Speaker 1: Welcome to the Seriously Strange Conference, a paranormal peep show
special Winchester University was the heading for the Association of
the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena or ASAPP for sure.
All the attendees made their way into the large lecture
theater where the Seriously Strange Conference took place. As soon
as I arrived, I was welcomed by the committee and
signed in and was issued a badge, and then I
took my place in la foyer and waited.
Speaker 2: For the conference to start.
Speaker 1: And of course there was one person already waiting there
to meet me.
Speaker 3: Hello everyone, I'm Ben Emlyn Jones and I'm here at
the ass APP Seriously Strange Conference, I mean with Neil,
my friend Neil.
Speaker 4: So it's really good to be here. I love these conferences.
Speaker 1: They had a variety of academic speakers and lay researchers
with a blend of accessible and more academic talks. Speakers
had the opportunity to present their talks in front of
a large screen. Ben and I secured our seats right
at the back to get a great view of everything
before us. And the first speaker of the day was
Neil Nixon with Today Winchester tomorrow the.
Speaker 2: Cosmos, thank you very much.
Speaker 5: So, yes, let's celebrate what we've all got in Okay,
we's not with it. There's anybody who read crap terms
by the eye of people, Thank you very much.
Speaker 6: You need that up right.
Speaker 5: Nineteen ninety nine fifty worst places that live in the
UK and Winchester number five. We were in Bath last year,
which doesn't get a mention in this particular book, but
it was.
Speaker 6: Quite last night.
Speaker 5: I tell that I was continuing prosperrated to the presence
of one of the worst postures still, but it's un
down to beauty is scared by the broken beer bottle violence.
Its Friday night. So when we do we go out
on Friday night in Winchester, do we goes work? I
think things have improved since they wrote that book. But anyway,
so we're in Winchester're welcome to Winchester.
Speaker 6: Today, We're interested tomorrow the cost us?
Speaker 5: Yeah, basically, so I think I'm not the only person
looking at the kind of bigger picture in terms of
crudely hang half an out here. The argument would be,
after a lifetime I've been obsessed with this kind of stuff,
I'm less impressed by people trying to solve a particular case,
going and digging deep into one particular onesing or one
particular uf overt much more convinced that if we're looking
at genuine phenomena i e.
Speaker 6: Things that are.
Speaker 5: Worth of investigation that we currently don't begin to understand,
we're probably looking at a bigger picture somewhere along the line.
Speaker 6: So we'll talk a little bit about that. I'll just
feel the need to apologize on him.
Speaker 5: At paranormal conference and I mentioned football, But yeah, fair
play to the journeys that were in h I've had
an intelligiment football conversation already this weekend.
Speaker 6: Let me tell you a story about football.
Speaker 5: You're probably familiar with the two big one here, like
Paul Gastoin and Glenn Model. At the moment this pictures
taken and Gaza is towards the end of his England career,
which lasted from nineteen eighty eight to two nineteen eighty
eight to nineteen ninety eight, he was in the World
Cup squad trying to qualify and England did qualify for
the ninety eight finals, at which point Glenn moddel held
a train income and ended the train income by picking
his squad and Gaza was not picked. And the official story,
if you read it, is that Gaza's England career ended
at that point because he retaliated on the manager ran
trash in his hotel room. Unofficially, there's another story that
does the round, which is quite relevant to the talk
cup come in today, and it's this Paul Gastorn was
a practical joker, a non practical joke because it was
always pulling stunts on people, and he pulled one in
the training camp and he went to the thing is
that they had a moment in the training camp where
the slug were gathering around and discussing the drill and
various pieces that were doing, and Ghaza went up to
Glenn Hoddle and said, I've just heard something about your boss.
Is it true you found God? And Glenn Hoddell said, well, yeah,
it is true. And more Gas going to the punchline
as well. That must have been one element passport. Yeah,
all right, it's a joke I quite like because it's
it's relevant to what I'm talking about today.
Speaker 6: And as much as there's a big picture.
Speaker 5: There's a means bob which we're trying to reach it,
which sometimes seems quite almost tenuous.
Speaker 6: So passing of football to gone, it's kind of like
a meta book of some of the things I'm going
to be talking about. Let's get the serious stuff.
Speaker 5: I cann't deny, you know, all the years that I've
spent researching.
Speaker 6: All these kind of things. The stuff that seems to resonate.
Speaker 5: With me more these days is to do with the
people who came up with big overarching views of certain
things and trying to sort of ship away with them.
And I'm guessing that you know, I'm talking to the converts,
and I know I speaking yesterday to somebody about trying
to join Alie Stepvardi's society, which I've never done, but
I want out the individual but we sort in here
was telling me that they tried to do that.
Speaker 6: And there are some of these ideas.
Speaker 5: Just whilst they're quite bold now sort of resonate with
me quite well. So if if you're unfamiliar with Rudolph Otto,
who's the guy on the left.
Speaker 6: He wrote a few major theological tones about a century ago,
but the idea of the holy is the one that
still keeps selling, such as any of themselves these days.
And he had a central planning of this idea, which
is that he.
Speaker 5: Talks about a concept called numinosity, which is the new
minis is the stuff that's kind of between what we
can observe and what we can pick a way out
and what we can prove and the kind of a
mopus thing that will never reach is that bit in
the middle.
Speaker 6: And he felt very.
Speaker 5: Much as a theologian that he was dealing with something
that was bigger than we could understand, but that was
just in sight, almost just over the horizon.
Speaker 6: You could perceive it, but you couldn't quite get to it.
And our recently read Alista Hardy's book.
Speaker 5: In fact, if anybody in here gets the Christian and
parapsychologist that Matt Arnold produces, I've got an article coming
and well, I've got a writer. First, Yeah, I think
I could cope that. But I've got an article coming
up in there looking at fifty years of the book
written by Sir Alison Hardy, The Biology of God.
Speaker 6: And it's an interesting rate.
Speaker 5: I mean, he's a biologist and a Christian and he
starts from the premise that there must be some biological existence.
Speaker 6: This is nineteen seventy five, so what can you prove
and not what can you not?
Speaker 5: But the last one, I mean, I'm assuming one or
two of you, what if this this is a meme I.
Speaker 6: Picked up the other day. I mean, clearly, when you're
playing with.
Speaker 5: This kind of stuff, the danger of confirmation bias is massive.
So you have things resonate that that doesn't necessarily mean
you right. I found that quite funny because it's a
picture of a woman where she's in Jesus. But as
some of you are probably spotted that stage of Gilno,
the league, the gus are open, big fight.
Speaker 6: Who was about the eight years?
Speaker 5: Which is just if you get an example of the
cautionary detail, you can even find that in these lyrics.
I mean, obviously there's you know, the danger is that
you just things resonate, but you just go.
Speaker 6: Off in the wrong direction and you get her on
confirmation bias to it.
Speaker 5: So let's talk about two of my favorite paranormal stories.
Speaker 7: Again.
Speaker 5: I apologies if you're unfamiliar with this, and so if
you are familiar with it, I've reverred to on the
left on the twelfth of August nineteen eighty three. It
was fished by a canal back in August sharp in
the early hours of the.
Speaker 6: Morning, as you do.
