempted to conceal when discovered, and she was arrested.[9][25]

Researcher Graeme Donald wrote that Duncan could have easily found out about HMS Barham and she had no genuine psychic powers. According to Donald:

The loss of HMS Barham, torpedoed off the coast of Egypt on 25 November 1941, was indeed kept quiet for a while, but letters of condolence were sent out to families of the 861 dead, asking them to keep the secret until the official announcement. So, allowing for perhaps 10 people in each family, there were about 9,000 people who knew of the sinking; if each of them told only one other person, there were 20,000 people in the country aware of the sinking, and so on – hardly a closely guarded secret. In short, news of the sinking spread like wildfire; Duncan simply picked up the gossip and decided to turn it into profit.[26]

A leak concerning HMS Barham was later discovered. A secretary of the First Lord had been indiscreet to Professor Michael Postan of the Ministry of Economic Warfare. Postan said that he believed he had been told officially, and was not arrested.[27]

Duncan was found to be in possession of a mocked-up HMS Barham hat-band.[28] This apparently related to an alleged manifestation of the spirit of a dead sailor on HMS Barham, although Duncan apparently did not know that after 1939 sailors’ hat bands carried only ‘H.M.S.’ and did not identify their ship.[9] She was initially arrested under section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1824, a minor offence tried by magistrates. The authorities regarded the case as more serious, and eventually discovered section 4 of the Witchcraft Act 1735, covering fraudulent “spiritual” activity, which was triable before a jury. Charged alongside her for conspiracy to contravene this Act were Ernest and Elizabeth Homer, who operated the Psychic centre in Portsmouth, and Frances Brown, who was Duncan’s agent and went with her to set up séances. There were seven counts, two of conspiracy to contravene the Witchcraft Act, two of obtaining money by false pretences, and three of the common law offence of public mischief. The prosecution may be explained by the mood of suspicion prevailing at the time: the authorities were afraid that she could continue to reveal classified information, whatever her source was.[29] There were also concerns that she was exploiting the recently bereaved, as the Recorder noted when passing sentence.[30]

Duncan’s trial for fraudulent witchcraft was a minor cause célèbre in wartime London. Alfred Dodd, a historian and senior Freemason, testified he was convinced she was authentic. The trial was complicated by the fact that a police raid on the séance in Portsmouth, leading to the arrest of Helen Duncan, yielded no physical evidence of the fraudulent use of cheesecloth, and was therefore based entirely on witness testimony, the majority of which denied any wrongdoing.[31] Duncan was barred by the judge from demonstrating her alleged powers as part of her defence against being fraudulent. The jury brought in a guilty verdict on count one, and the judge then discharged them from giving verdicts on the other counts, as he held that they were alternative offences for which Duncan might have been convicted had the jury acquitted her on the first count. Duncan was imprisoned for nine months, Brown for four months and the Homers were bound over.[31] After the verdict, Winston Churchill wrote a memo to Home Secretary Herbert Morrison, complaining about the misuse of court resources on the “obsolete tomfoolery” of the charge.[32]

Repeal of the Witchcraft Act

In 1944, Duncan was one of the last people convicted under the Witchcraft Act 1735, which made falsely claiming to procure spirits a crime. She was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment. When convicted, she cried out “I have done nothing; is there a God?”.[30][33]

On her release in 1945, Duncan promised to stop conducting séances, but she was arrested during another one in 1956. She died at her home in Edinburgh a short time later.[5] Duncan’s trial almost certainly contributed to the repeal of the Witchcraft Act, which was contained in the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 promoted by Walter Monslow, Labour Member of Parliament for Barrow-in-Furness. The campaign to repeal the Act had largely been led by Thomas Brooks, another Labour MP, who was a spiritualist. Duncan’s original conviction still stood, and it was the subject of a sustained campaign to have it overturned.[34][35]

Death

She died at her home in Edinburgh, on 6 December 1956, a short time after another seance.[5] Contrary to what some spiritualists have written, there was nothing strange or unusual about Duncan’s death; nor was it caused by the police disturbing her “trance.”[9] Duncan’s medical records indicated that she had a long history of poor health, and as early as 1944 she was described as an obese woman who could move only slowly as she suffered from heart trouble.[9]

Legacy

After her death, Duncan was cited in paranormal and parapsychological books as an example of a fraudulent medium.[36] However, she retained supporters amongst the spiritualist community.[37] On this, Jenny Hazelgrove has noted:

Her Opponents condemned her mediumship out of hand while her supporters took up the opposite position. Any suspicious aspects of the Duncan mediumship – the wood-pulp ‘ectoplasm’, the ‘ectoplasmic’ drapery that resembled cheese cloth – were glossed over by her followers in the interests of producing a wholly idealised picture of her life and mediumship.[38]

The psychical researcher Simeon Edmunds also noted that spiritualists have a history of ignoring the evidence of fraud in the Duncan case. He criticized the spiritualist press such as Psychic News for biased reporting and distorting facts.[9] Science writer Mary Roach in her book Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (2007) favorably mentioned Price’s methods in debunking Duncan as a fraudulent medium.[4]

Inspired by her legacy, new wave of British heavy metal band Seventh Son recorded and released a song ‘The Last Witch In England’ in 2009, depicting her life and her ‘prediction’ of the sinking of HMS Barham.[39]

The naval investigation and subsequent trial was dramatized as a radio play. The Last Witch Trial by Melissa Murray, starring Joanna Monro as Duncan and Indira Varma as the undercover investigator, was broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on 4 June 2010.[40]

Descendants and supporters of Duncan have campaigned on several occasions to have her posthumously pardoned of witchcraft charges. Petitions for a posthumous pardon were rejected by the Scottish Parliament in 2001, 2008, and 2012.[41] Duncan’s supporters maintain a website and online petition where they continue to campaign for her pardon.[42]

Edgar Cayce

Born      March 18, 1877

Christian County, Kentucky, U.S.

Died       January 3, 1945 (aged 67)

Some religious scholars and thinkers such as author Michael York consider him the true founder and a principal source of the most characteristic beliefs of the New Age movement.[4]

Early life

Edgar Cayce was born on March 18, 1877, near Beverly, south of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He was one of six children of farmers Carrie Elizabeth (née Major)[5] and Leslie Burr Cayce.[6] As a child he was alleged to have seen his deceased grandfather. He regarded what he saw as incorporeal because he could see through it if he looked hard enough.[7]

He found it very difficult to keep his mind on his lessons at school.[8]

He was taken to church when he was 10, and from then he read the Bible, becoming engrossed, and completing a dozen readings by the time he was 12.[7] In May 1889, while reading the Bible in his hut in the woods, he ‘saw’ a woman with wings who told him that his prayers were answered, and asked him what he wanted most of all. He was frightened, but he said that most of all he wanted to help others, especially sick children. He decided he would like to be a missionary.[9]

The next night, after a complaint from the school teacher, his father ruthlessly tested him for spelling, eventually knocking him out of his chair with exasperation. At that point, Cayce ‘heard’ the voice of the lady who had appeared the day before. She told him that if he could sleep a little ‘they’ could help him. He begged for a rest and put his head on the spelling book. When his father came back into the room and woke him up, he knew all the answers. In fact, he could repeat anything in the book. His father thought he had been fooling before and knocked him out of the chair again. Eventually, Cayce used all his school books that way.[10]

By 1892, the teacher regarded Cayce as his best student. On being questioned, Cayce told the teacher that he saw pictures of the pages in the books. His father became proud of this accomplishment and spread it around, resulting in Cayce becoming “different” from his peers.[11]

Shortly after this, Cayce exhibited an ability to diagnose in his sleep. He was struck on the base of the spine by a ball in a school game, after which he began to act very strangely, and eventually was put to bed. He went to sleep and diagnosed the cure, which his family prepared and which cured him as he slept. His father boasted that his son was, “the greatest fellow in the world when he’s asleep”.[12] However, this ability was not demonstrated again for several years.[13]

Cayce’s uncommon personality is also shown in an unusual incident in which he rode a certain mule back to the farmhouse at the end of a work day. This stunned everyone there, as the mule could not be ridden. The owner, thinking it may be time to break the animal in again, attempted to mount it but was immediately thrown off. Cayce left for his family in the city that evening.[14]

In December 1893, the Cayce family moved to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and lived at 705 West Seventh on the southeast corner of Seventh and Young Streets. During this time, Cayce received an eighth-grade education, is said by the Association for Research and Enlightenment to have noticed his clairvoyant abilities,[15] and left the family farm to pursue various forms of employment.

Cayce’s education stopped in the ninth grade because his family could not afford the costs involved.[16] A ninth-grade education was often considered more than sufficient for working-class children. Much of the remainder of Cayce’s younger years would be characterized by a search for employment. On March 14, 1897, Cayce became engaged to Gertrude Evans.

Throughout his life, Cayce was drawn to church as a member of the Disciples of Christ. He read the entire Bible once a year every year, attended church and taught Sunday school,[17] and recruited missionaries. He said he could see auras around people, spoke to angels, and heard voices of departed relatives. In his early years, he agonized over whether these prophetic abilities were spiritually delivered from the highest source.[18]

In 1900, Cayce formed a business partnership with his father to sell Woodmen of the World Insurance; however, in March he was struck by severe laryngitis that resulted in a complete loss of speech.[16] Unable to work, he lived at home with his parents for almost a year. He then decided to take up the trade of photography, an occupation that would exert less strain on his voice. He began an apprenticeship at the photography studio of W. R. Bowles in Hopkinsville, and eventually became quite talented in his trade.[19]

In 1901, a traveling stage hypnotist and entertainer named Hart, who referred to himself as “The Laugh Man”, was performing at the Hopkinsville Opera House. Hart heard about Cayce’s throat condition and offered to attempt a cure. Cayce accepted his offer, and the experiment was conducted in the office of Manning Brown, the local throat specialist. Cayce’s voice allegedly returned while in a hypnotic trance but disappeared on awakening. Hart tried a posthypnotic suggestion that the voice would continue to function after the trance, but this proved unsuccessful.[20][21]

Since Hart had appointments at other cities, he could not continue his hypnotic treatments of Cayce, but admitted he had failed because Cayce would not go into the third stage of hypnosis to take a suggestion. A New York hypnotist, John Duncan Quackenboss, found the same impediment but, after returning to New York, suggested that Cayce should be prompted to take over his own case while in the second stage of hypnosis. The only local hypnotist, Al Layne, offered to help Cayce restore his voice.[22] In subsequent sessions, when Cayce wanted to indicate that the connection was made to the person or the “entity” that was requesting the reading, he would generally start off with, “We have the body.” After 20 minutes, Cayce, still in a trance, declared the treatment over. On awakening, his voice was alleged to have remained normal. Apparently, relapses occurred, but were said to have been corrected by Layne in the same way, where eventually the cure was permanent.

Layne asked Cayce to describe Layne’s own ailments and suggest cures, and reportedly found the results both accurate and effective. Layne regarded the ability as clairvoyance. Layne suggested that Cayce offer his trance healing to the public. Cayce was reluctant as he had no idea what he was prescribing while asleep, and whether the remedies were safe. He also told Layne he himself did not want to know anything about the patient as it was not relevant. He finally agreed, on the condition that readings would be free. He began, with Layne’s help, to offer free treatments to the townspeople. Layne described Cayce’s method as, “… a self-imposed hypnotic trance which induces clairvoyance”.[23] Reports of Cayce’s work appeared in the newspapers, which inspired many postal inquiries.[24] Cayce stated he could work just as effectively using a letter from the individual as with the person being present in the room. Given only the person’s name and location, Cayce said he could diagnose the physical and mental conditions of what he termed “the entity”, and then provide a remedy. Cayce was still reticent and worried, as “one dead patient was all he needed to become a murderer”. His fiancée, Gertrude Evans, agreed with him. Few people knew what he was up to. There was a common belief at the time that subjects of hypnosis eventually went insane, or at least that their health suffered.[25] Cayce soon became famous, and people from around the world sought his advice through correspondence.

In May 1902 he got a bookshop job in the town of Bowling Green where he boarded with some young professionals, two of whom were doctors.[26] He lost his voice while there and Layne came to help effect the normal cure, finally visiting every week. Cayce, still worried, kept the meetings secret, and continued to refuse money for his readings. He invented a card game called Pit or Board of Trade, simulating wheat market trading, that became popular, but when he sent the idea to a game company they copyrighted it and he got no returns. He still refused to give readings for money.[27]

Cayce and Gertrude Evans married on June 17, 1903, and she moved to Bowling Green with him. They had three children: Hugh Lynn Cayce (March 16, 1907 – July 4, 1982), Milton Porter Cayce (March 28, 1911 – May 17, 1911), and Edgar Evans Cayce (February 9, 1918 – February 15, 2013).[6][28] She still disapproved of the readings, and Cayce still agonized over the morality of them. A few days later Layne revealed the activity to the professionals at the boarding house, one of whom was a magistrate and journalist, after which state medical authorities forced Layne to close his practice. He left to acquire osteopathic qualifications in Franklin. Cayce and Gertrude accepted the resulting publicity as best they could, greatly aided by the diplomacy of the young doctors.[29]

Cayce and a relative opened a photographic studio in Bowling Green, while the doctors formed a committee with some colleagues to investigate the phenomenon, with Cayce’s co-operation. All the experiments confirmed the accuracy of the readings. However, Cayce refused a lucrative offer to go into business. After a violent examination by doctors while in a trance, Cayce refused any more investigations, declaring that he would only do readings for those who needed help and believed in the readings.[30]

In 1906 and 1907 fires burned down his two photographic studios, leading to bankruptcy. Between the two fires, his first son was born on March 16, 1907. He became debt free by 1909, although completely broke, and ready to start again. In 1907, outstanding diagnostic successes in the family helped his confidence. He again refused an offer to go into business, this time with homeopath Wesley H. Ketchum from Hopkinsville, who was introduced by his father. He found a job at the H. P. Tresslar photography firm.[31]

However, Ketchum was persistent, spread information in various medical circles, and in October 1910 got written up in the press. When a reporter contacted Cayce, he explained to the reporter that he somehow had the ability to easily go into the intuitive sleep when he wanted to, and this was different from how he went to sleep normally like everyone else. When asked the mechanism of the readings via the sleep method, they were told that it happened via the capabilities of the subconscious mind.[32]

Ketchum again urged Cayce to join a business company. After soul searching the whole night, Cayce finally accepted the offer under certain conditions, including that he did not take money for the readings. He was prophesizing. Cayce read the back readings, but they contained so many technical terms that he gained no more understanding of what he was doing. He preferred to put the readings on a more scientific basis, but only the doctors in Hopkinsville would cooperate, whereas most of the patients were not in that locality. Also, doctors from all specialties were needed as the treatments prescribed varied widely.[33]

Edgar Cayce, and especially Gertrude, still did not give therapeutic priority to the readings and supposedly lost their second child because of this reticence. When Gertrude became fatally ill with tuberculosis, they used the readings after the doctor had given up. Miraculously, the treatment cured her. Shortly after this, in 1912, Cayce, whose everyday conscious mind was not aware during the readings, discovered that Ketchum had not been honest about them, and had also used them to gamble for finance. He argued in defense that the medical profession were not backing them. Cayce quit the company immediately and went back to the Tresslar photography firm in Selma, Alabama.[34]

1912–1923: Selma, Alabama period

Building (second from left) in downtown Selma, Alabama, where Cayce lived and worked from 1912 to 1923.

Historic marker in front of the building

Cayce’s work grew in volume as his fame grew. He asked for voluntary donations to support himself and his family so that he could practice full-time. To help raise money he invented Pit, a card game based on the commodities trading at the Chicago Board of Trade, and the game is still sold today. He continued to work in an apparent trance state with a hypnotist all his life. His wife and eldest son later replaced Layne in this role. A secretary, Gladys Davis, recorded his readings in shorthand.[24]

The growing fame of Cayce along with the popularity he received from newspapers attracted several eager commercially minded men who wanted to seek a fortune by using his clairvoyant abilities. Even though Cayce was reluctant to help them, he was persuaded to give his readings, which left him dissatisfied with himself and unsuccessful. A cotton merchant offered him a hundred dollars a day for his readings about the daily outcomes in the cotton market; however, despite his poor finances, Cayce refused the merchant’s offer.[35] Some wanted to know where to hunt for treasures while others wanted to know the outcome of horse races.[36]

In 1923, Arthur Lammers, a wealthy printer and student of metaphysics, persuaded Cayce to give readings on philosophical subjects.[37] Cayce was told by Lammers that, while in his trance state, he spoke of Lammers’ past lives and of reincarnation, something Lammers believed in. Reincarnation was a popular subject of the day but is not an accepted part of Christian doctrine. Because of this, Cayce questioned his stenographer about what he said in his trance state and remained unconvinced. He challenged Lammers’ charge that he had validated astrology and reincarnation in the following dialogue:

Cayce: I said all that?… I couldn’t have said all that in one reading.

Lammers: No. But you confirmed it. You see, I have been studying metaphysics for years, and I was able by a few questions, by the facts you gave, to check what is right and what is wrong with a whole lot of the stuff I’ve been reading. The important thing is that the basic system which runs through all the religions, is backed up by you.[38]

Cayce’s stenographer recorded the following:

In this we see the plan of development of those individuals set upon this plane, meaning the ability to enter again into the presence of the Creator and become a full part of that creation.

Insofar as this entity is concerned, this is the third appearance on this plane, and before this one, as the monk. We see glimpses in the life of the entity now as were shown in the monk, in this mode of living. The body is only the vehicle ever of that spirit and soul that waft through all times and ever remain the same.

Cayce was quite unconvinced that he had been referring to the doctrine of reincarnation, and the best Lammers could offer was that the reading “opens up the door” and to go on to share his beliefs and knowledge with Cayce.[39] Lammers had come to him with quite a bit of information of his own to share with Cayce and seemed intent upon convincing Cayce now that he felt the reading had confirmed his strongly-held beliefs.[40] Twelve years earlier Cayce had briefly alluded to reincarnation. In reading 4841–1, given April 22, 1911, Cayce referred to the soul being “transmigrated”. Because Cayce’s readings were not systematically recorded until 1923, at that point no mention of reincarnation took place but it is possible that he may have mentioned reincarnation and astrology in other earlier readings though none recorded.

1923–1925: Dayton, Ohio period

Lammers asked Cayce to come to Dayton to pursue metaphysical truth via the readings. Cayce eventually agreed and went to Dayton. Gertrude Cayce was dubious but interested. There, Cayce produced much metaphysical information, which Cayce tried to reconcile with Christianity. Lammers declared that the fifth chapter of Matthew was the constitution of Christianity and the Sermon on the Mount was its Declaration of Independence. It appeared that Cayce’s subconscious mind was as much at home with the language of metaphysics as it was with the language of anatomy and medicine.[41]

Lammers wanted to ask the purpose of readings of Cayce’s clairvoyance, and to put up money for an organization supporting Cayce’s healing methods. Cayce decided to accept the work and asked his family to join him in Dayton as soon as they could. But by the time the Cayces had arrived there, near the end of 1923, Lammers found himself in financial difficulties and could be of no use. Many people viewed Cayce as of no use. Cayce used his knowledge of the Bible to convince his family the word of the Bible.[42]

It was at this time Cayce directed his activities to provide readings centered around health. The remedies that were channeled often involved the use of unusual electrotherapy, ultraviolet light, diet, massage,less mental work and more relaxation in sand on the beach. His remedies were coming under the scrutiny of the American Medical Association and Cayce felt that it was time to legitimize the operations with the aid of licensed medical practitioners. In 1925 Cayce reported while in a trance, “the voice” had instructed him to move to Virginia Beach, Virginia[43] across the street from the beach. He was informed that the sand’s crystals would have curative properties to promote rapid healing.

Cayce’s mature period, in which he created the several institutions that survived him, can be considered to have started in 1925. By this time he was a professional psychic with a small number of employees and volunteers.[44] The readings increasingly came to involve occult or esoteric themes.[45]

Money was extremely scarce, but help came from interested persons. The idea of an association and a hospital was mooted again, but the readings insisted on Virginia Beach, not suiting most of the people. Gertrude Cayce began to conduct all the readings. Morton Blumenthal, a young man who worked in the stock exchange in New York with his trader brother, became very interested in the readings, shared Cayce’s outlook, and offered to finance the vision in the right spirit. He bought them a house at Virginia Beach.[46]

On May 6, 1927, the Association of National Investigations was incorporated in the state of Virginia. This would manage building the hospital and a scientific study of the readings. Morton was president and his brother and several others were vice presidents. Cayce was secretary and treasurer, and Gladys was assistant secretary. To protect against legal prosecution, the rules required any person requesting a reading to become a member of the Association and agree they were participating in an experiment in psychic research. Early in 1928, Moseley Brown, head of the psychology department at Washington and Lee University, became convinced of the readings and joined the Association.[47]

On October 11, 1928, the dedication ceremonies for the hospital complex were held. It contained a lecture hall, library, vault for storage of the readings, and offices for research workers. There was also a large living room, a 12-car garage, servants quarters, and a tennis court. It contained “the largest lawn, in fact the only lawn, between the Cavalier and Cape Henry”. The first patient was admitted the next day.[48]

This facility would enable consistent checking and rechecking of the remedies, which was Cayce’s goal. There were consistent remedies for many of the illnesses regardless of the patient, and Cayce hoped to produce a compendium that could be used by the medical profession. A chemist, Sunker A. Bisley, DPhil (Oxon), who also used “clairvoyant knowledge” to produce medicines, collaborated with Cayce to produce Atomidine, an absorbable form of iodine, which was perfected and sold.[49]

The basic raison d’etre for all the cures was the “assimilation of needed properties through the digestive system, from food taken into the body … [All treatments, including all schools and types of treatment, were given in order to establish] the proper equilibrium of the assimilating system.”[50] Therapies as divergent as salt packs, poultices, hot compresses, color healing, magnetism, vibrator treatment, massage, osteopathic manipulation, dental therapy, colonics, enemas, antiseptics, inhalants, homeopathics, essential oils, mud baths were prescribed. Substances used included oils, salts, herbs, iodine, witch hazel, magnesia, bismuth, alcohol, castoria, lactated pepsin, turpentine, charcoal, animated ash, soda, cream of tartar, aconite, laudanum, camphor, and gold solution. These were prescribed to overcome conditions that prevented proper digestion and assimilation of needed nutrients from the prescribed diet. The aim of the readings was to produce a healthy body, removing the cause of the specific ailment. Readings would indicate if the patient’s recovery was problematic.[51]

There was a waiting list of months ahead.[52] Blumenthal and Brown went ahead with ambitious plans for a university as a supplement to the hospital and a “parallel service for the mind and spirit”. In fact, it was to dwarf the hospital and rival other universities in respectability before psychic studies would begin. It was to open on September 22, 1930. On September 16 Blumenthal called a meeting of the Association resulting in his ownership of the hospital to curb expenses. After the first semester he ceased his support of the university, and on February 26, 1931, closed down the Association. Cayce removed the files of the readings from the hospital and took them home.[53]

The Depression years saw Cayce turn his attention to spiritual teachings. In 1931, Edgar Cayce’s friends and family asked him how they could become psychic like him. Out of this seemingly simple question came an eleven-year discourse that led to the creation of “Study Groups”. From his altered state, Cayce relayed to this group that the purpose of life is not to become psychic, but to become a more spiritually aware and loving person. Study Group No. 1 was told that they could “bring light to a waiting world” and that these lessons would still be studied a hundred years into the future. The readings were now about dreams, coincidence (synchronicity), developing intuition, the akashic records, astrology, past-life relationships, soul mates and other esoteric subjects. Hundreds of books have been published about these so called readings some never recorded after recording became available.

On June 6, 1931, 61 people attended a meeting to carry on the work and form a new organization called the Association for Research and Enlightenment. In July the new association was incorporated, and Cayce legally returned the house to Blumenthal and bought another place.[54]

Hugh Lynn proposed that they develop a stock in trade rather than something grandiose, and that they build a library of research into the phenomena and hold study groups, and that Cayce would do two readings a day. The association accepted this, and Hugh Lynn also started a monthly bulletin for association members. The bulletin contained readings on general interest subjects, interesting cases, book reviews on psychic subjects, health hints from readings, and news of psychic phenomena in other fields.[55]

Hugh Lynn narrowed the mailing list to some 300 members who were genuinely enthusiastic, and as a result the first annual congress of the association was held in June 1932. He procured speakers on various metaphysical and psychic subjects and included public readings by Cayce. Members left the conference eager to start study groups in their own localities. Records were kept of everything that went on in the readings including the attitudes and routines of Cayce. Everything was then checked with the subjects of the readings, most of whom were not present during the reading, and the data was published in a study entitled “100 cases of clairvoyance”. However, the response from scientists in general was that none of the experiments were performed under test conditions.[56] Hugh Lynn continued to build files of case histories, parallel studies in psychic phenomena, and research readings for the study groups.[57]

Association activities remained simple and un-publicized. Members raised a building fund for an office, library, and vault, which they erected in 1940–41 as a single unit added on to the Cayce residence.[58] No sign guided visitors to the centre. Association membership averaged 500 to 600. The turnover from year to year was approximately half this total. The other half remained a solid basis for the research work, an audience for case studies, pamphlets, bulletins—and the Congress bulletin, which was a yearbook and record of congress events. A mailing list of several thousand served people who remained interested in Cayce’s activities.[59]

Members were drawn from all of the Protestant churches: from the Roman, Greek, Syrian and Armenian Catholic churches; from Theosophy, Christian Science and Spiritualism; and from many Oriental religions. Cayce’s philosophy was, if it makes you a better member of your church then it’s good; if it takes you away from your church, it’s bad. The philosophy of the readings was that truth is one, each organization is part of this one, therefore the A.R.E. was not to function as a schism or in opposition to any religious organization. The goal of the work was not something new but something ancient and universal.[60]

Both sons entered the forces during the war. They both married, Hugh Lynn in 1941 and Edgar Evans in 1942.[61]

In March 1943 the first edition of the only biography written during Cayce’s lifetime, There is a River by Thomas Sugrue, was published. As a consequence, public demand increased. Office staff had to be increased, and the mailman could no longer carry all the mail so Gertrude got it from the post office by car. Hugh Lynn was away in the forces, and Cayce coped with the letters and increased his readings to four to six per day.[61]

Cayce gained national prominence in 1943 after the publication of a high-profile article in the magazine Coronet titled “Miracle Man of Virginia Beach”.[44] World War II was taking its toll on American soldiers and he felt he could not refuse the families who requested help for their loved ones who were missing in action. He increased the frequency of his readings to eight per day to try to make an impression on the ever-growing pile of requests. He said this took a toll on his health as it was emotionally draining and often fatigued him. The readings themselves scolded him for attempting too much and that he should limit his workload to just two life readings a day or else these good efforts would eventually kill him.[62]

From June 1943 to June 1944, 1,385 readings were taken. By August 1944 Cayce collapsed from strain. When he gave a reading on this situation, the instructions were to rest until he was well or dead. He and Gertrude went away to the mountains of Virginia, but in September Edgar Cayce suffered a stroke at the age of 67, in September 1944, and died on January 3, 1945.[63] He is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.[64] Gertrude died three months later.[65]

The Association continued the work of classifying and cross-referencing the over 14,000 files of readings that had been taken throughout Cayce’s lifetime from March 31, 1901, to September 17, 1944. The results of these have been disseminated through the Association’s publications with the members as the recipients of this material.[66]

Claimed clairvoyant abilities

Until September 1923, his readings were not systematically recorded or preserved. However, an article published in the Birmingham Post-Herald on October 10, 1922, quotes Cayce as saying that he had given 8,056 readings as of that date and it is known that he gave approximately 13,000–14,000 readings after that date. A total of 14,306 are available at the A.R.E. Cayce headquarters in Virginia Beach and on an online, member-only section along with background information, correspondence, and follow-up documentation.[67]

Other abilities that have been attributed to Cayce include astral projection, prophesying, mediumship, viewing the Akashic records or “Book of Life”, and seeing auras. Cayce said he became interested in learning more about these subjects after he was informed about the content of his readings, which he reported that he never actually heard himself.[68]

Supporters

Cayce’s clients included a number of famous people such as Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Edison, Irving Berlin, and George Gershwin.[69]

Gina Cerminara published books such as Many Mansions and The World Within. Brian Weiss published a bestseller regarding clinical recollection of past lives, Many Lives, Many Masters. These books provide broad support for spiritualism and reincarnation. Many Mansions elaborates on Cayce’s work and supports his stated abilities with real life examples.

In 1971 Edgar Cayce’s sons Edgar Evans Cayce and Hugh Lynn Cayce published a book titled The Outer Limits of Edgar Cayce’s Power,[70] claiming Cayce’s readings had an approximate 85% success rate. The majority of the book investigated cases where Cayce’s readings were demonstrably incorrect.

