Phantoms and Monsters

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Houdini had spirit war

In the early days of the 20th century, the world's most famous magician and the creator of the greatest detective in fiction had a running debate about ghosts.

But it didn't go exactly the way most people would assume.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, believed in spirits, fairies and supernatural powers -- this despite his most famous creation's proclivities toward logic and analytical reasoning.

Harry Houdini, a most skillful illusionist, knew a good trick when he saw one. And he believed all that spirit talk was bunk.

Conan Doyle devoted the last years of his life to writing about spiritualism while Houdini put on shows to debunk the myth of returning spirits.

"A conflict developed between them," said Roy Smith, associate director of the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum.

Through April, the Karpeles Museum is hosting an exhibit featuring letters, manuscripts and various writings by these two towering figures in early 20th century culture. Among the collection are several sets of notes on seances in Conan Doyle's small, neat handwriting, as well as letters from Houdini -- before he was famous -- literally begging for paying jobs.

In one note, Conan Doyle claims that during a seance, two spirits whistled along with a "grammaphone" in the room.

"One with a very good ear. Another not so good," Conan Doyle wrote. "The former was better than any mortal."

Conan Doyle turned to spiritualism, some say, because of tragedy. He lost his first wife, and then World War I took the lives of one son, his brother, two brothers-in-law and two nephews. Death was much on his mind, as evidenced by a page from his lecture on death, part of the Karpeles collection.

Houdini once tried to show his friend that many of the events he witnessed were merely tricks. He demonstrated the familiar trick of separating the top half of his thumb from the lower half, a pretty common illusion.

But it only had Conan Doyle convinced that Houdini had supernatural powers of his own. In fact, when Houdini debunked mediums, Conan Doyle once suggested Houdini used his own powers to block those of other spiritualists.

All these documents are from the private collection of David Karpeles, a California real estate magnate who runs 10 museums across the country that showcase his collection of nearly 1 million historical documents. Karpeles is merely interested in sharing his collection and educating folks; admission is free.

The most interesting piece in this exhibit might be a note Conan Doyle wrote accusing Houdini of tampering with the results of the escape artist's 1924 Scientific American seances.

"What I think he may do is slip a die into the contact box," Conan Doyle wrote.

In fact, at that seance, Houdini exposed Mina Crandon, a well-known medium.

The Houdini letters in the exhibit show a much more practical side to the showman. In his messy scrawl, Houdini -- before his fame -- writes to theater owners trying to book himself and his wife's show, hopefully for a paying gig.

"I don't drink, smoke or chew," Houdini writes. "If you can't offer us a salary, let me know what you will do for us."

Houdini's fortunes would rise as Conan Doyle descended more into the world of spiritualism and predictions of world catastrophes. In one note, he forecasts that earthquakes will destroy South Carolina and San Francisco. One prediction did come true.

And Conan Doyle predicted his 1930 death months before it occurred. - postandcourier

Final Seance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle

Masters of Mystery: The Strange Friendship of Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini

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Death, intrigue, loan sharking, sex and revenge: The curious 250-year-old case of the Cock Lane ghost from 18th century London

It is a story which has all the hallmarks of a modern thriller but which actually took place 250 years ago in 18th century England.

A tightly woven tale of intrigue, affairs, multiple marriages, loan-sharking, death, courtroom drama and mass media frenzy lends what was once a supernatural mystery from the 1700s a decidedly modern air.

In January 1762 a ghost was reported to inhabit rented lodgings in a quiet London street, however the events which followed the alleged haunting just a few streets from St. Paul's Cathedral in Holborn saw two competing factions of the Christian faith dragged into the public spectacle and even Dr Samuel Johnson become involved.

Charles Dickens is one of several Victorian authors whose work alluded to the story and the pictorial satirist William Hogarth referenced the ghost in two of his prints.

