Susan Goes to a Séance

Went to Goldsmiths in South London yesterday to hear Susan Blackmore give an entertaining talk about her visit to a séance. She explained that her notoriety as a sceptic makes her a target for people trying to change her mind, and had half promised she would go to one if an opportunity arose. Someone took her up on that and she decided to give it a go.

(She didn't identify the circle, having been asked by the organiser not to. But she mentioned it posts audio files online, and I found it here. )

It's a materialisation circle which meets regularly, in a large garden shed. Blackmore was invited to arrive early and check the place out for anything suspicious. She found the usual set-up with a 'cabinet' consisting of an enclosed space for the medium to sit in covered by a curtain, and couldn't see anything obviously amiss, although wasn't sure what to look for. There were about ten sitters, who mostly seemed to know each other. The medium, when he arrived, turned out to be a big burly chap. When the sitting started he was tied to the chair "with the most incompetent tying I have ever seen" - a bit of rope and a granny knot, although cable ties were also used that looked more impressive. She didn't know what method was used to escape from cable ties, but assumed there must be one.

Blackmore had certain expectations of what a séance would be like - a lot of holding of hands and hymn-singing to "build up the power". It turned out there was little of that - only a rather perfunctory prayer at the beginning, and then an Abba CD playing for the duration. There was total darkness, so she couldn't see anything. I think she had intended to play a section of audio from the website, but the equipment wasn't working, so to give us an idea of what she heard she asked us to close our eyes (to simulate darkness), then rattled two chairs together quite violently for a bit. She then produced an extraordinary choking roar, which settled down into a rough rasping whisper - the voice of the materialised spirit.

There was a lot of excited chatter, with talk of the 'power' being 'really strong this evening'. A number of 'spirits' were said to have materialised, including one named Yellow Feather, talking in different voices that all, as far as she could see, came from the medium himself. At one point there was a big to-do when they announced they would dematerialise him: he duly appeared to vanish from the chair - according to sitters who were invited to touch it - and his voice came from the ceiling. Everyone seemed very impressed, and afterwards they adjourned for tea and cakes.

My own expectation was that Blackmore would treat the whole business with laughing incredulity, which of course she did. She provided the standard sceptic - and in my view, entirely inadequate - preamble about the history of Victorian spiritualism to set the tone, and wondered - perhaps with more justice - why nothing seems to have changed in a century and a half. The séance always involves the same props: the trumpet for direct voice, the obligatory native American, and so on.

But she did seem genuinely baffled by it all. Why on earth would people behave like this? She was sure no one was benefiting materially, as there was no charge for attendance. Talking with the other guests afterwards she heard that people came because they wanted something 'spiritual' in their lives. But this didn't make sense, because there was nothing remotely spiritual about anything that happened. Perhaps it was the mere sense of being visited by 'spirits' that gave them the sense of this. Or perhaps they just did it to get out of the house and have fun.

I've never been to any kind of séance, let alone one that purports to materialise spirits. I know that psychic researchers who started checking them out in the 1880s found them quite tiresome, and I suppose I would have felt the same. If I'd had to sit in the darkness listening to Abba for two hours, and a succession of voices talking platitudes, without any clear indication that they came from anyone else but the medium, and having to accept all the claims of what was happening on trust - I think I'd have gone a bit mental.

There was some discussion afterwards, and I don't think anyone came up with any halfway plausible explanation. This has always been one of the great puzzles facing investigators of séance phenomena, that it's not just about charlatans fleecing the gullible public, but that groups of people seem willing to meet once or twice a week, over periods of years, to converse with spirits who, according to all sensible notions, cannot possibly exist. Why do they do it? What do they get out of it?

I did not get much sense of how much Blackmore had thought about this. Did she think it was a charade that the sitters voluntarily acted out? In that case, the psychological issues involved would be dramatic. Then how much of it was deception, and how much self-deception? Any serious simulation would presumably require a certain amount of skill to achieve.