Speaker 5: A UFO lands, he sees two beings that come out
through some bushes and becking in towards them. He goes
through the bushes. The beings aren't inside that the UFO
is there. He goes aboard the UFO. He finds himself
in a room, a futuristic room, but there's nobody around,
no being of any point around. Then he hears a voice,
but there's no where he's coming from, and he asked
him how old he is. He points out that he's
about to turn seventy eight, and I'm sorry to break
this year.
Speaker 6: But the voice says, you're too all then in the
film for our purposes, all right, aliens are ages. I
do quite a lot of time. I'm bookable for talks,
you know, I'm speaking it and you get.
Speaker 5: Booked in Route one jobs all at the University of
the Third Asian probust grooms active retirees on the midweek
after the name. That story goes down quite well with
some of them, appallingly with others, you know, like the
oldest person through the rooms nineteen.
Speaker 6: You just told them the aliens are interested in them,
you know, And I've got to apologize to.
Speaker 8: She got around somewhere.
Speaker 5: They got from groom speeder. Hey, yeah, yeah, sorry, I know,
I know you're talking about Elvies. I'll keep it down
to one Elmies story this morning. But this in the
webinar a few weeks ago, true story A girl with
Down syndrome.
Speaker 6: A young woman with Down syndrome is dying. She's a
heart condition.
Speaker 5: She was never going to live very long compared hers
with big fans of Alvis.
Speaker 6: She's attending an Elvis gig. It's in Raymond.
Speaker 5: Movies Last Day, his book about Elvis and Elvis Afterlife.
She says goodbye to her down, goodbye to her mother,
and then as she's dying in front of her basically
lapses were consciousness, she says, Elvis is here, specifically, the
incomes Alvis. A moment's so meaningful that it actually drove
her dad back to renewing his religious mouth.
Speaker 6: But it's a true story. I mean, it's the eye
weaknesses say it's true. Now, I don't know the truth,
literal truth of that. You can't go and investigate it
and prove it one way or the other.
Speaker 5: Point I'm making is that there's surreal stories in many ways,
they don't seem to have a resident, absolute literal truth,
just free Internet, and it's.
Speaker 6: Something followed provably.
Speaker 5: So yeah, and just do yourself as David.
Speaker 6: If you've heard that story and you believe you don't.
Speaker 5: Check out the Skeptoid episode which munishes it with names
in about fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: Well, so.
Speaker 5: We are victims of our own ability to believe, our
own willingness. And basically, and in a previous life, I
taught professional rights into university students. You taught mythic structure.
There's a book called a Here over a thousand Paces
by a guy called Joseph Campbell. He tells you mythic
structure the storytellers. There's a simpler version called The Writer's
Journey by Christopher Bogo, which is the same thing. We
are hardwired, literally hardwired to believe. That's a quote from
my book on mystery, and she's just based on you know,
like reading a.
Speaker 4: Lot of this stuff.
Speaker 5: We insircret mysteries in line with our current beliefs. It's
easier in your brain. It is easier to believe something.
They're not to believe something. We're social line or to
be means to hear stories, don't trust each other.
Speaker 6: That's what how theolytic brains told us to do.
Speaker 4: So who microphonees weaving the way.
Speaker 6: And just a couple of reality checks on this.
Speaker 5: If you're ever familiar with Michael Landol, she wrote a
book about the history of human evolution. But it's an
interesting book because she takes mythic structure for storytellers and
basically says, well, we've used the Joseph Campbell mythic structures
to understand how we evolve, which means that at times
we're telling each other these stories.
Speaker 6: And he's so easy to believe we're actually going against
the science.
Speaker 5: Similarly, and at this point, I don't want to get
into an argument.
Speaker 4: This is ours.
Speaker 6: I don't want to get to an argument. I don't
get into an argument about anything.
Speaker 5: But Rizzar asland it's somewhat controversial point, but he basically
he looks at religion in a kind of social science
flight and effectively says, it's a my product of our societies.
Speaker 6: We are hard wired. We're literally hardwired to believe.
Speaker 5: So clearly that's one of the things that drivers are
believe in stuff. But more recently I've been quite impressed
with people like Diane Pasulca. Again, if you're unfamiliar with
her work, very long story short. She backro his theology.
She was astonished to discover as a practicing Christian and
professor of religious studies in the United States. But as
many people believe that aliens have landed, is believed in God,
and her first book, American Cosmic, sets out to answer
the question why do people believe that?
Speaker 6: Not why did the aliens learn? It's led her into
some very strange areas which are worth looking at.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and there's a kind of reality check her and
Philip GoF who is the belieing advocate of pan psychism.
Why the notion that the entire universe is conscious? Whenever
had these conversations with my friends. Is like they pick
up a student and say is that conscious?
Speaker 6: And I'm saying, well, then you don't.
Speaker 5: The beginning, it's this thing here, Diana Sulke was talking
to people who worked for NASA and Abby lower them
who's again another research who's involved in this. They've had
the same conversations. Latterly, people like NASSA have been going
to the academics and the community leaders who work with
the first Nations people in the.
Speaker 6: United States, and something similar is going on in.
Speaker 5: Australia where a guy called Tyson Young comporter who's one
of the sort of leading out the First Nations people, and.
Speaker 6: That's a little bit of a reality check.
Speaker 5: They were trying to figure out how to understand alien
languages and ask this important question and got quite snotty
replies along the lines of, well, don't you get it.
Speaker 6: You shouldn't be looking at First Nations people.
Speaker 5: As if it's a museum piece, as if we've got
quae beliefs that we've grown out of.
Speaker 6: Do you not get things? Actually? And it's here really
the crucial bit.
Speaker 5: If there's any bigger phenomena, it's something that interacts with us. Yeah,
part of the database that processes the information is our
own consciousness. And it's interesting because Dan the Silk is
bored into this. I'm just starting to ask questions about
aliens and it's led us to some interesting, unprovable, but
very interesting perspectives. And I mean, obviously she's got the
academic problem of whatever she does.
Speaker 6: Has to be starting the peer of years.
Speaker 8: If she can't put them up with.
Speaker 6: Ideas and throw them out there right, So of course
she'll retail.
Speaker 5: Again on this absolutely sitting on the fence the whole way.
Anybody familiar with this gray violent.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: I think skeptics said.
Speaker 6: Maybe good, but it's ninety six. Yeah, Raymond Moody is
still like as well, you know this, Yeah, you know
the guy that wrote the book about Alberts.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think you know this.
Speaker 5: There's a running joke online Raymond Moody is the world's
leading expert on life after death.
Speaker 6: He's unwilling and he thinks it's brilliant.
Speaker 5: Will be passed up on the other side, but his
unwillingness to die, he's always proven his argument.
Speaker 6: Now I've seen him compared to cardinals of the Roman
Catholic Church.
Speaker 9: You know, I think they can't wait for Evan, but
Mike God like the threat, you know. Yeah, So anyway,
cautionary now, if you like on watch Wood, whenever, whenever.
Speaker 5: I'm waiting into any more of this conversations, worried about it.
The slot messages with people. Don't try and explain something
to get it again. I mean, in fact, I've to
be sure that you're trying to explain something.