Controversy

Cayce advocated pseudohistorical ideas in his trance readings such as the existence of Atlantis and the discredited theory of polygenism.[75] In many trance sessions, he re-interpreted the history of life on earth. One of Cayce’s controversial claims was that of polygenism. According to Cayce, five human races (white, black, red, brown, and yellow) had been created separately but simultaneously on different parts of the Earth.[75] Cayce also accepted the existence of aliens and Atlantis, and claimed that “the red race developed in Atlantis and its development was rapid.” Another claim by Cayce was that “soul-entities” on Earth intermingled with animals to produce “things” such as giants that were as much as twelve feet tall.[75]

In his 2003 book The Skeptic’s Dictionary, philosopher and skeptic Robert Todd Carroll wrote, “Cayce is one of the main people responsible for some of the sillier notions about Atlantis.”[76] Carroll mentioned some of Cayce’s discredited ideas, including his belief in a giant solar crystal, activated by the sun, and used to harness energy and provide power on Atlantis, and his prediction that in 1958, the United States would rediscover a death ray that had been used on Atlantis.[76]

In the 1930s, Cayce incorrectly predicted that North America would experience chaos: “Los Angeles, San Francisco… will be among those that will be destroyed before New York”.[77] Cayce also incorrectly predicted the Second Coming of Christ in 1998.[78]

Criticism

Skeptics say that Cayce’s alleged psychic abilities were fakery or nonexistent.[79][80][81] Medical health experts are critical of Cayce’s unorthodox treatments, which they regard as quackery such as his promotion of pseudoscientific dieting ideas and use of homeopathic remedies.[82][83]

Science writers and skeptics have pointed out that the evidence for Cayce’s alleged clairvoyant powers comes from sensationalized newspaper articles, affidavits, anecdotes, testimonials, and books rather than any empirical evidence that can be independently evaluated. Martin Gardner, for example, wrote that all of the “verified” claims and descriptions from Cayce’s trances can be traced to ideas found in the books that Cayce had been reading by authors such as Carl Jung, P. D. Ouspensky, and Helena Blavatsky. Gardner concluded that the trance readings of Cayce contain, “little bits of information gleaned from here and there in the occult literature, spiced with occasional novelties from Cayce’s unconscious”.[84]

Magician James Randi commented that “Cayce was fond of expressions like ‘I feel that’ and ‘perhaps’—qualifying words used to avoid positive declarations.”[86]

Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment has been criticized for promoting pseudoscience.[81]

Helena Blavatsky

In this Eastern Slavic naming convention, the patronymic is Petrovna and the family name is Blavatsky.

Helena Blavatsky

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.jpg

Blavatsky in 1877

Born      Yelena Petrovna von Hahn

12 August [O.S. 31 July] 1831

Died       8 May 1891 (aged 59)

London, United Kingdom

Era         19th-century philosophy

School   Theosophy

Notable ideas     Causeless cause, Itchasakti, triple manifestation

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Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (Russian: Елена Петровна Блаватская, Yelena Petrovna Blavatskaya, often known as Madame Blavatsky; née von Hahn; Ukrainian: Олена Петрівна Блаватська, Olena Petrivna Blavatska; 12 August [O.S. 31 July] 1831 – 8 May 1891) was a Russian author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy.

Born into an aristocratic family of mixed Russian-German descent in Yekaterinoslav, then in the Russian Empire (now Dnipro in Ukraine), Blavatsky traveled widely around the empire as a child. Largely self-educated, she developed an interest in Western esotericism during her teenage years. According to her later claims, in 1849 she embarked on a series of world travels, visiting Europe, the Americas, and India. She also claimed that during this period she encountered a group of spiritual adepts, the “Masters of the Ancient Wisdom”, who sent her to Shigatse, Tibet, where they trained her to develop a deeper understanding of the synthesis of religion, philosophy, and science. Both contemporary critics and later biographers have argued that some or all of these foreign visits were fictitious, and that she spent this period in Europe. By the early 1870s, Blavatsky was involved in the Spiritualist movement; although defending the genuine existence of Spiritualist phenomena, she argued against the mainstream Spiritualist idea that the entities contacted were the spirits of the dead. Relocating to the United States in 1873, she befriended Henry Steel Olcott and rose to public attention as a spirit medium, attention that included public accusations of fraudulence.

In 1875 New York City, Blavatsky co-founded the Theosophical Society with Olcott and William Quan Judge. In 1877, she published Isis Unveiled, a book outlining her Theosophical world-view. Associating it closely with the esoteric doctrines of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism, Blavatsky described Theosophy as “the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy”, proclaiming that it was reviving an “Ancient Wisdom” which underlay all the world’s religions. In 1880, she and Olcott moved to India, where the Society was allied to the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement. That same year, while in Ceylon, she and Olcott became the first people from the United States to formally convert to Buddhism.[citation needed] Although opposed by the British colonial administration, Theosophy spread rapidly in India but experienced internal problems after Blavatsky was accused of producing fraudulent paranormal phenomena. Amid ailing health, in 1885 she returned to Europe, there establishing the Blavatsky Lodge in London. Here she published The Secret Doctrine, a commentary on what she claimed were ancient Tibetan manuscripts, as well as two further books, The Key to Theosophy and The Voice of the Silence. She died of influenza.

Blavatsky was a controversial figure during her lifetime, championed by supporters as an enlightened Sage and derided as a charlatan by critics. Her Theosophical doctrines influenced the spread of Hindu and Buddhist ideas in the West as well as the development of Western esoteric currents like Ariosophy, Anthroposophy, and the New Age Movement.

Early life

Developing a reliable account of Blavatsky’s life has proved difficult for biographers because in later life she deliberately provided contradictory accounts and falsifications about her own past.[4] Furthermore, very few of her own writings written before 1873 survive, meaning that biographers must rely heavily on these unreliable later accounts.[5] The accounts of her early life provided by her family members have also been considered dubious by biographers.[6]

Childhood: 1831–1849

Birth and family background

An illustration of Yekaterinoslav—Blavatsky’s birthplace—as it appeared in the early 19th century

Blavatsky was born as Helena Petrovna von Hahn in the town of Yekaterinoslav, then part of the Russian Empire.[7] Her birth date was 12 August 1831, although according to the Julian calendar used in 19th-century Russia it was 31 July.[8] Immediately after her birth, she was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church.[9] At the time, Yekaterinoslav was undergoing a cholera epidemic, and her mother contracted the disease shortly after childbirth; despite the expectations of their doctor, both mother and child survived the epidemic.[10]

Blavatsky’s family was aristocratic.[11] Her mother was Helena Andreyevna von Hahn (Russian: Елена Андреевна Ган, 1814–1842; née Fadeyeva), a self-educated 17-year-old who was the daughter of Princess Yelena Pavlovna Dolgorukaya, a similarly self-educated aristocrat.[12] Blavatsky’s father was Pyotr Alexeyevich von Hahn (Russian: Пётр Алексеевич Ган, 1798–1873), a descendant of the German von Hahn aristocratic family, who served as a captain in the Russian Royal Horse Artillery, and would later rise to the rank of colonel.[13] Pyotr had not been present at his daughter’s birth, having been in Poland fighting to suppress the November Uprising against Russian rule, and first saw her when she was six months old.[14] As well as her Russian and German ancestry, Blavatsky could also claim French heritage, for a great-great grandfather had been a French Huguenot nobleman who had fled to Russia to escape persecution, there serving in the court of Catherine the Great.[15]

As a result of Pyotr’s career, the family frequently moved to different parts of the Empire, accompanied by their servants,[16] a mobile childhood that may have influenced Blavatsky’s largely nomadic lifestyle in later life.[17] A year after Pyotr’s arrival in Yekaterinoslav, the family relocated to the nearby army town of Romankovo.[18] When Blavatsky was two years old, her younger brother, Sasha, died in another army town when no medical help could be found.[19] In 1835, mother and daughter moved to Odessa, where Blavatsky’s maternal grandfather Andrei Fadeyev, a civil administrator for the imperial authorities, had recently been posted. It was in this city that Blavatsky’s sister Vera Petrovna was born.[20]

St. Petersburg, Poltava, and Saratov

After a return to rural Ukraine, Pyotr was posted to Saint Petersburg, where the family moved in 1836. Blavatsky’s mother liked the city, there establishing her own literary career, penning novels under the pseudonym of “Zenaida R-va” and translating the works of the English novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton for Russian publication.[21] When Pyotr returned to Ukraine circa 1837, she remained in the city.[22] After Fadeyev was assigned to become a trustee for the Kalmyk people of Central Asia, Blavatsky and her mother accompanied him to Astrakhan, where they befriended a Kalmyk leader, Tumen.[23] The Kalmyks were practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism, and it was here that Blavatsky gained her first experience with the religion.[24]

A painting of Blavatsky and her mother, titled “Two Helens (Helena Hahn and Helena Blavatsky)” 1844–1845

In 1838, Blavatsky’s mother moved with her daughters to be with her husband at Poltava, where she taught Blavatsky how to play the piano and organised for her to take dance lessons.[25] As a result of her poor health, Blavatsky’s mother returned to Odessa, where Blavatsky learned English from a British governess.[26] They next moved to Saratov, where a brother, Leonid, was born in June 1840.[27] The family proceeded to Poland and then back to Odessa, where Blavatsky’s mother died of tuberculosis in June 1842, aged 28.[28]

The three surviving children were sent to live with their maternal grandparents in Saratov, where their grandfather Andrei had been appointed Governor of Saratov Governorate.[29] The historian Richard Davenport-Hines described the young Blavatsky as “a petted, wayward, invalid child” who was a “beguiling story-teller”.[30] Accounts provided by relatives reveal that she socialized largely with lower-class children and that she enjoyed playing pranks and reading.[31] She was educated in French, art, and music, all subjects designed to enable her to find a husband.[32] With her grandparents she holidayed in Tumen’s Kalmyk summer camp, where she learned horse riding and some Tibetan.[33]

She later claimed that in Saratov she discovered the personal library of her maternal great-grandfather, Prince Pavel Vasilevich Dolgorukov (d. 1838); it contained a variety of books on esoteric subjects, encouraging her burgeoning interest in it.[34] Dolgorukov had been initiated into Freemasonry in the late 1770s and had belonged to the Rite of Strict Observance; there were rumors that he had met both Alessandro Cagliostro and the Count of St. Germain.[35] She also later stated that at this time of life she began to experience visions in which she encountered a “Mysterious Indian” man, and that in later life she would meet this man in the flesh.[36] Many biographers have considered this to be the first appearance of the “Masters” in her life story.[37]

According to some of her later accounts, in 1844–45 Blavatsky was taken by her father to England, where she visited London and Bath.[38] According to this story, in London she received piano lessons from the Bohemian composer Ignaz Moscheles, and performed with Clara Schumann.[39] However, some Blavatsky biographers believe that this visit to Britain never took place, particularly as no mention of it is made in her sister’s memoirs.[40] After a year spent living with her aunt, Yekaterina Andreyevna Witte,[41] she moved to Tiflis, Georgia, where grandfather Andrei had been appointed director of state lands in Transcaucasia.[42] Blavatsky claimed that here she established a friendship with Alexander Vladimirovich Golitsyn, a Russian Freemason and member of the Golitsyn family who encouraged her interest in esoteric matters.[43] She would also claim that at this period she had further paranormal experiences, astral traveling and again encountering her “mysterious Indian” in visions.[44]

World travels: 1849–1869

Blavatsky’s drawing of a boat scene, produced in England in 1851[45]

At age 17, she agreed to marry Nikifor Vladimirovich Blavatsky, a man in his forties who worked as Vice Governor of Erivan Province. Her reasons for doing so were unclear, although she later claimed that she was attracted by his belief in magic.[46] Although she tried to back out shortly before the wedding ceremony, the marriage took place on 7 July 1849.[47] Moving with him to the Sardar Palace, she made repeated unsuccessful attempts to escape and return to her family in Tiflis, to which he eventually relented.[48] The family sent her, accompanied by a servant and maid, to Odessa to meet her father, who planned to return to Saint Petersburg with her. The escorts accompanied her to Poti and then Kerch, intending to continue with her to Odessa. Blavatsky claimed that, fleeing her escorts and bribing the captain of the ship that had taken her to Kerch, she reached Constantinople.[49] This marked the start of nine years spent traveling the world, possibly financed by her father.[50]

She did not keep a diary at the time, and was not accompanied by relatives who could verify her activities.[51] Thus, historian of esotericism Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke noted that public knowledge of these travels rests upon “her own largely uncorroborated accounts”, which are marred by being “occasionally conflicting in their chronology”.[52] For religious studies scholar Bruce F. Campbell, there was “no reliable account” for the next 25 years of her life.[53] According to biographer Peter Washington, at this point “myth and reality begin to merge seamlessly in Blavatsky’s biography”.[54]

She later claimed that in Constantinople she developed a friendship with a Hungarian opera singer named Agardi Metrovitch, whom she first encountered when saving him from being murdered.[55] It was also in Constantinople that she met the Countess Sofia Kiselyova, who she would accompany on a tour of Egypt, Greece, and Eastern Europe.[56] In Cairo, she met the American art student Albert Rawson, who later wrote extensively about the Middle East,[57] and together they allegedly visited a Coptic magician, Paulos Metamon.[58] In 1851, she proceeded to Paris, where she encountered the Mesmerist Victor Michal, who impressed her.[59] From there, she visited England, and would claim that it was here that she met the “mysterious Indian” who had appeared in her childhood visions, a Hindu whom she referred to as the Master Morya. While she provided various conflicting accounts of how they met, locating it in both London and Ramsgate according to separate stories, she maintained that he claimed that he had a special mission for her, and that she must travel to Tibet.[60]

She made her way to Asia via the Americas, heading to Canada in autumn 1851. Inspired by the novels of James Fenimore Cooper, she sought out the Native American communities of Quebec in the hope of meeting their magico-religious specialists, but was instead robbed, later attributing these Natives’ behavior to the corrupting influence of Christian missionaries.[61] She then headed south, visiting New Orleans, Texas, Mexico, and the Andes, before transport via ship from the West Indies to Ceylon and then Bombay.[62] She spent two years in India, allegedly following the instructions found in letters that Morya had sent to her.[63] She attempted to enter Tibet, but was prevented from doing so by the British colonial administration.[64]

She later claimed that she then headed back to Europe by ship, surviving a shipwreck near to the Cape of Good Hope before arriving in England in 1854, where she faced hostility as a Russian citizen due to the ongoing Crimean War between Britain and Russia.[65] It was here, she claimed, that she worked as a concert musician for the Royal Philharmonic Society.[66] Sailing to the U.S., she visited New York City, where she met up with Rawson, before touring Chicago, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco, and then sailing back to India via Japan.[67] There, she spent time in Kashmir, Ladakh, and Burma, before making a second attempt to enter Tibet.[68] She claimed that this time she was successful, entering Tibet in 1856 through Kashmir, accompanied by a Tartar shaman who was attempting to reach Siberia and who thought that as a Russian citizen, Blavatsky would be able to aid him in doing so.[69] According to this account, they reached Leh before becoming lost, eventually joining a traveling Tartar group before she headed back to India.[70] She returned to Europe via Madras and Java.[71]

After spending time in France and Germany, in 1858 she returned to her family, then based in Pskov.[72] She later claimed that there she began to exhibit further paranormal abilities, with rapping and creaking accompanying her around the house and furniture moving of its own volition.[73] In 1860, she and her sister visited their maternal grandmother in Tiflis. It was there that she met up with Metrovitch, and where she reconciled with Nikifor in 1862.[74] Together they adopted a child named Yuri, who would die aged five in 1867, when he was buried under Metrovitch’s surname.[75] In 1864, while riding in Mingrelia, Blavatsky fell from her horse and was in a coma for several months with a spinal fracture. Recovering in Tiflis, she claimed that upon awaking she gained full control of her paranormal abilities.[76][77] She then proceeded to Italy, Transylvania, and Serbia, possibly studying the Cabalah with a rabbi at this point.[78] In 1867, she proceeded to the Balkans, Hungary, and then Italy, where she spent time in Venice, Florence, and Mentana, claiming that in the latter she had been injured fighting for Giuseppe Garibaldi at the Battle of Mentana.[79]

Many critics and biographers have expressed doubt about the veracity of Blavatsky’s claims regarding her visits to Tibet, which rely entirely on her own claims, lacking any credible independent testimony.[86] It has been highlighted that during the nineteenth century, Tibet was closed to Europeans, and visitors faced the perils of bandits and a harsh terrain; the latter would have been even more problematic if Blavatsky had been as stout and unathletic as she would be in later life.[87] However, as several biographers have noted, traders and pilgrims from neighboring lands were able to access Tibet freely, suggesting the possibility that she would have been allowed to enter accompanied by Morya, particularly if she had been mistaken for an Asian.[88] Blavatsky’s eyewitness account of Shigatse was unprecedented in the West,[84] and one scholar of Buddhism, D. T. Suzuki, suggested that she later exhibited an advanced knowledge of Mahayana Buddhism consistent with her having studied in a Tibetan monastery.[89] Lachman noted that had Blavatsky spent time in Tibet, then she would be “one of the greatest travelers of the nineteenth century”,[90] although he added – “in all honesty I do not know” if Blavatsky spent time in Tibet or not.[91] Conversely, biographer Marion Meade commented on Blavatsky’s tales of Tibet and various other adventures by stating that “hardly a word of this appears to be true”.[92]

Later life

Embracing Spiritualism and establishing Theosophy: 1870–1878

Arriving in New York City

Blavatsky

Blavatsky alleged that she departed Tibet with the mission of proving to the world that the phenomena identified by Spiritualists were objectively real, thus defending Spiritualism against accusations of fraud. However, she also stated that the entities being contacted by Spiritualist mediums were not the spirits of the dead, as the Spiritualist movement typically alleged, but instead either mischievous elementals or the “shells” left behind by the deceased.[93] She proceeded via the Suez Canal to Greece, where she met with another of the Masters, Master Hilarion.[94] She set sail for Egypt aboard the SS Eumonia, but in July 1871 it exploded during the journey; Blavatsky was one of only 16 survivors.[95] Reaching Cairo, she met up with Metamon, and with the help of a woman named Emma Cutting established a société spirite, which was based largely on Spiritism, a form of Spiritualism founded by Allan Kardec which professed a belief in reincarnation, in contrast to the mainstream Spiritualist movement.[96] However, Blavatsky believed that Cutting and many of the mediums employed by the society were fraudulent, and she closed it down after two weeks.[97] In Cairo, she also met with the Egyptologist Gaston Maspero, and another of the Masters, Serapis Bey.[98] It was also here that she met up with Metrovitch, although he soon died of typhoid, with Blavatsky claiming to have overseen the funeral.[99]

Leaving Egypt, she proceeded to Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon, there encountering members of the Druze religion.[100] It was during these travels that she met with the writer and traveler Lidia Pashkova, who provided independent verification of Blavatsky’s travels during this period.[101] In July 1872 she returned to her family in Odessa, before departing in April 1873.[102] She spent time in Bucharest and Paris,[103] before – according to her later claims – Morya instructed her to go to the United States. Blavatsky arrived in New York City on 8 July 1873.[104][105] There, she moved into a women’s housing cooperative on Madison Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, earning a wage through piece work sewing and designing advertising cards.[106] It was here that she attracted attention, and was interviewed by the journalist Anna Ballard of the New York newspaper The Sun; this interview was the earliest textual source in which Blavatsky claimed to have spent time in Tibet.[107] Indeed, it was while in New York that “detailed records” of Blavatsky’s life again become available to historians.[108] Soon after, Blavatsky received news of her father’s death, thus inheriting a considerable fortune, allowing her to move into a lavish hotel.[109] In December 1874, Blavatsky met the Georgian Mikheil Betaneli. Infatuated with her, he repeatedly requested that they marry, to which she ultimately relented; this constituted bigamy, as her first husband was still alive. However, as she refused to consummate the marriage, Betaneli sued for divorce and returned to Georgia.[110]

Meeting Henry Steel Olcott and the foundation of the Theosophical Society

Blavatsky was intrigued by a news story about William and Horatio Eddy, brothers based in Chittenden, Vermont, who it was claimed could levitate and manifest spiritual phenomena. She visited Chittenden in October 1874, there meeting the reporter Henry Steel Olcott, who was investigating the brothers’ claims for the Daily Graphic.[111] Claiming that Blavatsky impressed him with her own ability to manifest spirit phenomena, Olcott authored a newspaper article on her.[112] They soon became close friends, giving each other the nicknames of “Maloney” (Olcott) and “Jack” (Blavatsky).[113] He helped attract greater attention to Blavatsky’s claims, encouraging the Daily Graphics editor to publish an interview with her,[114] and discussing her in his book on Spiritualism, People from the Other World (1875),[115] which her Russian correspondent Alexandr Aksakov urged her to translate into Russian.[116] She began to instruct Olcott in her own occult beliefs, and encouraged by her he became celibate, tee-totaling, and vegetarian, although she herself was unable to commit to the latter.[117] In January 1875 the duo visited the Spiritualist mediums Nelson and Jennie Owen in Philadelphia; the Owens asked Olcott to test them to prove that the phenomena that they produced were not fraudulent, and while Olcott believed them, Blavatsky opined that they faked some of their phenomena in those instances when genuine phenomena failed to manifest.[118]

Blavatsky, c. 1877

Drumming up interest for their ideas, Blavatsky and Olcott published a circular letter in Eldridge Gerry Brown’s Boston-based Spiritualist publication, The Spiritual Scientist.[119] There, they named themselves the “Brotherhood of Luxor”, a name potentially inspired by the pre-existing Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.[120] They began living together in a series of rented apartments in New York City, which they decorated with taxidermied animals and images of spiritual figures; their life was funded largely by Olcott’s continued work as a lawyer.[121] Their last such apartment came to be known as the Lamasery.[122] Allegedly encouraged by the Masters, Blavatsky and Olcott established the Miracle Club, through which they facilitated lectures on esoteric themes in New York City.[123] It was through this group that they met an Irish Spiritualist, William Quan Judge, who shared many of their interests.[124]

At a Miracle Club meeting on 7 September 1875, Blavatsky, Olcott, and Judge agreed to establish an esoteric organisation, with Charles Sotheran suggesting that they call it the Theosophical Society.[125] The term theosophy came from the Greek theos (“god(s)”) and sophia (“wisdom”), thus meaning “god-wisdom” or “divine wisdom”.[126] The term was not new, but had been previously used in various contexts by the Philaletheians and the Christian mystic Jakob Böhme.[127] Theosophists would often argue over how to define Theosophy, with Judge expressing the view that the task was impossible.[126] Blavatsky however insisted that Theosophy was not a religion in itself.[128] Lachman has described the movement as “a very wide umbrella, under which quite a few things could find a place”.[129] On foundation, Olcott was appointed chairman, with Judge as secretary, and Blavatsky as corresponding secretary, although she remained the group’s primary theoretician and leading figure.[130] Prominent early members included Emma Hardinge Britten, Signor Bruzzesi, C.C. Massey, and William L. Alden; many were prominent and successful members of the establishment, although not all would remain members for long.[131]

Isis Unveiled

The underlying theme among these diverse topics [in Isis Unveiled] is the existence of an ancient wisdom-religion, an ageless occult guide to the cosmos, nature and human life. The many faiths of man are said to derive from a universal religion known to both Plato and the ancient Hindu sages. The wisdom-religion is also identified with Hermetic philosophy as “the only possible key to the Absolute in science and theology” (I, vii). Every religion is based on the same truth or “secret doctrine”, which contains “the alpha and omega of universal science” (I, 511). This ancient wisdom-religion will become the religion of the future (I, 613).

—Historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, 2004.[132]

In 1875, Blavatsky began work on a book outlining her Theosophical worldview, much of which would be written during a stay in the Ithaca home of Hiram Corson, a Professor of English Literature at Cornell University. Although she had hoped to call it The Veil of Isis, it would be published as Isis Unveiled.[133] While writing it, Blavatsky claimed to be aware of a second consciousness within her body, referring to it as “the lodger who is in me”, and stating that it was this second consciousness that inspired much of the writing.[134] In Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky quoted extensively from other esoteric and religious texts, although her contemporary and colleague Olcott always maintained that she had quoted from books that she did not have access to.[135] Writing more than a century after her death Lachman conjectured that if this had been the case, then she had had an eidetic memory,[136] such that, while relying on earlier sources, the book represented an original synthesis that connected disparate ideas not brought together before.[137]

Cover of ‘Blavatsky Unveiled’, the first translation of Isis Unveiled into modern English.

Revolving around Blavatsky’s idea that all the world’s religions stemmed from a single “Ancient Wisdom”, which she connected to the Western esotericism of ancient Hermeticism and Neoplatonism,[138] it also articulated her thoughts on Spiritualism,[139] and provided a criticism of Darwinian evolution, stating that it dealt only with the physical world and ignored the spiritual realms.[140] The book was edited by Professor of Philosophy Alexander Wilder and published in two volumes by J.W. Bouton in 1877.[141] Although facing negative mainstream press reviews, including from those who highlighted that it extensively quoted around 100 other books without acknowledgement,[142] it proved to be such a commercial success, with its initial print run of 1,000 copies selling out in a week,[143] that the publisher requested a sequel, although Blavatsky turned down the offer.[137] While Isis Unveiled was a success, the Society remained largely inactive,[144] having fallen into this state in autumn 1876.[145] This was despite the fact that new lodges of the organisation had been established throughout the U.S. and in London, and prominent figures like Thomas Edison and Abner Doubleday had joined.[146] In July 1878, Blavatsky gained U.S. citizenship.[147]

India: 1879–1885

The Theosophical Society established links with an Indian Hindu reform movement, the Arya Samaj, which had been founded by the Swami Dayananda Saraswati; Blavatsky and Olcott believed that the two organisations shared a common spiritual world-view.[148] Unhappy with life in the U.S., Blavatsky decided to move to India, with Olcott agreeing to join her, securing work as a U.S. trade representative to the country.[149] In December, the duo auctioned off many of their possessions, although Edison gifted them a phonograph to take with them to India.[150] They left New York City aboard the Canada, which took them to London. After meeting with well-wishers in the capital, they traveled to Liverpool, there setting sail aboard the Speke Hall, arriving in Bombay in February 1879.[151] In the city, they were greeted with celebrations organised by Arya Samaj member Hurrychund Chintamon before obtaining a house in Girgaum Road, part of Bombay’s native area.[152]

Associating largely with Indians rather than the governing British elite, Blavatsky took a fifteen-year-old Gujarati boy, Vallah “Babula” Bulla, as her personal servant.[153] Many educated Indians were impressed with the Theosophists championing of Indian religions, coming about during a period “of [India’s] growing self-assertion against the values and beliefs” of the British Empire.[154] Her activity in the city was monitored by British intelligence services, who suspected that she was working for Russia.[155] In April, Blavatsky took Olcott, Babula, and their friend Moolji Thackersey to the Karla Caves, announcing that they contained secret passages that led to an underground place where the Masters assembled.[156] Then claiming that the Masters were telepathically commanding her to head to Rajputana in the Punjab, she and Olcott headed north.[157] At the Yamuna river, they met the sannyasin Babu Surdass, who had sat in the lotus position for 52 years, and in Agra saw the Taj Mahal.[158] In Saharanpur they met with Dayananda and his Arya Samajists, before returning to Bombay.[159]

Blavatsky and Hindu Theosophists in India, circa 1884

In July 1879, Blavatsky and Olcott began work on a monthly magazine, The Theosophist, with the first issue coming out in October.[160] The magazine soon obtained a large readership, with the management being taken over by Damodar K. Mavalankar, a Theosophist who introduced the idea of referring to the Masters as mahatmas.[161] In December, Blavatsky and Olcott travelled to Allahabad, there visiting Alfred Percy Sinnett, the editor of The Pioneer and keen Spiritualist. A.O. Hume was also a guest at the Sinnett’s home, and Blavatsky was encouraged to manifest paranormal phenomena in their presence.[162] From there, they travelled to Benares, where they stayed at the palace of the Maharaja of Vizianagram.[163] Blavatsky and Olcott were then invited to Ceylon by Buddhist monks. There they officially converted to Buddhism—apparently the first from the United States to do so[164]—taking the Five Precepts in a ceremony at Ramayana Nikayana in May 1880.[165] Touring the island, they were met by crowds intrigued by these unusual Westerners who embraced Buddhism rather than proselytizing Christianity. Their message proved a boost to Sinhalese nationalist self-esteem, and they were invited to see the Buddha’s Tooth in Kandy.[166]

Upon learning that old comrade Emma Coulomb (née Cutting) and her husband had fallen into poverty in Ceylon, Blavatsky invited them to move into her home in Bombay.[167] However, the Coulombs annoyed Rosa Bates and Edward Winbridge, two American Theosophists who were also living with Blavatsky; when Blavatsky took the side of the Coulombs, Bates and Winbridge returned to the U.S.[168] Blavatsky was then invited to Simla to spend more time with Sinnett, and there performed a range of materializations that astounded the other guests; in one instance, she allegedly made a cup-and-saucer materialize under the soil during a picnic.[169] Sinnett was eager to contact the Masters himself, convincing Blavatsky to facilitate this communication, resulting in the production of over 1400 pages allegedly authored by Koot Hoomi and Morya, which came to be known as the Mahatma Letters.[170] Sinnett summarised the teachings contained in these letters in his book Esoteric Buddhism (1883), although scholars of Buddhism like Max Müller publicly highlighted that the contents were not Buddhist, and Blavatsky herself disliked the misleading title.[171] Since the book’s publication, there has been much debate as to the authenticity of the letters, with some arguing that they were written by Blavatsky herself, and others believing that they were written by separate individuals.[172][173] According to Meade, “there can be no reasonable doubt that Helena was their author”.[174]

