I know two witnesses to Scole, whom I trust as honest(though of course foolable). I can think of no explanation of what they say they saw, unless they were drugged. Even then, there is a consistency to their accounts inconsistent with hypnotics or hallucinogens.
If you have any hypothesis on the matter I'd be interested to read it.
Hullo! Um... sort of. The really annoying bit is I chickened out. Let me explain.
I have a friend, who I shall call John. I want to preserve his anonymity, because he has spent over fifty years investigating mediums from his first encounter as a boy. I have not seen John for a year or so, but while elderly now (in his seventies) he is mentally alert. John is not a spiritualist, but in his youth he saw a materialisation medium - and was VERY impressed. Since that time he has made a concerted effort to find another "genuine" medium - and while he is not a spiritualist, he believes in the possibility sincerely.
Unfortunately John has been repeatedly disappointed, or was. He was however never going to give up - and he took part in at least two exposes of fraud in the Spiritualist movement, not headline stuff, but damaging to the mediums involved. He is nowadays unutterably cynical - but Scole was actually a bit of a refreshment for him, and he is to this day convinced by what he saw.
In the mid to late 1990's, I was giving a lecture to the newly formed Angliuan Psychic Research Group, and was talking about mediumship. I arranged the venue, and chose The White Hart in Scole, and the "training day" which involved rather a jaundiced take on psychic investigation had just moved in to the afternoon session when I was do to talk about my issues with mediumship, and my research in the area. Some locals asked to join us - and subsequently one of them revealed they were doing some groundbreaking research in the field. They berated me quite rightly for my lack of knowledge of modern work in the area!
I was a little embarasssed -- I had simply assumed they were interestd locals likely to take the proverbial, and was now lectured on the history of the Noah's Ark Society, their take on the Lincoln affair, Alexander etc. I did not at the time know of the Scole Research Group -- I am not sure anyone did. They cordially invited me to visit, but while my parents live just twenty miles south, I live on the other side of the country. (For those who do not appreciate the size of this rther embarassing coincindence, Scole is not a major metropolis! It's really a large village in a sleepy part of East anglia
)
A few months, maybe a year later John told me that a new group was doing stiuff in Scole in Norfolk. I laughed and said I had met them. John then said he had been invited to attend a session, and I was also invited. So we set off, and stayed at my parents house. My father took the proverbial mightily, and even though he was used to his son the ghosthunter this was one step too far. On the morning of the session some old school friends asked me to an rpg session (a game, not grenades!) and a bit embarassed after my former experience, John went alone. I bitterly regret this to this day. I'm still not sure what stopped me going -- I had sat in many seances by this point, but I was never very comfortable with it. I felt, I dunno, it's all a bit - well anyway I'm not keen on seances. Still...
John went, and when he returned he was flabbergasted. He had seen lights, small lights which moved around the table in the dark. I suggested those fiber optic filamants, as apparently the lights landed on his hand, and touched his face. John could not confirm or deny this, but agreed it was a possibility. Then he said he had saw something quite remarkable - two lights slowly seemed ot grow, and form the eyes of a figurine, some ten inches I think he said, high. The figurine looked like a little statue of the Virgin - then it was gone, I forget how. I need to ask John about this, when I meet him again.
John returned twice more, and i spoke to a good number of the SPR investigators I think in the period when they were active at Scole. I never set foot in the place, but certainly no one in the village or Norfolkcircles had much idea of what was going on, or felt any reason to dislike the people involved. I expected dirt - I looked for it, as the "energy based" thing made no more sense to me than ectoplasm - it all sounded like rubbish, and i had just finished my major sceptical work on ley lines - which I hope to get published one day - demolishing the concept. Energy? Sorry, when people say "energy" outside of physics I just groan inwardly. Glass domes? Charged crystals?
Now the thing is, I have since read the Scole Report. I can't find John's experience in their, presumably it was one that was not reported on by the SPR team, but I nterviewed him quite brutally some twenty minutes after the session. The ending of the whole thing was - well I am sure you know! Yet John was completely sincere, and nobody's fool. He was deeply annoyed that Light Intensifier gear could not be employed in the sessions, but he has deteted fraud on several occasions under far worse conditions. He is cautious - he thinks the phenomena was probably genuine, but what it was... well he was not convinced in any direction. I asked him carefully about his access, he drew diagrams, he had searched the room prior to the session. He genuinely came to like the people.
What happened at Scole? I don't know. The PSPR Report, which I will happily mail you if you would like to read it, is divided between those convinced and those who think fraud. The researchers struck me as open - but I wa at one point convinced something sinister was afoot - I found Lincoln, aka Colin Fry, had attended a few sessions early on. I immediately was convinced this was very -- well anyway I asked John, who said Colin had met the folks through calling at their house on other business, carpet fitting or something. That si my recollection. John was amused by this, but as Robin Foy and Colin Fry had both been members of the Noahs Ark Society, it seemed a bit coincidental.
There was also some politics between the Noahs Ark Society and the Scole group, the details of which I never was privy to, but they did not seem to get on from what I could see. Still I tried to find out what I could - interviewing folks, chatting to investigators, asking around - but really at the end of the day we are looking at phenomena which took place in the semi-dark, in a small basement. The newspaper apport screams out fake to me - it is a modern faiurly replica with the worng colour nasthead - and I still find it easier to believe people were decived than the claims are true.Yet the Scole group also strike me as VERY open and approachable - they invited investigators, including sceptics, and travelled all over the place including the USA, performing for lack of a better word in "venues" they did not control. I'm genuuinely puzzled.
Hope this reply helps Sam. It's not much, but its my honest recollection of the events of about a decade ago. I still am curious as to why I never went, and i think its that old thing about a prophet being without honour in his home country. The idea of anything important and interesting happenning in Scole - well as a Suffolk/Norfolk border lad, I just could not take it sriously. It would have to rain frogs, cats dogs and elvis impersonators for hours in Diss or Brandon would have to be visited by the mother of all motherships before i could really find something this close to home believable!
cj x
