Wouldn't you or someone else have to reproduce it in order to be sure?
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The Afterlife Investigations - The Scole Experiments.
- Thread starter trainedobserver
- Start date
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Wouldn't you or someone else have to reproduce it in order to be sure?
trainedobserver
Paranormally Disenchanted
See the Brian Dunning comments in the article I posted earlier.
"After everyone left they brought Brian Dunning (who had only seen the very end of everything) in and interviewed him. He was really knowledgeable and I'm sad to say that they cut out most of what he said. He talked about the Scole Experiments and how the locked box on the table that contained the unexposed film was actually in a magician's box that could be opened. (that didn't make it on the show). He was really knowledgeable and Mark Edward was really impressed with all he knew about the history of seances (which Mark is an expert)."
With all the misdirection, how could it be anything other than a trick? Besides that you have the bigger problem of the shear absurdity of it all. I mean, good grief. You're a freaking immortal spirit endowed with incomprehensible powers, privy to the secrets of the ages, and all you can get is this gig? Really? Sweet Jesus!
"After everyone left they brought Brian Dunning (who had only seen the very end of everything) in and interviewed him. He was really knowledgeable and I'm sad to say that they cut out most of what he said. He talked about the Scole Experiments and how the locked box on the table that contained the unexposed film was actually in a magician's box that could be opened. (that didn't make it on the show). He was really knowledgeable and Mark Edward was really impressed with all he knew about the history of seances (which Mark is an expert)."
With all the misdirection, how could it be anything other than a trick? Besides that you have the bigger problem of the shear absurdity of it all. I mean, good grief. You're a freaking immortal spirit endowed with incomprehensible powers, privy to the secrets of the ages, and all you can get is this gig? Really? Sweet Jesus!
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Polterwurst
Paranormal Adept
If I think the witnesses are not completely incompetent and gullible, I'll have to consider what they say: that they did indeed experience something that is not explicable by fraud. Although admittedly with all the absurd and silly stuff and the sitting around in total darkness, that's not easy.
And who said, if it had been genuine paranormal phenomena, there would have been a "freaking immortal spirit with incomprehensible powers" involved? Maybe it was just a simple trickster fooling around who likes to keep things absurd and ambiguous.
I don't exclude the mediums from being tricksters themselves, but I wonder why anyone trying to get away with an elaborate hoax like that would come up with such obvious nonsense like alien grey images, people from the future with silly names, eye-rolling faces etc.
I haven't heard anything about a magician's box from any of the witnesses, btw. As far as I know, they all say they were holding the box containing the film. Hearing it from a debunker like Brian Dunning, I really don't know who the misdirection is more likely to come from. Like Dunning, I wasn't there myself, but unlike him, I'm not assuming that the witnesses are all brainwashed believers, stupid or fraudsters themselves.
No. You'll at least have to find a good explanation for several bright light sources moving around in the room, apparently on their own, with no hidden thread, fibre or cable attached. If the professor who was brought in as a sceptic and who tried to catch one of the lights in his hand had felt anything of the sort, he would have said so.
Well, unless he's in cahoots with the mediums and getting a share of the profit from marketing the "experiment". Which should be rather slim if at all existant, considering the cost for purchasing all the old objects and newspapers, a photolab, equipment which would allow a very skilled person to move around silently and undetected in total darkness in a crowded room, preparing the rooms with hidden doors, compartments and trapdoors, researching the private life of the "witnesses" (think of Montague Keen's music piece or Mr Dalzel's late friend) etc.
And who said, if it had been genuine paranormal phenomena, there would have been a "freaking immortal spirit with incomprehensible powers" involved? Maybe it was just a simple trickster fooling around who likes to keep things absurd and ambiguous.
I don't exclude the mediums from being tricksters themselves, but I wonder why anyone trying to get away with an elaborate hoax like that would come up with such obvious nonsense like alien grey images, people from the future with silly names, eye-rolling faces etc.
I haven't heard anything about a magician's box from any of the witnesses, btw. As far as I know, they all say they were holding the box containing the film. Hearing it from a debunker like Brian Dunning, I really don't know who the misdirection is more likely to come from. Like Dunning, I wasn't there myself, but unlike him, I'm not assuming that the witnesses are all brainwashed believers, stupid or fraudsters themselves.
No. You'll at least have to find a good explanation for several bright light sources moving around in the room, apparently on their own, with no hidden thread, fibre or cable attached. If the professor who was brought in as a sceptic and who tried to catch one of the lights in his hand had felt anything of the sort, he would have said so.