Theosophy was unpopular with both Christian missionaries and the British colonial administration,[175] with India’s English-language press being almost uniformly negative toward the Society.[176] The group nevertheless proved popular, and branches were established across the country.[177] While Blavatsky had emphasized its growth among the native Indian population rather than among the British elite, she moved into a comfortable bungalow in the elite Bombay suburb of Breach Candy, which she said was more accessible to Western visitors.[178] Olcott had decided to establish the Buddhist Education Fund to combat the spread of the Christian faith in Ceylon and encourage pride and interest in Buddhism among the island’s Sinhalese population. Although Blavatsky initially opposed the idea, stating that the Masters would not approve, Olcott’s project proved a success, and she changed her opinion about it.[179]

Blavatsky standing behind Olcott (middle seated) and Damodar Mavalankar (seated to his left), Bombay, 1881

Blavatsky had been diagnosed with Bright’s disease and hoping the weather to be more conducive to her condition she took up the offer of the Society’s Madras Branch to move to their city.[180] However, in November 1882 the Society purchased an estate in Adyar, which became their permanent headquarters; a few rooms were set aside for Blavatsky, who moved into them in December.[181] She continued to tour the subcontinent, claiming that she then spent time in Sikkim and Tibet, where she visited her teacher’s ashram for several days.[182] With her health deteriorating, she agreed to accompany Olcott on his trip to Britain, where he was planning to argue the case for Ceylonese Buddhism and sort out problems with the Society’s London Lodge.[183][184]

Sailing to Marseilles, France, in March 1883, she spent time in Nice with the founder of the Theosophical Society’s French branch, the Countess of Caithness (widow of James Sinclair, 14th Earl of Caithness), with whom she continued to Paris.[185][186] In London, she appeared at the lodge’s meeting, where she sought to quell arguments between Sinnett on the one hand and Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland on the other.[187] Unsatisfied, Kingsford – whom Blavatsky thought “an unbearable snobbish woman” – split from the Theosophical Society to form the Hermetic Society.[188] In London, Blavatsky made contact with the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) through Frederic W. H. Myers. She complied with their request to undertake a study of her and the paranormal abilities that she claimed to possess, although wasn’t impressed by the organisation and mockingly referred to it as the “Spookical Research Society”.[189]

With Blavatsky in Europe, trouble broke out at the society’s Adyar headquarters in what became known as the Coulomb Affair. The society’s Board of Control had accused Emma Coulomb of misappropriating their funds for her own purposes, and asked her to leave their center. She and her husband refused, blackmailing the society with letters that they claimed were written by Blavatsky and which proved that her paranormal abilities were fraudulent. The society refused to pay them and expelled them from their premises, at which the couple turned to the Madras-based Christian College Magazine, who published an exposé of Blavatsky’s alleged fraudulence using the Coulomb’s claims as a basis. The story attracted international attention and was picked up by London-based newspaper, The Times.[190] In response, in November 1884 Blavatsky headed to Cairo, where she and Theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater searched for negative information on Emma Coulomb, discovering stories of her alleged former history of extortion and criminality.[191][192] Internally, the Society was greatly damaged by the Coulomb Affair,[193] although it remained popular in India, as did Blavatsky herself.[194]

Final years in Europe: 1885–1891

Mme. Blavatsky (painted by Hermann Schmiechen)

Worsening health led Blavatsky to contemplate a return to the milder climate of Europe, and resigning her position as corresponding secretary of the society, she left India in March 1885.[195] By 1885, the Theosophical Society had experienced rapid growth, with 121 lodges having been chartered across the world, 106 of which were located in India, Burma, and Ceylon.[196] Initially, each lodge was chartered directly from the Adyar headquarters, with members making democratic decisions by vote.[196] However, over the coming years the lodges were organised into national units with their own ruling councils, resulting in tensions between the different levels of administration.[196]

Settling in Naples, Italy, in April 1885, she began living off of a small Society pension and continued working on her next book, The Secret Doctrine.[197] She then moved to Würzburg in the Kingdom of Bavaria, where she was visited by a Swedish Theosophist, the Countess Constance Wachtmeister, who became her constant companion throughout the rest of her life.[198] In December 1885, the SPR published their report on Blavatsky and her alleged phenomena, authored by Richard Hodgson. In his report, Hodgson accused Blavatsky of being a spy for the Russian government, further accusing her of faking paranormal phenomena, largely on the basis of the Coulomb’s claims.[199] The report caused much tension within the Society, with a number of Blavatsky’s followers – among them Babaji and Subba Row – denouncing her and resigning from the organisation on the basis of it.[200]

For our own part, we regard [Blavatsky] neither as the mouthpiece of hidden seers, nor as a mere vulgar adventuress; we think that she has achieved a title to permanent remembrance as one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting imposters in history.

—The statement of the Society for Psychical Research on the basis of the Hodgson Report.[201]

Blavatsky wanted to sue her accusers, although Olcott advised against it, believing that the surrounding publicity would damage the Society.[202] In private letters, Blavatsky expressed relief that the criticism was focused on her and that the identity of the Masters had not been publicly exposed.[203] For decades after, Theosophists criticized Hodgson’s methodology, arguing that he set out to disprove and attack Blavatsky rather than conduct an unbiased analysis of her claims and abilities. In 1986 the SPR admitted this to be the case and retracted the findings of the report.[204][205] However, Johnson has commented “Theosophists have overinterpreted this as complete vindication, when in fact many questions raised by Hodgson remain unanswered.”[206]

In 1886, by which time she was using a wheelchair, Blavatsky moved to Ostend in Belgium, where she was visited by Theosophists from across Europe.[207] Supplementing her pension, she established a small ink-producing business.[208] She received messages from members of the Society’s London Lodge who were dissatisfied with Sinnett’s running of it; they believed that he was focusing on attaining upper-class support rather than encouraging the promotion of Theosophy throughout society, a criticism Blavatsky agreed with.[209] She arrived in London in May 1887, initially staying in the Upper Norwood home of Theosophist Mabel Collins.[210] In September, she moved into the Holland Park home of fellow Theosophists, Bertram Keightley and his nephew Archibald Keightley.[211]

Blavatsky and Olcott in 1888

In London, she established the Blavatsky Lodge as a rival to that run by Sinnett, draining much of its membership.[212] Lodge meetings were held at the Keightels’ house on Thursday nights, with Blavatsky also greeting many visitors there, among them the occultist and poet W. B. Yeats.[213] In November 1889 she was visited by the Indian lawyer Mohandas Gandhi, who was studying the Bhagavad Gita with the Keightels. He became an associate member of Blavatsky’s Lodge in March 1891, and would emphasize the close connection between Theosophy and Hinduism throughout his life.[214] In 1888, Blavatsky established the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society, a group under her complete control for which admittance was restricted to those who had passed certain tests. She identified it as a place for “true Theosophists” who would focus on the system’s philosophy rather than experiment with producing paranormal phenomena.[215]

In London, Blavatsky founded a magazine, controversially titling it Lucifer; in this Theosophical publication she sought to completely ignore claims regarding paranormal phenomena, and focus instead on a discussion of philosophical ideas.[216] Blavatsky also finished writing The Secret Doctrine, which was then edited by the Keightels.[217] As a commercial publisher willing to publish the approximately 1,500 page work could not be found, Blavatsky established the Theosophical Publishing Company, who brought out the work in two volumes, the first published in October 1888 and the second in January 1889.[218] Blavatsky claimed that the book constituted her commentary on the Book of Dzyan, a religious text written in Senzar which she had been taught while studying in Tibet.[219] Buddhologist David Reigle claimed that he identified Books of Kiu-te, including Blavatsky’s Book of Dzyan as a first volume, as the Tantra section of the Tibetan Buddhist canon.[220] However, most scholars of Buddhism to have examined The Secret Doctrine have concluded that there was no such text as the Book of Dzyan, and that instead it was the fictional creation of Blavatsky’s.[221] In the book, Blavatsky outlined her own cosmogonical ideas about how the universe, the planets, and the human species came to exist. She also discussed her views about the human being and their soul, thus dealing with issues surrounding an afterlife.[222] The two-volume book was reviewed for the Pall Mall Gazette by the social reformer Annie Besant; impressed by it, Besant met with Blavatsky and joined the Theosophists.[223] In August 1890, Blavatsky moved in to Besant’s large house at 19 Avenue Road in St. John’s Wood.[224]

Woking Crematorium in 2018

She appointed Besant to be the new head of the Blavatsky Lodge,[225] and in July 1890 inaugurated the new European headquarters of the Theosophical Society in Besant’s house.[226] There, she authored a book containing questions and corresponding answers, The Key to Theosophy.[227] This was followed by The Voice of the Silence, a short devotional text which she claimed was based on a Senzar text known as The Book of the Golden Precepts. As with The Secret Doctrine, most scholars of Buddhism have doubted that this latter text was an authentic Tibetan Buddhist document.[228] She continued to face accusations of fraud; U.S. newspaper The Sun published a July 1890 article based on information provided by an ex-member of the Society, Elliott Coues. Blavatsky sued the newspaper for libel, and they publicly retracted their accusations in September 1892.[229] That winter, Britain had been afflicted by an influenza epidemic, with Blavatsky contracting the virus; it led to her death on the afternoon of 8 May 1891, in Besant’s house.[230] The date would come to be commemorated by Theosophists ever since as White Lotus Day.[231] Her body was cremated at Woking Crematorium on 11 May.[232]

Personal life

Blavatsky talked incessantly in a guttural voice, sometimes wittily and sometimes crudely. She was indifferent to sex yet frank and open about it; fonder of animals than of people; welcoming, unpretentious, scandalous, capricious and rather noisy. She was also humorous, vulgar, impulsive and warm-hearted, and didn’t give a hoot for anyone or anything.

—Biographer Peter Washington, 1993.[233]

The biographer Peter Washington described Blavatsky as “a short, stout, forceful woman, with strong arms, several chins, unruly hair, a determined mouth, and large, liquid, slightly bulging eyes”.[234] She had distinctive azure colored eyes,[235] and was overweight throughout her life.[236] According to the biographer Marion Meade, Blavatsky’s “general appearance was outrageously untidy”.[237] In later life, she was known for wearing loose robes, and wore many rings on her fingers.[233] She was a heavy cigarette smoker throughout her life,[238] and was known for smoking hashish at times.[239] She lived simply and her followers believed that she refused to accept monetary payment in return for disseminating her teachings.[240] Blavatsky preferred to be known by the acronym “HPB”,[241] a sobriquet applied to her by many of her friends which was first developed by Olcott.[242] She avoided social functions and was scornful of social obligations.[243] She spoke Russian, Georgian, English, French, Italian, Arabic, and Sanskrit.[244]

Meade referred to her as “an eccentric who abided by no rules except her own”,[245] someone who had “utter disregard for the Victorian code of morality”.[246] Meade believed that Blavatsky perceived herself as a messianic figure whose purpose was to save the world by promoting Theosophy.[245] Lachman stated that Blavatsky exhibited what he referred to as “Russian traits – an intense devotion to spiritual truth, combined with a profound contradictory character.”[247] Washington expressed the view that she was “a persuasive story-teller [with the] power to fascinate others” although noted that she was also “self-absorbed and egotistical”.[248] For Meade, Blavatsky had a “vivid imagination” and a “propensity for lying”.[249] Godwin noted that Blavatsky had “a fearsome temper”.[244] The religious studies scholar Bruce F. Campbell noted that she had been a “strong-willed, independent child”, and that the harsh environment of her childhood might have resulted in her “difficulty in controlling her temper and … her tendency to swear”.[250] In his opinion, she represented “an archetypal charismatic leader”.[251] Anthropologist Leo Klejn claimed that Blavatsky’s indefatigability and energy were surprising.[252] The Indologist Alexander Senkevich stated that Blavatsky’s charisma exerted influence on Charles Massey and Stainton Moses.[253]

Blavatsky’s sexuality has been an issue of dispute; many biographers have believed that she remained celibate throughout her life,[254] with Washington believing that she “hated sex with her own sort of passion”.[255] In later life she stated that she was a virgin, although she had been married to two men during her lifetime.[245] Throughout its early years, the Theosophical Society promoted celibacy, even within marriage.[256] Some have suggested that she may have been a lesbian or transvestite, due to early accounts in which she traveled while dressed in masculine attire.[257] Meade thought that Blavatsky had, with a few exceptions, been “contemptuous” of other women, suggesting that while this may have been the result of general societal misogyny, it may have reflected that Blavatsky had been jilted by another woman.[235]

Socio-political beliefs

Godwin suggested that Blavatsky’s life work was “not only spiritual but socially idealistic and fiercely political”.[258] He suggested that her “emotional fuel” was partly “a hatred of oppression”, which Godwin claimed was either through the intellectual domination of Christianity or British colonial rule in India.[258] Conversely, Meade thought Blavatsky to be “basically a non-political person”.[259]

Blavatsky’s social and political beliefs, like much else in her life, are not always consistent, though reflect what she felt she could reveal of a larger vision. That was, more than anything else, the vision of the succession of root races. These races were a flexible category, cultural as well as physiological, with races often combining in the course of history. Moreover, inspired by recent acrimonious debates over evolution, they are also dynamic, emergent forces. Gary Lachman wrote, “Although few historians have noted it, in Isis Unveiled (1877), Blavatsky presented the first major intellectual — not religious — criticism of evolution.” {Lachman 2012, 159-60} Blavatsky held that Darwinism explained human physical evolution, while spirituality followed another developmental pattern.

The scholar of religion Olav Hammer noted that “on rare occasions” Blavatsky’s writings are “overtly racist”,[260] adding that her antisemitism “derives from the unfortunate position of Judaism as the origin of Christianity” and refers to “the intense dislike she felt for Christianity”.[260] She wrote that “Judaism, built solely on Phallic worship, has become one of the latest creeds in Asia, and theologically a religion of hate and malice toward everyone and everything outside themselves.”[261]

At the same time, we must note the extensive and appreciative use she made of the Jewish mystical system, the Kabbala, although she thought its origins were earlier than historic Judaism. Henry Steel Olcott, in Old Diary Leaves, First series, tells of “a mystical Hebrew physician” who had studied the Kabbala deeply for thirty years, discussed it with Blavatsky in lengthy conversations, and reportedly said that despite his profound research “he had not discovered the true meanings that she read into certain texts, and that illumined them with a holy light.” {Henry Steel Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, First Series. Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1941, p. 477} In a passage in Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky praised the Jews: “Nor should we compel the Jews to do penance for their fathers. . . How faithfully and nobly they have stood by their ancestral faith under the diabolical persecutions. . . The Jews remain substantially united. Even their differences of opinion do not destroy their unity.” {Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, Vol. II. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, n 1972, p. 526}

As for Christianity, her main dislike was toward Roman Catholicism and missionary Protestantism. She had good relations with certain liberal Protestants, nor did she offer much criticism of her natal Eastern Orthodoxy. In Isis Unveiled, she spoke well of Jesus as one who, though a “poor, unknown Jewish carpenter” and “no master of social etiquette,” nonetheless became a great reformer, teaching a “sublime code of ethics,” and also, like Paul and other early church fathers an “initiate,” qualified to teach and practice the Ancient Wisdom in terms suitable to the time and place. {Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, Vol. II, 148–50, 562} She also made much favorable use of Gnosticism, increasingly recognized as a valid form of early Christianity.

[262] About physical races, she wrote that Africans, aboriginal Australians, and South Sea Islanders are inferior to Europeans, stating “MONADS of the lowest specimens of humanity (the ‘narrow-brained’ savage South-Sea Islander, the African, the Australian) had no Karma to work out when first born as men, as their more favoured brethren in intelligence had.”[263] She referred to aboriginal Australians as “half-animal”.[264] The dynamic, evolutionary nature of races must also be kept in mind, however. In The Secret Doctrine she postulates that, “If tomorrow the continent of Europe were to disappear and other lands re-emerge instead, and if the African tribes were to separate and scatter on the face of the earth, it is they who, in about a hundred thousand years hence, would form the bulk of the civilized natures. . . Thus the reason given for dividing humanity into superior and inferior races falls to the ground and becomes a fallacy.” {Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II. Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993, P. 425. Italics in original} It was in 1886, two years before The Secret Doctrine and five before Blavatsky’s death, that the General Council of the Theosophical Society adopted as the first of the Society’s three objects, “To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race, creed, or color.” (In 1888 without distinction of sex or caste was added.) {Philip S. Harris, ed., Theosophical Encyclopedia. Quezon City, Philippines, 2006, “Theosophical Society, Objects of the,” 631-32}

After spending time in India, Blavatsky adopted a belief in reincarnation (as shown here in Hindu art)

Blavatsky advocated the idea of “Root Races”, each of which was divided into seven Sub-Races.[289] In Blavatsky’s cosmogony, the first Root Race were created from pure spirit and lived on a continent known as the “Imperishable Sacred Land”.[287][290] The second Root Race, known as the Hyperboreans, were also formed from pure spirit and lived on a land near to the North Pole, which then had a mild climate.[287] The third lived on the continent of Lemuria, which Blavatsky alleged survives today as Australia and Rapa Nui.[291][292] Blavatsky alleged that during the fourth Round of the Earth, higher beings descended to the planet, with the beginnings of human physical bodies developing and the sexes separating.[289] At this point, the fourth Root Race appeared, living on the continent of Atlantis; they had physical bodies but also psychic powers and advanced technology.[293] She claimed that some Atlanteans were giants and built such ancient monuments as Stonehenge in southern England and that they also mated with “she-animals”, resulting in the creation of gorillas and chimpanzees.[289] The Atlanteans were decadent and abused their power and knowledge, so Atlantis sunk into the sea, although various Atlanteans escaped and created new societies in Egypt and the Americas.[289]

The fifth Root Race to emerge was the Aryans and was found across the world at the time she was writing.[289][294] She believed that the fifth Race would come to be replaced by the sixth, which would be heralded by the arrival of Maitreya, a figure from Mahayana Buddhist mythology.[295] She further believed that humanity would eventually develop into the final, seventh Root Race.[289][296] Lachman suggested that by reading Blavatsky’s cosmogonical claims as a literal account of history, “we may be doing it a disservice.”[289] He instead suggested that it could be read as Blavatsky’s attempt to formulate “a new myth for the modern age, or as a huge, fantastic science fiction story”.[289]

Blavatsky taught that humans composed of three separate parts: a divine spark, an astral fluid body, and the physical body.[297] Later Blavatsky proclaimed the septenary of Man and Universe.[298] According to Blavatsky, man is composed of seven parts: Atma, Buddhi, Manas, Kama rupa, Linga sharira, Prana, and Sthula sharira.[298] In Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky denied that humans would be reincarnated back on the Earth after physical death.[299] However, by the time that she had authored The Secret Doctrine, she had changed her opinion on this issue, likely influenced by her time in India.[300] Here, she stated that the law of reincarnation was governed by karma, with humanity’s final purpose being the emancipation of the soul from the cycle of death and rebirth.[301] She believed that knowledge of karma would ensure that human beings lived according to moral principles, arguing that it provided a far greater basis for moral action than that of the Christian doctrine.[302] Blavatsky wrote, in Isis Unveiled, that Spiritualism “alone offers a possible last refuge of compromise between” the “revealed religions and materialistic philosophies”. While she acknowledged that fanatic believers “remained blind to its imperfections”, she wrote that such a fact was “no excuse to doubt its reality” and asserted that Spiritualist fanaticism was “itself a proof of the genuineness and possibility of their phenomena”.[303]

Goodrick-Clarke noted that Blavatsky’s cosmology contained all four of the prime characteristics of Western esotericism that had been identified by the scholar Antoine Faivre: “(a) correspondences between all parts of the universe, the macrocosm and microcosm; (b) living nature as a complex, plural, hierarchical, and animate whole; (c) imagination and mediations in the form of intermediary spirits, symbols, and mandalas; and (d) the experience of transmutation of the soul through purification and ascent.”[304]

Reception

[Blavatsky was] one of the most significant, controversial, and prolific of modern esotericists … It is more than evident that, whatever one thinks of the more flamboyant aspects of this remarkable and many-sided woman, she possessed a keen intellect and a wide-ranging vision of what occultism could be in the modern world.

—Religious studies scholar Robert Ellwood, 2005.[305]

Blavatsky was a highly controversial figure,[306] and attitudes toward her were typically polarized into extreme camps, one uncritically idolizing her as a holy guru and the other expressing complete disdain for her as a charlatan.[307] Washington suggested that Blavatsky generated such controversy because she courted publicity without knowing how to manage it.[308] Blavatsky’s devotees often try to attribute the criticism that she sustained to the fact that she attacked the vested interests of both the Christian establishment and the material scientific skeptics, rather than it being a reaction to her frauds and impostures. Thus, all critics of her are deflected by her believers, who say that “the slanders on her reputation are the signs of grace: the stigmata that all great martyrs must bear.”[309]

Various authors have questioned the authenticity of her writings, citing evidence that they are heavily plagiarized from older esoteric sources,[310][311][312][313] pronouncing her claim of the existence of masters of wisdom to be utterly false, and accusing her of being a charlatan, a false medium, and a falsifier of letters.[314][315] Her supporters claimed most of the accusations were undocumented. The Eastern literature scholar Arthur Lillie published a long list of extracts from mystic works next to extracts from Blavatsky’s writings purporting to show her extensive plagiarism in his book Madame Blavatsky and her Theosophy. Lillie also analysed the Mahatma letters and asserted they had been written by Blavatsky, based on certain peculiarities of expression and spelling.[316][173] The traditionalist René Guénon wrote a detailed critique of Theosophy, in which he claimed that Blavatsky had acquired all her knowledge naturally from other books, not from any supernatural masters.[310] Carl Jung virulently criticized her work. Agehananda Bharati dismissed it as “a melee of horrendous hogwash and of fertile inventions of inane esoterica”. Mircea Eliade suggested that her theory of spiritual evolution contradicts the entire spirit of Eastern tradition, which is “precisely an anti-evolutionist conception of the spiritual life”.[317] After her death, Blavatsky continued to be accused of having fraudulently produced paranormal phenomena by skeptics such as John Nevil Maskelyne,[318] Robert Todd Carroll,[319] and James Randi.[320]

According to religious studies scholar Mark Bevir, Blavatsky “adapted the occult tradition to meet the challenge of Victorian science and morality”.[321] Historian Ronald Hutton described Blavatsky as “one of the century’s truly international figures”, whose ideas gained “considerable popularity”.[322] Various biographers have noted that by the late 20th and early 21st century, Blavatsky was little known among the general public.[323] In 2006, scholar James A. Santucci nevertheless noted that she was “as visible today as any modern trend-setting guru, and she will most likely remain the most memorable and innovative esotericist of the 19th century.”[324]

Parasychologist Nandor Fodor stated, “Whatever result psycho-analysts may arrive at in the study of her [Blavatsky’s] complex character, it must be admitted that she was a remarkable woman and that she indeed possessed psychic powers which, however, fell far short of the miraculous feats she constantly aimed at.”[325] A number of authors, primarily Scholars, have suggested that Blavatsky sometimes spoke and/or wrote out of altered states of consciousness.[325][326][327] G. R. S. Mead wrote about Blavatsky, “I know no one who detested, more than she did, any attempt to hero-worship herself – she positively physically shuddered at any expression of reverence to herself – as a spiritual teacher; I have heard her cry out in genuine alarm at an attempt to kneel to her made by an enthusiastic admirer.”[282] Leo Klejn wrote about Blavatsky, “Indefatigability and energy of this woman were surprising. She had a revolutionary’s merits.”[252][a] Another person who said Blavatsky was a remarkable woman was a former associate and publisher of the Theosophical magazine Lucifer 1887–1889, Mabel Collins. After leaving the movement she said “She taught me one great lesson. I learned from her how foolish, how ‘gullible’, how easily flattered human beings are, taken en masse. Her contempt for her kind was on the same gigantic scale as everything else about her, except her marvellously delicate taper fingers. In all else, she was a big woman. She had a greater power over the weak and credulous, a greater capacity for making black appear white, a larger waist, a more voracious appetite, a more confirmed passion for tobacco, a more ceaseless and insatiable hatred for those whom she thought to be her enemies, a greater disrespect for les convenances, a worse temper, a greater command of bad language, and a greater contempt for the intelligence of her fellow-beings than I had ever supposed possible to be contained in one person. These, I suppose, must be reckoned as her vices, though whether a creature so indifferent to all ordinary standards of right and wrong can be held to have virtues or vices, I know not.”[328][329]

The book The Voice of the Silence presented by Blavatsky to Leo Tolstoy

Blavatsky presented her book The Voice of the Silence, The Seven gates, Two Paths to Leo Tolstoy. In his works, Tolstoy used the dicta from the theosophical journal Theosophischer Wegweiser.[330] In his diary, he wrote on 12 February 1903, “I am reading a beautiful theosophical journal and find many commonalities with my understanding.”[331]

Influence

Theosophical movement

According to Kalnitsky, the Theosophical movement of the nineteenth century was created and defined in the main through the astuteness and conceptual ideas provided by H.P. Blavatsky. He stated that “without her charismatic leadership and uncompromising promotion of the Theosophical agenda, it appears unlikely that the movement could have attained its unique form.”[332] By the time of her death in 1891 she was the acknowledged head of a community numbering nearly 100,000, with journalistic organs in London, Paris, New York and Madras.[333] Her writings have been translated and published in a wide range of European and Asian languages.[334]

Blavatsky’s Theosophy redirected the interest in Spiritualism toward a more coherent doctrine that included cosmology with theory of evolution in an understanding of humanity’s spiritual development.[335] Further, it took the traditional sources of Western esotericism and globalized them by restating many of their ideas in terminology adopted from Asian religions.[335] Blavatsky’s Theosophy was able to appeal to women by de-emphasizing the importance of gender and allowing them to take on spiritual leadership equal to that of men, thus allowing them a greater role than that permitted in traditional Christianity.[336]

Since its inception, and through doctrinal assimilation or divergence, Theosophy has also given rise to or influenced the development of other mystical, philosophical, and religious movements.[337] During the 1920s the Theosophical Society Adyar had around 7,000 members in the U.S.[338] There also was a substantial following in Asia. According to a Theosophical source, the Indian section in 2008 was said to have around 13,000 members while in the US the 2008 membership was reported at around 3,900.[339]

Western esotericism

Blavatsky’s Theosophy has been described as representing “a major factor in the modern revival” of Western esotericism.[340] Godwin deemed there to be “no more important figure in modern times” within the Western esoteric tradition than Blavatsky.[244] For Johnson, Blavatsky was “a central figure in the nineteenth-century occult revival”.[341] Lachman claimed that “practically all modern occultism and esotericism” can trace its origins back to her influence.[342] Blavatsky’s published Theosophical ideas, particularly those regarding Root Races, have been cited as an influence on Ariosophy, the esoteric movement established in late 19th- and early 20th-century Germany and Austria by Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels.[343][344] Hannah Newman stated that via Ariosophy, Blavatsky’s Theosophical ideas “contributed to Nazi ideology”.[345] Nevertheless, Lachman has asserted that Blavatsky should not be held accountable to any of the antisemitic and racist ideas that the Ariosophists promoted, commenting that were she alive to witness the development of Ariosophy she probably would have denounced its ideas regarding race.[346] Blavatsky’s Theosophical ideas regarding Root Races have also been cited as an influence on Anthroposophy, the esoteric movement developed by Rudolf Steiner in early 20th-century Germany,[347] with Steiner’s Anthroposophical Society being termed a “historical offshoot” of the Theosophical Society.[348]

Blavatsky’s Theosophy has been cited as an influence on the New Age Movement, an esoteric current that emerged in Western nations during the 1970s.[349] “No single organization or movement has contributed so many components to the New Age Movement as the Theosophical Society. … It has been the major force in the dissemination of occult literature in the West in the twentieth century.”[350][b] Other organizations loosely based on Theosophical texts and doctrines include the Agni Yoga, and a group of religions based on Theosophy called the Ascended Master Teachings: the “I AM” Activity, The Bridge to Freedom, Universal Medicine and The Summit Lighthouse, which evolved into the Church Universal and Triumphant.[352]

Linguistics

American scholar of religion Jason Josephson-Storm has argued that Blavatsky and her Theosophical Society influenced late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century academic linguistics. Josephson-Storm notes that Blavatsky’s linguistic theories and typologies were widely circulated in Europe, and that influential linguists such as Émile-Louis Burnouf and Benjamin Lee Whorf either practiced Theosophy as promoted by the Theosophical Society or publicly defended its doctrines.[353] Ferdinand de Saussure is also known to have attended séances and wrote a lengthy analysis of the Theosophical claims about linguistics and India, “la théosophie brahmanique (Brahamanic Theosophy)” while delivering his Cours de linguistique générale.[354]

South Asian religion and politics

Hutton suggested that Blavatsky had a greater impact in Asia than in the Western world.[281] Blavatsky has been cited as having inspired Hindus to respect their own religious roots.[355] The Theosophical Society influenced the growth of Indian national consciousness, with prominent figures in the Indian independence movement, among them Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, being inspired by Theosophy to study their own national heritage.[356] The Theosophical Society had a major influence on Buddhist modernism and Hindu reform movements,[357] while Blavatsky and Olcott took part in Anagarika Dharmapala’s revival of Theravada Buddhism in Ceylon.[358][359]

Meade stated that “more than any other single individual”, Blavatsky was responsible for bringing a knowledge of Eastern religion and philosophy to the West.[355] Blavatsky believed that Indian religion offered answers to problems then facing Westerners; in particular, she believed that Indian religion contained an evolutionary cosmology which complemented Darwinian evolutionary theory, and that the Indian doctrine of reincarnation met many of the moral qualms surrounding vicarious atonement and eternal damnation that preoccupied 19th-century Westerners.[360] In doing so, Meade believed that Blavatsky paved the way for the emergence of later movements such as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Transcendental Meditation movement, Zen Buddhism, and yoga in the West.[355] Hutton believed that the two greatest achievements of Blavatsky’s movement were in popularizing belief in reincarnation and in a singular divine world soul within the West.[361]

Blavatsky “both incorporated a number of the doctrines of eastern religions into her occultism, and interpreted eastern religions in the light of her occultism”, in doing so extending a view of the “mystical East” that had already been popularized through Romanticist poetry.[362] Max Müller scathingly criticized Blavatsky’s Esoteric Buddhism. Whilst he was willing to give her credit for good motives, at least at the beginning of her career, in his view she ceased to be truthful both to herself and to others with her later “hysterical writings and performances”. There is a nothing esoteric or secretive in Buddhism, he wrote, in fact the very opposite. “Whatever was esoteric was ipso facto not Buddha’s teaching; whatever was Buddha’s teaching was ipso facto not esoteric”.[363][c] Blavatsky, it seemed to Müller, “was either deceived by others or carried away by her own imaginations.”[364] Blavatsky responded to those academic specialists in Indian religion who accused her of misrepresenting it by claiming that they understood only the exoteric nature of Hinduism and Buddhism and not the inner esoteric secrets of these faiths, which she traced back to the ancient Vedas.[365]

Arthur Conan Doyle

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Sir

Arthur Conan Doyle

KStJ DL

Arthur Conan Doyle in June 1914

Arthur Conan Doyle in June 1914

Born      Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

22 May 1859

Edinburgh, Scotland

Died       7 July 1930 (aged 71)

Crowborough, England

Occupation        

Writerphysician

Education            University of Edinburgh

Genre   

Detective fictionfantasyscience fictionhistorical novelsnon-fiction

Notable works  

Stories of Sherlock Holmes

The Lost World

Spouse 

Louisa Hawkins

​

​(m. 1885; died 1906)​

Jean Leckie ​(m. 1907)​

Children               5 (including Adrian and Jean)

Signature            

Website

http://www.conandoyleestate.com

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KStJ DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction.