Speaker 4: That needs explain.
Speaker 6: Okay, almost there you can tell. Not long ago I
wasn't put this thing together. When I put this slide up,
I thought it would be funny to suggest there might
be a fighter, as.
Speaker 5: I'm not seriously suggesting we train they on stage later
on today they can explain themselves.
Speaker 6: But if you like this, see someone where I'm coming to.
Speaker 5: I'm grateful to be on the bill today with both
sign me on books and conferences, particularly this kind of stuff,
because I just much prefer any around with people and laughing.
I will go and put a load of books out
in the first copye bro if anybody wants one, and
other than that, what.
Speaker 6: Be around the weekend?
Speaker 5: Okay, there is all the stan in questions a couple
of minutes, the academic minded people who could have put
their arguments to peer review, who are arguing it and
needs to have arguments.
Speaker 2: That go that far.
Speaker 5: If you wanted a one stop shop, Philip GoF, who
works at the University of Durham, wrote a book called.
Speaker 6: Wine if you want a simpler one stop shop.
Speaker 5: He was on in Our Time with Melvin's Brag earlier
this year, and you can download the episode of the Pansychism.
Speaker 6: It's one more quick.
Speaker 8: Yes, okay.
Speaker 10: I was asked wondering whether in the complex there's a
diamonds and all the latest dream about consciousness. Have you
keep up with the latest developments of skin or garage
where we have a combination of hard science and.
Speaker 5: Yes, the bigger question is the speed with the two
parts of skip told episodes.
Speaker 6: On the U f O Mighty American, I haven't, but
I will. Let's talk about a bigger later. That's that's.
Speaker 5: Let's talking about how that'll about lazy, I'll see you outside.
Speaker 1: Next up was Christian Lander presenting The Secret of the
Night Crawlers.
Speaker 11: So at that event was a US Air Force veteran.
He has a YouTube channel goes by the name of
Rogue Alien, and it is often his piece of footage
that is the most commonly shared version of the night
Crawling and so what it is. He's in the crowd,
he's got his handcam and he's looking up at the
presentation being shown, which is the reason why a lot
of the videos have that weird distorted view and the
clock a weird kind of anger because they're using Rogue
Aliens video footage of the Nightcrawler. Of the documentary, it's
been shown at the event, if that makes sense. So indeed,
this thread here is from abovetopsecret dot Com posted by
Johnny Anonymous and his synopsis of the event. Of course
he was there, and indeed he was able to discuss
his views on the event, as well as many other
discussion threads that popped up around the same time. So
the Mantis footage was indeed the topic that had everyone talking.
It was the wow, it was the gas moment. So
as we've seen the initial videos by Jose and Victor
Camacho in two thousand and eight to two thousand and nine,
there was another piece of footage that I've actually been
unsuccessful in tracking down. And I can remember this piece
of footage as it appeared to show two characters walking
side by side. It was a garden, It appeared to
be much smaller and eerily also appeared to be shot
on CCTV. So what happened from this point onwards is
that the night Crawlers of now their folklore has expanded.
They're now a family. There's now a bigger one and
a smaller one. They say that the Internet doesn't forget.
I have tried really hard to find that piece of footage,
and I so far have been unsuccessful. From twenty eleven,
there's another piece of footage that shows a white walker
strutting past a gap in the tree line o This
footage grabbed the viral flow of the internet in twenty
eleven has continued it to find itself in the montages
ever since. This is from Yosemite National Park, or rather
a residence that is within the park itself in Yosemite,
and it says that it's a retired couple and they
had pointed their camera to the back of their house
because they were tired of burglars, or there was warnings
of burglars in the area, so they discourse and wanted
to disturb and to catch anybody that was coming.
Speaker 8: In the day. I didn't have the weight.
Speaker 6: On the white brass.
Speaker 11: Yes, a factory. They're weighted down with pegs. Unless it
is a cardboard tube with a fasten at the top,
just kind of give it that weight and that kind
of knee joint effectively as it makes its stride. That's
the same of course, both legs.
Speaker 8: Sweet destroying a.
Speaker 4: Suspiciously press.
Speaker 12: Buy landing on my legs.
Speaker 13: The lext.
Speaker 12: What's if I'm all over here? Whilst slightly lower down
you can get quite fast easy walking motion and striding
along the grass. I'm doing literally pulling left.
Speaker 14: And why is the kind of where the moves along
the ground.
Speaker 8: This is how.
Speaker 12: This walker believe with animator, let's take this cables from
either side, have mannequin walk this way you can get
a full walks by the left right.
Speaker 4: Left left.
Speaker 1: Christian's film clearly demonstrated how one could imitate the Nightcrawler
footage by using a pair of trousers on a line
being tugged along with invisible wires, which did look quite convincing.
Or I suspect the original Nightcrawler footage was possibly formulated
on some kind of CGI program like Mayer or three
D Studio Max, rather than physical trousers on a washing line.
Speaker 5: So freaking last year, in what do you think about
these Rawson?
Speaker 1: Following on from the Night Rulers, we then had a
talk about our ghosts all in the mind the evidence
from animals with Dr Anne Winsper.
Speaker 8: Thought, let's just looks, so I'll stall in the mind
the evidence from animals. Well, these are my three current answers.
Are aaps walking, We're not the evil thanks, and Vincent's
Who's apparently swoning the.
Speaker 15: Dead there and Lucifer, who is actually seen dead people
in that picture, but not actually psyching.
Speaker 8: If I don't think they see dead people book, who knows?
So can animals see ghosts? Well, this seems like a
simple question, but as always with a normous phenomena, things
may not be how they seem. So let's look at
some contemporary discussions about animals seeing ghosts. Taken from the Internet.
So the question was can cats see spirits? So I'll
read out some of the responses. I have a cat
that is just like any other cat, but occasionally she
would just stare at the corner of a room like
five minutes, sometimes even longer if some one was there.
When there wasn't, It creeps me out. So I did
some research, and I heard that cats can see spirits,
and I very much believe this. Of course, the famous
internet research.
Speaker 16: The next one.
Speaker 15: I've heard stories about cats pouring the air above and
recently dece to person.
Speaker 8: Presumably they can see the person's spirits and are trying
to touch it. So I think it's highly plausible that
they can.
Speaker 15: Mind stairs are random locations in the house, places with
no books or other.
Speaker 8: Distractions, just a random corner of the house. So in
my opinion, I think they definitely can see them personally
knowing cats, I think if they're pouring me out.
Speaker 15: The recently deceased person, they're probably checking their debts so
they can eat them.
Speaker 8: Right next answer, I believe so. I've had my current
cat a little bits over a year, but she's stopped
running or focus on a particular spot for a minute
or two, then start zooming off in the opposite direction.
My sister and I think it's our late paternal grandfather.
I feel his presence every once in a while, and
he loved to tease cats. Sadly, I think we can
discount these type of reports as they're just descriptions of
normal cat behavior. Remember that cats have much superior sight, hearing,
and smell than us. If they think that's something interesting
in or behind the wall, they can spell, can spend
long periods staring at.
Speaker 15: The wall, and this is how they punt in the wild.
They focus on prey for at sometime and then they pounce.
Cats can see six times better than.