The incident began with the untimely death during childbirth of grocer's daughter Elizabeth Lynes, who had married William Kent from Norfolk around 1756. While the child survived William was unable to care for the infant alone and his dead wife's sister, Fanny, moved in to help him. Sadly the little boy also died.

Inevitably there was an attraction between William Kent and his sister-in-law and though he was barred from marrying her the pair lived as a married couple after they moved to London but only after a period of separation while she stayed with her brother.

After a short stay in their first rented rooms near Mansion House in the city William Kent argued with his landlord over the couple's relationship. They had hoped their unmarried life together would be discreet but on learning of their deceit the landlord refused to repay the money which William had lent him. He in turn promptly had the landlord arrested.

It was a situation that would be replayed again in Kent's capacity as, what would be called today, a loan shark.

The couple moved on to Cock Lane in 1760 where once again Kent gave his landlord, parish clerk Richard Parsons, a loan while charging him high rates of interest on the sum borrowed.

During their time there and after landlord's daughter, Elizabeth, had moved in, strange scratching noises were reported at the property. The girl said she heard the mysterious sounds while staying in the rented home during Fanny's pregnancy.

Sadly Fanny later died of smallpox in February 1761 just as her husband began a legal fight over the disputed money owed by his landlord.

It was when Kent won the legal battle that the noises began again at 25 Cock Lane.

Parsons claimed that it was Fanny who was haunting the property and he was backed up by his daughter.

Regular seances were held at the property to determine the motives behind 'Scratching Fanny' and the narrow street became a focal point for public scrutiny, attracting crowds which made Cock Lane impassable.

Lodger Catherine Friend moved out when she found the noises, which had returned intermittently and which were becoming more frequent, could not be stopped.

The unexplained sounds apparently emanated from Elizabeth Parsons, who also suffered fits, and were likened at the time to the sound of a cat scratching a chair.

Richard Parsons called upon John Moore, assistant preacher at St Sepulchre's and rector of St Bartholomew-the-Great in West Smithfield to assist him to establish the presence of one ghost, presumed to belong to Fanny's sister, Elizabeth, had already been noted while Fanny lay dying.

The two concluded that the spirit now haunting Parsons' house must be that of Fanny Lynes herself.

The notion that a person's spirit might return from the dead to warn those still alive was a commonly held belief in 18th century England.

Parsons and Moore devised a method of communication with the ghost; one knock for 'yes', two knocks for 'no'. Using this system, the ghost appeared to claim that Fanny had been murdered.

Following repeated questioning of Fanny's ghost it was divined that she had died not from smallpox, but rather from arsenic poisoning. The deadly toxin had apparently been administered by Kent two hours before Fanny died and now, it was supposed, her spirit wanted justice.

As a clergyman with inclinations toward Methodism Moore was inclined to trust the ghost, but for added support he enlisted the aid of Reverend Thomas Broughton, an early Methodist.

Broughton visited Cock Lane on January 5 and left convinced the ghost was real.

The story spread throughout London, newspaper The Public Ledger began to publish detailed accounts of the phenomenon, and Kent fell under public suspicion as a murderer.

After reading reports of the accusations in the press William Kent vowed to clear his name.

A week later he enlisted two physicians who attended Fanny in her last days, and with Reverend Broughton, went to Cock Lane.

Elizabeth Parsons was publicly undressed, and with her younger sister was put to bed.

The audience sat around the bed, positioned in the centre of the room when the ghost was asked a series of questions:
'Are you the wife of Mr. Kent?' — Two knocks
'Did you die naturally?' — Two knocks
'By poison?' — One knock
'Did any person other than Mr. Kent administer it?' — Two knocks

The Lord Mayor of London eventually became involved and Elizabeth was moved again to another house to try and clear the crowds from the narrow Cock Lane.

It was on the 1st Feb 1762 that Dr Samuel Johnson was invited to witness a séance, along with other nobles.

It was then that the truth came out.

Elizabeth was making the knocking sounds with a small piece of wood she hid in her clothes.

