The Book 4th Edition
“Facts often appear incredible only because we are
ill informed and cease to appear marvelous when our knowledge
is extended.”
Sir Francis Bacon
Helen Duncan was a most magnificent materialization medium
from Scotland and one of the most important women in psychic
history. Her story is given its own chapter in this book
because:
• the British Government indirectly acknowledged
her materialization as genuine — because of it she
became a 'national security risk' in wartime Britain
• some forty-one witnesses with the highest credibility,
including a Royal Air Force Wing Commander, stated in
court on oath that Helen Duncan was a genuine materialization
medium, explaining in detail their psychic experiences
with her. Many senior barristers and Q.C’s when
canvassed stated that this is ‘unique’
During World War II, in January 1944, the British Admiralty
decided that it could not let Helen Duncan, a gifted medium,
continue to materialize intelligences from the afterlife
to reveal information which the Minister for Defense considered
top secret. It was a most crucial time in World War Two,
immediately before the landing at Normandy.
Throughout the war years Helen Duncan reunited many grieving
relatives with servicemen who had died. At one such séance
at Portsmouth in 1941 a sailor materialized and was reunited
with his mother. He told the assembled sitters that his
ship, HMS Barham, had recently been sunk. The editor of
the Psychic News, Maurice Barbanell, innocently telephoned
the British Admiralty to enquire whether this was true and
if it was true why the Admiralty had not advised the sailor's
mother about the loss of her son. The military intelligence
was furious because for security reasons and for public
morale, news of the sinking had been withheld and had been
classified 'top secret'.
National Security thought that a medium of Helen Duncan's
caliber could very easily get hold of the most secretly
held information: where the Allies were going to land in
Europe on D. Day. One can understand the concern of the
Admiralty for secrecy of such an important event.
But one cannot understand the way the Admiralty dealt with
a frail woman, who had six children and a disabled husband
to support, by sending her to jail for nine months causing
her family to be evicted from the family home. The way the
Admiralty conspired to put her away was outrageous, immoral,
unconscionable and violated every human and legal right
of a human being who did nothing except help people communicate
face to face with their loved ones who had 'died' and were
living in the afterlife.
Helen Duncan was arrested in January 1944, charged initially
with vagrancy and later with a trumped up charge of fraudulent
mediumship and sentenced to nine months in jail. According
to BBC Online (2001) she was visited in jail by Winston
Churchill who, appalled at what had happened, promised to
repeal the Witchcraft Act under which she had been charged.
He did keep this promise and after the war Spiritualism
was made a legal religion in the UK.
In a "Kangaroo Court", the accused is guilty
before the trial begins. Inevitably there is no due process,
no real defense, no fairness, no equity, and no justice.
Procedurally, the testimony of witnesses for the accused
will not be acceptable, and the accused is not given the
right to defend herself. The prosecution becomes a lynch
mob and the violation of natural justice is deliberate,
blatant and executed with extreme prejudice. Of course,
there will be no appeal.
That is exactly what happened to Helen Duncan:
• the informer who 'complained' to the police to
prosecute Helen Duncan was identified as a naval officer
employed by the Admiralty
• the police raided Helen Duncan at a séance
she was giving whilst she was in trance hoping to find white
sheets, fake beards and other crude paraphernalia for impersonating
spirits. They found nothing. There was absolutely NO evidence
that fraud was taking place. The police, the British intelligence,
the ‘stool pigeon’ naval officer who was involved
in the matter – all looked not-so- intelligent, looked
absolutely humiliated, disgraced, embarrassed and shamed.
• the police illegitimately and knowingly used the
presumption of fraud and gratuitous brutal physical violence
against a helpless spiritual woman giving service to the
community while still under trance
• the Admiralty was determined to lock her up by
making sure she was charged with something which carried
a prison sentence
• after changing the charge a few times the police
then arranged for a trumped up charge against Helen Duncan
under the very old statutory law of the Witchcraft Act of
King George II of 1735?passed when 'witches' were still
being burnt in Europe
• the police took the matter to the Old Bailey where
Helen Duncan's supporters would have claimed that an ultra-conservative
obsequious judge and ‘hand-picked’ jury were
specially selected for their subservience and the a priori
acceptance that the defendant would be found guilty as charged
• Helen Duncan was technically denied the full due
process of law, denied Natural Justice, denied the fundamental
right to properly defend herself by demonstrating that she
was a genuine medium
• Helen Duncan was again denied natural justice,
denied constitutional equity and was denied equitable and
other rights to demonstrate that materialization was a reality—the
Crown itself had criminally charged her with fraud claiming
that materialization could not be real
• since Helen Duncan had to be put away, no matter
who defended her, the situation was a fait accompli—she
had already been found guilty before the trial started.