Speaker 8: Us in dim light, and they also have the wider
field of vision and their eyes are very sensitive to
small movements as you'll know if you move the tone
in then it will be immediately pounced on by a cat.
The human eyelands blocks UV light, but cats are sensitive
to UV light, so if the cats is staring at
the wall, it can probably see a tiny insect, does particles,
or something completely beyond our vision but not paranormal. Cats
can also here up to a much higher frequency than
either humans or dogs, and they have forty times more
SEM receptors than humans. Regarding the report of the cat
with zoomings focusing on a spose, again, this is perfectly
normal behavior for a cat. And while they neighbor by
creatures of the dams.
Speaker 15: As they heard around the house wide eyed are knocking
all the orderm ands over.
Speaker 8: This really is just normal behavior. This behavior has even
been misinterpreted in the famous investigating cases, for example the
broth of a Dolly case in Whales, where it was
stated by the investigator the cat often rushes around the
house as if someone were chasing in. Again, this is
perfectly normal behavior for a cat, if you think it's
figline centric. Same question for dogs.
Speaker 15: We've been staring a stake in an Airbnb for a
few days now, and one of our dogs has been
reacting to something, looking up at the ceiling in the
family room, training something with her eyes.
Speaker 8: He's happened multiple times over multiple days and usually lasts
just a few minutes. We've never seen her do this before.
He's staying still with just her eyes drowning is what
gets me most. Is it possible she's seen ghosts? Has
only one seen the dog do this type of thing
the next one, But last night one of the dogs
woke up in her sleep and would not stop staring
at the corner of our bedroom. It's freaking me out
at this point, as I know dogs consents things that
humans can't. As I stay calm, this is the first
time I've heard a growl and she's using her big
girl bark. She sits on the bed next to me,
continues to trace something with her eyes right to laft
and on the floor or by my nightstand. I thought
maybe she'd had a bad dream and maybe she got scared,
But when she continued to do this for about thirty minutes,
I was worried. I never saw anything, I didn't feel
a dark presence, and I never heard anything to spook me.
I'd try and catch an evening he as if I
catch something, I won't be able to sleep there, and
I don't want to give it attention to let it
know I'm scared. I'll probably sage the house. This is
just describing perfectly normal behavior for a dog. Their senses
are also considerably sharper than hours, and they can easily
eat the perceiving insect, rodents or something outside.
Speaker 15: If you're staying in an MV and B and your
dog is following something along the ceiling, I would suggest
the property he's got rodents to assign a paranormal effect to.
Speaker 8: This is just another example of the state of the
paranormal today. Everything is blindly assigned to the paranormal with
no critical thinking at all. This is a real shame,
as animals can help to provide information about normal events.
Dogs can certainly be aware of normal events that are invisible.
For us, dogs consent sparametric changes, although those of us
with migrains have that off pat ourselves. Of course, they've
also been described many times as being able to apparently
predict earthquakes, as have many other animals, and as well
as dogs detecting drugs and weapons, we now have dogs
that can detect cancer in people, so there is some
merit in looking at the reports and animals as sensing
something at the same time we do.
Speaker 6: So looking back at.
Speaker 8: More historical events. Sorry, mister slide, there we go. Looking
back at more historical reports, we find the following from
the Phantasms of the Living. About the year eighteen seventy five,
I and my sister we were about thirteen years of age.
Thirteen years of age.
Speaker 17: Then we're driving home in the car.
Speaker 8: One summer afternoon, about four o'clock, when they suddenly appeared
floating over the hedge, a female figure moving noiselessly across
the road. The figure was in white and the body
in a slanting position some ten feet above the ground.
The hall suddenly stopped and shook with fright, so much
so that we couldn't get it to go on. I
called out my sister, did he see that? And she
said she had, and so did the boy Caffrey, who
was in the cart. The figure went over the hedge
on the other side of the road and passed over
a field, so we lost size of it on the
planet sectional beyond altogether, I suppose we watched it for
a couple of minutes. It never touched the ground at
all but floated calmly along. On reaching home. We told
our mother of what we had seen, and we were
per very certain that it was not a mere delusion
or illusion, nor an owl or anything of that kind.
I've never seen anything.
Speaker 15: Like this, not any apparition before or since. We were
all in good health at the time, and no one
had suggested any grounds for the apparition beforehand.
Speaker 8: But we afterwards heard that the road was supposed to
be haunted and a figure had been seen by some
of the country folks. Now I'm sure you all remember
this that this upset me enormously when I saw it
when it happened. But the horses are all like count
so it's fine. Horses are prey animals. Their senses are
finally cheating at any danger. They will spook at the
slightest thing. I mean, these poor army horses were spooked
by building materials being dropped near them, But anyone with
horses knows that they will spook at something as small
as a leaf, or a cloud or a blade of grass. However,
in this case, the whole stopping were frighted coincided from
the apparition appearing. I will expect a horse to song
refused to continue with the appermission of the something more normal,
such as something they blown by the wind, but the
witness seems convinced that it was a paranormal event. If
we assume that this was in fact a paranormal with
that rather than.
Speaker 15: Misperception, this suggests that the horse was also a witness
to the event, which means it was absturble to the Paseivians.
Speaker 1: So we lead Dr Anne Winsber there talking about the
evidence of animals with ghosts, and after the break we
were then joined by Deborah Hyde who presented the Kroclin vampire.
Speaker 17: Kroplin is a place in Cumbria and.
Speaker 8: From krop which is probably a broken bit and which
is the vent in the stream. So because it's very
beautiful and fascinated it's next a very high felm and yeah,
that is the administration of below for probably Range Empire.
Now also a bit to me it looks like Anthony
Hopkins studying to do a lecture. Yeah it doesn't it,
but it was used many years.
Speaker 6: Before he did that.
Speaker 8: It was going to be a book cover and never
ended up being so, but it's kind of it covers
the whole story really. The story was related by a
guy called Augusta's Head, who was known for collecting lots
of anecdotes about other class people which were quite boring,
and when anecdotes about some of the natural things which
were very interesting.
Speaker 18: And he told the story of when he was at
dinner one night with three people. There was Henry Thomas Libble,
who was the first old Ravensworth, and Captain Edward fisher Row,
who is not just underlited. I didn't really look like
they're anti photographs.
Speaker 8: So that is why he turns up a break and
they all told each other creepy stories, and the one
from fisher Row used the one that he is an
analyst said in England, which.
Speaker 17: Is very very unusual.
Speaker 8: The Fisher place, he said, have possessed a very old
place called Croglen Grange. It's one story high that has
a terrace from which large grounds sweep away towards the
church and wallow and a fine distant view.
Speaker 19: Now this is something of a historical story for.
Speaker 8: The Fisher family because at some point they decided to
move away from Cumbria, and I mean we kind of
know the thing, you know, bright lights, big city, so
they moved down south to Guildford. This is where they
all met for dinner, but they're not there's actually very
good pizza expressing. So at the time going back, yeah, tennants,
two brothers and a sister.
Speaker 18: They heard their crazies from all porters. So the tenants
were very clean and so we're not prone to making
up funny stories at all.
Speaker 8: They separated from the night and retiring to their rooms on.
