Helen Duncan's Materialisations

I'm new to all this, but I have to ask - do people really believe that Helen Duncan's materialisations (the punch and judy looking things) are really real?? If I was waiting for Great Aunty Janet to come through and I was faced with that I think I would either scream and run or demand a refund!

Interesting view, I have heard many explanations about teh reason they look like that. I have also heard reasosn why the size of the materialised figure can vary considerably. In honesty none of them have left me fully convinced Angel.

I suppose I wonder why Spirit would go to the immense trouble it has to to produce tehse materialisations and end up coming up only with something almost any sceptic would instantly rubbish. The reality is that any good mental mediumship is more compelling evidence than figures like this.

Given the final claims that Helen Duncan died because of an interrupted seance causing the rebound of ectoplasm (No not the Barham affair and wartime trial which resulted more from a mental mediumship style message) but later when her mediumship was under severe question by Spiritualists. It seems a high risk to take for such poor evidence.

The reality is, of course that helen was controversial, a court case against her in the 1930's for materialising a cheesecloth waistcoat was upheld, the, just as controversial Harry Price, was sure she was a fraud but Barbanell and others were just as convinced of the reality of her mediumship.

Tough call, I am uncertain as to the actual cause of her death, at the time she had severe diabetes and was very obese. Equally all to often the events that created the "ectoplasm back lash" and the Barham affair are drawn into one combined story as if it all happened together, not the very many years apart. There is no suggestion that she was injured at the tme of her arrest during the war, indeed there is an excellent factual book about the trial. The actual cause of her, reported, injury in the 1950's was a police investigation of a complaint that she was a fraud.

There are too many people, of high reputation, that reported favourably on her mediumship for me to suggest she was not a very good medium however, the questions will never go away.

Never judge a book by its cover. Helen Duncan was controversial not by her doing but by others who had their own agenda. Some of those pictures are faked but not by her, some are in her early development and there are a few of fully materialized spirits. Helen Duncan was a genuine medium who was always willing to be of service to others. Helen Duncan would bring through fully materialized spirits while in trance. She sat in red light and was searched before every sitting. While she was holding a sitting in Nottingham which was raided, she was burned on her breast and stomach due to police shining a light on her which caused the ectoplasm to recoil back to her body. She never recovered after that happened approximately thirty three days after the raid Helen passed to spirit.

One of the things I have learned in the course of researching survival is to try not to take one piece of evidence and make too many inferences from it (pro or con) but rather to build up a composite picture by looking at writings and experiences from different angles, both sceptical and from those who experienced phenomena.

I aggree with you obiwan. I have the reaearch on Helen and from all the writings I have she was a wonderful medium.

A very good way to look at it Obi. Now in Helen Duncan's case we are well aware of the formidable level of support her mediumship received at her trial. This from some of the most substantial names in Spiritualism and many of whom had not flinched from exposing false mediums.

The whole case was, clearly, a farce. The issue over the sailor from the Barham revealing a secret the Government wished to keep hidden made a mockery of the whole judicial and intelligence system. Unfortunately you will, all to often, find it mixed up with the entirely seperate incident in the mid 1950's when the police raid did occur.

By that stage Helen's health was very poor and her diabetes was severe. Indeed some of her supporters during the trial, Barbanell included, had suggested that she should have retired. Cleary she was in no physical condition to suffer any shock, let alone that of police bursting into a darkened room where she may well have been in deep trance.

However, for right or wrong especially given the rather dubious reputation Harry Price gained for the way he went about psychic investigations, Helen will always be the medium about whom Price formed his regurgitation theory and just after this she was caught in Edinburgh.

To offset this there appear to be no further exposures of any kind and the information about the sailor from the Barham is one of the great pieces of evidential mediumship, given no one could say she knew of it and the Government at first assumes she was a spy.

It is very greatly in her favour that she chose to allow her mediumship to be researched by Harry Price in the first place. Would that our modern day physical mediums would make themselves available to scientific research like helen and others did in the past.

Jim

I can't think of any medium alive today would go through the testing that Helen went through. Harry Price was looking to make a name for himself. I would of told good old Harry to go fly a kite just like Helen did and I am saying that nicely. Must be in the blood. lol

The Helen Duncan trial/affair has the smell of a psyops.

So true.

For those interested in the "Punch and Judy" pictures a read of the latest Psypioneer is vital Volume 9, No 05: May 2013. You can obtain it free and direct by sending an e-mail entitled “Subscribe” to psypioneersub@btinternet.com

These were early pictures when Helen was learning to work with ectoplasm and the photographer mentions that they were not intended to be real people.

To quote

Alan Crossley publishes four of the Metcalfe photographs in the first edition of his 1975 book (The Story of Helen Duncan (1975)) each photograph is accompanied with information presumably given by the photographer.
The quoted information below is referring to two Metcalfe photographs shown:
1). – Photograph referred to by Malcolm Gaskill.
“The first time an ectoplasmic form is able to support itself. Again there is an increase in the volume of ectoplasm, the substance used to create the materialization of a deceased person. The intelligence behind such phenomena must surely have access to laws which govern such manifestations, and are, as yet, outside those known to science.
“It should be stressed, however, that the materializations at this stage were experimental and were not intended to resemble deceased persons. The crude appearance of the form in no way justifies rejection of the phenomena which is at its early development stage. A full length form illustrated in another part of the book will indicate the advance and progress made possible through continued development of the mediumship.”
2). – Photograph which Manfred Cassirer claims to be: “Peggy” Helen Duncan’s child control, materialises.”
“A more substantial form is produced. At this stage, the purpose is to manipulate and mould the ectoplasm and perfect the process of reproducing as near a likeness of the deceased person as possible. The infusion of the animating force, the spirit, gives the form the ability to speak and hold a normal, intelligent conversation as well as appearing to resemble the person whom they claim to be.
“Note the rope-like cord which links the form to the medium. With a full materialization, the medium has been known to lose a considerable amount of weight.”

I would load the pictures but the system is not working. The whole Psypioneer article is a must to any lover of mediumship long and meticulously researched, as ever, by Paul Gaunt.

" The whole Psypioneer article is a must to any lover of mediumship long and meticulously researched, as ever, by Paul Gaunt."

I totally agree.

As Helen Duncan's granddaughter I know my grandmother was 100 percent genuine. I started to research her in my early thirties and thought I can accept my research however the cards fall. Some of the pictures are faked and where never meant for the public.