Doyle was a prolific writer; other than Holmes stories, his works include fantasy and science fiction stories about Professor Challenger and humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels. One of Doyle’s early short stories, “J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement” (1884), helped to popularise the mystery of the Mary Celeste.

Contents

1             Name

2             Early life

3             Medical career

4             Literary career

4.1         Sherlock Holmes

4.2         Other works

5             Sporting career

6             Family life

7             Political campaigning

8             Justice advocate

9             Freemasonry and spiritualism

10           Doyle and the Piltdown Hoax

11           Architecture

12           Honours and awards

13           Death

14           Portrayals

14.1       Television series

14.2       Television films

14.3       Theatrical films

14.4       Other media

15           In fiction

16           See also

17           References

18           Further reading

19           External links

Name

Doyle is often referred to as “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle” or “Conan Doyle”, implying that “Conan” is part of a compound surname rather than a middle name. His baptism entry in the register of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, gives “Arthur Ignatius Conan” as his given names and “Doyle” as his surname. It also names Michael Conan as his godfather.[1] The catalogues of the British Library and the Library of Congress treat “Doyle” alone as his surname.[2]

Steven Doyle, editor of The Baker Street Journal, wrote: “Conan was Arthur’s middle name. Shortly after he graduated from high school he began using Conan as a sort of surname. But technically his last name is simply ‘Doyle’.”[3] When knighted, he was gazetted as Doyle, not under the compound Conan Doyle.[4]

Early life

Portrait of Doyle by Herbert Rose Barraud, 1893

Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland.[5][6] His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, was born in England, of Irish Catholic descent, and his mother, Mary (née Foley), was Irish Catholic. His parents married in 1855.[7] In 1864 the family scattered because of Charles’s growing alcoholism, and the children were temporarily housed across Edinburgh. Arthur lodged with Mary Burton, the aunt of a friend, at Liberton Bank House on Gilmerton Road, while studying at Newington Academy.[8]

In 1867, the family came together again and lived in squalid tenement flats at 3 Sciennes Place.[9] Doyle’s father died in 1893, in the Crichton Royal, Dumfries, after many years of psychiatric illness.[10][11] Beginning at an early age, throughout his life Doyle wrote letters to his mother, and many of them were preserved.[12]

Supported by wealthy uncles, Doyle was sent to England, to the Jesuit preparatory school Hodder Place, Stonyhurst in Lancashire at the age of nine (1868–70). He then went on to Stonyhurst College, which he attended until 1875. While Doyle was not unhappy at Stonyhurst, he said he did not have any fond memories of it because the school was run on medieval principles: the only subjects covered were rudiments, rhetoric, Euclidean geometry, algebra and the classics.[13] Doyle commented later in his life that this academic system could only be excused “on the plea that any exercise, however stupid in itself, forms a sort of mental dumbbell by which one can improve one’s mind.”[13] He also found the school harsh, noting that, instead of compassion and warmth, it favoured the threat of corporal punishment and ritual humiliation.[14]

From 1875 to 1876, he was educated at the Jesuit school Stella Matutina in Feldkirch, Austria.[9] His family decided that he would spend a year there in order to perfect his German and broaden his academic horizons.[15] He later rejected the Catholic faith and became an agnostic.[16] One source attributed his drift away from religion to the time he spent in the less strict Austrian school.[14] He also later became a spiritualist mystic.[17]

Medical career

From 1876 to 1881, Doyle studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School; during this period he spent time working in Aston (then a town in Warwickshire, now part of Birmingham), Sheffield and Ruyton-XI-Towns, Shropshire.[18] Also during this period, he studied practical botany at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.[19] While studying, Doyle began writing short stories. His earliest extant fiction, “The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe”, was unsuccessfully submitted to Blackwood’s Magazine.[9] His first published piece, “The Mystery of Sasassa Valley”, a story set in South Africa, was printed in Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal on 6 September 1879.[9][20] On 20 September 1879, he published his first academic article, “Gelsemium as a Poison” in the British Medical Journal,[9][21][22] a study which The Daily Telegraph regarded as potentially useful in a 21st-century murder investigation.[23]

Professor Challenger by Harry Rountree in the novella The Poison Belt published in The Strand Magazine

Doyle was the doctor on the Greenland whaler Hope of Peterhead in 1880.[24] On 11 July 1880, John Gray’s Hope and David Gray’s Eclipse met up with the Eira and Leigh Smith. The photographer W.J.A. Grant took a photograph aboard the Eira of Doyle along with Smith, the Gray brothers, and ship’s surgeon William Neale, who were members of the Smith expedition. That expedition explored Franz Josef Land, and led to the naming, on 18 August, of Cape Flora, Bell Island, Nightingale Sound, Gratton (“Uncle Joe”) Island, and Mabel Island.[25]

After graduating with Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery (M.B. C.M.) degrees from the University of Edinburgh in 1881, he was ship’s surgeon on the SS Mayumba during a voyage to the West African coast.[9] He completed his Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree (an advanced degree beyond the basic medical qualification in the UK) with a dissertation on tabes dorsalis in 1885.[26]

In 1882, Doyle partnered with his former classmate George Turnavine Budd in a medical practice in Plymouth, but their relationship proved difficult, and Doyle soon left to set up an independent practice.[9][27] Arriving in Portsmouth in June 1882, with less than £10 (£1100 in 2019[28]) to his name, he set up a medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea.[29] The practice was not successful. While waiting for patients, Doyle returned to writing fiction.

Doyle was a staunch supporter of compulsory vaccination and wrote several articles advocating the practice and denouncing the views of anti-vaccinators.[30][31]

In early 1891, Doyle embarked on the study of ophthalmology in Vienna. He had previously studied at the Portsmouth Eye Hospital in order to qualify to perform eye tests and prescribe glasses. Vienna had been suggested by his friend Vernon Morris as a place to spend six months and train to be an eye surgeon. But Doyle found it too difficult to understand the German medical terms being used in his classes in Vienna, and soon quit his studies there. For the rest of his two-month stay in Vienna, he pursued other activities, such as ice skating with his wife Louisa and drinking with Brinsley Richards of the London Times. He also wrote The Doings of Raffles Haw.

After visiting Venice and Milan, he spent a few days in Paris observing Edmund Landolt, an expert on diseases of the eye. Within three months of his departure for Vienna, Doyle returned to London. He opened a small office and consulting room at 2 Upper Wimpole Street, or 2 Devonshire Place as it was then. (There is today a Westminster City Council commemorative plaque over the front door.) He had no patients, according to his autobiography, and his efforts as an ophthalmologist were a failure.[32][33][34]

Literary career

Main article: Arthur Conan Doyle bibliography

Sherlock Holmes

Portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget, 1904

Doyle struggled to find a publisher. His first work featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, A Study in Scarlet, was written in three weeks when he was 27 and was accepted for publication by Ward Lock & Co on 20 November 1886, which gave Doyle £25 (equivalent to £2,900 in 2019) in exchange for all rights to the story. The piece appeared a year later in the Beeton’s Christmas Annual and received good reviews in The Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald.[9]

Holmes was partially modelled on Doyle’s former university teacher Joseph Bell. In 1892, in a letter to Bell, Doyle wrote, “It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes … round the centre of deduction and inference and observation which I have heard you inculcate I have tried to build up a man”,[35] and in his 1924 autobiography, he remarked, “It is no wonder that after the study of such a character [viz., Bell] I used and amplified his methods when in later life I tried to build up a scientific detective who solved cases on his own merits and not through the folly of the criminal.”[36] Robert Louis Stevenson was able to recognise the strong similarity between Joseph Bell and Sherlock Holmes: “My compliments on your very ingenious and very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes. … can this be my old friend Joe Bell?”[37] Other authors sometimes suggest additional influences—for instance, Edgar Allan Poe’s character C. Auguste Dupin.[38] Dr. (John) Watson owes his surname, but not any other obvious characteristic, to a Portsmouth medical colleague of Doyle’s, Dr. James Watson.[39]

Sherlock Holmes statue in Edinburgh, erected opposite the birthplace of Doyle, which was demolished c. 1970

A sequel to A Study in Scarlet was commissioned, and The Sign of the Four appeared in Lippincott’s Magazine in February 1890, under agreement with the Ward Lock company. Doyle felt grievously exploited by Ward Lock as an author new to the publishing world, and so, after this, he left them.[9] Short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes were published in the Strand Magazine. Doyle wrote the first five Holmes short stories from his office at 2 Upper Wimpole Street (then known as Devonshire Place), which is now marked by a memorial plaque.[40]

Doyle’s attitude towards his most famous creation was ambivalent.[39] In November 1891, he wrote to his mother: “I think of slaying Holmes, … and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things.” His mother responded, “You won’t! You can’t! You mustn’t!”[41] In an attempt to deflect publishers’ demands for more Holmes stories, he raised his price to a level intended to discourage them, but found they were willing to pay even the large sums he asked.[39] As a result, he became one of the best-paid authors of his time.

Statue of Holmes and the English Church in Meiringen

In December 1893, to dedicate more of his time to his historical novels, Doyle had Holmes and Professor Moriarty plunge to their deaths together down the Reichenbach Falls in the story “The Final Problem”. Public outcry, however, led him to feature Holmes in 1901 in the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. Holmes’ fictional connection with the Reichenbach Falls is celebrated in the nearby town of Meiringen.

In 1903, Doyle published his first Holmes short story in ten years, “The Adventure of the Empty House”, in which it was explained that only Moriarty had fallen, but since Holmes had other dangerous enemies—especially Colonel Sebastian Moran—he had arranged to make it look as if he too were dead. Holmes was ultimately featured in a total of 56 short stories—the last published in 1927—and four novels by Doyle, and has since appeared in many novels and stories by other authors.

Jane Stanford compares some of Moriarty’s characteristics to those of the Fenian John O’Connor Power. “The Final Problem” was published the year the Second Home Rule Bill passed through the House of Commons. “The Valley of Fear” was serialised in 1914, the year Home Rule, the Government of Ireland Act (18 September) was placed on the Statute Book.[42]

Other works

Doyle’s house in South Norwood

Doyle’s first novels were The Mystery of Cloomber, not published until 1888, and the unfinished Narrative of John Smith, published only posthumously, in 2011.[43] He amassed a portfolio of short stories, including “The Captain of the Pole-Star” and “J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement”, both inspired by Doyle’s time at sea. The latter popularised the mystery of the Mary Celeste[44] and added fictional details such as that the ship was found in perfect condition (it had actually taken on water by the time it was discovered), and that its boats remained on board (the single boat was in fact missing). These fictional details have come to dominate popular accounts of the incident,[9][44] and Doyle’s alternate spelling of the ship’s name as the Marie Celeste has become more commonly used than the original spelling.[45]

Between 1888 and 1906, Doyle wrote seven historical novels, which he and many critics regarded as his best work.[39] He also wrote nine other novels, and—later in his career (1912–29)—five narratives (two of novel length) featuring the irascible scientist Professor Challenger. The Challenger stories include his best-known work after the Holmes oeuvre, The Lost World. His historical novels include The White Company and its prequel Sir Nigel, set in the Middle Ages. He was a prolific author of short stories, including two collections set in Napoleonic times and featuring the French character Brigadier Gerard.

Doyle’s works for the stage include: Waterloo, which centres on the reminiscences of an English veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and features a character Gregory Brewster, written for Henry Irving; The House of Temperley, the plot of which reflects his abiding interest in boxing; The Speckled Band, adapted from his earlier short story “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”; and an 1893 collaboration with J. M. Barrie on the libretto of Jane Annie.[46]

Sporting career

While living in Southsea, the seaside resort of Portsmouth, Doyle played football as a goalkeeper for Portsmouth Association Football Club, an amateur side, under the pseudonym A. C. Smith.[47]

Doyle was a keen cricketer, and between 1899 and 1907 he played 10 first-class matches for the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).[48] He also played for the amateur cricket teams the Allahakbarries and the Authors XI alongside fellow writers J. M. Barrie, P. G. Wodehouse and A. A. Milne.[49][50] His highest score, in 1902 against London County, was 43. He was an occasional bowler who took one first-class wicket, W. G. Grace, and wrote a poem about the achievement.[51]

In 1901, Doyle was one of three judges for the world’s first major bodybuilding competition, which was organized by the “Father of Bodybuilding”, Eugen Sandow. The event was held in London’s Royal Albert Hall. The other two judges were the sculptor Sir Charles Lawes-Wittewronge and Eugen Sandow himself.[52]

Doyle was an amateur boxer.[53] In 1909, he was invited to referee the James Jeffries–Jack Johnson heavyweight championship fight in Reno, Nevada. Doyle wrote: “I was much inclined to accept … though my friends pictured me as winding up with a revolver at one ear and a razor at the other. However, the distance and my engagements presented a final bar.”[53]

Also a keen golfer, Doyle was elected captain of the Crowborough Beacon Golf Club in Sussex for 1910. He had moved to Little Windlesham house in Crowborough with Jean Leckie, his second wife, and resided there with his family from 1907 until his death in July 1930.[54]

He entered the English Amateur billiards championship in 1913.[55]

Family life

Doyle with his family c. 1923–1925

Arthur Conan Doyle by George Wylie Hutchinson, 1894

In 1885 Doyle married Louisa (sometimes called “Touie”) Hawkins (1857–1906). She was the youngest daughter of J. Hawkins, of Minsterworth, Gloucestershire, and the sister of one of Doyle’s patients. Louisa suffered from tuberculosis.[56] In 1907, the year after Louisa’s death, he married Jean Elizabeth Leckie (1874–1940). He had met and fallen in love with Jean in 1897, but had maintained a platonic relationship with her while his first wife was still alive, out of loyalty to her.[57] Jean outlived him by ten years, and died in London.[58]

Doyle fathered five children. He had two with his first wife: Mary Louise (1889–1976) and Arthur Alleyne Kingsley, known as Kingsley (1892–1918). He had an additional three with his second wife: Denis Percy Stewart (1909–1955), who became the second husband of Georgian Princess Nina Mdivani; Adrian Malcolm (1910–1970); and Jean Lena Annette (1912–1997).[59] All of Doyle’s five children died without issue, so he has no living direct descendants.[60][61]

Political campaigning

Doyle served as a volunteer doctor in the Langman Field Hospital at Bloemfontein between March and June 1900,[62] during the Second Boer War in South Africa (1899–1902). Later that same year, he wrote a book on the war, The Great Boer War, as well as a short work titled The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct, in which he responded to critics of the United Kingdom’s role in that war, and argued that its role was justified. The latter work was widely translated, and Doyle believed it was the reason he was knighted (given the rank of Knight Bachelor) by King Edward VII in the 1902 Coronation Honours.[63] (He received the accolade from the King in person at Buckingham Palace on 24 October of that year.)[64]

He stood for Parliament twice as a Liberal Unionist: in 1900 in Edinburgh Central; and in 1906 in the Hawick Burghs. He received a respectable share of the vote, but was not elected.[65] He served as a Deputy-Lieutenant of Surrey beginning in 1902,[66] and was appointed a Knight of Grace of the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem in 1903.[67]

Doyle was a supporter of the campaign for the reform of the Congo Free State that was led by the journalist E. D. Morel and diplomat Roger Casement. In 1909 he wrote The Crime of the Congo, a long pamphlet in which he denounced the horrors of that colony. He became acquainted with Morel and Casement, and it is possible that, together with Bertram Fletcher Robinson, they inspired several characters that appear in his 1912 novel The Lost World.[68] Later, after the Easter Rising, Casement was found guilty of treason against the Crown, and was sentenced to death. Doyle tried, unsuccessfully, to save him, arguing that Casement had been driven mad, and therefore should not be held responsible for his actions.[69]

As the First World War loomed, and having been caught up in a growing public swell of Germanophobia, Doyle gave a public donation of 10 shillings to the anti-immigration British Brothers’ League.[70]

Justice advocate

Doyle statue in Crowborough, East Sussex

Doyle was also a fervent advocate of justice and personally investigated two closed cases, which led to two men being exonerated of the crimes of which they were accused. The first case, in 1906, involved a shy half-British, half-Indian lawyer named George Edalji, who had allegedly penned threatening letters and mutilated animals in Great Wyrley. Police were set on Edalji’s conviction, even though the mutilations continued after their suspect was jailed.[71] Apart from helping George Edalji, Doyle’s work helped establish a way to correct other miscarriages of justice, as it was partially as a result of this case that the Court of Criminal Appeal was established in 1907.[72]

The story of Doyle and Edalji was dramatised in an episode of the 1972 BBC television series, The Edwardians. In Nicholas Meyer’s pastiche The West End Horror (1976), Holmes manages to help clear the name of a shy Parsi Indian character wronged by the English justice system. Edalji was of Parsi heritage on his father’s side. The story was fictionalised in Julian Barnes’s 2005 novel Arthur and George, which was adapted into a three-part drama by ITV in 2015.

The second case, that of Oscar Slater—a Jew of German origin who operated a gambling den and was convicted of bludgeoning an 82-year-old woman in Glasgow in 1908—excited Doyle’s curiosity because of inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case and a general sense that Slater was not guilty. He ended up paying most of the costs for Slater’s successful 1928 appeal.[73]

Freemasonry and spiritualism

Doyle had a longstanding interest in mystical subjects and remained fascinated by the idea of paranormal phenomena, even though the strength of his belief in their reality waxed and waned periodically over the years.

In 1887, in Southsea, influenced by Major-General Alfred Wilks Drayson, a member of the Portsmouth Literary and Philosophical Society, Doyle began a series of investigations into the possibility of psychic phenomena and attended about 20 seances, experiments in telepathy, and sittings with mediums. Writing to spiritualist journal Light that year, he declared himself to be a spiritualist, describing one particular event that had convinced him psychic phenomena were real.[74] Also in 1887 (on 26 January), he was initiated as a Freemason at the Phoenix Lodge No. 257 in Southsea. (He resigned from the Lodge in 1889, returned to it in 1902, and resigned again in 1911.)[75]

In 1889, he became a founding member of the Hampshire Society for Psychical Research; in 1893, he joined the London-based Society for Psychical Research; and in 1894, he collaborated with Sir Sidney Scott and Frank Podmore in a search for poltergeists in Devon.[76]

Doyle and the spiritualist William Thomas Stead (before the latter was lost in the sinking of the Titanic) were led to believe that Julius and Agnes Zancig had genuine psychic powers, and they claimed publicly that the Zancigs used telepathy. However, in 1924, the Zancigs confessed that their mind reading act had been a trick; they published the secret code and all other details of the trick method they had used under the title “Our Secrets!!” in a London newspaper.[77] Doyle also praised the psychic phenomena and spirit materializations that he believed had been produced by Eusapia Palladino and Mina Crandon, both of whom were also later exposed as frauds.[78]

In 1916, at the height of the First World War, Doyle’s belief in psychic phenomena was strengthened by what he took to be the psychic abilities of his children’s nanny, Lily Loder Symonds.[79] This and the constant drumbeat of wartime deaths inspired him with the idea that spiritualism was what he called a “New Revelation”[80] sent by God to bring solace to the bereaved. He wrote a piece in Light magazine about his faith and began lecturing frequently on spiritualism. In 1918, he published his first spiritualist work, The New Revelation.

Some have mistakenly assumed that Doyle’s turn to spiritualism was prompted by the death of his son Kingsley, but Doyle began presenting himself publicly as a spiritualist in 1916, and Kingsley died on 28 October 1918 (from pneumonia contracted during his convalescence after being seriously wounded in the 1916 Battle of the Somme).[80] Nevertheless, the war-related deaths of many people who were close to him appears to have even further strengthened his long-held belief in life after death and spirit communication. Doyle’s brother Brigadier-general Innes Doyle died, also from pneumonia, in February 1919. His two brothers-in-law (one of whom was E. W. Hornung, creator of the literary character Raffles), as well as his two nephews, also died shortly after the war. His second book on spiritualism, The Vital Message, appeared in 1919.

Doyle found solace in supporting spiritualism’s ideas and the attempts of spiritualists to find proof of an existence beyond the grave. In particular, according to some,[81] he favoured Christian Spiritualism and encouraged the Spiritualists’ National Union to accept an eighth precept – that of following the teachings and example of Jesus of Nazareth. He was a member of the renowned supernaturalist organisation The Ghost Club.[82]

Doyle with his family in New York City, 1922

In 1919, the magician P. T. Selbit staged a séance at his flat in Bloomsbury, which Doyle attended. Although some later claimed that Doyle had endorsed the apparent instances of clairvoyance at that séance as genuine,[83][84] a contemporaneous report by the Sunday Express quoted Doyle as saying “I should have to see it again before passing a definite opinion on it” and “I have my doubts about the whole thing”.[85] In 1920, Doyle and the noted sceptic Joseph McCabe held a public debate at Queen’s Hall in London, with Doyle taking the position that the claims of spiritualism were true. After the debate, McCabe published a booklet Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud?, in which he laid out evidence refuting Doyle’s arguments and claimed that Doyle had been duped into believing in spiritualism through deliberate mediumship trickery.[86]

Doyle also debated the psychiatrist Harold Dearden, who vehemently disagreed with Doyle’s belief that many cases of diagnosed mental illness were the result of spirit possession.[87]

In 1920, Doyle travelled to Australia and New Zealand on spiritualist missionary work, and over the next several years, until his death, he continued his mission, giving talks about his spiritualist conviction in Britain, Europe, and the United States.[76]

One of the five photographs of Frances Griffiths with the alleged fairies, taken by Elsie Wright in July 1917

Doyle wrote a novel The Land of Mist centered on spiritualist themes and featuring the character Professor Challenger. He also wrote many non-fiction spiritualist works. Perhaps his most famous of these was The Coming of the Fairies (1922),[88] in which Doyle described his beliefs about the nature and existence of fairies and spirits, reproduced the five Cottingley Fairies photographs, asserted that those who suspected them being faked were wrong, and expressed his conviction that they were authentic. Decades later, the photos were definitively shown to have been faked, and their creators admitted to the fakery.

Doyle was friends for a time with the American magician Harry Houdini. Even though Houdini explained that his feats were based on illusion and trickery, Doyle was convinced that Houdini had supernatural powers and said as much in his work The Edge of the Unknown. Houdini’s friend Bernard M. L. Ernst recounted a time when Houdini had performed an impressive trick at his home in Doyle’s presence. Houdini had assured Doyle that the trick was pure illusion and had expressed the hope that this demonstration would persuade Doyle not to go around “endorsing phenomena” simply because he could think of no explanation for what he had seen other than supernatural power. However, according to Ernst, Doyle simply refused to believe that it had been a trick.[89] Houdini became a prominent opponent of the spiritualist movement in the 1920s, after the death of his beloved mother. He insisted that spiritualist mediums employed trickery, and consistently exposed them as frauds. These differences between Houdini and Doyle eventually led to a bitter, public falling-out between them.[90]

In 1922, the psychical researcher Harry Price accused the “spirit photographer” William Hope of fraud. Doyle defended Hope, but further evidence of trickery was obtained from other researchers.[91] Doyle threatened to have Price evicted from the National Laboratory of Psychical Research and predicted that, if he persisted in writing what he called “sewage” about spiritualists, he would meet the same fate as Harry Houdini.[92] Price wrote: “Arthur Conan Doyle and his friends abused me for years for exposing Hope.”[93] In response to the exposure of frauds that had been perpetrated by Hope and other spiritualists, Doyle led 84 members of the Society for Psychical Research to resign in protest from the society on the ground that they believed it was opposed to spiritualism.[94]

Doyle’s two-volume book The History of Spiritualism was published in 1926. W. Leslie Curnow, a spiritualist, contributed much research to the book.[95][96] Later that year, Robert John Tillyard wrote a predominantly supportive review of it in the journal Nature.[97] This review provoked controversy: Several other critics, notably A. A. Campbell Swinton, pointed out the evidence of fraud in mediumship, as well as Doyle’s non-scientific approach to the subject.[98][99][100] In 1927, Doyle gave a filmed interview, in which he spoke about Sherlock Holmes and spiritualism.[101]

Doyle and the Piltdown Hoax

Richard Milner, an American historian of science, has presented a case that Doyle may have been the perpetrator of the Piltdown Man hoax of 1912, creating the counterfeit hominid fossil that fooled the scientific world for over 40 years. Milner noted that Doyle had a plausible motive—namely, revenge on the scientific establishment for debunking one of his favourite psychics—and said that The Lost World appeared to contain several clues referring cryptically to his having been involved in the hoax.[102][103] Samuel Rosenberg’s 1974 book Naked is the Best Disguise purports to explain how, throughout his writings, Doyle had provided overt clues to otherwise hidden or suppressed aspects of his way of thinking that seemed to support the idea that Doyle would be involved in such a hoax.[104]

However, more recent research suggests that Doyle was not involved. In 2016, researchers at the Natural History Museum and Liverpool John Moores University analyzed DNA evidence showing that responsibility for the hoax lay with the amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson, who had originally “found” the remains. He had initially not been considered the likely perpetrator, because the hoax was seen as being too elaborate for him to have devised. However, the DNA evidence showed that a supposedly ancient tooth he had “discovered” in 1915 (at a different site) came from the same jaw as that of the Piltdown Man, suggesting that he had planted them both. That tooth, too, was later proven to have been planted as part of a hoax.[105]

Dr Chris Stringer, an anthropologist from the Natural History Museum, was quoted as saying: “Conan Doyle was known to play golf at the Piltdown site and had even given Dawson a lift in his car to the area, but he was a public man and very busy[,] and it is very unlikely that he would have had the time [to create the hoax]. So there are some coincidences, but I think they are just coincidences. When you look at the fossil evidence[,] you can only associate Dawson with all the finds, and Dawson was known to be personally ambitious. He wanted professional recognition. He wanted to be a member of the Royal Society and he was after an MBE [sic[106]]. He wanted people to stop seeing him as an amateur”.[107]

Architecture

Façade of Undershaw with Doyle’s children, Mary and Kingsley, on the drive

Another of Doyle’s longstanding interests was architectural design. In 1895, when he commissioned an architect friend of his, Joseph Henry Ball, to build him a home, he played an active part in the design process.[108][109] The home in which he lived from October 1897 to September 1907, known as Undershaw (near Hindhead, in Surrey),[110] was used as a hotel and restaurant from 1924 until 2004, when it was bought by a developer and then stood empty while conservationists and Doyle fans fought to preserve it.[56] In 2012, the High Court in London ruled in favor of those seeking to preserve the historic building, ordering that the redevelopment permission be quashed on the ground that it had not been obtained through proper procedures.[111] The building was later approved to become part of Stepping Stones, a school for children with disabilities and special needs.