Speaker 18: The ground floor, but the sister didn't close the shutters,
as it had been very hot day, and she became
aware of two lights which flickered in and out of
the vellows.
Speaker 8: Of trees which separated from room from the churchyard. It
was fixed in the dark substance, a definite ghastly to
something increasing in size and substance as it approached, and
the most uncontrollable horror seized her, as is suitable in
the story of this nature the door. The door was closing,
the door lock on the inside, so she didn't actually
go lock the shuttering. She wear at it. Her voice
seemed paralyzed.
Speaker 18: She heard scratch, scratch, scratch upon the window and saw
a hideous the brown face with flaming eyes glaring in
at her, and became aware that the.
Speaker 8: Creature was unpicking the lead. The pain fell into the
room and this bony figure came in unpitched the rest
of the window. It came up to the bed, twisted
its long boy fingers into.
Speaker 18: Her hair, tragged her head over the side of the bed,
and bit violently at her throat. One brother pursued the
preacher after she shouted, and it fled through the moonlight with.
Speaker 8: Gigantic stripes, so a sense of being preternatural, and eventually
seemed to disappear over the wall into the churchyard nearby.
And of course, being a very sorrational, level headed kind
of girl, she said, of course there is an explanation,
as it must be an escaped united So in order
to recover, the whole family went briefly into Switzerland. Then
after that they came back to living cropping because they
were going to tough this thing out. But it happened again.
There was another scratch upon the window of the same
ground that his shoel place.
Speaker 17: Staring in.
Speaker 8: One of the brothers fired heating in the leg, and
it swirled into the churchyard and seemed to disappear into
a vault into a family long extinct. So here we
have a really really good fun plant story. Actually, the
next day the vault was full of coffins. They broke
in with a load of locals and they saw that
the contents of the other coffins were horribly thrown around
the place and all around the place, but one remained
intellect of that literally lifted, but it was looser on
the coffin. They raised it round with a true mummified
but quite in time it was the same hideous speed,
and it had an some recent pistol shot in the lake.
And they did the only thing that can lay a vampire.
They burnt it. Technical point, there's actually other things you
can do to lay a vampire, but we won't go
into those, that's definitely. So they did the quite thing.
Now the work this is interesting.
Speaker 18: The whole thing that made Krombin interesting is baphires don't
really belong in England. I mean, there are a couple
of sort of We've got a couple of revenant.
Speaker 8: Type stories from women Newborough automatic people might have.
Speaker 18: We're talking about the twelfth century when England was going
through a very very bloody civil war, in the Civil
War which hit every class of society, so.
Speaker 17: They kind of really lived along in the.
Speaker 8: Eastern Europe, and our knowledge of them comes from the
earliest eighteenth century when the folklore traveled to the west
to US. Now, Eastern Europe is a specific place politically
in the religiosity. It's under the influence of several it's
kind of on the frontier, if you like, of several
religious kinds of influences, and also different empire influences too.
You have the Holy Roman Empire fighting against the Ottoman
Empire fighting against it, you know, sort of subic what
would be the Russian Empire later. So these borders were
moving backward and forwards all the time, and so there
were working class people who were just performing perfectly, not
rituals to them. It was only really when the Austrian
Empire came in for a very week so journey in
the early twentieth century that the commanding officers in charge
of these areas were sending back letters saying, what do
we do? Is able to do X, y and z
to these to these corpses, it's awful, what do we do?
So that's how the story has gone out to the West,
because they were shocked at the kind of focus practices
of the people behind these lines. I mean, if empires
really are associated with the epidemic death and a misunderstanding
of an understanding that death does come in epidemics with
exactly what collectors are, and it's about a misunderstanding.
Speaker 18: Decomposition too, and people don't keep corpses around the perfect.
Speaker 20: A reason that there are specif continued, so.
Speaker 8: We can understand all sorts of things about decomposition from
books that they couldn't and they would misread as an
artificial continuation of life. You like their association with dealing burials.
Speaker 21: Things like the bodies being state it didn't have to
be in the heart, it could just be in the
gut to or anything that would pioble the delpopments gets
and like to move when it had been buried, or perhaps.
Speaker 8: Being faced down, so that if you woke up in
its death and it started to try and scrabble out,
it was at least working its way down instead of
working its way up. So that's kind of that's what
we see in vampire folklore. We didn't see any of
that in English folk or it doesn't belong in a
time and place.
Speaker 18: So the first person to really investigate Hairs story is
a guy called Charles Harper. He wrote a book called
Pointed Houses, and he actually went up to Kroblin to
find out all of the facts to see if they related.
He said, it is to be added from personal observation
that there is no place style Crowlin Range.
Speaker 8: There's kroplyin High Hall and Lower Hall, both farmhouses very much.
Speaker 18: Like one another and not in any particulars resembling the
description given. So he could actually find something that squarely
into the description. He did a picture of Problem Loble
or it still looks pretty much like that, and he
indicated that it was probably the house.
Speaker 8: That was that was mentioned in the anecdote. But it's
least a mile distant from the church which has been rebuilt.
The churchyard contains no two which could be identified with
that described by mistic Hair and the at least Problem church,
and that is it's actually over a mile, well over
a mile. You'd have to be a bit athletic to
run across the ds to that there's.
Speaker 6: Being as church.
Speaker 8: There's in Saxon times that one wouse Victorian, so it's
harm more recent. But they can't find the bulb there.
It's too distant, and it was it doesn't seem white
for once. Now we know that it's been there, has
been in church there since Saxon times, because we have
all of the curates and liquors that have been there.
And I'd like to look at the name here of
the man in thirteen thirty five. Now it's not the
tall relevent to anything we're talking about, but I think
you know why don't you.
Speaker 18: But relevant to our story is George Sanderson from sixteen
seventy one. Ill end up coming back to him seventeenth
century Bicker.
Speaker 8: Now we can see from the aerial indication of Crown
Church that they're talking about, they were engineering one.
Speaker 18: Story high at has a terrace with a large ground
sweep away towards the church in a hollow, and there's
a fine distant vie. This doesn't correlate to her description.
What we can see, however, from the sixteenth century.
Speaker 16: Man is that you can see.
Speaker 1: After a brief taster of the Kroglin vampire, we then
heard about my very first ghost hunt with ghost hunter
John Fraser.
Speaker 17: Curiosity.
Speaker 22: How many of you in the audience of emil Ant
are prmal investigation.
Speaker 17: How many of you would keep it hand?
Speaker 22: How many of you would consider that your very first
one went perfectly. But I think there's something to be
said about telling you a little story about it and.
Speaker 4: See you let.
Speaker 22: No no, depending on your age, and most of us
in the audience have either got our first thing.
Speaker 8: Peter god.
Speaker 17: Are reponds a lot of the ones perhaps, and.
Speaker 23: Admit of first perspective of the subject comes probably from
that of romantic greements, indulging what if passion, and that
the science and quest for meaning and evidence.
Speaker 17: I think the body comes later.
Speaker 22: After all, even Isaac Newton started as a romantic alchemist,
asking what if the base.
Speaker 24: Metals can be transferred into gold? And as we all know,
Newton became one a scientist. And if changing science was.
Speaker 17: A only aim we perhaps we could make, we've probably
all failed.