I personally think that sceptics give far too much credit to people in these situations for the amount of effort they are prepared to go to in order to carry out their nefarious tricks. I doubt that they are that motivated. It would make more sense if they were just sitting there and letting stuff happen.

So my own, admittedly heretical suggestion would be that this lot have stumbled on something that exists in nature, some odd natural process, whether or not it is what it seems to be, and are just working with it - as many have done before them. I can't accept Blackmore's version of history, that William Crookes was 'taken in', as she puts it, nor do I think Charles Richet was fooled at the Villa Carmen. But I can readily accept that her bafflement at the idea of a silly charade is nothing compared to the confusion most of us would feel at having to take it seriously.

Comments

[Fiona Bowie]

Thanks, I'm glad to get an update of what was a predictable exposition/expose. I'm with you here - it just doesn't make sense for people to set up an elaborate charade week after week for the sake of one invited sceptic. If this were the case the psychological and sociological issues involved would be fascinating in their own right, but there is too much that can't be explained in reductionist terms to dismiss all materialisation seances as deception, self or otherwise. Incidentally the circle you found the link for isn't the one Susan visited. I believe this medium travels fairly widely.

[RabbitDawg]

Personally, I'm inclined to think that something paranormal was happening there. Of course, a sceptic would say that the reason the medium "performed" for free was to gin up publicity and to network for future paid sessions. I don't know, I wasn't there.

Incidentally Fiona, it's no big deal, but I checked Roberts link and to me, it did look like Warren Caylor was the medium involved in the seance Susan Blackmore attended. The reason I'm led to believe this is that he mentions "Yellow Feather". How many mediums have a habit of conjuring up a contact with an entity using that name?

In any event, it looks like a situation where a group of folks were seeking spiritual inspiration, and maybe having a little fun. No harm, no foul.

[Leonard George]

Thanks Robert for another stimulating post. As one who has attended quite a few seance-like gatherings (and never experienced much of interest, with the exception of the Philip Group in Toronto), I don't embrace any global explanation - I take things on a case by case basis. But we don't need to stretch very much to come up with reasons why folks would be willing to listen to Abba in the dark each week. Even if I don't know for sure what's happening, MAYBE I'm in the room with spirits! The mere possibility would excite many of us. And even if nothing conclusively paranormal has happened yet, MAYBE it's just about to happen. That's exciting too. And there's tea and cakes afterward to seal the deal.

[Xarie]

Modern scientific research into the nature of consciousness is of critical value.

However, why overlook established, although more primitive methods of investigation?

"The world has suffered and continues to suffer from a profound loss of indigenous peoples and rural groups and their knowledge about the natural world constructed from their intimate ties to land and place. This loss has been accompanied by neglect and the marginalization of their practices and beliefs, often figured as inferior forms of knowing to be replaced by universalized knowledge derived from the Western scientific tradition".

Failure to understand is not just cause to decry what has been, and is still being witnessed within seance home circles.

[Xarie]

As I understand it the Inceni Circle is a small group of people that have set out with an intention to document and photograph Physical evidence of survival.
They don't appear to be receiving funding for their research.

There is another group in Germany that interests me, the Felix Circle. They seems to be working similarly to Inceni and have published some potentially interesting photographic evidence.

Another I found in UK is the Bristol Spirit Lodge, which appears to have several different mediums sitting there regularly and 'developing' whatever it is they do there. They publish reports of what they say occurs at their seance meetings. If the site is correct these people meet three or four times every week! If there's really nothing in it then why do they bother? As the same people seem to be involved, do they spend their time setting up fraudulent evidence just for their own amusement? The site says they recieve no funding and that the mediums don't get paid.
I am baffled!

It seems that a lot of people are wasting their time?

[Robert Perry]

I recently listened to a Skeptiko interview that Alex Tsakiris did with Blackmore. I appreciated her friendliness and candor, I really did. However, what struck me was the feeling that when confronted with, and even acknowledging, certain things that really should give her pause, she notably never paused. Instead, everything was met with the same casual breeziness, as if any fact, no matter what difficulties it might pose to her point of view, is ever so easily handled. No matter how big the rock that was dropped in, the stream of her easy explanation flowed on unruffled, as if nothing had happened.