Doyle made his most ambitious foray into architecture in March 1912, while he was staying at the Lyndhurst Grand Hotel: He sketched the original designs for a third-storey extension and for an alteration of the front facade of the building.[112] Work began later that year, and when it was finished, the building was a nearly exact manifestation of the plans Doyle had sketched. Superficial alterations have been subsequently made, but the essential structure is still clearly Doyle’s.[113]

In 1914, on a family trip to the Jasper National Park in Canada, he designed a golf course and ancillary buildings for a hotel. The plans were realised in full, but neither the golf course nor the buildings have survived.[114]

In 1926, Doyle laid the foundation stone for a Spiritualist Temple in Camden, London. Of the building’s total £600 construction costs, he provided £500.[115]

Honours and awards

Knight-Bachelor.ribbon.png Knight Bachelor (1902)[4]

Order of St John (UK) ribbon -vector.svg Knight of Grace of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (1903)

Queens South Africa Medal BAR.svg Queen’s South Africa Medal (1901)

Cavaliere OCI BAR.svg Knight of the Order of the Crown of Italy (1895)

Order of the Medjidie lenta.png Order of the Medjidie – 2nd Class (Ottoman Empire) (1907)

Death

Doyle’s grave at Minstead in Hampshire

Doyle in 1930, the year of his death, with his son Adrian

Doyle was found clutching his chest in the hall of Windlesham Manor, his house in Crowborough, East Sussex, on 7 July 1930. He died of a heart attack at the age of 71. His last words were directed toward his wife: “You are wonderful.”[116] At the time of his death, there was some controversy concerning his burial place, as he was avowedly not a Christian, considering himself a Spiritualist. He was first buried on 11 July 1930 in Windlesham rose garden.

He was later reinterred together with his wife in Minstead churchyard in the New Forest, Hampshire.[9] Carved wooden tablets to his memory and to the memory of his wife, originally from the church at Minstead, are on display as part of a Sherlock Holmes exhibition at Portsmouth Museum.[117][118] The epitaph on his gravestone in the churchyard reads, in part: “Steel true/Blade straight/Arthur Conan Doyle/Knight/Patriot, Physician and man of letters”.[119]

A statue honours Doyle at Crowborough Cross in Crowborough, where he lived for 23 years.[120] There is a statue of Sherlock Holmes in Picardy Place, Edinburgh, close to the house where Doyle was born.[121]

Portrayals

George Heath

George Heath was born in Gratton near Leek in the Staffordshire Moorlands, following his education in the village school he worked on his Father’s Farm and later was apprenticed as a builder. It was around this time that he decided to become a poet with his early verses being written in 1863. It was whilst he was working on the church in the next village of Horton that he caught a chill which developed into consumption.

His illness prevented him from working and so he turned his mind to his studies and writing. His first collection, a slim volume of poems was published in 1865 entitled Simple Poems, this was followed a year later with his second volume Heart Strains. His condition deteriorated and he suffered an early death in 1869 age 25; he was buried in Horton Churchyard, the place where he had first caught the chill that brought on his early death.

Memorial collections were published following his death. Including his poem to Rudyard – the lake that became a place of leisure for the Victorians.

His life as a poet had lasted six short years, his poems mostly written through his illness, his words the expression of a dying man. Filled with failed ambition and loss. The themes expressed his obsession with death and his frustrations that he would not live long enough to complete his poetic journey, that his works would be forgotten and he along with them.

His poem – Inscription on a Rude Stone, reflects his melancholy – lines of which were etched on his gravestone.

INSCRIPTION ON A RUDE STONE

A quiet youth in the valleys grew,

And thought o’er his being a mantle threw,

And dawned on his spirit a meaning new,

And he dreamed of a mission great and true;

But God, in His infinite wisdom, drew

A severing finger his projects through.

His life is a fragment—a broken clue—

His harp had a musical string or two,

The tension was great, and they sprang and flew,

And a few brief strains—a scattered few—

Are all that remain to mortal view

Of the marvellous song the young man knew.

O, ye who have feeling! a tear from you!

Rest, saddest of singers, in peace—adieu!

Links to pages for George Heath and his poetry.

http://www.georgeheath.bravehost.com/

http://www3.shropshire-cc.gov.uk/heath.htm

I struggle with contemporary war poetry. It either seems like imagined images from a distance, or trite nonsense. Jack Henry, the American Poet, has written the best contemporary war poem I have read for some time:

a short Vietnamese lady chats me up

as she cleans my feet,

trims the nails,

finally asks if i want a polish

.i say number 88,

she smiles and says,i like that one too.

we talk about her childhood

in Da Nang province and growing up in a small village

with brothers and sisters,

many cousins, many aunts.

she expresses sorrow about Afghanistan

and i say nothing,

the old, white middle-classed male

frozen in place.

fingers too?

and i smile, faintly,

suddenlyaware of my place,

my ownmortality.

number 88?

very pretty.

Karen’s and various womenstare briefly

the giant man with sparkly blood red finger- and toenails

an anomaly in any situation, shuffles out the front door.

i sit at home, watch Afghanistan collapse,

watch men, women, and children fleefor their lives,

watch people fall to their deaths

from the sides of American transport planes.from under my sink i retrieve a bottle ofnail polish remover,

lock the front door,

watch ghosts hover nearby,

as the imageson my television

never change.

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This is a rough, and not for public consumption

The Last Witch Screenplay

It was as if the child had been launched by a giant catapult, tumbling slowly mid-air, a blur of flailing arms, legs and clothes. Jaws dropped, hands covered mouths, heads turned, following the inevitable downward trajectory. A dull thud signalled the end. Followed by an eerie silence. Pierced by a banshee scream and dozens of voices, yells, cries and shouts.
Helen gripped the hand of her little brother Donald tightly, as he whispered:
“You said that was going to happen.”
“I know, I know.”
Came the plaintiff reply.

The wooden table creaked as eight children fought over a tea of bread and jam sandwiches. Archie returned from the early shift at the factory to find the customary bedlam as his children fought, squabbled and ate. His routine was unshakable, a kiss for his wife, then he cleaned and carefully put away his tools. First his slater’s hammer, forged in a single piece, the twelve inch shaft encased in leather handle, its claw for drawing nails, its sheer edge for cutting slate Aa head with a sharp point at one end for punching holes in slate, and a hammer head at the other. Then the Rip, Stake and Zax. Everyone knew that on no account was his tool box ever to be opened, or played with. They were his livelihood, they were their livelihood. The tools of a master slater.

He had to raise his voice to make himself heard to his wife, Isabella.
“ I hear our Nell’s been making a name for herself again.”
“ I don’t know who you have been listening to, but she saved our Jimmy. It was Nell who told him to get off that swing. No sooner had that poor little boy from No 11 taken his place than the anchors on the cross bar gave way and he flew through the air before falling to the ground, knocked unconscious”
Archie straightened his waistcoat , and reflected. It had been only last week that he had been summonsed by Nells class teacher, Miss Carmichael who was very concerned about her pupil. She told her father the story of what had happened the day before. She had written questions on the blackboard for her pupils to write the answers on their slates. Helen had written the numbers of the questions down only, but the rest of the slate was conspicuously empty as Miss Carmichael patrolled the aisles. Yet when she went to collect the slates, all the questions were answered, correctly, but in unfamiliar handwriting. When questioned Nell could offer no explanation other than that she had called, in desperation, for Spirit to help her, and it had.
The previous week, Nell had caused a huge stir. Mr McBride her history teacher had admonished her for failing to learn dates adequately, much to her embarrassment. As Mr McBride had delivered the lesson, Nell started to write “1066” repeatedly on her slate. As, Mr McBride, talking about the Battle of Hastings uttered the number 1066, he collapsed and died of a heart attack.
Archie and Isabella were torn. Archie’s sister and Isabella’s mother both possessed the psychic gift. It had proved to be a blessing, and a curse. A steady stream of the emotionally unstable, bereaved and curious would visit on a Sunday afternoon giving comfort and release. But naysayers accused them of witchcraft and necromancy.

---

It was nine o’clock before the exhausted couple went to bed.
“Perhaps we should take her to the doctors, Archie? Maybe she is overcome by delusion?”
“Aye, maybe you’re right, Bel”

---

Dr Dalglish was thorough, or as thorough as you could be in a room blurred by the aftermath of a dozen Woodbine cigarettes.
“The child seems fine to me Mr and Mrs Macfarlane”
“Mammy, can I ask tell the Doctor something?”
Of course you can
“Don’t go out tonight”

The following morning Shuna woke up ill, Bel hurried to the surgery with her to get an appointment
“I am afraid Dr Dalglish is not in today. His car skidded off the road in the snowstorm and he is in Stirling general hospital”
At church that Sunday Rev Gemmill , who had heard news of Helen’s prediction accused her of consorting with the devil
Born 1897
Married 1916
Isabelle was mortified. The Church bound everything together in Callendar. She had faithfully defended Helen’s corner for years, indulging her psychic idiosyncrasies but this put her in an impossible position. Helen was leaving school, there was no work in the village, and the house was too small for her family which was growing in size, and its abilities to devour family resources. Something had to give. Helen had to go. It was 1913.
Dundee was known as Juteopolis, the world centre for the production of Jute, half the population of Dundee was employed in the trade and she found work in it soon enough at NSF Dundee 51-63 Mains Road. But the tide was starting to turn against the city as Bengal which had once supplied raw Jute to the city now began to finish it itself. Thirty shillings a week did not go far, and so she began to offer psychic readings as a medium to supplement her earnings. The overwhelmingly female work force, making sacks, provided her with a ready supply of custom. A year later King George 5th and Queen Mary, Princess Mary, visited the city on the 10th July 1914, Helen was mesmerised. Eighteen days later the city, the country, the World, was at war and the Jute Mill was converted from making sacks to making munitions within a year, 18-pdr. and 2.75in shells, forgings and burster containers. The pay doubled for work which was dirty and dangerous. There she met on the production lines a woman who was to be her friend for life, Jean Duncan.
It was not long before the casualties of War began to return home and demand for nursing care began to outstrip demand for munitions. Helen swapped cordite yellow stained fingers, for neatly pressed white sheets, it paid less, but was much safer, and met her empathetic needs in a way that a production line could not. One day, Jean invited Helen home for tea, and while she was there, she met her brother, Henry.
Henry’s first words to Helen were, “So we meet at last.”
Helen was dumbstruck, the man who she saw before her was the man she had imagined in her dreams, slender, medium build with a moustache and swept back hair. It was as if she had known him for years. The connection was instant, yet it was not a connection. It was a reconnection. Later on she became convinced that they had shared past lives together. He too had experienced visions of her before they met. He too had an interest in the supernatural and occult. Instead of being shunned for her gifts as she had been by the Rev Gemmill, instead Henry was intrigued by them, and encouraged them.
It was to be a whirlwind courtship. In 1916, the couple married. Henry had volunteered for the Black Watch but been subsequently invalided out of the army after rheumatic fever caused heart damage. A resourceful, industrious man he became a cabinet maker. Helen fell pregnant eight times, with six children surviviong; Bella, Nan, Lillian, Henry, Peter and Gena . With money tight, Helen’s income from her Mediumship work grew from being pin money into a vital income stream for the family as well as repairing and washing bed sheets and shirts for one penny an item and working part time in a bleach mill. Both worked hard to make ends meet, one day Helen had a premonition that Henry was seriously ill. It caused her to rush to his workshop where she found him incapacitated following a heart-attack. Although she managed to get him the help he needed to save his life, his overall health suffered terribly. In turn this caused Helen to expand her mediumship work still further. With Henry’s help she began to explore clairvoyance, clairaudience, psychometry and precognition. Her psychometry work drew increasing numbers to see her and she started to perform platform demonstrations at local Spiritual Churches.
The First World War saw a surge in people seeking mediumistic help. Dundonian men joined the 4th (City of Dundee) Battalion, The Black Watch and fought in the Battle of Loos on 25 September 1915 during which Over two hundred men from Dundee’s Own were killed or injured . Inevitably bereaved relatives sought Helen’s help in contacting those who were lost, increasing still further the demands upon Helen and growing her reputation. Meetings at local churches became packed, increasing her earnings. As she was working she increasingly found herself entering into a trance like state, and began speaking in an assumed voice when delivering her messages from the Spirit World. Initially, Henry thought it was Glossolia, speaking in tongues, something which Edward Irving had explored when setting up the Scottish Apostolic Church a hundred years previously. But Henry was wary, firstly an endorsement was unlikely to do Helen any favours with the Presbyterian Church which had condemned her in Callander, secondly amongst disbelievers it had a historic association with Witchcraft.
Yet it became a feature of her platform performances. Not only would she assume a voice from the Spirit world to provide messages from the other side, she also began to receive messages personally from a Dr Williams who invoked her to seek to physically materialize spirits.
Helen wasn’t sure. What had started as a quirky childhood gift had changed. That moment when Rev Gemmill had thrown her out of his Church had thrown her into something bigger. Much bigger. Bigger than she had anticipated, bigger than she had intended. The odd child in the family. The quiet one on the weaving line. The reliable one on the fuse line. The caring one in the wards. The one no-one noticed. Except now they did. And whatever she did they seemed to want more. The Church invitations had increased, first around Dundee, then Arbroath and Perth, then Stirling and Glenrothes, and biggest of all Edinburgh. Not bad for a wee lass from Callendar.
She had been confident as a medium. She didn’t have to work at it. People called it a gift, it certainly wasn’t something she thought that she had earned. Listening to people, being empathetic, reading people, intuitively understanding, that was what everyone did wasn’t it? She had been surprised when she was invited to her first Church appearance, even more surprised when people turned up, then more people at the next and the next. At first she had just been given a shilling for her trouble, then a florin to cover her expenses, then half a crown, then the proceeds from a hat passed around . It was when she made ten shillings that she realised how much thing had changed. She could make in one evening what it took her two days to earn in the Jute factory. Now the invites were coming in the post every day. The transition from mediumship to trance had been accidental, not planned.
Henry was always by her side. She practiced with friends and neighbours . The results were erratic, but something always came, invariably Dr Williams. It had scared her. He had scared her. A Church President had taught her how to create a protective force field around her to contain the forces which were conjured, Dr Williams himself helped and as the weeks went by, so her confidence grew. As did Henry’s. The halls she performed in had been growing larger. He had started to introduce her to the crowds, as an MC would. The larger the crowds grew so the proportion who received messages reduced. There was only so much time . The money was becoming a vital part of their income. They needed to grow that, they needed to grow their income , they needed to create a show.
As a child Henry had been fascinated by Punch and Judy. The puppet figures, the exaggerated showmanship, the stage. The box.
That was what it was. As a carpenter and cabinet maker he was just making a giant box. A wooden cupboard with curtains on the front, but large enough for a person to sit in. For Helen to sit in. For the energies of Spirit to be amplified, for a portal to the other side to be created, for the black curtains to be drawn back to reveal her, for the lights to shine on her stage, for the curtains to be drawn at the finale. It would create drama, interest and mystery. Provide a focal point beyond a person, to a performance.
Inspired by Dr Williams, and her box, which Henry set up in their front room, Helen, progressed from trance and vocalisation, to producing ectoplasm from her mouth and nostrils akin to a white mist that glowed. Although the spirit voice of Dr. Williams warned Henry that no light must ever be shone on the ectoplasm, as it would endanger Helen. Henry took to using a dim red light for dramatic effect, and to allow the audience to see what was happening. The sessions always drained Helen mentally, emotionally and physically inducing her to eat immediately afterwards. Over time this significantly increased her weight.
The more she practised, the more the ectoplasm became a regular feature of her seances, as did the spirit voice of Dr. Williams. During one session he announced that Helen’s ‘spirit guide’ could now form from the ectoplasm and would look after Helen from then on.To the audiences amazement, the ectoplasm swirled into the shape of an elderly but distinguished man over six foot tall who had an upright stature and an educated voice with a trace of an Australian accent. Always polite and with a sense of humour, he announced his arrival with a request for those present not to be alarmed at the sight of him and introducing himself as Albert Stewart who had been born in Scotland but had emigrated to Australia where he had drowned in 1913. ‘Uncle Albert’ as he became known, became the Master of Ceremonies at séances. He announced to sitters what spirit was about to come out of the cabinet. Sometimes Helen had another spirit guide – a young girl called Peggy who would skip around the room singing songs.
This was the Golden Age of Spiritualism, with international luminaries including politicians and scientists within the movement, as well as Scotland’s own Sir Arthur Connan Doyle. Spiritual Churches abounded, and numbered in the several hundreds. All had a voracious appetite for speakers, mediums and performers. Helen’s reputation spread quickly as materialization mediums were rare, her talent became in great demand.
The word that Helen had developed from a clairvoyant to a materialization medium quickly spread and by the mid 1920’s, Helen’s talent was much in demand, in Scotland, and throughout the United Kingdom. Henry had to deal with mountains of post everyday from individuals and organisations requesting her services. Her rising income enabled her to make local charitable donations increasing her standing further. But success brings problems of its own, as she would come to discover.
The Scottish Spiritualist Society in Edinburgh invited Helen to give regular séances to their members who were impressed and astonished at what they witnessed. So much so, that they presented her with a certificate endorsing her talent. However, when Helen and Henry learned how much the door money was compared to how little they were paid, they refused further engagements.This was the first rift with Spiritualist organisations that continued on and off throughout Helen’s life.

Mary McGinlay maid

1934. The newsroom was the usual hubbub of office gossip, football rivalry, and political titbits. The Jam Tarts continued to do well, but not well enough to challenge the Old Firm. Ramsay McDonald, the Scots lad made good wasn’t anymore. Once lauded he was now a figure of ridicule and derision. The Scotsman had championed him, now they could do little more than chart his tailspin to oblivion as the Great Depression sapped the life out of the country. Archie had joined the paper the week of the Invergordon Mutiny, he had known some of the families. The exhilaration he had felt, with a byline, made him certain he had picked the right career then. As time went on, costs were cut, staff were shed, and obituaries, the stuff of cub reporters in normal times, became his usual task. Editor George Waters had held the chair for a decade, he did so with humour, professionalism and an iron fist. He read out the tasks for the day.
      “Archie, the stiffs, and count yourself lucky I won’t be asking for any quotes”
      Archie flicked through the death notices, Jimmy McCleod, Northumberland St. Community benefactor, local industrialist, survived by a wife and three children, and it was just under a mile’s walk from the office. From the Old Town, across Princess Street, to the New Town. He would claim the price of the bus fare anyway.
      Isla McCleod answered the door, late middle aged, prim, trim with a meticulously maintained grey bob, white blouse, plaid skirt, and sensible brogue shoes. She ushered Archie into the drawing room where she offered him morning tea and began to reminisce about her late husband. It was routine stuff, Archie made scribbled shorthand notes in his notebook. In truth he could have written a generic obituary in advance now, and just cut and pasted the crucial bits
      “Of course I knew he was going to die that night”
      “How?”
      “Nellie Duncan told me”
      Archie stopped scribbling notes as if by remote command
      “Nellie Duncan? The clairvoyant?”
      Her name had swirled around the newsroom over the past years, a fringe figure, a figure of fun, but when a few column inches needed filling she seemed to pop up. In 1926 she developed from clairvoyant to physical medium by offering séances in which she claimed to be able to permit the spirits of recently deceased persons to materialise, by emitting ectoplasm from her mouth.

In 1928 the photographer Harvey Metcalfe attended a series of séances at the house of Duncan. During a séance he took various flash photographs of Duncan and her alleged “materialization” spirits including her spirit guide “Peggy”.[6] The photographs that were taken reveal the spirits to be fraudulently produced, such as a doll made from a painted papier-mâché mask draped in an old sheet.[7]

In 1931, the London Spiritualist Alliance (LSA) examined Duncan’s method. It was observed that upon opening her mouth, the ectoplasm gradually began to be formed on the tip of the tongue until it resembled a cherry. It then swelled up, sometimes to the extent of covering the medium’s body. When the ectoplasm retreated into the mouth, it diminished at the tip of the tongue into the likeness of a cherry, as it first appeared. None of the substance appeared at any time in the pharynx, disproving the idea that the ectoplasm was regurgitated cheesecloth, which is a cotton cloth.[8] The latter hypothesis was put forward by the psychical researcher Harry Price, who examined her at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research (NLPR). Because of this accusation, she was persuaded by Harry Price to swallow a tablet of methylene blue before one of her séances to rule out any chance of this trick being performed. Contrary results of this experiment have been recorded. One account stated that no ectoplasm appeared.[9] The investigation report concluded that the “material was swallowed by Mrs Duncan at some time previous to the sitting and subsequently regurgitated by her for the purpose of exhibition.”[10] The other account stated that she still produced clean, white ectoplasm.[11]

A piece of ectoplasm from one of Duncan’s early séances was obtained and secured in a bottle of distilled water. It was given to Harry Price, who was originally enthusiastic about the sample. However, when he gave the sample to a chemist for analysis it was discovered to be made from egg white mixed with chemicals. Price later duplicated Duncan’s ectoplasm with similar substances.[12]

Duncan with fake ectoplasm made of cheesecloth and a cut out face from a magazine.
In 1931 Price paid Duncan £50 to perform a number of test séances. She was suspected of swallowing cheesecloth which was then regurgitated as “ectoplasm”.[4][13] Price had proven through analysis of a sample of ectoplasm produced by Duncan that it was made of cheesecloth.[14] She reacted violently at attempts to X-ray her, running from the laboratory and making a scene in the street, where her husband had to restrain her, destroying the controlled nature of the test. According to Price in a report of the mediumship of Duncan:[12]

At the conclusion of the fourth seance we led the medium to a settee and called for the apparatus. At the sight of it, the lady promptly went into a trance. She recovered, but refused to be X-rayed. Her husband went up to her and told her it was painless. She jumped up and gave him a smashing blow on the face which sent him reeling. Then she went for Dr. William Brown who was present. He dodged the blow. Mrs. Duncan, without the slightest warning, dashed out into the street, had an attack of hysteria and began to tear her seance garment to pieces. She clutched the railings and screamed and screamed. Her husband tried to pacify her. It was useless. I leave the reader to visualize the scene. A seventeen-stone woman, clad in black sateen tights, locked to the railings, screaming at the top of her voice. A crowd collected and the police arrived. The medical men with us explained the position and prevented them from fetching the ambulance. We got her back into the Laboratory and at once she demanded to be X-rayed. In reply, Dr. William Brown turned to Mr. Duncan and asked him to turn out his pockets. He refused and would not allow us to search him. There is no question that his wife had passed him the cheese-cloth in the street. However, they gave us another seance and the “control’ said we could cut off a piece of “teleplasm” when it appeared. The sight of half-a-dozen men, each with a pair of scissors waiting for the word, was amusing. It came and we all jumped. One of the doctors got hold of the stuff and secured a piece. The medium screamed and the rest of the “teleplasm” went down her throat. This time it wasn’t cheese-cloth. It proved to be paper, soaked in white of egg, and folded into a flattened tube… Could anything be more infantile than a group of grown-up men wasting time, money, and energy on the antics of a fat female crook.

Price in his report published photographs of Duncan in his laboratory that revealed fake ectoplasm made from cheesecloth, rubber gloves and cut-out heads from magazine covers which she pretended to her audiences were spirits.[10][15] Psychologist William McDougall, who attended two of the séances, pronounced her “whole performance fraudulent” in an appendix to the report.[16]

Following the report written by Price, Duncan’s former maid Mary McGinlay confessed in detail to having aided Duncan in her mediumship tricks, and Duncan’s husband admitted that the ectoplasm materializations were the result of regurgitation.[10][17]

In a séance on 6 January 1933 in Edinburgh, a little girl called Peggy emerged in the séance room. A sitter named Esson Maule grabbed her and the lights were turned on and the spirit was revealed to be made from a stockinette undervest.[12]

Ian Flemming organises investigation

Theatre critic gives evidence.

My client stands before you in the dock at your mercy, her future in your hands, her mere appearance in this place a travesty.
The legislation under which she faces these unnatural charges dates back almost two hundred years, to the reign of George 11, under a parliament presided over by Prime minister Henry Pelham, before the Americas even sought independence, let alone won it, before the Boston Tea Party, yet today they stand on our shores, not as foes, but as comrades in arms against a common enemy.
In 1753 the Witchcraft act made it a crime for a person to claim that any human being had magical powers or was guilty of practising witchcraft, today in 1944, our newspapers, newspapers which the jury will read every day, carry astrological guidance which so many call upon to guide their daily lives. No newspaper owner stands before us as a purveyor of persons possessing magical powers or witch craft.
As a child in remote Callender ,Scotland she was happy to tend the animals, and look after the children of neighbours.. As a mother of six she has devoted her life to nurturing and protecting. Those attributes, those instincts, drew others to her, others who saw her offering insights and wisdom. Some saw her as gifted, in the same way that millions have their favourite astrologers in the Daily Sketch or Daily Mail newspapers.
Yet with those gifts come other things. Suspicion, hate, envy, jealousy, aspects of the human condition which are anathema to everything Mrs Duncan stands for. She began to receive invites for her wisdom for her gifts, first from further afield in Scotland, then from its fine cities, and then from the towns and villages of England.
As our great country stands, once alone, now with our allies, facing down the Nazi Tyranny we are united. United in our resolve, united in our efforts, united in our commitment and determination, and sadly, and all too often united in our human losses, the price that has to be paid for freedom, for our ultimate victory.
There will not be a single man or woman on the jury who has not been touched by this. The pride in the contributions being made by friend, family and townsfolk, the pain of loss as some suffer the most grievous injuries in our cause, and others pay the ultimate price, with their lives. But their memories live on, their deeds endure, and is it not understandable that some, that many, seek a connection with those who have left us, for those that have departed for that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns? Would we deny anyone their right to seek such comfort, would we deny the right of anyone who could offer such comfort to do so?
My client is the victim of the most outrageous injustice. One night, in Portsmouth, she was invited by those whose loved ones, even now, are keeping our shores safe, and our seas free of Nazi predators stalking our brave boys. When she told of the loss of HMS Barham she did so in sorrow, not malevolence, imparting her gift.
Some have accused her of being a Nazi spy, in which case she should be tried as such. Others, as in here, have accused her of witchcraft. What nonsense.
Does this person stand before you a demon? Does she have a cauldron? Does she draw upon Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake;Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing, AAFor a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble? Or is she merely a woman who people turn to in their hour of need ? Someone who far from frightening others brings comfort?
Does she look like a Nazi spy whose mission is to betray her country to a ruthless, heartless enemy? Or is her mission somewhat more benign, to draw the souls of the living and dead closer together.
Now what you may care to believe about such claims is immaterial. All that does matter is that some seek out comfort, freely, and without coercion, my client offers it, without obligation. For this she faces seven punishable counts: two of conspiracy to contravene the Witchcraft Act, two of obtaining money by false pretences, and three of public mischief.
At a time of great national peril from without, and unscrupulous profiteering from within, you may wish to ask yourself what purpose is served by members of His Majesty’s constabulary addressing themselves to her work?
When Mrs Duncan agreed to serve relatives in the homeport of the Royal Navy fleet, Portsmouth on the evening of January 19 1944,it was a dangerous place to hold any meeting – such was the German Luftwaffe’s intent on reducing Portsmouth to rubble and disable Britain’s ships. But the real danger lay not in a hail of enemy bombs but with the ignorance of the police, For that night, a plain-clothes policeman, who had infiltrated the evening following a tip off, launched a raid to disrupt her seance.
Thus Helen Duncan, together with three of her innocent sitters, were dragged before Portsmouth magistrates and charged with Vagrancy on the basis that she was begging. But how can a woman who was placing herself in mortal danger by visiting the port, who was invited there, and was being paid to attend possibly be begging?
Why was she refused bail? What repeat offence was feared, or danger to the public anticipated? Instead she was sent to London and forced to spend four days in the notorious Holloway women’s prison. It was this same Victorian goal where suffragettes had been forced fed by prison warders, and I put it to you that Mrs Duncan too is a similar such martyr. It is also where the grisly gallows waited for all female murderers, spies and traitors in whose company her detractors sought to place her.
My client was assumed to be a dangerous war criminal . The charge was mooted to be Conspiracy, which, carried the ultimate sentence of death, by hanging, a charge which understandably created great distress. Yet when the absurdity of this fell on the War Office the alternative has proved to be no less bizarre. It is today’s charge of witchcraft , that Mrs Duncan and three of her equally innocent sitters are accused of pretending ‘to exercise or use human conjuration that through the agency of Helen Duncan spirits of deceased dead persons should appear to be present’. And that under the Larceny Act, she stand s accused her of taking money ‘ by falsely pretending she was in a position to bring about the appearances of these spirits of deceased persons’.
You have heard testimony from distinguished members of London Society vouching for Mrs Duncan’s bona fides. You have learned of her celebrity, yet still she finds herself facing these preposterous allegations.