Speaker 4: Miserately.
Speaker 22: I tend to say how a normal investigation is also
about testing one's own beliefs.
Speaker 8: On the from me and.
Speaker 22: And I was on thirty and purely by accidents, I
discovered him in a real TV documentary of the life ghosts.
Now that was long before the fifty first series.
Speaker 8: Of Who Was Haunted was available on demand.
Speaker 22: Now, this documentary intrigued me so much that I think
it's not the library, empted the jails and started stare
some maps of haunted sites. I was especially interested in
those and particularly remote places, especially of Scotland.
Speaker 17: And I decided that, you know, thirteen, I was either
going to or a professional goalkeeper. I didn't grow up enough.
Speaker 22: Goalkeeper, and about a decade later I follow myself and
the double job as a training auditor.
Speaker 8: And around the same time I found myself watching this
magical new movie with a.
Speaker 22: Magical soundtrack by that don't know if you guys have
seen it, but would so recommend it. It's kind of
about an American young executive enchanted magic, I'm quite honestly.
At that point I had a look at unique movement
and I remembered an equally in changing case in Anderwek's book,
The even more remote Scottish Wanting of Sad Bay.
Speaker 4: And if you wonder, just tell the muted it.
Speaker 17: It's kind of virtue of the map.
Speaker 22: Now, this is supposed to be wanted by a fat
Polish sailer, was a boushy beard and Pete car and
it's also in inconveniently serveted by Pete Bogs and.
Speaker 17: Philom Maddals of being good on the track.
Speaker 25: Also came convenience of desperate to cottage which is happening
the mean chacking to geys at times. And by the
end of this movie I gets decided, let's spending a
night there at Sandford was.
Speaker 8: The essence of ghost hunting. It was something that simply
had to be done and be achieved.
Speaker 17: Now three later novel things that were to help and
hinder me in this task. The first one lots of
either purchased for you have parents.
Speaker 22: Nicknamed the Confident my friends, second one fully comprehensive a membership.
Speaker 8: Speak.
Speaker 22: And finally, in fact I just happened to be international
officers the Young Democrats, and there was a confinference in
the Scotch reorganized.
Speaker 17: The European Movement, which in those.
Speaker 22: Preda resit days that could drive up to London, most
expenses paid perfect.
Speaker 17: I could possibly go on with such out plan.
Speaker 8: Well, either by coincidence chrinity, my.
Speaker 22: Game shattered exactly as I arrived in the conference venue.
Perhaps spirits a SUNDI we're sending sage.
Speaker 17: But after the conference I was thinking about the turning room.
I sudly decided to get the A and to make now.
Speaker 22: Either to fights prefer the coal claims when you had
to walk of mind fixed, of course I had, so
I basically ended up in the spring Sunday morning coffee
in the Regional center, definitely ringing around for a key box,
and they have.
Speaker 17: Eventually found one, and I found myself.
Speaker 22: Driving out the aling Venice and then into the wilderness
and like so much I know the past ruins that
chuckly isolated. There's no national class at that castle.
Speaker 17: Who was the clouds hunting?
Speaker 8: Their talk.
Speaker 4: Which is not.
Speaker 17: To underwood as it apparently, And the next day.
Speaker 22: Continued further path I d at the last sizeable sevenment.
Speaker 8: In charge charge.
Speaker 1: We left John Fraser with his talk on charge and
then we went over to Dr k h L who
gave a very humorous talk on has Elvis really left
the building? Looking at the history of the celebrity sales?
Speaker 8: And today I'd like to speak to you about an
unusual fact and cultural history and presents a brief overview
of some recent work that I've been conducting looking at
historical trends within celebrity parasocial relationships. Now, for as long
as humans have had spiritual concerns and theorized over the
probability and the possibility of an afterlife and an internal soul.
We have in turn sought validation of a continued consciousness
through sales and divination members. And while we can achieve
comfort through the general profound messages that we get through,
challenge channeled through mediums or seaside psychics and another outlet
has often incited far more intense and I believe amusing
reactions now, pseudo spiritual connections made with famous individuals that
we never met in life have continued to be a
source of entertainment and neo religious fervor for centuries now.
Our relationships with celebrities, if you didn't know that the
Queen was dead, I'm sorry, this is a terrible way
to find them. Our relationships with celebrities separated from their
creative output or media legacy continues in depth, and while
their body dies and is no longer accessible, they're perceived
availability via spirit contact increases tenfold, especially if you were
in possession partial pun intended of the spirit box on
similar ITC device. So no clearer as this changing mentality
being than when we Elzabeth the Second died in twenty
twenty two, and that was what a ghost I just
came to bottom water within moments of the black Edge
notice being fixed to the gates of Buckingham Palace. Paranormal
live streamers from across the world claimed to be an
active communication with the spectral Monarch. A monarch who would
not ordinarily talk to commonness such as ourselves in life,
and certainly not outside of official engagements, was now chatting
to literally anyone with a weigion board or the inclination
to shout out come on, Lizzie, let's add the matter.
In all of these she discussed her death regrets, made
and Martle scandalous, and a hell of a lot of
cory related content as well. Quite interestingly, at the time,
I was at a death conference New York because I'm
cheerful song and it honestly felt like we just we'd
all was the lottery because there was no how you
water corn was the next day it was almost form
of you what's going to be ark now?
Speaker 17: Everyone.
Speaker 8: Lizzie's side in the Spirit Realm appears to be chattier,
far more open, and has a clear diary into eternity,
willing to spend hundreds of hours talking to strangers about
the inner parts of their psychea their haups fears and
whether or not they actually engineer the Princess Dianaster. And
in many instances, musicians who would notably insular or isolated
in their creative processes are suddenly open to broad collaboration
with absolute strangers as soon as their heart stops beating. Indeed,
over the centuries, everyone from Beethoven to Elvis and even
Freddie Starr have enjoyed composition and performance from just beyond
the pearly Gates. And has anyone this is a very
long shop, and I should spend as much time in
charity shops as I do. Has anyone read The Soul
Goes On Part two? I believes The Soul Goes On
Part two by Malcolm Thoroughgood musically self on a bridge
art foundation, because in that half of the book is
after death communications with Freddie Starr, who is continuing his
high quality Elvis impression well into the Every time I
hid about two pound fifteen alves a big over stock.
So see that's my recommendation.
Speaker 17: I don't get a cut.
Speaker 8: Sadly, However, after immersing myself in lesser known popular sales media,
I have decided alto to forego a deep dive into
Elvis's creative endeavors from behalf of the grave, but kind
of retain him as an omniscient figurehead for celebrity sales.
Elvis is the eternal dead celebrity, a cult figurehead, an
omen of death, a creative focus, and an internal presence
in the column inches and Transatlantic tabloids. It was only
last month his stepbrother, who is quite conveniently touring his
non run show, is experiencing polticalist activity, saying that it's
Elvis just popping in, saying that it was fistock performance
pop stop. Now ellis, as a singular example of eternal
spectral influence, been the subject of all of this wonderful
business Elvis Presley sales. These to Vinyl final records. I
think Elvis Presley sales is one of the finest things
ever ever committed. It quite genuinely, Elvis never inland in life,
but in death he was super keen to get to
a village hall in Norford again two hundred and fifty
to Ironia sort it out.
