The Scole Experiments

[Dogwood]

That's fascinating stuf guys. (Really. Not being fascetious) I've always thought that for Scole, light amplification was the best way to go as they was already a great deal of light available. At Scole, there were indicator lights on a tape recorder and a tape player. There were also the glowing wrist bands worn by the mediums and glo-tape all over everything, including the table and objects on it.

Can you two confirm that LA cameras do not emit any electromagnetic energy beyond that of a "normal" video camera (which was also used by the Scole group occasionally)?

 

[teddygrahams]

That's fascinating stuf guys. (Really. Not being fascetious) I've always thought that for Scole, light amplification was the best way to go as they was already a great deal of light available. At Scole, there were indicator lights on a tape recorder and a tape player. There were also the glowing wrist bands worn by the mediums and glo-tape all over everything, including the table and objects on it.

Can you two confirm that LA cameras do not emit any electromagnetic energy beyond that of a "normal" video camera (which was also used by the Scole group occasionally)?

I can't confirm anything as I have never had my hands on anything but the regular CCD cameras.

The light amplification will require some high voltage to be generated. Perhaps newer generations of elements may require less, but may be harder to get or export. And light amplification is NOT a camera, but maybe someone makes an integrated element with CCD camera.

The FLIR sensors shouldn't emit anything more than a normal CCD camera.

If emissions are a problem the camera could be sealed in a faraday cage or solid metal box with a conductive coated glass for light to enter.

 

[TheBoyPaj]

In the book "The Scole Experiments" (admittedly popularist), it quotes one of the "spirits" as claiming that it's not the light itself that is the problem, but the electicity invoved in producing it that prevents the phenomena.

Which begs the following questions:

Don't tape recorders and video cameras use just as much if not more power? What's wrong with good old fashioned candles?

 

[JamesM]

Don't tape recorders and video cameras use just as much if not more power?

Not to mention the tape recorder that was used to play music throughout the sittings.

 

[SteveGrenard]

I think you have an excellent point about candlight as an acceptable alternative to electric light. I have passed your comment on to M. Keen for a response. Thus even if the seance was not recorded on video, it could at least be visually rather than blindly "witnessed" by the multiple investigators present at any one time.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It's the electricity? That is so lame. Another excuse to prevent anyone from being able to see what's going on.

There is electricity in the wires in the walls. Is that electricity far enough away? Okay then, put a couple of cameras in the walls. Heck, shield them while you're at it.

Cripes. It's as if the entire world is a willing dupe to this nonsense.

~~ Paul

 

[Marc]

It's the electricity? That is so lame. Another excuse to prevent anyone from being able to see what's going on.

There is electricity in the wires in the walls. Is that electricity far enough away? Okay then, put a couple of cameras in the walls. Heck, shield them while you're at it.

Cripes. It's as if the entire world is a willing dupe to this nonsense.

~~ Paul

Yea, it's up there with claiming they can't have light because it would endanger the medium, and then they go on to produce photos of the medium producing ectoplasm.

 

[Nucular]

Colin Fry seems to think that any kind of light, infra red included, will physically damage a medium, potentially leading to death.

On the occassions when infa red was used in my own home circle I was left drained and on one occassion suffered internal bleeding !

I imagine his photophobia stems from the time when someone turned on the lights during one of his seances, and instead of still being strapped into his chair he was standing in the middle of the room holding the glow-in-the-dark trumpet.

 

[teddygrahams]

Colin Fry seems to think that any kind of light, infra red included, will physically damage a medium, potentially leading to death.

That PROVES that mediums are Vampires !

 

[Ed]

This thing stinks to high heaven. Sniff test? Hell, none is necessary. On the surface of it, it is a fraud. These frauds "did not want to be observed". Please, how can anyone take any aspect of this seriously?

 

[SteveGrenard]

It's the electricity? That is so lame. Another excuse to prevent anyone from being able to see what's going on.

There is electricity in the wires in the walls. Is that electricity far enough away? Okay then, put a couple of cameras in the walls. Heck, shield them while you're at it.