Our daily papers have recorded each day of this trial, selling hundreds of thousands of copies extra as a result. Is that the sign of a vagrant? Do the public support traitors and spies? Members of the Jury we live in a modern age. An age where no ocean cannot be crossed, no wilderness remains untamed, no challenge is to great for our scientists and engineers, and no enemy so powerful that they cannot be subjugated by our wit, resourcefulness and skill. An age which hitherto, we will all have believed that the days of witches and broomsticks, cauldrons and spells, witch hunters and the stake were in the dim distant past.
Yet we were mistaken, the prosecution has fallen back two hundred years to charge my client, but has failed to return to the twentieth century thereafter. We live in an age in which Helena Blavatsky and Annie Beasant, great Spiritualists, have had the ear of monarchs, and Heads of State. In which our finest writers like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have engaged the world with their thoughts of, and connections to, the next world. Where astronomers such as Claude Flammarion, scientists like William Crookes and Nobel Prize Winners Richet test the world with their beliefs, their intellect and their propositions. But the prosecution are still in the age of the ducking stool, the scolds bridle, and the stake surrounded by tinder.
Members of the jury, do not hold a flame to this bonfire of absurdity, instead it is my earnest hope that you will let justice, and common sense, prevail by acquitting my client.

Last Witch Notes

Official Site

My grandmother was a materialization medium. At sittings, she produced ectoplasm which formed into spirits. These spirits were sufficiently clear for their physical characteristics to be recognized. They would often converse about things only the deceased person and the sitter knew about – sometimes in foreign languages.

In this way, Helen Duncan brought comfort to many by proving to them that their departed, loved ones were still in some form of existence and watching over them.

However, in 1944, during World War II, my grandmother was convicted of conspiracy to ‘pretend to conjure up the dead’ under the Witchcraft Act of 1735.

To this day, debate rages as to whether she was fraudulent or genuine.

Twenty years ago, I decided to find out all I could from family members and sitters as well as the official records.

My research has convinced me that Helen Duncan was a genuine materialization medium – the like of which had never seen before or since.

I believe her gift was so accurate that, with D-Day looming, the British government felt it necessary to imprison a woman who they feared might unwittingly betray wartime secrets. Helen had already done this on two occasions by materializing spirits of sailors from HMS Hood and HMS Barham – before the loss of those ships was made public.

If, having read the accounts of what took place at her sittings, you also believe a miscarriage of justice took place, please sign the on-line petition to exonerate Helen Duncan – an extraordinary woman and a wonderfully caring mother and grandmother.

Victoria Helen McCrae MacFarlane was born on the 25th November 1897at Back Row in Callander, Perthshire, Scotland to Isabella and Archibald MacFarlane. Her father’s occupation was a master slater. She was the fourth eldest daughter and one of eight children.

On 27th May 1916, she wed Henry Horne Anderson Duncan. After her marriage, she was known as Nell (or Nellie) Duncan.

As a child, Helen was described as a ‘bonny lass’ but soon began to exhibit some of the psychic abilities that were to cause trouble for her throughout her life.

Once, at school, the teacher wrote some questions on a blackboard and the pupils had to write the answers on their slates. Helen wrote the numbers of the questions down but didn’t know the answers. She prayed for help and to her astonishment the answers appeared on her slate. The teacher saw the answers weren’t in her ‘childish scrawl’ as he put it and accused her of cheating. Helen denied she had copied other children’s answers but couldn’t explain how the answers had appeared.

In another instance, Helen kept thinking of the number ‘1066’. Later, during a history lesson, as the teacher was talking about the Battle of Hastings and wrote 1066 on the blackboard, he suffered a heart-attack.

As both Helen’s parents had female relations who had had the ‘gift’ they were unconcerned by their young daughter’s psychic ability at first as they thought she would grow out of it. However, as Helen grew-up her ability seemed to develop and grow stronger.

Helen’s mother eventually became so concerned that she took her teenage daughter to the local doctor for him to check if there was anything physically wrong with the girl’s eyesight and hearing. The doctor couldn’t find anything wrong. To Helen’s mother’s embarrassment, Helen warned the doctor not to go out that night but he did and his car skidded off the road in a snowstorm.

Helen’s prediction of the village doctor’s demise was condemned by the local Presbyterian minister who accused her of “consorting with the devil”.

This embarrassment for the family coupled to the fact there was no work locally meant Helen left the family home at just 16 years of age.

She went to Dundee where, at the outbreak of World War One, she worked in an ammunitions factory then in a jute factory and later as a nurse.

Whilst working as a nurse, her best friend, Jean Duncan, introduced Helen to her family including her brother Henry Duncan. Apparently, Henry’s first words to Helen were, “So we meet at last.” Both had apparently had visions of each other before they met.

Henry had an interest in the supernatural and instead of suppressing Helen’s talent, encouraged it.

In 1916, the couple married. Henry had been invalided out of the army as rheumatic fever had badly damaged a valve in his heart and he became a cabinet maker. Early married life was a real struggle for the young couple who had little income and an ever-increasing amount of mouths to feed. In total, Helen had six children; Bella, Nan, Lillian, Henry, Peter and Gena as well as two that died in infancy.

During these years, Helen tried to supplement the household income by repairing and washing bed sheets and shirts for one penny an item and also took a job in a bleach mill.

At this time, Helen had a premonition that Henry was in trouble. She rushed to his workshop to find he had suffered a heart-attack. Although she managed to get him the help he needed to save his life, it was obvious he could not work again full-time.

Henry encouraged Helen to develop her psychic talent which at this time included clairvoyance, clairaudience, psychometry and precognition. Helen was able to hold an object and give information about the owner with uncanny accuracy.

Helen would often go into a deep sleep or trance and it was during one of these that the voice of a Dr. Williams told Henry that his wife had the potential to materialize spirits.

This excited Henry but Helen was very wary of developing her talent as little good had come of using it in the past but Helen was always keen to help others and in that era there were plenty of people who had lost loved ones in World War One and sought comfort.

Initial experimental séances with neighbours and friends as sitters were unpredictable and even frightening at times but, by saying a prayer at the start and keeping a Bible to hand, Henry learned from Dr.  Williams how to develop his wife’s talent and keep her safe.

This involved using his carpentry skills to make a ‘cabinet’ – basically a wooden-framed cupboard with black curtains on the front. Helen was to sit inside and the cabinet would harness her energy and act as a type of portal for spirits to materialize and appear to sitters.

Whilst in a trance in the cabinet, Helen began to produce ectoplasm (etheric energy matter) from her mouth and nostrils. Ectoplasm is a white, smoky, mucous substance that can best be described as similar to how one’s breath looks on a cold, frosty morning.

This ectoplasm amazed the sitters who saw it. They described it as like “magical mist” or “living cobweb”.  It glowed bright white and seemed to have a life of its own.

The spirit voice of Dr. Williams warned Henry that no light must ever be +shone on the ectoplasm or it would be extremely dangerous to Helen. But a dim red light was always on during séances so sitters could see what was happening.

One unfortunate side effect of Helen producing ectoplasm was that she felt tired and sick after séances. Being drained in such a way gave her a voracious appetite which led to her becoming very over-weight.

The spirit voice of Dr. Williams announced that Helen’s ‘spirit guide’ could now form from the ectoplasm and would look after Helen from then on.

To the sitter’s amazement, the ectoplasm swirled into the shape of an elderly but distinguished man over six foot tall who had an upright stature and an educated voice with a trace of an Australian accent. Always polite and with a sense of humour, he announced his arrival with a request for those present not to be alarmed at the sight of him and introducing himself as Albert Stewart who had been born in Scotland but had emigrated to Australia where he had drowned in 1913.

‘Uncle Albert’ as he became known, became the Master of Ceremonies at séances. He announced to sitters what spirit was about to come out of the cabinet. Sometimes Helen had another spirit guide – a young girl called Peggy who would skip around the room singing songs.

The word that Helen had developed from a clairvoyant to a materialization medium quickly spread and by the mid 1920’s, Helen’s talent was much in demand.

Every morning, the postman would bring requests from all over the UK for sittings and invitations for Helen and Henry to visit and hold séances.

The small fees sitters gladly paid Helen was often spent on the sick children of neighbours as medical care was expensive and there was no free National Health Service. She was a kindly soul to those that were civil to her but was not one to take abuse without giving the abuser a piece of her mind.

The Scottish Spiritualist Society in Edinburgh invited Helen to give regular séances to their members who were impressed and astonished at what they witnessed. So much so, that they presented her with a certificate endorsing her talent. However, when Helen and Henry learned how much the sitters paid to attend these séances compared to how little they were paid they refused to be exploited.

This was the first rift with Spiritualist organisations that continued on and off throughout Helen’s life.

By now, Henry had virtually become Helen’s manager. In 1931, he was so confident in Helen’s talent that he agreed to let Mr. Harry Price witness and test her psychic abilities. Price was a prolific author and media personality of the day who had written several best-selling books on the supernatural and was director of National Laboratory of Psychical Research the President of which was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. However, Price was a complete cynic and was determined to prove that Helen was a fraud – as many mediums of the day undoubtedly were.

Helen had a kindly and compassionate nature. She believed she was using her talent to help people so a smarmy cynic like Price who, on first meeting Helen, announced that he thought all mediums were “guilty of fraud until proven genuine” was never going to end amicably and so it proved.

Price witnessed a number of controlled test séances. At one, he took a sample of ectoplasm which dissipated in the bottle.

Price’s conclusion was that the spirits that Helen produced were no more than trickery with a sheet of cheesecloth. As Helen always wore a black gown and was examined naked by women before every sitting who confirmed that no piece of cloth was concealed about or inside her body, Price’s theory seemed unlikely. Price claimed she regurgitated the cheesecloth and then used it like a puppeteer to create the spirits. He also claimed Helen’s refusal to be X-rayed led him to believe she might have a second stomach.

It is surely improbable that so many sitters would have been duped by such an obvious trick but in 1934 Price’s theory gained some vindication.

In 1934, during a séance in Edinburgh, a sitter, Miss Maule who was a friend of Price, grabbed at Peggy – one of Helen’s spirit guides. The resulting commotion led to the police being called. When they arrived, Miss Maule alleged the ‘spirit’ was an undervest. Helen claimed the garment had been taken from her travelling bag and was simply an attempt to discredit her. She was offered the chance to bring charges against Miss Maule but refused.

At Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Helen was accused of both affray and fraud. She pleaded ‘not guilty’. Although eight people were present at the séance only three appeared for the prosecution. Even Miss Maule admitted that at the same time as the spirit guide Albert was talking, Helen could also be heard breathing deeply whilst in her trance. Nobody disputed several spirits appeared and spoke and when Miss Maule created the disturbance Helen was seen to be sat behind the cabinet before she was woken out of her trance.

Dr. Marguerite Linck-Hutchinson, M.B., Ch.B., D.H.P. had examined the naked Helen before the séance and supervised her as she dressed in her black séance garments. Dr. Linck-Hutchinson was shown the seized vest and asked if Helen could have used it to replicate the young spirit guide Peggy. Her reply was, “It would have been impossible to produce anything like what was seen using a garment like that.”

Price’s regurgitation theory was also put to and dismissed by the doctor who said Helen could not have regurgitated the amount of material that would have been required to produce the spirits that had materialized. She also said she had been present from the time Helen had a meal until the time of the séance so it wouldn’t have been possible to regurgitate material without also vomiting up the meal of which there was no trace.

Mr. Ernest W. Oaten also appeared for the defence. He was President of the International Spiritualist Federation and the editor of the leading Spiritualist journal ‘Two Worlds’. In his evidence, he said he had attended eighteen séances given by Helen, “I arranged most of the sittings and laid down conditions which made fraud utterly impossible without detection. The spirits were intelligences separate and distant from Mrs. Duncan and were decidedly different in form.”

However, the outcome was that Helen was sentenced to pay a ten shilling fine. Helen’s supporters later claimed that the verdict on the fraud charge was the Scottish verdict of ‘not proven’ and that the conviction was for the affray offence alone.

Despite this, Helen’s popularity and reputation grew. In the 1930’s and 1940’s she was travelling the length and breadth of the UK holding hundreds of séances in Spiritualist churches and in homes. Her materializations astonished thousands as well as bringing them comfort that their loved ones had moved on to some form of after-life. ‘Dead’ loved ones appearing in a physical form, speaking to and touching their earthly relatives was considered by many as proof of survival of one’s soul.

The onset of World War 2 increased the demand for séances even more from those who had lost family or friends on active service or from the Blitz. And in 1941 Helen held two séances that were to have serious repercussions for her later in the war.

The first took place in Edinburgh on 24th May. Amongst the sitters was a Brigadier Firebrace who had been with Ian Fleming in Moscow in 1939 and had connections with the Intelligence Services. During the course of the séance, spirit guide Albert claimed a British battleship had just been sunk.

Later, at the same séance, Albert also claimed that the Russians would enter the war on the side of the allies (which seemed highly unlikely as they’d signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in 1939) and that the war would end with two big bangs.

After leaving the séance, the Brigadier listened to the news to hear if a battleship had been sunk but there was no mention of one. He then rang the Admiralty and the official denied it. However, in the morning the same official rang Brigadier Firebrace back and confirmed that HMS Hood had been sunk by the Bismarck and asked to know how Firebrace had known before even some sections of the Admiralty did.

In November of 1941, Helen held a séance in Portsmouth – the home port of the Royal Navy.  The spirit of a sailor in uniform materialized complete with the name ‘HMS Barham’ on his cap band. Sitters heard him declare to his mother (who was one of the sitters) that his ship had been sunk with a great loss of life. When the shocked lady said that couldn’t be correct as she hadn’t been notified, the spirit sailor claimed she would be in three weeks time before fading away.

The sailor’s mother was so concerned that she contacted the Admiralty who sent two officials round to question her.

The Admiralty knew through German Enigma machine radio communications intercepted by Bletchley Park that the Germans thought only minor damage had been caused to HMS Barham yet the truth was the ship had blown up a few minutes after being hit by a U-boat torpedo.

As the Royal Navy wanted the German Navy to think HMS Barham was still a threat in the Mediterranean rather than laying on the bottom of it, they had gone to great lengths to keep the sinking from the public. In fact, it was not officially announced until late January 1942.

But, because of Helen’s séance, rumours spread around Portsmouth that HMS Barham had been sunk.

One of the points raised about this story is that no sailor wore the name of his ship in his cap band during wartime so how could the sailor’s spirit be genuine? However, those that attended Helen’s séances and saw spirits of loved ones say that they appeared in the form and dressed in the way that the sitter would most readily recognize them and how they most fondly remembered them. Not how they were at the time of their death.

Most importantly for Helen, it alerted the authorities that she was a potential security risk. Despite this, no action was taken against Helen and she gave séances until January 1944.

At this time, D-Day was being planned at Southwick House near Portsmouth. It was vital for the allies that the invasion was successful as the allied command was aware that Germany was developing flying pilotless aircraft (which became known as ‘doodlebugs’) and even rockets. If the invasion failed, then Germany might have sufficient time to complete these weapons and snatch victory from defeat.

Training for D-Day had begun and gone badly. Many troops had died and it was feared that if a spirit of one of these soldiers had appeared at one of Helen’s séances and told the sitters how and where he had died then an astute sitter might make an educated guess as to when and where the invasion might take place. All the preparations hinted that it would be a beach landing not an attempt to take a French port as the Germans expected.

Paranoia about security reached new heights and, after the disclosures at Helen’s séances three years previously, it was decided by Chief Constable West of Hampshire Police that ‘better safe than sorry’ was the most sensible course of action. West didn’t know whether Helen’s séances were lucky guesses or had some validity but for the sake of all the soldiers preparing to storm the French coast he was determined to lock Helen out of harm’s way.

On 19th January 1944, Helen was invited to hold a séance at a Master Temple above a chemist shop in Copnor Road in Portsmouth.

The séance was raided by the police and Helen was initially arrested under section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1824, a minor offence tried by magistrates.

Helen’s fame at the time was reflected by the fact the BBC interrupted coverage of the Russian advances on the Eastern front to announce the news of her arrest.

However, the authorities regarded the case as more serious, and used section 4 of the Witchcraft Act 1735, covering fraudulent ‘spiritual’ activity, which was triable before a jury. Charged alongside her for conspiracy to contravene this Act were Ernest and Elizabeth Homer, who hosted the séance in Portsmouth, and Frances Brown who went with Helen to help with the séances when Henry was too ill to travel.

Helen’s trial for ‘pretending to conjure up evil and malicious spirits’ fraudulent witchcraft became a cause célèbre in wartime London making the headlines in all the daily newspapers.

The police had expected to find evidence of fraud such as a sheet but had failed to find anything. Their case was therefore based on the logic that Helen must have pretended to conjure up spirits of the dead as no such thing existed.

It meant Helen had to prove the existence of life after death in order to be aquitted.

Helen’s defence barrister Loseby, himself a Spiritualist, saw Helen’s trial as an opportunity to promote Spiritualism by holding a séance in court and letting the jurors and everyone else present believe their own eyes.

However, this was initially refused by Judge Dodson.

The trial lasted between 23rd March and 3rd April 1944. The prosecution produced only five witnesses – two of which were policemen involved in her arrest. The case made against Helen was undeniably weak and unconvincing.

The defence produced 49 witnesses including a District Sessions Judge, a Reverend, a doctor, a Wing Commander and a theatre critic. These witnesses claimed the spirits that they had seen appear ranged from old people to young children and even pets. Many had divulged family information that Helen could not possibly have known or talked in foreign languages that Helen didn’t speak. Many had seen Helen apparently asleep in her cabinet and the spirits at the same time.

Loseby knew that legally there was no limit on the number of defence witnesses he could call and certainly there was no shortage of volunteers. He thought he would wear the Judge down into allowing a séance in court and eventually he succeeded. (A few days after the trial, Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote to the Home Secretary describing the Witchcraft trial as “obsolete tomfoolery”)

Judge Dodson offered the jury a demonstration of a séance if they would think such a demonstration helpful. A condition of doing this was an agreement that Loseby would call no more defence witnesses.

This plan failed as the jury declined the offer of a séance. It is thought that, as they had been brought to London from Portsmouth and were away from their families, they were more eager to return home than to prolong a trial that was continually interrupted by bombing.

Unsurprisingly, Helen was found guilty but then a surprising twist emerged. Anxious to get her the maximum possible prison sentence for the crime which was one year, Chief Constable West described Helen as a “national pest and unmitigated humbug” and divulged that she had disclosed the sinking of the two ships before they were public knowledge.

How Helen could be guilty of ‘pretending’ to conjure up spirits and, at the same time, condemned for being so accurate that she was a threat to national security West never explained.

Certainly there was little mercy shown to Helen. She was sentenced to nine months and sent to Holloway prison. A subsequent appeal was rejected.

By this time, Helen was a sick woman. She was very over-weight and suffered from diabetes. The conditions in Holloway were grim and the food poor and Helen seriously doubted she would survive the sentence. Fortunately, her health actually improved during her incarceration.

Whilst she was locked away, a doodlebug hit the prison and set light to it. Helen’s cell filled with smoke but was unlocked just in time.

Helen’s sentence was reduced to six months and on September 22nd 1944, she was released.

Ironically, as she took a cab to the railway station to get a train back to Edinburgh, she went past the Old Bailey and saw it had also been hit by a bomb which had blown the scales of justice off from the iconic statue on the roof.

Helen was one of the last women to be convicted under the Witchcraft Act 1735, which sought prosecution of anyone who falsely claimed to be able to procure spirits or tell fortunes.

On her release, Helen vowed to stop conducting séances.

However, the loss of life during World War Two saw a similar demand for séances as World War One had created.

In 1951, the Witchcraft Act was repealed partly due to pressure from Winston Churchill. In its place came the Fraudulent Mediums Act, and some four years later in 1954, Spiritualism was officially recognised as a proper religion by an Act of Parliament.  Spiritualists everywhere knew why and were pleased that whilst frauds would be properly prosecuted the authorities would stop harassing true working Mediums.

They were wrong because in 1956 another of Helen’s séances held in Nottingham was raided by police.

Once again, no evidence of fraud was found but in their ignorance the police had committed the worst possible sin of physical phenomena – that a medium in trance must never, ever be touched or a light be shone on the medium. If this happens the ectoplasm returns to the medium’s body far too quickly and can cause immense – sometimes even fatal – damage.

And so it was in this case. A doctor was summoned and discovered two second degree burns the size of saucers on Helen’s stomach and breast. In severe pain and shock, she was rushed to hospital.

The burns never healed and five weeks after that police raid she was dead. Helen passed away on 6th December 1956.

Since her death, Helen has been considered a martyr amongst mediums and Spiritualists. A campaign for Helen to be awarded a posthumous pardon has been continually rejected to this day.

Henry Anderson Horne Duncan was born on 8th May 1896 in Dundee, Scotland. His parents were Henry Horne Duncan and Annie Mearns who became Annie Duncan on their marriage.

From his childhood, Henry was a relatively frail person prone to sickness.

He also had an interest in psychic phenomena from a young age. When one of his brothers, William, failed to come home, a psychic had a vision that Henry’s brother had drowned in Dundee docks. Sadly, this proved to be correct.

World War One saw Henry volunteer for active service but life in the squalid trenches soon took its toll. He contracted rheumatoid arthritis and was invalided out in 1916 suffering from a weak heart which meant he couldn’t do anything too strenuous.

However, whilst serving in the trenches, he had a vision of a young girl. The girl who turned out to be his sister Jean Duncan’s best friend – Helen Duncan.

When the couple first met Henry’s first words to Helen were, “So…we meet at last.”

Henry and Helen married in 1916 and lived in Dundee. . Early married life was a real struggle for the young couple who had little income and an ever-increasing amount of mouths to feed. In total, they had six children; Bella, Nan, Lillian, Henry, Peter and Gena as well as two that died in infancy.

One day, Helen had a premonition that Henry was in trouble. She rushed to his workshop to find he had suffered a heart-attack. Although she managed to get him the help he needed to save his life, it was obvious he could never work again full-time.

Henry encouraged Helen to develop her psychic talent which she did over the years. He used his carpentry skills to build her a ‘cabinet’ inside which Helen went into her trances and from which the materialized spirits emerged.

Henry acted as a kind of manager for Helen organizing séances and replying to correspondence. He also played the role of an early ‘house husband’ looking after the couple’s children.

Throughout his life, he was regularly ill. So much so, that Helen often went to séances with a female companion to look after her rather than her husband.

Henry was always supportive of Helen’s psychic talents although sometimes he was perhaps too keen to have her endorsed as genuine. The degrading tests conducted by Harry Price being a prime example.

When Helen was imprisoned in 1944, Henry wrote to the King, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary impressing on them that his wife was innocent, had always tried to help people and pleading for her to be released.

When Helen died in 1956 from burns sustained when a séance in Nottingham was raided, Henry was devastated. He wanted to take legal action against the police but as they claimed they hadn’t actually physically touched his wife he wasn’t able to.

Henry always considered his wife to be a woman of major importance who could provide the answer to one of the most intriguing questions ever asked – is there life after death.

Even after Helen’s death, Henry insisted his wife was no fraud and he did all he could to clear her name.

Henry Duncan died on 18th October 1967.

Despite her declaration with in a few months she felt that strong call from the Spirit World to continue her work and was soon spending more time than ever in trance state. Perhaps too much so, for the quality of her seance’s since imprisonment appeared to have had deteriorated, even to the point where Spiritualism’s governing National Union actually withdrew her diploma at one stage.

Helen’s Spiritualist friends say that during his visits to her cell, Prime Minister Churchill made promises of making amends to Helen. True or speculative, it is a fact that in 1951 the damning 1735 Witchcraft Act which had been used to imprison Helen was finally repealed.

In its place came the Fraudulent Mediums Act and some four years later in 1954 Spiritualism was officially recognised as a proper religion by formal Act of Parliament. And Spiritualists everywhere knew why and they rejoiced that whilst frauds would be properly prosecuted the authorities, especially the police, would stop harassing true working Mediums.

They were wrong.

In November 1956 police raided a séance in the midlands city of Nottingham. They grabbed the presiding medium, strip searched her and took endless flashlight photographs.. They shouted at her that they were looking for beards, masks and shrouds. But they found nothing.

The medium was Helen Duncan and in their ignorance the police had committed the worst possible sin of physical phenomena; that a medium in trance must NEVER, ever be touched. As the Spirit World’s teachers have patiently explained so many times when this happens the ectoplasm returns to the medium’s body far too quickly and can cause immense – sometimes even fatal – damage.

And so it was in this case. A doctor was summoned and discovered two second degree burns across Helen’s stomach. She was so ill that she was immediately taken back to her Scottish home and later rushed to hospital.

Five weeks after that police raid she was dead.

During the second world war Helen was in great demand from anxious relatives, especially those who had lost close family on active war service.

One of many such sittings took place in a private house in the home port of Britain’s Royal Naval fleet, the southern coastal city of Portsmouth on the evening of 19th January 1944.

It was a dangerous place to hold any meeting – such was the German Luftwaffe’s intent on reducing Portsmouth to rubble and disable Britain’s fleet.

But the real danger lay not in a hail of enemy bombs but with the skepticism and fear of the establishment. For that night her séance was disrupted by a plain clothes policeman who blew his whistle to launch a raid.

Police hands made a grab for the ectoplasm but the spirit world was too quick for them and it dematerialised quicker than they could catch.

Thus Helen Duncan, together with three of her innocent sitters, were taken up before Portsmouth magistrates and charged with Vagrancy.

At this hearing the court was told that Lieutenant R. Worth of the Royal Navy had attended this séance suspecting fraud. He had paid 25 shillings (then worth about $5) each for two tickets and had passed the second ticket to a policeman . It was this policeman who had made the unsuccessful grab for the ectoplasm, believing it to be a white sheet.

But the subsequent finger tip search of the room immediately after the raid failed to discover any white sheets.

Even if she had been found guilty under this charge the maximum fine at that time would have been some five shillings ($1) and she would have been released. But, very oddly Helen was refused bail. Instead she was sent to London and forced to spend four days in the notorious women’s prison called Holloway.

It was this same Victorian goal where suffragettes had been force fed by prison warders and where the grisly gallows waited for all female murderers, spies and traitors.

Meanwhile an anxious establishment debated the best charge to lay against this dangerous war criminal Helen Duncan. One her first appearance before the Portsmouth magistrates she had been charged under the catchall act of Vagrancy. This was later amended to one of Conspiracy which, in wartime Britain, carried the ultimate sentence of death by hanging.

By the time the case had been referred to England’s central criminal court – know as the Old Bailey – the charge had been changed yet again.

Churchill was no stranger to psychic phenomena. Recalling the events of the Boer War when he had been captured, had escaped and seeking sanctuary he explained in his autobiography how he was “guided by some form of mental planchette (a Spiritualist tool) to the only house in a 30 mile radius that was sympathetic to the British cause”.

Had he knocked on the back door of any other house he would have been arrested and returned to the Boer commanders to be shot as an escaping prisoner of war. Many years prior to this he had been ordained into the Grand Ancient Order of Druids. Throughout his life he experienced many times when his psychic sixth sense saved his life.

Churchill was exceeding angry indeed when the Helen Duncan case began. He penned an irate ministerial note to the Home Secretary; “Give me a report of the 1735 Witchcraft Act.

What was the cost of a trial to the State in which the Recorder ( junior magistrate) was kept busy with all this obsolete tomfoolery to the detriment of the necessary work in the courts?”

But his civil servants were over-ridden by the all powerful intelligence community. D-Day was coming and their levels of paranoia had reached an all time high and even a Prime Minister’s anger was to be set aside.

Helen Duncan, mother of nine and part time bleach factory employee was considered a risk and they wanted her out of the way when the Allies struck. Her case was a transparent conspiracy to frame her ‘in the interests of national security’.

Meanwhile, having served her full sentence, Helen Duncan was released on 22 September 1944, vowing never to give another séance.

The shocked Spiritualist movement immediately demanded a change in the law. They felt that she had been prosecuted to stop any leakage of classified wartime information.

As one of many, many examples during 1943 and once more in that ungrateful city of Portsmouth, Helen Duncan had given a séance during which a sailor materialised reporting that he had gone down with His Majesty’s Ship “Barham”, whose loss was not officially announced until three months later.

But, the defence right of appeal to the House of Lords, Britain’s highest court of appeal, was denied. The establishment had achieved its objective and certainly did not want one single inch of further publicity.

Helen was sent back to London’s Holloway prison, that Victorian monstrosity for female prisoners still being used today.

It was not only the best legal minds in the country that felt this case had been a major miscarriage of justice. So too did her prison warders – they refused to ‘bang her up’.

For the entire nine months of her unjust incarceration, Helen Duncan’s prison cell door was never once locked! What’s more, she continued to apply her psychic gifts as a constant steam of warders and inmates alike found their way to her cell for spiritual upliftment and guidance.

And many senior Spiritualists who were close to Helen report, it was not only prisoners and staff who made pilgrimage to the dreaded Holloway Goal. So too did some of her other more notable sitters, including Britain’s Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill himself.

Under this ancient rune Helen Duncan and her innocent sitters were accused of pretending ‘to exercise or use human conjuration’, that through the agency of Helen Duncan, spirits of deceased dead persons should appear to be present’.