Anyone experienced in criminal intelligence work at a higher
level will immediately concede this to be true
• the English and Scottish Law Societies jointly
and separately expressed disgust at the miscarriage and
'travesty of justice' in the Helen Duncan tragedy created
by cowardly armchair-violent men to do untold harm to a
spiritual person.
From the circumstances surrounding the Helen Duncan trial:
• Helen Duncan would have been completely ignored
if the Government did not wholly accept Helen's gifts of
afterlife communication
• by imputation, the British Government accepted
that materialization was real and that Helen Duncan had
objectively proved it with the materialization of the sailor
and others
• by its conduct, the Government had also accepted
that it was possible for afterlife intelligences to pass
information to the living
• for the above reasons the Government did NOT allow
Helen Duncan bail on such a silly trumped up archaic charge.
Even murderers were allowed bail but not someone with genuine
mediumistic powers in time of war
• as a 'security risk' Helen Duncan had to be ‘put
away’.
Of tremendous significance
• at her trial forty-one witnesses who came from
all over the world for Helen Duncan all testified that they
had experienced meeting loved ones in a materialization
séance
• this meant that under oath and for posterity at
the Old Bailey highly accredited witnesses stated in very
clear terms, from their own experience, the reality of materialization,
of meeting their loved ones
• not one of the defense witnesses was 'broken' in
cross examination
• it is immaterial whether the members of the prejudiced
jury accepted the testimony or not. The fact is that numerous
highly credible people had the courage to take on the leaders
of the establishment who knowingly and intentionally made
gross errors of judgment. These brave witnesses went to
court and told ‘the truth the whole truth and nothing
but the truth’ about the reality of materialization
and how they met their loved ones because of Helen Duncan's
materialization mediumship
• the crown case consisted of the claim that Helen
Duncan or an accomplice was pretending to be all of these
'materializations' by dressing up in a sheet and using false
beards, wigs etc. But when the police had 'raided' her séance
while she was in trance and producing materializations they
had found no sheet, no false beards, no wigs, no accomplice—indeed
no evidence of fraud whatsoever.
Typical testimony
• Nurse Jane Rust testified on oath at the Old Bailey,
among other things, that she, through Helen Duncan, actually
met a loved one again—her husband who materialized
from the afterlife and kissed her. 'I have never been more
certain of anything in my life before', she said. She stated
that she had been enquiring for 25 years as a skeptic but
it was only when she met Helen Duncan that she was able
to actually meet her loved ones including her mother who
had passed on (Cassirer 1996: 68).
• A high ranking Air Force officer, Wing Commander
George Mackie, stated on oath that through Helen Duncan's
materialization gifts he actually met his 'dead' mother
and father and a brother (Cassirer 1996:72, 115).
• James Duncan, (no relation) a jeweler, testified
that both he and his daughter had seen his wife materialize
on eight different occasions, in good light. Duncan had
seen her close up at a range of 18 inches and they had talked
of domestic matters including a proposed emigration to Canada
that they had previously kept secret. He had, he said, not
a shadow of a doubt that the voice was that of his wife.
He also claimed to have seen materializations of his father,
who was about his own height and bearded, and his mother
(Cassirer 1996:103).
• Mary Blackwell, President of the Pathfinder Spiritualist
Society of Baker Street London, testified that she had attended
more than 100 materialization séances with Helen
Duncan at each of which between 15 and 16 different entities
from the afterlife had materialized. She testified that
she had witnessed the spirit forms conversing with their
relatives in French, German, Dutch, Welsh, Scottish and
Arabic. She claimed that she had witnessed the manifestation
of ten of her own close relatives including her husband,
her mother and her father all of whom she had seen up close
and touched (Cassirer 1996: 87).
Some years later a team of magicians headed by William
Goldston—founder of the Magicians Club—carried
out an experimental sitting with Helen Duncan. Goldston
and his colleagues were astounded when their dead friend,
the magician 'The Great Lafayette', materialized and spoke
to them in his own voice. Goldston wrote a report on the
event for The Psychic News in which he confirmed that Helen
Duncan's mediumship was genuine and that no magician could
possible duplicate the phenomena that he and his fellow
magicians had witnessed.
The Death of Helen Duncan
In 1956, the Nottingham police raided a séance Helen
Duncan was giving. The police knocked on the door of a private
home without a search warrant on the supposed complaint
of two police officers who had earlier attended one of her
séances. The police had technical knowledge that
materialization usually has to be conducted in semi-darkness
and that if the lights are put on suddenly very serious
injury or death to the medium can occur.
When they were admitted to the home they made a grab for
the medium's cabinet, grabbed the medium and took flash
photographs. The police raid caused the death of Helen Duncan
five weeks afterwards. Without doubt, Helen Duncan's unique
gifts which proved survival and her service to the community
make her one of the most important women in psychic history.
On the Internet
Official Helen Duncan home page
http://members.tripod.com/~helenduncan/
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