Cripes. It's as if the entire world is a willing dupe to this nonsense.

~~ Paul

M.Keen doesn't think its electricity at all. I wrote and asked him to comment on this issue and he wrote back as follows:
-------------------------------------------------
I don't think I could have been present when a communicator defended the
darkness on the grounds that the electricity involved in creating light inhibits
the phenomena, or transmission of information. I think it's much more subtle,
and confusing, than that. They do appear to make a distinction between AC and
DC current. My recollection is that the latter is more acceptable. At
Scole, we had one or two tape recorders running, one for recording the proceedings and the second for playing music. On occasion there was a third tape recorder for spirit transmission (e.g. at the two Ibiza sessions and in the final session when the Rachmaninoff music was recorded). So it does not appear to be electric current itself which is the main trouble, but the type of light, i.e. that part of the spectrum which for some reason conflicts with or somehow
inhibits effective transmission. That it does not invariably do so is evidenced
not only by the common use of (usually) red lamps but by reports of spirit
activities in something like broad daylight — e.g. D.D. Home's physical
performances. There was no diminution of oral transmissions at two seances I attended relatively recently when a battery of four mini video cameras was focussed on and around the medium, operating in the infra-red range.

Even with the Scole Group, my colleague Dr Hans Schaer sat in reasonably adequate artificial light provided by a clear light bulb when experiencing a psychomanteum-type experiment to obtain moving images on a video camera focussed on
a mirror which was angled to face the cellar ceiling. It was a partial
success, the results of which were later seen by David Fontana, my wife and myself, but it was this ("Alice") experiment which was subject to increasing interference, and which eventually resulted in loss of contact with the familiar spirit communicators.

 

[SteveGrenard]

Colin Fry, and his associate David Thomspon indeed work in the pitch darkness for their seances. I arranged for my wife to attend a session with Fry but he did not show up and sent Thompson.

My wife felt that much of what she felt and heard emanated either from a human or non-paranormal source or a tape player.

We were told we would have to book her for 4 to six sessions before any spirits would show up for her -- in other words she would have to become a regular (at a price). When she got there she was asked to leave her pocketbook outside the seance room as were all the ladies. It is my feeling that while the clients were inside confederates of the medium would search through the pocket books for pictures with notes and other remembrances of deceased loved ones. When I complained to Fry about this he answered me by defending Thompson and the integrity of their operation. We got into a heated exchange about the pocketbook thing (he thought I was implying someone would steal money or valuables or make duplicates of latch or car keys to burgle or steal later ...which was certainly possible) but I was more concerned about someone stealing information that would show up in a subsequent session. He accused me of conducting a scientific investigation of him and his buddy Thompson and then sent a check refunding the fee; never heard from him again.

 

[Psiload]

M.Keen doesn't think its electricity at all. I wrote and asked him to comment on this issue and he wrote back as follows:
-------------------------------------------------
I don't think I could have been present when a communicator defended the
darkness on the grounds that the electricity involved in creating light inhibits
the phenomena, or transmission of information. I think it's much more subtle,
and confusing, than that. They do appear to make a distinction between AC and
DC current. My recollection is that the latter is more acceptable. At
Scole, we had one or two tape recorders running, one for recording the proceedings and the second for playing music. On occasion there was a third tape recorder for spirit transmission (e.g. at the two Ibiza sessions and in the final session when the Rachmaninoff music was recorded). So it does not appear to be electric current itself which is the main trouble, but the type of light, i.e. that part of the spectrum which for some reason conflicts with or somehow
inhibits effective transmission. That it does not invariably do so is evidenced
not only by the common use of (usually) red lamps but by reports of spirit
activities in something like broad daylight — e.g. D.D. Home's physical
performances. There was no diminution of oral transmissions at two seances I attended relatively recently when a battery of four mini video cameras was focussed on and around the medium, operating in the infra-red range.