One example was that she admitted to Tsakiris that she had stopped keeping up with near-death experience research about fifteen years ago. Yet this didn't stop her from speaking on the subject and didn't seem to dent her confidence that her former explanations basically held.

This kind of breezy, casual confidence in the face of no-matter-what does not exactly inspire a confidence in her accountability to data. I want someone who will pause, who will take the blow and sit there stunned for a minute. I don't want someone who will act like the blow never landed, whose self-assured chatter won't even miss a beat.

[David Chamberlain]

Quote: "I can't accept Blackmore's version of history, that William Crookes was 'taken in', as she puts it, nor do I think Charles Richet was fooled at the Villa Carmen. But I can readily accept that her bafflement at the idea of a silly charade is nothing compared to the confusion most of us would feel at having to take it seriously."

And therein lies the rub: it seems to me that anyone who has a serious interest in the paranormal or the spiritual (though not in the religious sense) is assumed to be entirely uncritical about the whole gamut of weirdness that can be found out there. I now avoid events like psychic fayres because, when I have attended them, I have come away in despair at the things people will believe in. Perhaps I have some kind of BS detector though I'm not sure how well tuned it might be. Others, if they have one at all, seem to deliberately switch it off.

On the other hand, Crookes was a highly intelligent and professional scientific investigator but he is dismissed as a gullible dupe because he followed the evidence without prejudice. There is a list as long as your arm of scientific high achievers who have been sidelined in the annals once they have dared to question the materialist orthodoxy.

Susan Blackmore went the other way and now she is the darling of the establishment.

[Jack Hunter]

Hi Robert,

Just thought you might be interested to know that the circle Susan Blackmore discussed in her talk is the circle I have been researching for my PhD, and who I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on. I was at the seance with Blackmore.

The seances are quite informal, and I think this is one of the things that Sue found unusual about them. The fact that they are not rigidly ritualised in the way that other magico-religious practices are. Nevertheless I do think that they partake of a ritual character, just perhaps not in the sense that Sue was expecting.

There is a distinct difference between the lodge and the outside world, all members enter the lodge and in a sense leave the mundane behind (although it is still very light hearted). The prayer serves as a signifier (no matter how rushed) that the lodge is a special place in which special things can happen. Moreover, in the circle leader's own words, the prayer is more a means of setting the intent for what they want to happen during the seance.

Additionally I think Sue's 3 hours of experience with the group (compared with my 3 years) did not provide her with an adequate insight into the relationships that have developed between the sitters and spirits over the years, these sorts of relationships are clearly significant - the circle leader treats the spirits as "friends," so the prayer is just really a formality.

I also disagree with Sue's comments about altered states of consciousness. She seems to have a problem with the idea that popular music can have an effect on consciousness. She also failed to make note of the the effects of darkness (sensory deprivation) on consciousness. It seems odd that she should be so quick to jump to the conclusion that the sitters were not experiencing altered ways of thinking about and experiencing the seance while in the Lodge. I also feel that a different appreciation of the concept of performance itself is required when thinking about trance and physical mediumship, and this in particular is where a broader cross-cultural perspective can help to shed light on materialisation seances. I think we are too quick to jump to conclusions about the performance element, automatically assuming that performance=fraud or performance=not real. In many cultures the act of performance is the embodiment of non-physical beings who utilise the physical body for expression - a mediumship demonstration, therefore, can be both a performance and a genuinely paranormal means of communicating with spirits.

The same applies for "trickery," for instance I am not necessarily always convinced by some of the physical phenomena I have witnessed in physical seances, but I nevertheless feel that they are, even if tricks, a technique in the medium's "tool-kit" for providing contact with the invisible world. Shamans, for example, very often utilise "tricks" to effect what could be considered genuine paranormal healing. Furthermore, I think that "tricks" can have an influence on our consciousness, assisting us into a more receptive state which might be conducive to the experience of genuine paranormal phenomena.