Speaker 26: Right.
Speaker 8: So as an example of eternal spectral influence, He's been
the subject of several spiritual books which we mentioned earlier,
including Elvis Afterlife, which I think was mentioned earlier. Canta
said lines blah blah blah, and he's still bothering his family.
Also in that second Elvis one, there the very very
short lack of Breathty is going to be say, doesn't
know with a ranter than the past, but a sales
with Elvis the King lives on and talks to the
world from beyond the grave is an incredibly rare BUFFLINUSA
viral record where he also reveals the truth about UFOs.
So if anyone was going to finally settle that argument,
it's dead Elvis. Ultimately, the Elvis Presley seance walked, so
televised seance could wrong now. In nineteen fifty six, the
term parasocial relationship was first coined by Volton and One,
finding how one sided interactions between a user and media
personality or product resulted in the user unperceiving a greater
depth of relationship that could be rationally attributed to their interactions.
The dawn of mass media allowed for individuals to believe
that they were experiencing and developing a face to face
relationship with an individual that they had never interacted with
in any meaningful way. In more pop culture examples the
pop star Chapel Roman. If any of who are familiar
with her, she recently put.
Speaker 17: Up several TikTok videos. I'm still youthful.
Speaker 8: Line mob SATs of is no idea how it works,
but she.
Speaker 17: Got a few videos out.
Speaker 8: Chronicling her experiences of predatory, obsessing and threatening behaviors. Now,
while the spirit of John Lennon a few shock waves
in the world of beefles fans, I've also known shot
waves in the worlds of param or enthusiasts and pain
per view subscribers who work waiting for their wrestling and
their gyrating women with the brave, illustrative to brack acounts
it's place in the history of celebrity worship and paranormal
popular spiritualism and paranormal history is secured. Parasocial relationships are
an inherent part of the celebrity consumer cycle, but clearly
do not finish at the point of debt, merely transforming
and elevating where personal ideas, beliefs, and sensitive self can
be projected onto a heavenly blank slate. Today, life stream
saless are commonplace, coming a long way since most Harms's
live broadcasts of salances, screaming, and one time viewer interaction
from within. The as of regional coaching is as soon
as a celebrity death is suggested by media outlet, salesces
and evening piece sessions begin across social media, invariably before
the undertakers have even parked their house. And as we
discoursed earlier, Queen Elizabeth didn't stand the chance. And while
Paul Sharer may not be remembered as one of the
centuries for a filmmakers, his contribution to paranormal history, celebrity culture,
and brief supportation is undeniable. We can only imagine what
sayss would have released, would have reached the DVD bargain
bin and shot.
Speaker 17: Up liters a little bit of the market, but.
Speaker 8: In place of the contacts in the spirit Amo himself,
which should be grateful for his brief dubians from the
supernatural with Supernatural as his brief and his questionable legacy
of the pay per view sales.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: And after that talk, it was time for lunch and
the hawk vacated. We all slowly made our way back
to the conference lecture hall soon after, and it's there
I spied Ben talking to the first speaker, Neil Nixon.
It was then we spotted Matt Arnold giving Professor Chris
French some spiritual healing or maybe it was massage. Who
knows it's in a way.
Speaker 4: That's quite something.
Speaker 1: I wonder what he thinks about it, will obtaining any
kind of real likelies.
Speaker 4: We're going to have the panel discussion a minute.
Speaker 27: Interesting, let's get to the side of it. I think
they're going to finish it off in the showers. Following
the lunch.
Speaker 1: It was then an open panel discussion with all these
speakers lining up on the stage to discuss questions from
the audience, and I was one of them, and for once,
Ben was stumped with any possible questions he had for
Professor christ French.
Speaker 28: You know, I can't think it's my all my agreements
like disagrange it.
Speaker 4: I can't think any bloody lussion to thank you for volunteers, because.
Speaker 29: That's okay, right, it's about about that, Yeah, okay, right, Really,
so one asked is for each of the panelists to
do an elevator edge.
Speaker 30: They've got thirty seconds each. We'll start over at the
far end. Sorry, yeah, that one's wording. Yeah, So we'll
start with the fiend and bring it all the way down.
Speaker 29: You've got thirty seconds to introduce yourself to everybody. Yeah,
slim you have already spoken, but a lot of peoples
so over to you.
Speaker 31: I've been fascinating with the paranel with My whole life
started out just listening to lots of scary folk for
stories from my mad unties, and transforgrified into just being very,
very interested in the historical and cultural context of all
these beliefs, because whether the preachers in sea stall and art.
Speaker 8: Factor is that they turn up time and time and
time again our brains.
Speaker 32: So I find this absolutely fruscidating and revitical side of
human nature.
Speaker 8: And that is why I spent a lot of time
reading about vampires were well, podcasts and deeps all over
the bloodies. I'm not rhyming whinspur. I have looked at
ghosts for about fifty years now and I still hoping
managed to catch one in a jar or I've been trying.
Did my PhD on electronic ghost phenomena, sort of interested
in that.
Speaker 4: My big thing for the last.
Speaker 8: Probably fifteen years or so has been time Slimps. So
if anyone has any weird time experiences, rees, common speed.
Speaker 4: I just lot to page us.
Speaker 33: I start as an economist really, so it's converting into
psychology in the early nineties, still a PA actually with
Wiship Wiseman in the Scienties, spent fifteen years lecturing and
searching the animal come out Academia. Now at the moment,
I am searching the Boston case that I'm because up
on that time bost.
Speaker 17: Chris French.
Speaker 34: I used to believe in anormal stuff right away through
doing a psychology degree.
Speaker 17: When I was doing my PhD, which was a very
respectable end of your science.
Speaker 34: I remembers remember called parapsychology science or managic by James
Olcock and psychology.
Speaker 13: This is the first skeptical treatment of any of this
stuff I've come across. Opened my eyes to the wonderful
world skepticism. Initially all started as a hobby. Gradually I
kind of realized I could actually teach some of this stuff.
I could do the occasionally little projects here and there,
get some publications. Craft is a book from there until yes,
now finally retire in twenty twenty.
Speaker 17: Are my bodies available on sale?
Speaker 8: So I'm doctor k Charl I'm a writer in Lidelic
and my odd sessions are sessionly miserable Victorians. So right
three zoo one in Culture's of in Seance. I co
hosts a podcast called Loopholes.
Speaker 35: Which takes a sideways book at the esoteric and as
a light laugh.
Speaker 8: And my book is out in May five, if.
Speaker 36: I will pre order on all the usual places, so
please please please preorder it. And those sales me and
and once last year and came backs called the offer brity,
and that has defined my identity.
Speaker 15: Hi, every on, I'm the one actually because these are
all experts.
Speaker 8: I'm here because.
Speaker 15: Of an experience I had when I was nineteen, which
is a long time ago. Is a bolt, guys, and
a lots of messages which you'll get to hear about
because oh jesus if you book about it tomorrow. But
I'm sort of via just as an experience with no
answers unfortunately.
Speaker 4: Brilliant. Okay, well, thank you very much for coming on.