But, lest this single charge may falter, the authorities scoured their dusty law precedents for further charges and they found them. One such was the Larceny Act which accused her of taking money ‘by falsely pretending she was in a position to bring about the appearances of these spirits of deceased persons’.

The prosecution were determined to prove Helen Duncan was a fraud. Her trial took place barely a few months before the famous D-Day landings and lasted for seven grueling days. Spiritualists everywhere were up in arms that one of their most treasured and gifted demonstrators should be treated in such a tawdry manner. A defence fund was quickly raised. It was used to bring witnesses from all over the world to testify to her genuine gifts. Because of this her case rapidly became a cause celebré which attracted daily headlines in tabloid and broadsheets alike.

One telling development that this was no ordinary case was that in a rare example of cross border co-operation both the Law Societies (senior legal bar councils) of England and Scotland jointly and simultaneously declared this case to be a travesty of justice.

As a debunking exercise the case failed miserably. Skeptics must have winced at the daily reporting of case after case where ‘dead’ relatives had materialised and given absolute proof of their continued existence.

One Kathleen McNeill, wife of a Glaswegian forgemaster, told how she has attended such a séance at which her sister appeared. Her sister had died some a few hours previously, after an operation, and news of her death could not have been known. Yet Albert, Helen Duncan’s guide, announced that she had just passed over. And, at a subsequent séance, some years later Mrs. McNeill’s father strode out of the cabinet and came within six feet of her to better display his single eye, a hallmark of his earthly life.

Helen with her husband, Henry.

By the penultimate day of this ridiculous trial, the defence was ready to call their star witness Alfred Dodd, an academic and much respected author of works on Shakespeare’s sonnets. Alfred told the court that during 1932 and 1940 he had been a regular guest at Helen Duncan’s home seance’s.

At one of these sittings his grandfather had materialised, a tall, corpulent man with a bronzed face and smoking cap, hair dressed in his customary donkey-fringe. After speaking with his grandson the spirit then turned to his friend Tom and said; “Look into my face and into my eyes. Ask Alfred to show you my portrait. It is the same man”.

Two equally respected journalists, James Herries and Hannen Swaffer then took their places in the Old Bailey witness box – a place where for hundreds of years many a murderer has given evidence and many a witness has pointed an accusing finger. The chain smoking Swaffer, who had already won acclaim as the acerbic uncrowned father of Fleet Street (home of England’s newspaper quarter) and co-founder of the Spiritualist weekly “Psychic News”, told the court that anyone who described ectoplasm as “butter muslim” would be a child. Under a red light in a séance room it would look yellow or pink whilst these spirit forms all displayed a white appearance”.

James Herries, himself a Justice of the Peace, a much respected psychic investigator of some 20 years standing and the chief reporter of the prestigious and influential “Scotsman” broadsheet affirmed that he had seen Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famed author of the Sherlock Holmes books, himself materialise at one of Helen Duncan’s seance’s. He had especially noted the distinctive Doyle rounded features, moustache and equally unmistakable gravelly voice.

But, wisely or otherwise, the defence had decided that the best test of Helen Duncan’s genuine gifts were for her to give a demonstration of physical phenomena whilst in trance from the very witness box of England’s Central Criminal Courts. This suggestion really did cause a frightened flurry in the ivory dovecots of the establishment. If she pulled it off, they debated, then instead of the censure they sought, her cause would be spread throughout the land and even beyond. This would mean that the famed British legal system adopted by so many former colonies – including America – would be held to total ridicule.

Hurried conferences with the best legal minds were held throughout the night. Their solution was to reject this offer and suggest instead that Mrs. Duncan be called as a witness – thus giving the prosecution an opportunity to cross examine this ordinary Scottish housewife and, in doing so, attempt to destroy her credibility. But Helen’s defence lawyers saw through this ploy. They pointed out that Mrs. Duncan could not testify since she was in a trance state during these seance’s and could not, therefore, discuss what had transpired.

The jury only took half an hour to reach their verdict; Helen and her co-defendants were found Guilty of conspiracy to contravene that ancient 1735 Witchcraft Act but Not Guilty on all other charges.

Portsmouth’s chief of police then described this new ‘criminal’s’ background. Mrs. Duncan was married to a cabinet maker and had a family of six children ranging from 18-26 and she had been visiting Portsmouth for some five years. He then described her as “an unmitigated humbug and pest” and revealed that in 1941 she had been reported for announcing the loss of one of His Majesty’s ships before the fact had been publicly known.

The presiding judge announced a weekend’s delay whilst he considered sentence. Helen herself left the dock weeping in her broad Scottish dialect; “I never hee’d so mony lies in a’ my life”.

The following monday morning the judge declared that the verdict had not been concerned with whether ‘genuine manifestations of the kind are possible . . .this court has nothing whatever to do with such abstract questions’. However he interpreted the jury’s findings to mean that Helen Duncan had been involved in plain dishonesty and for this reason he therefore sentenced her to nine months imprisonment.

When the press started the smears, any story was made up and there were a lot of people who were willing to stand on their heads to denounce the ways of any seance, which they were indoctrinated by their religions into believing was evil.  Thankfully not as we know now, that it is natural for a Physical Medium to be used in such a manner as it is only proving to us all that life continues after our so called death.

What is it the press say :   Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

Helen Duncan sat for the London Psychic Laboratory, the research department of the London Spiritual Alliance. a great many times. These were followed in the psychic press by an eager public. In these scrutinized seances Helen produced massive quantities of ectoplasm at each planned and tested gathering. A lot of specimens were obtained by the scientists for analysis, human figures of adults and children appeared clothed in the ectoplasm,  also movements of objects beyond the reach of Helen were observed within each controlled situation. Mrs Duncan was placed nude into a sleeved sack with stiff buckram fingerless gauntlets sewn to the sleeves of her suit. The sack was then sewn in at the back and fastened with tapes and cords to the chair. At the end of the sitting the Medium was often found outside the bag, the seals, tapes and the stitching remaining intact. But as the wider press got wind of the seances that were being monitored and there were no fraud at all to be seen, they started a smear campaign. [what should be realized here, is the press was mainly owned by alleged God fearing people who went to church throughout the week and every Sunday, and the priest had control over their flock at this time, they were not allowed to think for themselves]. This is when the politicians and the authorities took notice of what was happening around Helens seances even though a lot had been to many a seance but had not said so publicly, they needed the peoples votes and the authorities had to keep quiet.

If you think this is a bit far fetched. Look at the instance of Mrs Helen Duncan and the way she died through the hands of the Christian authorities in England. She was deliberately hounded by the authorities from the 1930’s until she died in 1956. But through all this Helen never stopped working hard for the Spirit World, sadly always in constant fear of her seances being interrupted, yet she carried on until the last one where the police again broke into her seance, and caused chaos which ultimately killed her. Please try to read the full stories that are now in print about her life and don’t take too much notice of a lot of the negative propaganda on the net. One book about her is “My Living Has Not been In Vain”, by Mary Armour, the other one that comes to mind is “Two Worlds of Helen Duncan” by Gena Brealey and Kay Hunter. 

Here is a photograph taken during one of her seances where Mrs Duncan is producing a human form, which is formed by the production of ectoplasm.

In 1956 Helen Duncan the Physical Medium, was severely injured and consequently died by the deliberate, forced intervention by the police into one of her Physical Materialisation seances.

A seance was being held in a private room upstairs in a Nottingham chiropodist�s home, the police forced entry gave a massive shock to Helen who was in the cabinet, in an unconscious Trance State, and producing ectoplasm (so “Albert” her guide, who would come through, [he was talking through Helen at the time of the break up of the seance] talk to the audience through Independent Direct Voice box before the Materialization started). Helen was deathly grey, unconscious and bleeding from the mouth when the police carried her out of the cabinet into a separate room and laid her flat out on a couch. The doctor was called, the police at first wanted to take Helen down to the police station, the doctor refused to let them, so the police wanted him to strip her and examine her for masks and muslin cloth in ALL her orifices even in the state she was in. She was also in great pain the police again asked the doctor to come down to the station with her, the doctor again refused. They again tried to insist on taking her down to the police station, the doctor said “I will have no part of it, she is in deep shock,” “Can t you see she is dying.” “She is a diabetic and has a heart problem.” “If you move her she will die”. She died thirty-six days later, I now believe as a direct result of that massive shock to her human bodily system. I can see this death was caused by internal bleeding and psychic burns, knowing what I do now.

All because Helen Duncan was using her gift, the powers from God, the Divine Spirit to comfort people and it was in conflict with the all powerful Christian establishment. Other photographs 

Under this ancient rule Helen Duncan and her innocent sitters were accused of pretending ‘to exercise or use human conjuration’, that through the agency of Helen Duncan, spirits of deceased dead persons should appear to be present’.

But, lest this single charge may falter, the authorities scoured their dusty law precedents for further charges and they found them. One such was the Larceny Act which accused her of taking money ‘by falsely pretending she was in a position to bring about the appearances of these spirits of deceased persons’.

The prosecution were determined to prove Helen Duncan was a fraud. Her trial took place barely a few months before the famous D-Day landings and lasted for seven grueling days. Spiritualists everywhere were up in arms that one of their most treasured and gifted demonstrators should be treated in such a tawdry manner. A defence fund was quickly raised. It was used to bring witnesses from all over the world to testify to her genuine gifts. Because of this her case rapidly became a cause celebre which attracted daily headlines in tabloid and broadsheets alike.

One telling development that this was no ordinary case was that in a rare example of cross border co-operation both the Law Societies (senior legal bar councils) of England and Scotland jointly and simultaneously declared this case to be a travesty of justice.

As a debunking exercise the case failed miserably. Skeptics must have winced at the daily reporting of case after case where ‘dead’ relatives had materialised and given absolute proof of their continued existence. One Kathleen McNeill, wife of a Glaswegian forge-master, told how she has attended such a seance at which her sister appeared. Her sister had died some a few hours previously, after an operation, and news of her death could not have been known. Yet Albert, Helen Duncan’s guide, announced that she had just passed over. And, at a subsequent seance, some years later Mrs. McNeill’s father strode out of the cabinet and came within six feet of her to better display his single eye, a hallmark of his earthly life.

By the penultimate day of this ridiculous trial, the defence was ready to call their star witness Alfred Dodd, an academic and much respected author of works on Shakespeare’s sonnets. Alfred told the court that during 1932 and 1940 he had been a regular guest at Helen Duncan’s home seances. At one of these sittings his grandfather had materialised, a tall, corpulent man with a bronzed face and smoking cap, hair dressed in his customary donkey-fringe. After speaking with his grandson the Spirit then turned to his friend Tom and said; “Look into my face and into my eyes. Ask Alfred to show you my portrait. It is the same man”.

Two equally respected journalists, James Herries and Hannen Swaffer then took their places in the Old Bailey witness box – a place where for hundreds of years many a murderer has given evidence and many a witness has pointed an accusing finger. The chain smoking Swaffer, who had already won acclaim as the acerbic uncrowned father of Fleet Street (home of England’s newspaper quarter) and co-founder of the Spiritualist weekly “Psychic News”, told the court that anyone who described ectoplasm as “butter muslim” would be a child. Under a red light in a seance room it would look yellow or pink whilst these Spirit forms all displayed a white appearance”.

James Herries, himself a Justice of the Peace, a much respected psychic investigator of some 20 years standing and the chief reporter of the prestigious and influential “Scotsman” broadsheet affirmed that he had seen Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famed author of the Sherlock Holmes books, himself materialise at one of Helen Duncan’s seances. He had especially noted the distinctive Doyle rounded features, moustache and equally unmistakable gravelly voice.

But, wisely or otherwise, the defence had decided that the best test of Helen Duncan’s genuine gifts were for her to give a demonstration of physical phenomena whilst in trance from the very witness box of England’s Central Criminal Courts. This suggestion really did cause a frightened flurry in the ivory dovecots of the establishment. If she pulled it off, they debated, then instead of the censure they sought, her cause would be spread throughout the land and even beyond. And this would mean that the famed British legal system adopted by so many former colonies – including America – would be held to total ridicule.

Hurried conferences with the best legal minds were held throughout the night. Their solution was to reject this offer and suggest instead that Mrs. Duncan be called as a witness – thus giving the prosecution an opportunity to cross examine this ordinary Scottish housewife and, in doing so, attempt to destroy her credibility. But Helen’s defence lawyers saw through this ploy. They pointed out that Mrs. Duncan could not testify since she was in a trance state during these seances and could not, therefore, discuss what had transpired.

The jury only took half an hour to reach their verdict; Helen and her co-defendants were found Guilty of conspiracy to contravene that ancient 1735 Witchcraft Act but Not Guilty on all other charges.

Portsmouth’s chief of police then described this new ‘criminal’s’ background. Mrs. Duncan was married to a cabinet maker and had a family of six children ranging from 18-26 and she had been visiting Portsmouth for some five years. He then described her as “an unmitigated humbug and pest” and revealed that in 1941 she had been reported for announcing the loss of one of His Majesty’s ships before the fact had been publicly known.

The presiding judge announced a weekend’s delay whilst he considered sentence. Helen herself left the dock weeping in her broad Scottish dialect; “I never hee’d so mony lies in a’ my life”.

The following Monday morning the judge declared that the verdict had not been concerned with whether ‘genuine manifestations of the kind are possible . . .this court has nothing whatever to do with such abstract questions’. However he interpreted the jury’s findings to mean that Helen Duncan had been involved in plain dishonesty and for this reason he therefore sentenced her to nine months imprisonment.

The shocked Spiritualist movement immediately demanded a change in the law. They felt that she had been prosecuted to stop any leakage of classified wartime information. As one of many, many examples during 1943 and once more in that ungrateful city of Portsmouth, Helen Duncan had given a seance during which a sailor materialised reporting that he had gone down with His Majesty’s Ship “Barham”, whose loss was not officially announced until three months later.

 But, the defence right of appeal to the House of Lords, Britain’s highest court of appeal, was denied. The establishment had achieved its objective and certainly did not want one single inch of further publicity. Helen was sent back to London’s Holloway prison, that Victorian monstrosity for female prisoners still being used today.

It was not only the best legal minds in the country that felt this case had been a major miscarriage of justice. So too did her prison warders. They refused to ‘bang her up’. For the entire nine months of her unjust incarceration, Helen Duncan’s prison cell door was never once locked! What’s more, she continued to apply her psychic gifts as a constant steam of warders and inmates alike found their way to her cell for spiritual upliftment and guidance.

And many senior Spiritualists who were close to Helen report, it was not only prisoners and staff who made pilgrimage to the dreaded Holloway Goal. So too did some of her other more notable sitters, including Britain’s Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill himself.

Despite her declaration with in a few months she felt that strong call from the Spirit World to continue her work and was soon spending more time than ever in trance state. Perhaps too much so, for the quality of her seances since imprisonment appeared to have had deteriorated, even to the point where Spiritualism’s governing National Union actually withdrew her diploma at one stage .

 Helen’s Spiritualist friends say that during his visits to her cell, Prime Minister Churchill made promises of making amends to Helen. True or speculative, it is a fact that in 1951 the damning 1735 Witchcraft Act which had been used to imprison Helen was finally repealed. In its place came the Fraudulent Mediums Act and some four years later in 1954 Spiritualism was officially recognised as a proper religion by formal Act of Parliament. And Spiritualists everywhere knew why and they rejoiced that whilst frauds would be properly prosecuted the authorities, especially the police, would stop harassing true working Mediums.

They were wrong. In November 1956 police raided a seance in the midlands city of Nottingham. They grabbed the presiding medium, strip searched her and took endless flashlight photographs. They shouted at her that they were looking for beards, masks and shrouds. But they found nothing.

The medium was Helen Duncan and in their ignorance the police had committed the worst possible sin of physical phenomena; that a medium in trance must NEVER, ever be touched. As the Spirit World’s teachers have patiently explained so many times when this happens the ectoplasm returns to the medium’s body far too quickly and can cause immense – sometimes even fatal – damage.

And so it was in this case. A doctor was summoned and discovered two second degree burns across Helen’s stomach. She was so ill that she was immediately taken back to her Scottish home and later rushed to hospital.

 Five weeks after that police raid she was dead.

Footnote:

Helen Duncan’s work for Spirit did not cease with her own passing. In September 1982, she came through the direct voice medium Rita Goold and spoke to her own daughter, Gina, who was delighted to confirm this contact without any doubts. She has since returned many times within Spiritualist Home Circles where she always felt happiest. Indeed on one occasion last year this writer, in his capacity as visiting medium, was privileged to link Mrs. Duncan with her former neighbour.

 We owe her an immeasurable debt of gratitude for her faith and skills and for sharing them so widely and at such an ultimate cost. We owe her further debts for being the scapegoat around whom we could demand – and get – vital changes in the law. But Spiritualism’s premier Heroine and Martyr will never be forgotten whilst there are writers who care sufficiently to pen articles like this one.

Thursday, 30 May 2013

Helen Duncan

The strange case of Helen Duncan combines paranormal investigation with government conspiracy, a perfect blend for HPANWO. The case manifests on several levels and there is a lot of contemporary research into it still going on; it continues to arouse considerable controversy even though it came to a head almost seventy years ago. Helen Duncan was a psychic medium from Perthshire, Scotland. She was born in 1897 and died in 1956, and in 1944 she was the last person ever to be imprisoned under the archaic Witchcraft Act of 1735. According to the most prominent sources, she was a clever illusionist using magicians’ tricks; however a new book has recently been written which calls that slur into question and attempt to redeem her, Helen Duncan- The Mystery Show Trial by Robert Hartley, published in 2007 see: http://www.amazon.co.uk/books/dp/0955342082

“Hellish Nell” got her nickname not from her paranormal talents but from her tomboy personality and fiery temper, something that she’d display her entire life. From cradle to grave she had psychic abilities of the rarest kind. She was never very much good at school but she found that if she placed her writing book under her desk for a while and took it out later “somebody” would have written in the correct answers. She also alarmed her classmates and teachers by going into a trance and yelling portents of doom at them. No doubt a Skeptic would say she was suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy, see: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9e2_1212867304. However she proved very useful in other circumstances; once when a man got lost in a snowstorm, Helen’s remote viewing assisted a rescue party in finding him. As she grew to adulthood she found a way to control these experiences. She soon became a member of an elite order of mediumship, that of the physical medium; somebody with the ability to produce physical effects in the world around them via psychic means. A lot of nonsense had been written about the history of Spiritualism; contrary to popular belief it did not begin with the Fox sisters, but is something that has always been a part of the human world and probably always will, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/paranormality-by-prof-richard-wiseman.html. Helen Duncan was no more than the modern equivalent of the shaman or village wise woman; what we today call the “supernatural” was once considered as natural as the air we breathe. She came from a poor family and both she and her husband were too sick to work so she decided to earn a living in the world of seance Spiritualism. She induced “raps”- loud knocking noises, spirit voices and telekinesis- moving objects without touching them. In 1929 she first channelled a spirit called “Albert”, who in his last incarnation on Earth had been a man from Sydney, Australia who had died in 1909. Sitters at her seances also encountered a three year old girl called “Peggy” who had died the same year and worked alongside “Albert” in his contact with Helen. Helen also managed to produce “ectoplasm”, a strange material that issues from a physical medium’s body while in trance, that forms into recognizable shapes, like the faces and bodies of departed souls. In this segment of my new fictional novel, The Obscurati Chronicles, I describe an ectoplasmic emission; scroll down about half way: http://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/obscurati-chronicles-part-13.html

By 1930 Helen had gained a reputation as a highly proficient psychic and her business was booming. Then psychical researchers came knocking on her door anxious to discover if her apparently miraculous powers could be proven true scientifically. In October Helen jumped on a train to England for an expenses-paid trip to the laboratories of the London Spiritualist Alliance. This trip was to prove very troublesome for Helen; she was denounced unequivocally as a fraud and numerous articles were published in the media discrediting her abilities as no more than conjuring tricks. However it’s possible that these articles were biased due to personal issues because, being a guinea pig for the LSA, she signed an exclusivity contract which she subsequently broke, perhaps unwittingly. Maybe she didn’t know it at the time but there was a lot of rivalry in psychical research in those days. The LSA were in stiff competition with a solo maverick in the field called Harry Price; here’s his official website: http://www.harrypricewebsite.co.uk/. Price had initially tendered for the project to research Helen Duncan himself and had been passed over in favour of the LSA. This infuriated him. However he approached Helen privately and offered her a large sum of money to do some sittings in his own laboratory, and to keep this secret from the LSA. Helen agreed. When the LSA found out they hit the roof; Helen was staying in London on their tab and was moonlighting behind their back with their arch-enemy. There must have been some very heated phone calls ringing through to Price’s office and Helen was caught in the middle. It eventually affected her relationship with Price and she had a blazing row with him one day in the laboratory and even struck him physically and walked out. She later apologized and the project continued. Skeptics have made a big deal out of this barney and claim it blew up because Price wanted to have her medically examined and she knew if she allowed this she’d be caught out as a fake; it was a textbook trick of mediums in those days to hide props in their mouth, nose and “pelvic region”. The truth is very different; after Helen returned to the project she agreed to have a full examination of her body, including x-rays. However soon after she decided she had had enough of the entire business and began accusing Harry Price, his assistant Molly Goldney, and even her own husband, of manipulating her behind her back. This new argument centred around an employee of Helen’s business Mary McGinley. McGinley had “revealed” that Helen was faking ectoplasm by swallowing and regurgitating cheesecloth to make it look like ectoplasm, the first time this possibility had even been suggested. However Price and the LSA wrote in their reports that this is exactly what Helen had been doing all along, even though hardly any of this alleged cheesecloth was ever obtained; Price claims to have taken a sample of it once which he says was cheesecloth mixed with egg white and tissue paper. How Helen managed to swallow this, keep it in her stomach, make it invisible to x-rays, bring it up in the laboratory and then swallow it again without leaving vomit stains everywhere, has never been explained. Skeptics have bent spoons, done cold reading and performed bare-handed surgery, but none have ever swallowed, regurgitated and then swallowed again, a six foot square piece of cloth, without using their hands and making no mess. It turned out that McGinley was probably a mole planted by the LSA, but the damage was done. Helen broke the agreement she’d made with Price by unexpectedly returning home before completing the number of experiments she’d promised to do. Price probably joined the LSA in their dismissal of his subject because he wanted to beat them to the line over which investigator had been humiliated the least by Helen. The 1930 study was used later in Helen’s career to blacken her name, but it was not nearly as conclusive as its proponents state; it was not completed, either in its official form at the LSA or in its unofficial form after Price poached her. It was also catastrophically riven with personal animosity. What’s more, as we’ll see shortly, distinctive political and legal reasons to blacken her name would turn up a few years later.

Just when Helen may have wondered how things could possibly get any worse, along comes a woman with a nature as sinister as her name, Esson Maule. Esson Maule was a writer who approached Helen in 1932 with the professed intention to write a book about her. Helen was reeling from the London debacle and swiftly agreed in the hope that she could regain a bit of her formerly good reputation. Helen arranged to meet Maule in Edinburgh to conduct a seance with her at a Spiritualist Church. However during the seance it became clear that it was a trap. Maule believed that Helen was a charlatan and had tricked her into a position where she could expose her. At a prearranged signal during the seance, Maule and her accomplices jumped forward and made a grab for the ectoplasm. Helen screamed and there was a fight in which Helen swung a chair at Maule. Maule then contacted Harry Price and together they reported Helen to the police for fraud. The evidence was a white cotton slip that Maule and Price accused Helen of wearing at the start of the seance and then taking off and using to imitate ectoplasm. However Helen was a large, stocky woman and the slip was about five sizes too small for her; nevertheless the court still found her guilty and fined her ten shillings. The press reinforced their derision of Helen Duncan and it was only in the specialist Spiritualist newspapers that she found any support. The editor of the Psychic News (see: http://www.psychicnews.org.uk/) wrote an article highlighting a large number of discrepancies in Maule’s testimony; also none of the other witnesses in the Spiritualist Church would back up Maule’s statement. The tiny cotton slip and Esson Maule’s testimony formed the cornerstone of the case. So why did Helen lose? We’ll come back to that later.

Over the following years, despite all the negative publicity, Helen continued to practice as a physical medium. In 1939 the UK declared war on Germany and World War II began; with all the people killed in the Blitz and mounting casualties in the armed forces, interest in Spiritualism burgeoned. Helen did not miss cashing in on this growth in the industry, however soon her activities would stray away from the world of Spiritualism into the realm of politics and espionage; the resulting calamity would make the Edinburgh trial pale into insignificance.

In 1941 Helen conducted a series of seances all around the country in which “Albert” appeared to the sitters in ectoplasmic form. The procedure for these seances was standard. The sitters would gather on rows of chairs in the Spiritualist Church or seance room. Helen would strip off her clothes and undergo a thorough examination by a nurse to verify that she was not concealing anything about her person; this would be witnessed by several female members of the audience. Then Helen would put on a plain black dress and walk into the seance room and sit on another chair behind a curtain. The lights would all be switched off except for a single forty watt red bulb. Then the curtains would be parted and the seance would begin. But Helen’s life changed forever when she conducted one of these events on the 27th of May 1941. “Albert” appeared as usual and announced to the sitters: “I’m sorry to have to tell you that a British battleship has just been sunk. I have fourteen hundred spirits newly arrived who were among her officers and men.” There was a gasp from the audience; nobody had heard of any Royal Navy battleship being sunk. Such an occurrence would surely have been in the news, but it hadn’t. Fatefully, one of the audience members was Brigadier Roy Firebrace, a famous astrologer and spiritual researcher, but also an army intelligence officer. After the seance he went straight to his office and made some enquiries with the Admiralty. It turned out that, yes, a British ship had been lost, HMS Hood, an Admiral-class battlecruiser, had been destroyed by the guns of the German warships, Bismark and Prinz Eugen. One thousand four hundred and fifteen men had gone down with her. Hood was the largest and most powerful ship the Royal Navy had and her loss was a major blow to the war effort. This came at a time when morale was very poor on the home front, it was the height of the Blitz and just one year since the Dunkirk Evacuation, people were expecting Hitler’s forces to land at Dover any day; therefore the Government decided to keep the loss of Hood top secret. Firebrace was astounded; as a believer in Spiritualism himself he would have immediately understood what was going on. It seemed Helen Duncan was able to reveal state secrets via the testimony of the dead. You can bet this well and truly marked her card, in fact Firebrace confirmed this after the war, see here at about 13.00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao0pmxxirpA. In November that same year Helen went on a tour of southern England and held a series of events in Portsmouth at a small makeshift Spiritualist centre called the Master Temple; it was just a room in a house above a chemists shop. On the 25th during a seance at 4.30 PM Helen materialized a man who identified himself as a sailor aboard the battleship HMS Barham which was currently fighting in the Mediterranean theatre of operations. He told the audience that he had just been drowned as the ship sank. Again the audience was dumbstruck; they had heard nothing of the sort in the newspapers or on the radio. A woman in the second row recognized the apparition as her son and broke down with grief. The news delivered during the seance spread like wildfire all over Portsmouth and beyond. The wartime intelligence services would probably have started keeping an eye on Helen because of that, even if agents hadn’t already been planted in her audiences. As with Hood, the Government chose not to publicize the loss of Barham; even relatives of the eight hundred and fifty crew members killed had not been informed. What was being whispered in hushed voices in the cabinet war rooms is not known, but Brig. Firebrace did confirm that he was consulted by the security services about what could be done. However the Government must have had a few Skeptics who spoke out against anybody who took Firebrace seriously. It seems that they chose not to act immediately because Helen was permitted to carry on practicing her mediumship for the next two years. Everything changed in January 1944 when Helen returned to Portsmouth. What happened next is one of the most unusual legal dramas in history; why you think it took place will depend on your point of view. Helen was arrested and prosecuted for fraud, as she had been in Edinburgh twelve years earlier; however this time her accusers drove it all up to a completely new league.

Helen was probably expecting to be sent to the local magistrates again for another moderate fine or, at the very worst, a week or two inside under the Vagrancy Act; this was the usual way the law dealt with mediums, but to her shock her case was transferred to no less than the Central Criminal Court of London. Here Helen stood trial under the Witchcraft Act of 1735, an archaic statute very rarely used in over a hundred years. However if convicted the felon could be sentenced to as much as nine months in jail. The arrest occurred on Wednesday the 19th of January; when one of her seances was “busted” in the same way Esson Maule did it twelve years earlier. During one of the sessions two of the sitters switched on torches, leapt forward and “grabbed the fake ectoplasm”. The two moles were a young naval officer Lt. Stanley Worth, and a policeman, Rupert Cross. It was an organized raid, a posse of policemen had been waiting outside and as soon as the two men disrupted the seance they burst in. The photo above shows Helen walking to the Old Bailey with her husband; I can imagine the confusion and distress that was going through her head. Why had her charge been escalated the way it had? Why was she appearing in a court that was usually used for trying lords, traitors and serial killers? Why was she denied bail? As I said above, how you analyze this event will depend on your opinions on the paranormal and how honest you think the Government is. On one level it was an open-and-shut case: Helen Duncan was advertizing herself as a psychic medium when all she was doing was psychological tricks and sleights of hand, the kind of scam James Randi would have exposed, if he hadn’t been too busy at the time escaping from handcuffs while hanging over Niagra Falls. The State had a cast iron case because there was multiple, firsthand eyewitness testimony of her chicanery in action as well as a former conviction for the same offence and a psychical expert who rejected her paranormal abilities fourteen years earlier. What’s more the pre-sentencing character witness, the Chief Constable of Portsmouth Police, told the Judge that she was “pest on society” a heartless exploiter of vulnerable, grief-stricken people; this left the Judge no choice but to impose the most severe sentence: nine months in prison, which, as far as a superficial glance can tell, she richly deserved. But is it really that simple?