There is much more that I can say, but i'm still doing a lot of writing up at the moment. I think it's fair to say, though, that there is something significant that people get from these seances. In my undergraduate dissertation (2009), I essentially concluded that it was the experiential component that was most significant...

You might also like to have a look at this:http://www.box.com/s/i2t7nkov2npuex0dgyjp It's a section of my field-notes accompanied by a section of verbatim transcript from the seance.

All the best.

Jack
www.paranthropology.co.uk
www.afterliferesearch.co.uk

[Robert McLuhan]

Thanks Jack, that's very interesting.

I understand the ritual idea, but this still seems to leave unresolved the question of whether it's just a performance, or whether 'spirit' forms do actually materialise from ectoplasm, as Crookes and Richet seemed to confirm.

[Jack Hunter]

I do find it difficult to confirm or deny the materialisation. I have seen ectoplasm during one of this particular medium's seances before, but I thought it looked a lot like a piece of silk (then again that does accord well with classic descriptions). It's difficult to judge because it's all usually in the dark. I certainly think that all of this can help in the manifestation of materialisations, though. There's a good account by the anthropologist Edith Turner of her experience witnessing a "spirit form" during the Ihamba healing ritual of the Ndembu in Zambia. She took the position that this was an ontologically real phenomenon, and her description sounds very much like ectoplasm.

[Paul]

Hm. Listened to a bit of the recordings and the bits I heard didn't sound very convincing. Also, no evidence of survival (at least in what I briefly listened too). To be frank it sounded so awful I don't think I could bear to listen to more. The voice sounded like someone putting on a 'monster voice'. It sounded a little like the little girl’s voice in the recordings of the Enfield Poltergest which was thought to be produced using the pseudo-vocal cords (I am not suggesting it wasn’t a genuine communication in the Enfield case btw – I don’t know - though if it was it was done in the light anyway).

I don’t think it is at all harmless if it isn’t genuine. If people are presenting this kind of thing as evidence of survival and it isn't genuine they should be horse-whipped (metaphorically). If it isn't what they claim - it is disgusting.

If it is what they claim, I am astonished that the supposed communicating entities couldn't give a demonstration that was a bit more sensible, evidential and coherent. They must have very little by way of entertainment on the 'other side' if they think this is useful or worthwhile.

What is the problem with these people? Listen to some of the decent examples of Leslie Flint’s work – sensible conversations between people who often knew each other. Alec Harris – materialisation in the light.

If this is the best that can be done, IMHO it would be best not done at all.

[RabbitDawg]

Paul, I'm not as well versed on this subject as many of folks who visit here, so I don't remember ever hearing much about Alec Harris or Leslie Flint. Looks like it's a U.K. thing, and I'm in the U.S.
I Googled them and came up with some fascinating stuff that I'm going to follow up on. Thank you!

[Paul]

Hey Rabbit. You will probably find a lot more about Leslie than Alec. Their mediumship was very different. If you fancy splashing out I can recommend Leslie Flint's biography "voices in the dark". Also there is a website www.leslieflint.com which has a lot of info.

Also you might find "Alec Harris: The Full Story of His Remarkable Physical Mediumship [Paperback]" interesting.

[Zerdini]

Materialisation seances do not take place in the dark.

They have to be SEEN to be classed as materialisation.

I second Paul's recommendations above.

[Jack Hunter]

I also think it's important to remember that this form of "physical mediumship" is not what they usually do at this Lodge. Their normal seances as based around trance mediumship and do not take place in the dark. This seance was a one-off, and is why I don't think it was a particularly good introduction to the group for Susan.

[Zerdini]

It would seem that this group have no idea what a materialisation seance is like and therefore asking Sue Blackmore to attend is simply asking for trouble.

She is a notorious sceptic of the paranormal and will probably dine off the experience for years.

As for Warren Caylor....least said soonest mended.

[Paul]

Lol