Even with the Scole Group, my colleague Dr Hans Schaer sat in reasonably adequate artificial light provided by a clear light bulb when experiencing a psychomanteum-type experiment to obtain moving images on a video camera focussed on
a mirror which was angled to face the cellar ceiling. It was a partial
success, the results of which were later seen by David Fontana, my wife and myself, but it was this ("Alice") experiment which was subject to increasing interference, and which eventually resulted in loss of contact with the familiar spirit communicators.

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos:

Cripes. It's as if the entire world is a willing dupe to this nonsense.

I don't know about the entire world, but from the comments S.G. posted above, it certainly does seem that Keen is all too willing to play the patsy. What's even more embarrassing, is that he doesn't let the fact that he seems to know better stand in his way.

One more thing:

Thermal imaging: Battery powered. Completely passive, no light emission (mediumistically harmful, or otherwise) whatsoever.

 

[Zep]

Why is it that the more we look at the RESEARCHERS in regard to this sort of stuff, the more the EFFECTS disappear?

I know I have an answer...

Anyway, to my mind, the Scoles activity has pretty much disqualified itself as reputable research, or even as "interesting", really.

 

[Ed]

Thermal imaging: Battery powered. Completely passive, no light emission (mediumistically harmful, or otherwise) whatsoever. [/B]

I tried one of these things once in a completely smoke filled room. You literally could not count the fingers on your hand and with this gizmo (it looked like the one above) it was like watching a b/w movie, really amazing. Cost 2 years ago was $5k.

Insert requisite snotty comment regarding paranormal researchers about here

 

[Mike D.]

Here is a long thread on another message board where a group of believers, skeptics, and fence-sitters are debating Scole:

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=9074

 

[NullPointerException]

No spiritist, either

I also would like to point out that they should have had a barometer and a thermometer running to verify the presence of "spirit breezes" as opposed to normal breezes. The people I have talked with say that spiritual temperature alterations should be localized and non-gradiented.


Example:

Normal Temperature:
w=warm space
c=cold space
H H H W <- cold moved in from upstairs
W W W W
W C W H
W W W H

"Spiritual" manifestation:

H H H H
W W W H
W C W H
W W W H

Whereas a spirit the cold would manifest in the room.


Therefore you could have avoided the IR and all that and monitored the movements of people(and anything else) in the room using cheap easy to acquire thermostats.

 

[Mike D.]

In the thread I linked in my previous post, there is a poster named Desperado who argues vigorously from a skeptical viewpoint against the authenticity of Scole and other mediumistic phenomena, and yet he admits to believing in poltergeist phenomena, as well as in demons and supernatural entities.

 

[SteveGrenard]

In the thread I linked in my previous post, there is a poster named Desperado who argues vigorously from a skeptical viewpoint against the authenticity of Scole and other mediumistic phenomena, and yet he admits to believing in poltergeist phenomena, as well as in demons and supernatural entities.

While I mean no offense to skeptical religionists, this parallels their dichotomous beliefs as well. How you can accept a supeme being, a holy ghost and a human as a son of the supreme being, Genesis's version of creation, angels, the ressurection, rising from the dead, curing the blind, feeding the hungry with manna, and all the other miracles of alternative science performed by Jesus, Moses, Noah and all the other messianic religious figures chronicled in the "book"...... and then dismiss modern day paranormal phenomena as twaddle is hard to understand. It's as if they are saying that was then, this is now and now this stuff doesn't happen but it happened then... if anything, it should be the other way round.

 

[Ed]

While I mean no offense to skeptical religionists, this parallels their dichotomous beliefs as well. How you can accept a supeme being, a holy ghost and a human as a son of the supreme being, Genesis's version of creation, angels, the ressurection, rising from the dead, curing the blind, feeding the hungry with manna, and all the other miracles of alternative science performed by Jesus, Moses, Noah and all the other messianic religious figures chronicled in the "book"...... and then dismiss modern day paranormal phenomena as twaddle is hard to understand. It's as if they are saying that was then, this is now and now this stuff doesn't happen but it happened then... if anything, it should be the other way round.

Offend away. It is doublethink worthy of Orwell.