Well, unless he's in cahoots with the mediums and getting a share of the profit from marketing the "experiment". Which should be rather slim if at all existant, considering the cost for purchasing all the old objects and newspapers, a photolab, equipment which would allow a very skilled person to move around silently and undetected in total darkness in a crowded room, preparing the rooms with hidden doors, compartments and trapdoors, researching the private life of the "witnesses" (think of Montague Keen's music piece or Mr Dalzel's late friend) etc.
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trainedobserver
Paranormally Disenchanted
Should we ignore the fact that it looks just like spiritualist palor tricks complete with props, special conditions, darkness, and accompanying absurdities?
Polterwurst
Paranormal Adept
No. Should we ignore the fact that several people who were at least wary or expecting fraud, couldn't find the least evidence for it? I've actually bought a book reporting the 5 year "experiment" to see what else is claimed to have happened (yeah, I'm crazy, I know). I've just begun to read, so I can't say much now. Most of the stunts do seem very suspicious, and the newspapers, coins and stuff would be available for purchase. Also, that the images on film are mostly old photographs isn't very convincing.
But the "light catching" incident, if it really happened the way the witness says, IMO would have to have been anomalous. I can't think of a way to fake several lights buzzing around on their own. And how would they fake them disappearing into solid wood or even into the body of the sitters?
There's also the claim of a heavy wooden table "rocketing" up to the ceiling and hanging there for about 5 minutes. Impossible for a guy in black camouflage I guess. And a technical challenge to perpetrate this without any suspicious sounds or mishaps.
So maybe there was two stealthy accomplices. According to the book, the cellar room ("Scole Hole") was sometimes crowded with up to 30 people. For one or several guys sneaking around undetected, they would probably have to have been something like very skilled contortionist ninjas.
But the "light catching" incident, if it really happened the way the witness says, IMO would have to have been anomalous. I can't think of a way to fake several lights buzzing around on their own. And how would they fake them disappearing into solid wood or even into the body of the sitters?
There's also the claim of a heavy wooden table "rocketing" up to the ceiling and hanging there for about 5 minutes. Impossible for a guy in black camouflage I guess. And a technical challenge to perpetrate this without any suspicious sounds or mishaps.
So maybe there was two stealthy accomplices. According to the book, the cellar room ("Scole Hole") was sometimes crowded with up to 30 people. For one or several guys sneaking around undetected, they would probably have to have been something like very skilled contortionist ninjas.
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trainedobserver
Paranormally Disenchanted
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, ...you know how it goes.
My point being, I personally cannot muster up any enthusiasm for it based on its strong resemblance to spiritualist nonsense of the past.
My point being, I personally cannot muster up any enthusiasm for it based on its strong resemblance to spiritualist nonsense of the past.
Polterwurst
Paranormal Adept
Point taken. I guess I can muster up not so much the enthusiasm but the curiosity, but I'm probably predisposed, having experienced what might be called evidence for the paranormal.
Which I guess is a bit similar to what lead Stephen Braude to join the "Felix Circle" here in Germany despite the laughter of the debunkers. I didn't even know we still had these seance type things here, but seeing as they call themselves "experimental" they probably were founded in the spirit (no pun intended) of the Scole "experiments".
Although debunkers might scoff at the title "parapsychologist" and the fact that he says the "gold leaf lady" is genuine, he's quite sceptical, I think. If he hadn't had his "table up" experience which he couldn't find a way to explain, he'd probably never have considered looking into all this.
I'm actually sceptical of the Felix Circle myself. I listened to an interview with the leader and he didn't convince me that it couldn't be fraud, so let's hope that Braude doesn't get duped. Well, let's hope I'm not getting myself duped looking into these things.
Which I guess is a bit similar to what lead Stephen Braude to join the "Felix Circle" here in Germany despite the laughter of the debunkers. I didn't even know we still had these seance type things here, but seeing as they call themselves "experimental" they probably were founded in the spirit (no pun intended) of the Scole "experiments".
Although debunkers might scoff at the title "parapsychologist" and the fact that he says the "gold leaf lady" is genuine, he's quite sceptical, I think. If he hadn't had his "table up" experience which he couldn't find a way to explain, he'd probably never have considered looking into all this.
I'm actually sceptical of the Felix Circle myself. I listened to an interview with the leader and he didn't convince me that it couldn't be fraud, so let's hope that Braude doesn't get duped. Well, let's hope I'm not getting myself duped looking into these things.
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