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#1 |
Thinker
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 204
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Ectoplasm -- again?
Yesterday, Swedish TV4 aired yet another episode of "The Unknown", featuring Swedish psychics cleaning ghosts from haunted houses (I think you all know the routine). This time, the self-proclaimed Godmother of Swedish spiritualism, Mrs Iris Hall -- she comes from England -- did the deeds along with her disciple Mr Jörgen Gustavsson.
To my great astonishment, Mrs Hall said that she smelled Ectoplasm! I thought that possesed jello was deserted back in the 19th century when it was discovered that female psychics hid in all holes of the body. Anyway, is it in fashion once again? Maybe some spiritualists are ignorant of the fact that modern men differ in many ways from the Victorian gentlemen. Have you heard any psychics in your country talk about it? Best regards, Chateaubriand |
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#2 |
Thinker
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 204
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Oh, reading my post, another thought came to mind: if Mrs Hall smelled Ectoplasm -- where was it hidden!?
Best regards, Chateaubriand |
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#3 |
Banned
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 17,766
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What does ectoplasm smell like?
(Don't tell me if I don't want to know.) |
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#4 |
Pith Artist
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: The '80s
Posts: 8,694
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Oddly enough ectopasm smells like cheesy Quavers.
Scientists can't explain why. |
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With extraordinary few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat. - Jeffrey Burton Russell It is obvious to any scientist that the bumblebee can fly because experiment proves it. - Zetie 1996 |
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#5 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 9,264
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From memory, archie of the articles in the New York Sun starting in 1913 said,
i don't know what this ectoplasm that arthur conan doyle keeps talking about is, but it sounds like great stuff to mend furniture with |
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#6 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 1,200
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Ectoplasm is meant to smell a bit like ozone.
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#7 |
Thinker
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 204
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Quote:
Best regards, Chateaubriand |
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#8 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2003
Posts: 6,069
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Sounds like a case for Sherlock Holmes
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__________________
"I achieve these results through a mixture of magic,misdirection,suggestion and showmanship"-Derren Brown
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#9 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 1,200
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According to noses it smells like ozone.
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#10 |
Thinker
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 204
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Quote:
Best regards, Chateaubriand |
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#11 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 1,200
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It's gunk spirits materialise in - if you want to see it go to see a physical medium.
It can also be the outer layer of a cell's cytoplasm but that's another kettle of fish. |
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#12 |
Thinker
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 204
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Quote:
Best regards, Chateaubriand |
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#13 |
Muse
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 913
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It looks like chiffon fabric
It looks ALLOT like chiffon fabric |
__________________
Spirituality: the last refuge of a failed human. Just another way of distracting yourself from who you really are - George Carlin Science is not belief, but the will to find out. - Anon |
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#14 |
Thinker
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 204
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Quote:
Best regards, Chateaubriand |
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#15 |
Muse
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 913
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OH! You can't touch the ectoplasm!!!
It could seriously INJURE the psychic!!! If you grab it, it could cause an internal hemorrhage leading to agonizing death!!! NEVER TOUCH THE FABRIC ... wait, I mean. NEVER TOUCH THE ECTOPLASM!!! ![]() |
__________________
Spirituality: the last refuge of a failed human. Just another way of distracting yourself from who you really are - George Carlin Science is not belief, but the will to find out. - Anon |
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#16 |
Muse
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 750
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Quote:
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__________________
"A Demon in a Jesus infested world" Save Katie! |
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#17 |
Banned
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 17,766
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It's fun to lose and to pretend!
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#18 |
Banned
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,704
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Helen Duncan, the famous medium, was abel to create ectoplasm in the shape of long-passed relatives! TRUE! See it here in this photo for proof!
![]() Incidentally, Victor Zammit says that Helen Duncan PROVES the afterlife exists. On evidence like this, I can see why he believes that.* *Because he's a living breathing TWIT! |
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#19 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 1,200
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Operaider
Touching the ectoplasm CAN injure the medium. Helen duncan alias Victoria Helen McFarlane Duncan seen above died as a result of a police officer doing so. |
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#20 |
Banned
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 17,766
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Now come on, you know how we do things round here. First we're going to ask you for a source, then we're going to say post hoc ergo propter hoc. Let's assume that this has already happened, draw a line under the whole sordid incident, and move on.
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#21 |
Critical Thinker
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 482
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Regardless of whether materialization has ever existed or not. …… I think other areas of PSI exist.