The haunting was a fraud, motivated by the disagreement between William Kent and his former landlord.

Following a trial, Parsons, was sentenced to two years in jail. His wife was imprisoned one year; and Mary Frazer six months hard labour.

Parsons continued to protest his innocence for his part in the curiously modern tale of revenge that is the Cock Lane ghost story. - dailymail

Mysteries; Or, Glimpses of the Supernatural: Containing Accounts of the Salem Witchcraft, the Cock-Lane Ghost, the Rochester Rappings, the Stratford ... Dreams, Demons, Ghosts, Spectres &c, &c

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Why we ALL have psychic powers: How thought premonitions and telepathy are more common than we think

Like many mothers who feared for their family’s safety during World War II, Mona Miller was evacuated from London to the peaceful seaside town of Babbacombe in Devon.

It seemed like a wise precaution but, shortly after her arrival there with her young children, Mrs Miller became increasingly uneasy.

‘I had a feeling that I must leave Devon and return home,’ she told me.

‘At first I dismissed the idea; why leave when I was so happy and contented despite the war going on around me?

‘But the feeling increased. The walls of my room seemed to speak to me: “Go home to London.” I resisted the call for about four months then, one day, like a flash of light, I knew we must leave.

‘On a Saturday in late 1942, we travelled back to London and a few days later I received a letter from a friend in Devon.

‘“Thank God you took the children on Saturday,” she wrote. “Early Sunday morning, Jerry dropped three bombs and one fell on the house where you were living, demolishing it, and killing all the neighbours on either side.”’

Mrs Miller was far from the only person to experience such forebodings during the war.

Three years later, in the spring of 1945, U.S. serviceman Charles Bernuth took part in the invasion of Germany and, shortly after crossing the Rhine, found himself driving along the autobahn one night with two officers.

He described how a ‘still, small voice’ within him told him there was something wrong with the road ahead.

‘I stopped, amid the groans and jeers of the other two. I started walking along the road.

‘About 50 yards from where I had left the jeep, I found out what was wrong.

'We were about to go over a bridge — only the bridge wasn’t there. It had been blown up and there was a sheer drop of about 75ft.’

Both Mrs Miller and Charles Bernuth had experienced presentiments — feelings that something was going to happen without knowing what it would be.

These differ from premonitions, where the person involved has an insight into what lies ahead, as when 16-year-old Carole Davies visited a London amusement arcade during the Seventies.

‘While standing looking out into the night, I had a sense of danger,’ she recalled.

‘Then I saw what looked like a picture in front of me showing people on the floor with tiles and metal girders on them. I realised that this was to happen here. I began to shout at people to get out. No one listened.’

Together with her friends, Carole hurried out and went to a nearby cafe.

As they sat inside, they heard sirens in the street outside. A weakness in the arcade building’s structure had brought its roof and walls crashing down on those within.

‘We all ran down the road to see what had happened,’ Carole remembered.

‘It was just as I had seen. A man I had shouted at was being pulled from under the debris.’

Like Mona Miller and Charles Bernuth before her, Carole was convinced she owed her life to her mysterious sixth sense, a notion which you might expect a scientist of my background to dismiss out of hand.

I am a biologist who has studied, researched and taught at both Cambridge and Harvard, and held senior academic posts on both sides of the Atlantic.

Yet I’ve long believed that presentiments, premonitions and other psychic phenomena such as telepathy should be taken more seriously by my scientific colleagues.

My fascination with this subject began during the Sixties when I was a graduate student in the biochemistry department at Cambridge University.

This was not long after the South African writer Laurens van der Post had published his accounts of life with the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert.

Like most traditional societies, theirs was one in which telepathy was not only taken for granted, but put to practical use, as van der Post saw when his hosts hunted down and killed an eland antelope many miles from camp.

As they were driving back in a Land Rover laden with meat, he asked one of the Bushmen how those back at camp would react when they learned of this success.