Firstly, we need to look at the background of the personnel involved in the trial and Robert Hartley, the author of Helen Duncan- The Mystery Show Trial has done some painstaking research into their histories. Firstly the Crown chose John Cyril Maude KC to be the prosecuting counsel. This was despite the fact that Helen was being tried in Court Number 4 and Maude was simultaneously conducting another case next door in Court Number 1; he was defending a man accused of murder in, funnily enough, Portsmouth, the same place Helen has been arrested. One of the key witnesses to that case was Chief Constable Arthur West, the same Chief Constable who hammered home Helen’s maximum sentence. As we shall see this was not the only role Chief Constable West played in the imprisonment of Helen Duncan. What’s more the defendant in that other trial had accused West of framing him, and he ended up being acquitted. Maude was constantly nipping between Courts 1 and 4 as he juggled both cases. In his absence from Court 4 his assistant, Henry Elam, conducted the Crown’s case against Helen. Why didn’t the Crown simply bring in another barrister to prosecute Helen, somebody who could concentrate 100% on putting her away? Well, it’s certainly true that John Maude KC was regarded as one of the finest and most successful barristers in the country, but could there be another reason for picking him? His education is almost monotonously textbook elite, Eton College, then Christ Church College, Oxford. He was also a member of the Middle Temple, one of the quasi-secret societies, the Inns of Court, which all barristers have to join. What’s more a year after he sent Helen Duncan down Maude was elected a Member of Parliament. But perhaps most importantly of all John Maude was head of MI5’s Section B19, a wartime unit responsible for tracking the sources of rumours; the kind of human intelligence gathering that would be necessary to monitor Spiritualist mediums. If that is the case then he would have investigated Helen in his job as an intelligence officer as well as jailing her in his job as a lawyer. The choice of judge is interesting too. It was His Honour the Recorder of London Sir Gerald Dodson, and there is an authentic letter in existence from the Department of Public Prosecutions (since 1986 called the Crown Prosecution Service) specifically recommending Dodson to preside over the trial of Helen Duncan. Sir Gerald Dodson was a former officer in the Royal Navy who was very active in charities and advocacy groups to do with the Navy and naval veterans; and he would therefore have been deeply involved emotionally in the sinking of HMS Hood and HMS Barham. Another man who would almost certainly have advized the prosecution was a senior Naval Intelligence officer called Commander Ian Fleming. He had previously spied on Spain and also had monitored the Moscow Show Trials in 1933, and the manner in which Helen’s trial was conducted indicates his influence. In a way Helen’s prosecution was a show trial, hence the title of Hartley’s book. Fleming was also very interested in the paranormal and occult. He was a member of the Society for Psychical Research as well as a close friend of the famous purveyor of Magick, Aleister Crowley. Like Firebrace, Fleming would have immediately grasped the implications of Helen’s activities. If Ian Fleming’s name sounds familiar to you, this is probably because he is today very famous for being the author of the James Bond novels, which have of course spawned a very popular series of films. Helen’s defence counsel was Charles Loseby; he was not a barrister, so was not a member of any of the furtive and slippery Inns of Court, but he was a highly experienced solicitor and also an ardent Spiritualist. He believed passionately in Helen’s cause and wanted badly to win the trial for her, but sadly he made some fatal mistakes; he thought that by proving Spiritualism true he could get Helen acquitted. The most obvious problem with that is that the indictment was against the personal machinations of a particular medium, not mediumship in general; the second problem was that he hinged his case on the false assumption that the court would give him the chance.

The prosecution witnesses all reported that they had been lured to the seance in Portsmouth by promises of seeing something truly supernatural and had instead been confronted merely with Helen Duncan herself covered in a white sheet pretending to be ectoplasm. The only problem was that this white sheet was never found even though one of the sitters reported seizing it at the moment the police rushed in. It is odd that on every occasion people have lambasted Helen for faking her act using white sheets or cheesecloth, they have never actually produced said textiles; even though she had performed innumerable times in both Spiritualist institutions and psychical research laboratories. The closest anybody came to it was Esson Maule and the extra-small vest mentioned above. Their case was centred around a series of witness testimonies; luckily for them the principle witness was a highly respected pillar of the community, a young naval officer called Lieutenant Stanley Raymond Worth. Worth is still alive and living in New Zealand; he reports that he was invited to the Portsmouth seances by some friends who regularly used to attend Spiritualist events, what they called “the spooks”, as a form of entertainment. As soon as he saw Helen Duncan in action he could plainly see that she was a complete mountebank and made it his “duty to bring her to justice!” He reported her to the police and this is why the raid took place, and for no other reason. Lt Worth’s links to the police are interesting. He’s the son of one senior police officer and the nephew of another. He was also was a part-time Special Branch constable himself; not to mention the fact that his closest family friend was the aforementioned Chief Constable Arthur West he also knew the police officer in charge of the raid. Perhaps the dodgiest factor in the role of Lt. Stanley Worth is that he lied under oath when asked directly by Loseby if he was involved with the intelligence services. His direct answer was “no” and that he was simply “spying on his own account”, whatever the hell that means! In fact it has been revealed since that he had been selected for detachment to the Naval Provost’s intelligence division. This could well mean he could be reporting to Fleming and Maude; how strange considering the role of those two men in other parts of the trial. All the personnel on the prosecution side of Helen’s trial are distinctly starting to look like some kind of secret cabal. Lt. Worth is further implicated because it seemed one of his acquaintances tried to make some money off Worth’s clandestine campaign against Helen. One of the other regular sitters at Helen’s events made a bet with a friend of his in Oxford that Helen Duncan would be arrested in Portsmouth within two weeks and that her principle accuser would be named Stanley Worth; he won the bet. The only way he could have known all this beforehand is that if Worth knew in advance what was planned and had let it slip, either accidentally or deliberately; did he even have a cut in the bet? The suspicious factors stack up even further when back into Helen’s life came psychic investigator Harry Price; you’ll recall they had met fourteen years earlier and he had allegedly revealed her trickery to the world. The DPP asked Price to consult, but he was not ordered to appear as an expert witness; his job was to brief the prosecution witnesses! In other words Worth, Cross and the other prosecution witnesses were coached. This is highly irregular and could be interpreted as an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

Over the course of the trial all the sitters present at Helen’s seances in Portsmouth were put in the witness box. The testimonies varied enormously between defence and prosecution witnesses. For example, all of the Crown’s witnesses report the same basic effect: the curtains opened and a human figure that looked like Helen Duncan moved around with a white sheet draped over her; the voices they heard were all very like Helen’s. Sometimes she revealed her face and it was definitely Helen Duncan’s face. Clearly Harry Price coached them well. As I said above though, no white sheet was found by the police even though Worth and Cross said they “grabbed it” and the police were on the scene too in a matter of moments. When questioned by Loseby on this point Worth’s answer was: “Well, obviously somebody hid it just in time.” Obviously? This is very much a circular argument fallacy: Nobody found any sheet because somebody hid it- How do you know somebody hid it?- Well, how else could we have failed to find it? Worth said that somebody sitting in the audience wore an arm sling and that was where it must have been hidden. However it seems strange that the police didn’t think of that and search for it there, even if somehow the concealment of a piece of linen big enough to cover a twenty stone woman could be secreted quickly enough to escape their gaze by somebody with one a bad arm; in the chaos of the raid too. Loseby’s witnesses on the other hand, who received no coaching that I’m aware of, tell a very different story; they report seeing Helen sitting securely in a chair while a mysterious white semi-fluid substance issued from her mouth and nose. The fluid morphed into the shapes of people, dead people, whom some audience members recognized; for example, in the case of the Barham sailor. “Albert” and “Peggy” also appeared from time to time and were described in detail that matched from witness to witness. These entities conversed with the sitters, touched them and even in one case, kissed them. Another witness, Mrs Anne Potter, saw her mother who spoke to her from just two feet away and she was easily recognizable, down to the moles on the skin of her face. A parrot, a cat and several other animals also materialized in ectoplasm. When the spirit withdrew from the ectoplasm the witnesses report that it sank into the floor and evaporated. The prosecution placed a great deal of emphasis on the seance lighting. The seance room was a converted upstairs lounge above a chemists shop at 301 Copnor Road, Portsmouth. You can see from the modern photo of the premises below that it has a large bay window; that was the room in which Helen’s events took place. However this was covered by a blackout blind, as most windows were during the Blitz. The room was lit by a white light when not in use, but when the seance started that light was switched off and the bulb was removed for safety; bright light can harm a medium in trance. The only light left on in the room was a forty watt red lamp; in fact occasionally “Albert” even requested that somebody put their handkerchief over it to shade it more. According to Lt. Worth the light was so deeply red and so dim that it was impossible to see the details the defence witnesses claimed they saw; but there’s a contradiction here: Lt. Worth and PC Cross were in the second row of seats; yet they were very positive that they could identify Helen Duncan as the ghostly figure. Then they try to claim that the witness who saw their dead friends and relatives should not make such a claim because the light was too bad to be sure; this was even though some of those witnesses were in the front row, just a foot or two from the curtains. There were also multiple contradictions between their police statements, their preliminary magistrate testimonies and their Crown Court testimonies. Unfortunately Charles Loseby did not challenge these discrepancies enough during his cross-examination of the Crown’s witnesses. This was because the plan for his defence was to wait until the next phase of the trial when he thought he could have the entire case dismissed in one fell swoop; he would get Helen to hold a seance in the courtroom and so prove that she was a genuine psychic!

“If Mrs Duncan is a materialization medium, then there is a Spiritworld near her at this moment… and a guide right here… possibly waiting for an opportunity to help her. Let us call him! Yes, here in the Central Criminal Court of London. Why not? She requires a curtained off partition and a red light; nothing more.” So petitioned Loseby to the court. The judge refused point blank. After an appeal by the defence counsel Dodson agreed to let the jury decide. He polled them and they elected not to. I wonder how close that poll was! Who on the jury did not want to see something like that!? If I’d been there I’d have voted “yes” without a second thought. Dodson’s refusal is of course legally understandable on one level, for the reasons I said above. The reality of Spiritualism was not on trial; a particular self-proclaimed Spiritualist medium was; whether the true manifestation of spirits was possible, or if it were even possible, whether Helen Duncan herself was capable of doing that herself, was not relevant to the case. She could have been the greatest medium the world had ever seen, spewing out ectoplasmic entities left, right and centre at will… but if on just one occasion in Portsmouth she decided to cheat with cheesecloth; that, and that alone, was the concern of the court. But there is another level to the issue; if Helen had been allowed to demonstrate her powers in court in front of the judge and jury it would devastate the prosecution’s case because they would be in a position in which they’d have to prove that a woman who was provably capable of producing genuine psychic phenomena would need to cheat. Did she just have her off-days and had developed fool-proof illusionism for those occasions? Maude and Elam had spent the entire trial portraying Helen as a ruthless harridan who had made a life-long career of double-dealing artifice; a successful demonstration to the court would show her to be a very different kind of woman indeed. What’s more, if it were true that Dodson, Maude, Worth and all the rest were in league with each other to put Helen away on the orders of their Government then there’s no length they would not go to the secure such an outcome… including rigging jury polls.

On Friday the 31st of March 1944, the judge summed up and the jury retired to consider their verdict; this took less than thirty minutes: Guilty. The following Monday Chief Constable Arthur West gave her a such damning character assessment that Helen could not have expected less than the maximum penalty: nine months in Holloway Prison. As she was taken down poor Helen cried out in her broad Scottish accent: “I ha’ nae even done anythin’!… Oh God! Is there a God?” In June she appealed unsuccessfully against the sentence and was finally released at the completion of her term on Friday the 22nd of September. Mr and Mrs Homer, the couple running the Master Temple in Portsmouth, were convicted as accessories and given a four month suspended sentence. On June the 6th, while Helen was languishing in her prison cell, there was a massive amphibious invasion of Normandy, France by British and Allied forces in Operation Overlord, catching the enemy completely unawares; history would come to know it as “D-Day”.

The connection between the supernatural and warfare is stronger than you might think. It has a long history; both Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great used to consult soothsayers before going into battle. In 1429 a teenage peasant girl called Jeanne Roumée was put in charge of the French army because the king believed she was receiving divine guidance. The advice from Joan of Arc gave France victory over England at the Siege of Orleans. All through the Cold War both sides used psychic spies to keep tabs on what their enemy was up to. In the modern world paranormal powers are still a major part of government machinations, despite public ridicule of the notion, for example see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYO-iABnQd4. We are told that Helen Duncan’s case was a simple and straightforward matter: she was a cheat and she had happened to be caught cheating. She had a fair trial and the outcome was that she was fairly convicted and punished for her crimes. But based on the fact of paranormal intervention into matters of statesmanship in the past, plus the other suspicious elements of her conviction, let me offer an alternative hypothesis: Helen Duncan was a real physical medium. The reason she was imprisoned was because her powers allowed her to gain classified information about the War from those who had been briefed into it and had subsequently passed away. She could then relate this information to anybody who happened to attend one of her seances, including Nazi spies. By 1944 preparations were underway for D-Day, a battle that was absolutely crucial to the outcome of the War. Preparations for the Normandy Landings included a massive top secret operation of training, logistics and deception. A fake village was even built in Dorset which you can visit today as a museum piece! The operation consisted of thousands of people sworn to secrecy; it was, to use my own terminology, a dangerously “top-heavy conspiracy”. The planners knew very well how precarious the whole endeavour was. Helen Duncan represented an unpluggable leak; it would only take one of the people involved in D-Day to die before June the 6th, and only one enemy spy to be in the seance room when that person appeared in spirit, for secrecy of the whole invasion to be blown. Therefore the Government concocted a plan to put Helen somewhere where she could not practice her mediumship for the duration of the run-up to D-Day. They used intelligence agents in the police and legal system to frame Helen and imprison her. In fact in a way I’m pleased Helen was convicted and jailed because if that plan had failed they would probably have killed her. It’s clear that the Prime Minister Winston Churchill was not cleared for the plan because he commented himself on the case on the 3rd of April. He sent a memo to the Home Secretary saying: “Let me have a report on why the Witchcraft Act of 1735 was used in a modern Court of Justice. What was the cost of this trial to the State, observing that witnesses were brought from Portsmouth and maintained here in this crowded London for a fortnight, and the Recorder kept busy with all this obsolete tomfoolery, to the detriment of necessary work in the Courts.” Skeptics often claim that Helen was not a real medium at all, but because Winston Churchill was a believer in Spiritualism there was a sort of “climate of Woo” hanging over the British Government during his premiership; this memo comprehensively disproves that. To this day, the elderly Stanley Worth stands by his story, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao0pmxxirpA. He doggedly maintains that he ended up at Helen Duncan’s seance quite by chance because one of his mates invited him “to the spooks” for a laugh. He reported her to the police purely out of a feeling of personal indignation, and he feels that she got her just desserts. Is he being honest or is he still just doing his duty under the Official Secrets Act. Perhaps after sixty-nine years of telling this story, he has come to believe it himself. There’s a fictional allegory in a novel by Brian Aldiss, a local Oxford science fiction writer, Helliconia Winter, the last book in a trilogy. The novel is set on an alien planet in which the inhabitants all have mediumistic abilities and regularly commune with their dead ancestors, a practice called “pauk” that is as common to them as eating and sleeping. One day the government on the planet decide to outlaw “pauk” because they’re terrified that the spirits of the dead will reveal state secrets. When you can’t silence somebody even by killing them, what do you do? Interestingly the government justified its policy by falsely claiming that “pauk” causes the spread of disease.

Helen Duncan went back to Spiritualism after being released from jail and had a few more brushes with the law, although none nearly as serious as the one in 1944. She was the last person ever to be tried under the Witchcraft Act; it was soon replaced with the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951, which made life difficult for many Spiritualists until it itself was repealed in 2008; there have happily been no equivalent replacements. However, in all the years since and with new laws on their side, the UK Government have never come down as hard on anybody as they did on Helen Duncan in 1944. Helen performed her last seance on the 28th of October 1956 at West Bridgford Spiritualist Church in Nottingham. The establishment was raided by the police and Helen was badly injured. She had never enjoyed good health in all her life; the shock of what happened in Nottingham probably aggravated her condition and indirectly caused her death just a few weeks later on the 6th of December, back home in Edinburgh. However, her supporters have not gone away; here’s their website: http://www.helenduncan.org.uk/. They say that Helen has been in regular contact ever since.

Maybe there was a deeper issue at stake in the strange case of Helen Duncan. Maybe it explains why Recorder Dodson blocked Helen’s courtroom demonstration and also why Esson Maule got her nailed in 1932. Maybe there was a far more long-term and strategic goal involved than just D-Day. It all comes down to the fact that the acceptance of the truth of Spiritualism would inevitably result in the acceptance that there is such thing as Life-After-Death. At a senior level of Government I think there are people who know very well that the Afterlife exists; but they just don’t want us to know. They’ve kept it secret for much more fundamental reasons than merely the concealment of military attacks. The official acknowledgement that when we die our consciousness neither ceases to exist forever, nor is tossed into the merciless hands of some vengeful God because you didn’t put enough money onto the church collection plate, would have a profound effect on every aspect of human society. Atheo-Skeptics like Richard Dawkins and Andrew Copson claim that Life-After-Death would somehow reduce the value of our current life on Earth; I’ve never understood why they think that. I speculate that the official Governmental revelation that the Afterlife exists would probably have a very positive effect on the human morale (unless your self-esteem is tied up with being an MBA-er of course! See: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/dr-peter-fenwick-mba-destroyer.html). It would probably eliminate the fear of dying; it would make grieving over the death of a loved one far easier to endure because it would constitute only a temporary separation, not a permanent loss; one which would eventually end with a happy reunion. From what I’ve seen, the Illuminati-controlled authorities guard the secret of spiritual reality closest of all. It’s a bigger secret than the UFO’s, bigger than Free Energy, bigger than 9/11, bigger than Atlantis, bigger than the Reptilians. This entails that its successful suppression must be even more quintessential to the survival of the New World Order than any of those other snippets of hidden knowledge. Why? I’m still not a hundred percent sure. I know why the Church wouldn’t like it; it would mean that they could no longer control people using fear of Hellfire and damnation any more, but on a secular level it’s more complicated. I suspect that the cover-up is still a long way from ending; in fact a few days ago I attempted to revise Helen Duncan’s very biased Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Duncan and it was very speedily edited back. I think this is maybe the subject for another dedicated article. Perhaps one day we will all know the truth about the Afterlife and, who knows, in future court cases it may become perfectly normal legal practice to subpoena a ghost in the way Loseby wanted to subpoena “Albert”.

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The truth about the UK’s last witch Helen Duncan

News

8th May 2018

The truth about the UK’s last witch Helen Duncan

By Hamish MacPherson

Journalist

Duncan made fake ectoplasm using cheesecloth

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SHE is often called Britain’s last witch, but Scottish medium Helen Duncan was nothing of the sort. Instead she was merely a fraudster apart from one extraordinary phenomenon that still has not been explained fully.

In 1944, Hellish Nell, as she became known, was indeed the last woman to be sent to prison for a breach of the Witchcraft Act of 1735, but she was no witch because that Act was brought in to stop people pretending to be witches and mediums.

Duncan wasn’t even a particularly good medium – the way she earned her living was to hold seances and charge plenty for her services, but she was rumbled several times as a fraud.

Nor was she the last person convicted under the 1753 Act – now repealed and replaced with the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951 – because in fact three other people were on trial alongside her and one of them was sent to prison, too. Yet somehow the “last witch” nickname has stuck, though records clearly show that some months after her trial and imprisonment in September 1944, one Jane York, 72, from Forest Gate, East London, was charged under the same act with seven counts of pretending to conjure up spirits of the dead. Incredibly, York was simply bound over for the sum of £5 to be of good behaviour for three years.

Ah, but that happened after D-Day, and there is no question when you examine the evidence that the authorities wanted to make an example of Helen Duncan and put her away for the summer of 1944. We will see why.

Helen Duncan was born Victoria Helen MacFarlane in Callander in Perthshire on November 25, 1897. From an early age her own family saw her as fey, and her mother was mortified when the child’s behaviour became impossible – she would predict doom and destruction for all sorts of people and was given to outbursts of hysteria.

Her early life was otherwise normal. She moved to Dundee and worked at the Royal Infirmary where she met Henry Edward Duncan, a wounded war veteran and a cabinet maker. They were married in 1916, and Duncan would eventually have six children by Henry who saw a great way of making money from his wife’s talents in clairvoyance – she read tea leaves and made predictions and earned a few shillings for doing so.

By 1926 she had become a fully-fledged medium giving seances during a time when spiritualism was all the rage. Moving to Edinburgh, her seances were soon the talk of the town – even the ghost of that local man turned Sherlock Holmes creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a great believer in spiritualism, was said to have materialised at sittings.

A prominent feature of her seances was her apparent ability to produce “ectoplasm” from her mouth during her trances when she was transformed into her spirit partners Albert or Peggy, a young girl whose voices “spoke” through Duncan. She had grown quite obese and the contrast between this 20-stone woman and the childish voices was part of the reason why people believed in her.

It was at a seance in January 1933 that Peggy emerged in the seance room and a sitter named Esson Maule grabbed her. The lights were turned on and the spirit was revealed to be made of a cloth undervest which used as evidence that led to Duncan’s conviction on the Scottish offence of fraud at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in May 1933.

The conviction does not seem to have harmed her career. Duncan was by then making a good living by conducting seances throughout Britain at which “the spirits of the dead were alleged to have appeared, sometimes talking to and even touching their relatives”.

But there were suspicions about her. Renee Haynes in The Society for Psychical Research 1882–1982: A History recalled: “The London Spiritualist Alliance had 50 sittings with her between October 1930 and June 1931; for these sittings she was stripped, searched and dressed in ‘seance garments’. Two interim reports in Light were favourable, a third found indications of fraud. Pieces of ‘ectoplasm’ found from time to time differed in composition. Two early specimens consisted of paper or cloth mixed with something like white of egg. Two others were pads of surgical gauze soaked in ‘a resinous fluid’; yet another consisted of layers of lavatory paper stuck together. The most usual material for ‘ectoplasm’ however, seemed to be butter muslin or cheesecloth, probably swallowed and regurgitated. Distressing choking noises were sometimes heard from within the cabinet; and it was interesting that when she was persuaded to swallow a tablet of methylene blue before one of the seances at the London Spiritualist Alliance, no ectoplasm whatsoever appeared.”

She also refused to be X-rayed or allow infra red photography which was then in its infancy.

During World War Two, the Duncans lived in Portsmouth, headquarters of the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet, and this is when something seriously unusual happened.

At one of her seances a “sailor” appeared announcing that he had just gone down with the battleship HMS Barham. The Portsmouth-based Barham was sunk by a German submarine on 25 November 1941, with the loss of 859 of her crew, but the sinking had been made a state secret to hoodwink the Nazis and keep morale. You can see its loss on Youtube.

Word of Duncan’s amazing revelation got to the police and intelligence services. It was all very harmless, really, but an even bigger secret needed to be kept – the destination of the D-Day landings.

On 19 January 1944, police attended one of her seances and pounced on the evidence. Duncan was originally charged under section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1824, under which most charges relating to fortune-telling, astrology and spiritualism were prosecuted at that time.

Yet the Crown decided to throw the book at Duncan and her co-accused sending her to be tried by jury at the Old Bailey for contravening section 4 of the Witchcraft Act 1735, which carried the heavier penalty of a prison sentence.

The court record says it all: “Helen Duncan is a professional medium, who was engaged at a substantial fee to give a series of seances in a registered church or temple, as it was called, at 301 Copnor Road, Portsmouth, maintained by Ernest Homer over a chemist’s shop which he had kept for many years. Elizabeth Christine Jones, known as Mrs Homer, lived with him, and had done so for some twenty-five years. Frances Brown assisted Duncan and acted as her booking agent.”

Again from the court records: “The case for the Prosecution was that the whole performance was an elaborate pretence, a fraudulent performance, a mere imposition on human credulity.”

It was a fair cop – the witnesses were impeccable, and the evidence for the jury was of “a pretence that so-called materialisations, which were in fact produced by means of fraudulent devices and apparatus, were of a different nature altogether.”

The jury had no trouble in convicting her. Portsmouth’s chief of police, Arthur Charles West, then gave a speech which sent her to prison for nine months.

“This is a case where not only has she attempted and succeeded in deluding confirmed believers in Spiritualism, but she has tricked, defrauded and preyed upon the minds of a certain credulous section of the public who have gone to these meetings in search of comfort of mind in their sorrow and grief. I can only describe this woman as an unmitigated humbug who can only be regarded as a pest to a certain section of society.”

A few years ago Graham Hewitt, who began fighting for a pardon for Duncan, said: “She was tried under an old piece of legislation that shouldn’t have been used at the time and advice had been issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions that alternatives were available.

“Winston Churchill even described the whole episode as ‘obsolete tomfoolery’ in a memo to the then Home Secretary Herbert Morrison.

“She was viewed as a potential threat by the authorities back then. They feared what she was telling people might lead to a crisis in the security services or to soldiers defecting.”

Academic and filmmaker Robert Hartley agreed: “In the run-up to D-Day, the authorities were paranoid about potential security leaks and Duncan was in danger of disclosing military secrets during her seances. Helen Duncan was giving out very accurate information. There were other mediums round the country giving out news on soldiers that had died and someone in authority took it seriously, whatever the source of the information. D-Day was coming up and it was absolutely essential to keep the Allied deception plans intact.”

Duncan’s appeal against conviction failed, she served her time and left prison to carry on much as before only now with people believing she really was a witch. Well, she had the conviction, didn’t she? She died in Edinburgh in 1956 at the age of 59.

To this day people still argue about her, especially spiritualists. Many want her pardoned because of the excessive sentence and it does seem that the British state is taking a very heavy-handed attitude to her.

Here is what the Home Office said to a petition for a free pardon: “It is extremely rare for the Home Secretary to use his power to recommend a posthumous Free Pardon.

“In modern times, only one such Pardon has been recommended.

“It would also be particularly difficult to apply current knowledge, morality and other criteria to events, which took place some fifty years ago.”

So no pardon for the ‘last witch’ that wasn’t.

Robert Hartley claims fresh research into the trial documents – released to the National Archive – points to a state conspiracy to crack down on security leaks ahead of D-Day.

The academic and award-winning film-maker says that Helen Duncan, the woman hailed as “Britain’s last witch”, was convicted in 1944 at the Old Bailey as an example to others.

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Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Duncan, a mother of six, was a celebrated medium performing seances for the wives and widows left at home during the war.

Her technique was to go into a trance and produce ectoplasm through her mouth and nose which would form human shape and speak.

However, on 19 January, 1944, during a sitting in Portsmouth, Duncan conjured up a sailor from HMS Barham to talk to his surprised mother – who didn’t know he was dead. The sinking of HMS Barham had been kept a secret by the navy for three months for operational reasons.

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Fears that Duncan could be a spy led to an investigation by MI5 and Naval Intelligence who were alarmed by her access to secret information.

Only months before D-Day, Duncan was arrested and put on trial at the Old Bailey accused of contravening the Witchcraft Act of 1735.

“The authorities were terrified about potential security leaks and Duncan was in danger of disclosing military secrets during her seances,” said Dr Hartley.

“Helen Duncan was giving out very accurate information. There were other mediums round the country giving out news on soldiers that had died and someone in authority took it seriously, whatever the source of the information.”

After examining all the available documents for a new book on the conspiracy, Helen Duncan: The Mystery Show Trial, Dr Hartley suggests that among those responsible for the conspiracy to convict Duncan was James Bond author Ian Fleming, who was a key figure in the intelligence services at the time.

“I am convinced Naval Intelligence were working with MI5 and when I began looking at that connection, Ian Fleming’s name kept cropping up as being involved with people either involved in the case or on the sidelines,” said Dr Hartley.

On the basis of the evidence, much of which Dr Hartley claims appears to have been fabricated or at least exaggerated, Duncan was convicted and jailed.

More than half a century later, her case continues to be a cause clbre with more than 30,000 websites, translated into several languages, detailing her story.

The official Helen Duncan website claims to have received at least 42 million visitors in the last few years, leading to a worldwide campaign for justice and a petition to the British government calling for the dowdy, plump housewife, who died in 1956, to be pardoned.

“We want to clear her name,” said Michael Colmer, campaign co-ordinator and founder of the British Society of Paranormal Studies.

“There is no doubt that she was framed by the admiralty and our campaign has uncovered evidence that it was a conspiracy.”

Duncan’s supporters are now confident they can put right the original verdict and have petitioned the government for a full pardon.

Graham Hewitt, legal adviser to the campaign, is on the verge of completing a submission to the Home Office with evidence that Duncan was the subject of an admiralty conspiracy.