As I stated in an earlier topic on materialization, I don't think many, if any, materialization photographs look convincing. I have seen the above Helen Duncan photograph before and I do agree with many sceptics , it looks like a dummy attached in cloth, more than it does an incomplete materialization. Zep, can you tell me who took that photograph of Helen Duncan, was it one of Harry Price’s photographs? (I’ve always wanted to know who took that photograph) Helen Duncan life story and case is rather mysterious, not completely clear cut…… largely due to a psychic investigator called Harry Price Amateur magician Harry Price, achieved a lot of publicity for exposing fraudulent psychics (some cases were hotly disputed by others) … he also originated the cheese cloth regurgitation theory and also spoke against Duncan at her trial helping to get her imprisoned. If Duncan was cheating, she of course deserved to be imprisoned but the bizarre thing is that Harry Price seems to have been committing fraud himself after apparently exposing Duncan for moral like reasons. (Price faked the Ghosts of Borley Rectory? Many people think so) ..Price also lied about his early childhood circumstances…… in other words we must question Harry Price too. Price’s regurgitation theory is far from perfect, Helen Duncan was also tested swallowing blue dye pills that didn’t show up in a resulting materialization. Duncan was also internally examined by a Price assistant (nothing was found?) probably leading to Price’s theory of Duncan possessing a double stomach, which in turn seems ruled out by a medical examiner witness at her criminal trial Price’s luminous dye on cheese cloth theory isn’t perfect either, at Duncan’s trial 40+ witnesses declared her genuine, claiming materializations of likeness to close relatives, they stated the ectoplasm was white, bluish or glowing in the only a red lamp source, would a cheese cloth not have glowed pinkish or reddish? Magician Will Goldston and 3 magician friends at a séance in 1932 said Duncan was producing impressive results that he and 3 other magicians couldn’t explain. Did Helen Duncan cheat? I still tend to think so (mainly due to photographs) ….but the mass of eyewitness reports of people who were there and became convinced their relatives had appeared and spoke to them at Duncan’s séances entered several hundreds … .... |
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#22 |
Muse
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 913
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Quote:
Look at that picture LOOK!!! that is clearly not ectoplasm! It's a freaking Doll!!! |
__________________
Spirituality: the last refuge of a failed human. Just another way of distracting yourself from who you really are - George Carlin Science is not belief, but the will to find out. - Anon |
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#23 |
Critical Thinker
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 482
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Quote:
She could not a have hoaxed that photograph alone, the séance members, photographer must have been involved in hoax? (Because she couldn’t attach that doll thing to a wall/door with her hands held and she would also need to also remove before séance ends and hide it back inside body) Who took the photograph? Who helped her fake it? Why is the hoax photograph so badly done? Why did they not fake it much better with a more realistic face? Why it the ectoplasm attached below the blindfold, surely that would looked more realistic coming out of her mouth? Why is the materialization cabinet Helen Duncan always required missing from photograph? How on earth could such a crude doll, fool so many intelligent people? (including 4 magicians, lawyers , doctors , etc.) ? How could so many, many other people confuse such a dummy looking thing with their dead relatives? Why did Helen Duncan agree to controlled tests with photographs at all?, How could she have hoped to get away with it with such a crude hoax, if this is all it was? Materialization mediums claimed to be instantly burned on light, so did she agree to someone setting up an imitation photograph to show what materialization might look like and the photograph was never intended to be used as evidence? (And someone deliberately made a bad photograph?) Helen Duncan was a ‘trance’ medium, these medium types claimed not to remember anything that happens during or afterwards when in trance. Any chance the photograph was faked without her knowledge? (As some believers have suggested?) It all doesn't make sense to me, it would be useful to know who took that photograph. |
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#24 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 1,200
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Operaider
The object in the photograph may look ever so slightly like a doll but as Open mind says - the particular photo in question may have been doctored by Harry price. A medium can also cheat on one occasion but produce completely genuine phenomena on another eg Eusapia Palladino found materialisation difficult and admitted faking it on a number of occasions but producing real phenomena on others. |
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#25 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,610
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Quote:
![]() Och aye, the noo! Ye have to have salt on yer porridge and nothing under yer kilt! |
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"We must favour verifiable evidence over private feeling. Otherwise we leave ourselves vulnerable to those who would obscure the truth." Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason |
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#26 |
Pith Artist
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: The '80s
Posts: 8,694
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Quote:
"Hey look - you're cheating!" "Oh fair enough, I cheated that time but I promise I didn't cheat elsewhere" "Oh okay I believe you implicitly"
Quote:
![]() Ever. So. Slightly. Like. A. Doll. What comes after ROFFLMAO? |
__________________
With extraordinary few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat. - Jeffrey Burton Russell It is obvious to any scientist that the bumblebee can fly because experiment proves it. - Zetie 1996 |
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#27 |
Thinker
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 173
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Open Mind, are you suggesting that because the picture looks so fake it has to be real, because if it were fake it would have been made to look less like a fake?