‘They already know — we Bushmen have a wire here,’ he replied, tapping his chest. ‘It brings us news.’

He was comparing their method of communication with the white man’s telegram or ‘wire’.

Sure enough, when they approached the camp, the people were singing the ‘Eland Song’ and preparing to give the hunters the greatest of welcomes.

Many other travellers in Africa have reported that people seemed to know when loved ones were coming home.

The same would occur in rural Norway, where the inhabitants developed a special word — vardoger — for the anticipation of arrivals.

Similarly, accounts I read of the ‘second sight’ of some inhabitants of the Scottish Highlands included visions of arrivals before the person in question appeared.

But none of this convinced me, converted as I was to the dogma of ‘materialism’ which has dominated scientific thought since the late 19th century, and still does so today.

According to materialists, science will eventually explain everything in terms of physics and chemistry.

And anything that cannot be thus explained can be dismissed as illusory.

Educated in this tradition, I adopted the standard dismissive attitude when the subject of telepathy came up in the laboratory tearoom one day.

I was gently taken to task by Sir Rudolph Peters, one of the doyens of British biochemistry. He was a kindly man with twinkly eyes and more curiosity than most people half his age.

He told me of an ophthalmologist friend who had a severely disabled and mentally retarded young boy as a patient.

Although he was almost blind, he seemed able to read the letters on the optician’s chart very well, but only when his mother was looking at them.

The only explanation appeared to be some form of telepathic communication between the two, and in 1968 Sir Rudolph conducted an experiment in which the boy correctly guessed many of the written numbers or words shown to his mother, even though they were sitting on either side of a screen which prevented him from picking up any visual or auditory cues.

Sir Rudolph concluded that this telepathy had developed to an unusual degree because of the boy’s extreme needs and his mother’s desire to help him.

But, as I discovered, even laboratory experiments involving strangers had produced results which, if less marked, were still compelling.

For example, the years between 1880 and 1939 saw something of a boom in early psychical research, with the publication of more than 186 studies involving trials in which subjects guessed which randomly selected cards a ‘sender’ was looking at.

When the four million individual results were combined in a statistical procedure called meta-analysis, the overall results were hugely significant because they were considerably more accurate than would have been expected from random chance.

Later experiments during the Seventies involved subjects sleeping in a soundproofed laboratory while a ‘sender’ in another room, and in some cases another building, opened a sealed package containing a randomly selected picture and concentrated on it, trying to influence the subject’s dream.

Sometimes the thought transference was very clear: one subject described having dreamed about buying tickets for a prize fight while the sender was looking at a picture of a boxing match.

Occasionally, it was more symbolic, as when the subject dreamed of a dead rat in a cigar box while the sender was looking at a picture of a dead gangster in a coffin. But in 450 such trials the overall results were very significantly above the chance level.

My research has included more than 4,000 cases of psychic phenomena. Many, like Mona Miller’s near-miss in the Blitz, involve mothers.

Hundreds told me that during the months they were breastfeeding, they’d know when their baby needed them, even from miles away, because they began secreting breast milk.

With the help of a midwife, I studied nine nursing mothers in North London during a two-month period, and found that their unexpected ‘let-downs’ of milk when they were separated from their babies very often coincided with their infants experiencing distress.

The odds against this occurring by chance as often as it did were a billion to one, and this telepathic connection makes good evolutionary sense.

Mothers who could tell at a distance when their babies were unhappy would tend to have babies that survived better than those of insensitive mothers.

Such connections often seem to continue even when the children have grown up, with many stories on my database concerning mothers who had an urge to get in touch with their children when they could not have known by any conventional means that they were in trouble.

Many would do so by telephone, the method of communication most commonly mentioned in reports of telepathic experiences in general.

Many people told me they had thought of someone for no apparent reason, and then that person rang in a way that seemed uncanny. Or they knew who was calling when the phone rang, even before they picked up the receiver.

I designed an experiment to test this, a simplified version of which you can try through my website.

This involved asking subjects for the names and phone numbers of four friends or family members before placing them alone in a room with a landline telephone with no caller ID.

I then selected one of the four callers at random and asked them to phone the subject, who had to say who was on the line before answering.

By guessing at random, subjects would have been right about one time in four, or 25 per cent.

In fact, the average hit rate was 45 per cent, very significantly above the level of chance, and these results have been replicated independently at universities in Germany and Holland.

In attempting to explain such phenomena, we need to look far beyond the traditional scientific view that everything is essentially material or physical, including the human mind.

That materialist approach was summed up by Francis Crick, who in 1962 shared a Nobel Prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA.

‘You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules,’ he wrote.

Crick spoke for the scientific mainstream, as did influential neuroscientist Susan Greenfield when she described seeing an exposed brain in an operating theatre.

‘This is all there was to (the patient) Sarah, or indeed to any of us,’ she reflected in a paper published in 2000.

‘We are but sludgy brains and somehow a character and mind are generated in this soupy mess.’

Yet this idea that our minds are fixed physically inside our heads, and that consciousness is nothing but a by-product of the activity of the brain, runs contrary to our everyday experience.

When we look around us, the images of the things we see are outside us, not in our heads. The feelings in my fingers are in my fingers, not in my head.

The human intuitions I have described fit better with the ‘field theory’ of minds.

We are used to the fact that fields exist both within and outside material objects such as magnets and mobile phones, and there is reason to believe that our minds have similar fields which have their roots within our brains, but also extend beyond them.

Extraordinary though this sounds, it’s supported by studies of another remarkable psychic phenomenon — the sense of being stared at.

Most people have felt someone looking at them from behind, turned around and met the person’s eyes.

And most people have experienced the converse: making someone turn around by staring at them.

In extensive surveys in Europe and North America, between 70 and 97 per cent of adults and children reported such experiences.

In a series of interviews with police officers, surveillance personnel and soldiers, I discovered most felt that some people seemed to know they were being observed, even though the watchers were well hidden.

‘A lot of times the crook will just get a feeling that things aren’t right,’ I was told by one narcotics officer.

‘We often have someone look right in our direction even though he can’t see us. A lot of times we’re inside a vehicle.’

Surprisingly, laboratory tests have shown that the sense of being stared at works even when people are looked at on screens, rather than directly.

Our emotional response can be measured by the activity of our sweat glands and this increases in many subjects being watched on CCTV, even though they are unaware of their response.

All this suggests that, whether through direct staring or CCTV, we are capable of ‘touching’ each other with our sight — further evidence that our minds are not confined to the inside of our brains.

With telepathic communication, it seems that these fields somehow interact at a distance, picking up feelings, needs or thoughts across space.

As for presentiments and premonitions, these imply links across time, as we tune into our future mental states.

That such links are real was suggested by a series of experiments in the U.S. and Holland over the past 20 years.

These measured responses to a series of noxious smells, mild electric shocks, emotive words and provocative photographs, interspersed with calming stimuli which had no physiological effect on subjects at all.

No one, not even the experimenters, knew what kind of stimuli the computer involved would produce next, but in a significant number of cases the subjects reacted to the unpleasant stimuli some three or four seconds in advance, somehow connecting with their future selves who would be experiencing the stimuli for real.

These findings are fascinating in themselves but, as I will explain in Monday’s Mail, psychic phenomena are not restricted to human beings.

There are amazing stories of telepathy and premonitions of disaster in many other species, including pet dogs.

As for exactly how such phenomena operate, it may be years before we understand them, but an important first step is for scientists to acknowledge that they exist, and that the minds of both animals and humans interact in as yet unexplained ways. - dailymail

Psychic Development for Beginners: An Easy Guide to Developing & Releasing Your Psychic Abilities (For Beginners (Llewellyn's))

You Are Psychic: The Art of Clairvoyant Reading & Healing

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