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#28 |
Critical Thinker
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 361
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#29 |
Muse
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 913
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Quote:
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__________________
Spirituality: the last refuge of a failed human. Just another way of distracting yourself from who you really are - George Carlin Science is not belief, but the will to find out. - Anon |
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#30 |
Thinker
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 204
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Quote:
Best regards, Chateaubriand |
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#31 |
Muse
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 913
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Quote:
She has the same pattern on her face |
__________________
Spirituality: the last refuge of a failed human. Just another way of distracting yourself from who you really are - George Carlin Science is not belief, but the will to find out. - Anon |
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#32 |
Banned
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,704
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Quote:
1) It IS Helen Duncan, unless Victor Zammit and a whole raft of her supporters are lying (which is possible, I suppose, but why about this in particular?). 2) Duncan didn't hoax the photograph, the photographer simply caught her out. 3) It was most likely taken with infra-red film and without a flash. Such film was readily available to the public from about 1910 onwards, IIRC. Note the lack of sharp shadows - fairly typical of slow-speed IR film. It's more likely that a flash camera (using a big reflector and magnesium bulbs) would have been forbidden. However a small pocket camera loaded with IR film could have been smuggled in. Note also that the use of IR film means Duncan was probably not aware that the picture was being taken. 4) Did you notice the door behind the doll? In a pitch-dark room, what do you think the odds are that it is being manipulated by someone behind that door? Including attaching the "ectoplasm" to Duncan's nose for her? It's well within arm's-length reach. Hmmm? 5) In a pitch-dark room, a little radium paint or similar luminescent substance does tend to glow a nice pale and faint blue-green colour. Just like the effect reported by observers, even under warm conditions. Radium paint was used for the luminescent numbers on watches, so it was easily obtainable. 6) In a pitch-dark room, the only way for an unwitting "observer" to find out where the ectoplasm is is by feeling for it. Duncan only had to say it came from her nose (which she could do because her mouth had no "ectoplasm" in it - see the picture), and it would be difficult for the observer to prove otherwise solely by feel. OR The observer who "confirmed" the ectoplasm was in on the hoax. In a pitch-dark room, the faintly glowing ectoplasm would just look like it may possibly have come from her nose. 7) Since all the other observers were holding hands in a circle, they obviously took the first observer's word for it. Hence, the statement that they all confirmed it is stretching the truth, at best. 8) Hoaxers like Duncan have been playing on the grief of people who have lost dear ones for millennia. So if they go into a seance expecting to see the face of the dear departed, they will latch onto the slightest inference, and justify and rationalise their observations later. Now, that's just this photo, and this all looks plainly obvious to anyone who wants to give it more than half a second's thought. All you have to do is be just the slightest bit skeptical. |
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#33 |
Critical Thinker
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 482
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Quote:
I don’t think any believer in materialization can honestly say that this picture looks like anyone’s human relative. Nor do I think what we see in that above photograph was once inside Helen Duncan’s body . Neither of these explanations seems sensible to me ![]()
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![]() Note Goldston comments are a couple of years later than Price ‘s regurgitation theory, he also says ....... ‘Mrs. Duncan is said to possess a remarkable power of regurgitation; before a sitting she swallows many yards of tightly packed and specially prepared cheese cloth - and rubber gloves. All this material she regurgitates from her stomach during a séance, persuading it, in some manner to simulate human shape. That, with further elaboration, constitutes the persecuting statement. http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/ex...ion/duncan.htm Edited to add provide above link |
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#34 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 1,200
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So we're expected to believe that she had all that muslin cloth stuffed in her insides ready to regurgitate - to me that sounds even more paranormal than even genuine materialization, not to mention she was examined thoroughly to make sure this was impossible.
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#35 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 1,366
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Quote:
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#36 |
Banned
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,704
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From the site you referenced, Open Mind, the following point:
Quote:
If you look at the second photograph you linked, please note that the lady on the left of the picture (holding Duncan's right hand) is not "tied down" by the feet. This suggests to me that this person could move freely in darkness if she wanted. Also, the "holding hands" stuff is plainly ridiculous. Who's to say that the same person couldn't have let go of Duncan's hand for some reason? Then there's the proximity to the curtains - note Duncan's head is definitely leaning or even touching the one of the left... Finally, the "baby" being materialised does look awfully like a girl's dolly, doesn't it. So, in summary, it's really a pretty pathetic attempt at convincing any reasonable person that she was adequately constrained in any way and that she is treely-ruly "materialising". Incidentally, this photograph (a) has a known photographer and date, and (b) is claimed to be and accepted as being Helen Duncan of medium fame. |
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#37 |
Muse
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 913
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Quote:
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__________________
Spirituality: the last refuge of a failed human. Just another way of distracting yourself from who you really are - George Carlin Science is not belief, but the will to find out. - Anon |
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#38 |
New Blood
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 16
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#39 |
New Blood
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 7
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Why is that dog dressed like Mother Teresa, and why is it putting its intestine in that poor woman's nose?
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#40 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 1,200
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Zombified
quote :
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