What we're going to do is we're going to open
up for questions from people and you can either direct
it to some panel or.
Speaker 37: A one particular person if you've got a particular interest
for that person answering that I might break it open
for other people's answer as well.
Speaker 4: Actually, then as we go along, if you have got
a question and we're kind of get.
Speaker 37: Towards the end of an answer, so be aware of
getting towards the end of the answer.
Speaker 4: I'm sure we're going to be really aware of that.
Speaker 29: If you could just kind of pop your hand up
so that Christ can come and so you saw you
could kind of smoothed it through.
Speaker 4: That's the idea that Nick hens to speak. But in
order to start the ball, Robbie, what I'm going to
do is, I'm just going to ask you what particularly
got you interesting?
Speaker 37: What was it the one thing that got particularly interested
in researching the strange?
Speaker 22: And is there something.
Speaker 37: That you still go, h that's strange? I really can't
get an answer to that at this stage. Okay, so
ever like that, I.
Speaker 15: Don't actually believe in the paranorm until I had an
experience was about maybe some people in the audience have
had the same plain that they got in.
Speaker 17: The other questions were what you have.
Speaker 4: Still remaining with us?
Speaker 17: That is everything rubbish?
Speaker 15: Yeah, I do believe the answers are in science what
they are. I feel that because we don't have a
decent model to explain these things. You can't test something
without a model, and that's my belief. So so you
have a decent model, you can't look at in you know,
you don't know what you're looking for basically, So I
think that that's probably my take on that.
Speaker 4: Thanks.
Speaker 17: My interest also based in experiences as well.
Speaker 8: I lived for a time with my sister in a
study detatched house. You got to be very and we
had extreme podcast phenomena in that house for three to
four years. That ended in things in Roman and what
we believed before festations. So since then I have tried
to understand it and debonk it myself, and I think
a lot of things we can because we can trigue
above that to our mind about your gats and be
the teenager in the in the late nineties. But also
most of it has still got been a scratching with
which is why I obsess over terrible fakes and by
sidekicks all days, because they're far more full and easier
to people.
Speaker 17: Thank you, terrible fakes. I was very excited, a very
galling fear on the scene.
Speaker 34: I mean I usually well, as I said, I've been
in the sixth or school and Galla appeared on the scene,
and it was incredibly exciting because he appeared to be
the real thing that was. Scientists around it was saying
they believed he was.
Speaker 17: The real thing, and I was totally totally total with you.
Speaker 13: But I like that I've already said what kind of
turned me on to skepticism, and I'm just as interesting
to try to just ask the question.
Speaker 17: Basically, it's a kind of working hypothesis.
Speaker 13: My starting point for a lot of the research is
to say, well, let's just assume the paranormal forces don't exist.
Speaker 17: Could we possibly explain the weird experiences.
Speaker 4: That people definitely do have any other way?
Speaker 34: And then, wherever possible, can we put those guys of
explanations to the test.
Speaker 17: So That's where I'm at now. I'm gone from being
a believer.
Speaker 13: To being kind of fairly extreme skeptic back towards the
middle ground, and I'm trying to look quite prepare to
say I'm may be wrong a work.
Speaker 17: The idea is that if nobody's actually looking.
Speaker 34: For these non paranormal explanations for ostensibly paranormal experience.
Speaker 17: As well, we're not going to find them, are we.
So it may well be that some.
Speaker 34: Things that are genuinely paranormal. But if that's the case,
I'll be helping you to saw the genuinely paranormal and stuff.
Speaker 4: That just looks as paranormal before. What was the seriously
strange thing that makes you still going no?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Sorry, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 17: Obviously I very often get aspect for talks. You know,
have you ever come across saying that you.
Speaker 13: Couldn't explain and I basically just say no, next question,
then I don't really but what I do if I
say is a joke. The short answer is, I've got
all the stuff that we've ever done in terms of
experimental tests.
Speaker 17: Of things like to let, the the precomgnition and so
on and so forth, and I've done a lot.
Speaker 13: None of that stuff has ever come out kind of
you and then you people from fitnessing.
Speaker 38: Having said that, I've appeared in lots and lots of
often really really terrible TV programs.
Speaker 17: Well, one or two occasions been things where I've actually
kind of thought that was that was intriguing. You know,
I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 4: What the answer was.
Speaker 17: I mean, I'm talking about it more in detail or
too later.
Speaker 15: One was.
Speaker 13: A documentary about a little kid who claimed that he
had passed life in Glasgow.
Speaker 17: He was just an all, you know, all for an
ordinary family.
Speaker 4: That was an interesting one. The other one was a
guy who.
Speaker 13: Claimed that his dreams predicted the future as an artists
soon paying pictures.
Speaker 4: That one again was.
Speaker 17: Quite intriguing overall, not powerfully enough favorites.
Speaker 34: To spy, but to leave me kind of saying, that's intriguing.
Speaker 17: I'm not sure what's going on there.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 33: So sadly, I've never had a paramom intereers nothing in
the look we're talking about. I got into the paranormal
because the late eighties I think I was I was
basing somebody and a little mud.
Speaker 4: She woke up.
Speaker 17: She goes like this an amazing experience much.
Speaker 13: And so the next day should go up to come
on some mysteries in the Leaf and London mysteries.
Speaker 2: I walked in and as it wow.
Speaker 17: So I spent a lawnsom that night Harry card book
name going.
Speaker 39: Into it that way.
Speaker 4: At that point I econist.
Speaker 13: I wanted to do psychology, so I did a conversion,
of course, and a couple of years later was looking
at a PhD topic.
Speaker 17: It's going to do with emotions.
Speaker 13: I'm across this strange bunk in the book doing stuff
about common advises and power.
Speaker 28: Belief and looked as up that's you read the moment belief.
Speaker 4: So I applied to Chris and some of the stuff
I think. Yeah, so I love going your visual wise
and did the interest your stuff.
Speaker 28: Yeah, so that's how I.
Speaker 4: Went to the paranorm. It's the psychology of.
Speaker 2: And it's just it's just really sets here and it plays.
Speaker 4: A bit certainly thing me from a psychology.
Speaker 13: So that's that's the background for me, the paranorm it
as a as a young trained in something from the
populous view when because of the sers by an end
Off and Dad just under there. It's so what apples
you now.
Speaker 4: Not her pace? I think that a partner in this pace.
Speaker 2: I s hopefully on stand tomorrow I'll get a soul.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 40: Oh well, I can remember reading a lot of stuff
as a child, particularly I worked around to my grandfathers
and read you know, the Reader's Digest used to do
right then books and.
Speaker 8: That I really aint the Surgeon with the Rusty Blade
because there was a little rash of the sad scenes
of people just plunging rusty scissorsens come from and stuff.
They started booking at that and I had a quite
a few chl Monastery experiences as a team ager. The
one that always struck me that I'll never get I
used to play Albinson with me, doubt every week. I
used to play for teams of that where he used
to go with him because he.
Speaker 17: Liked the exercise.
Speaker 8: And we always weren't saying way to go Laisha Santo
sort of upon back bridge over the railway, been there
hundreds of bludgers and hundreds of times, never even thought
about it.
Speaker 17: This rich and I'm with absolute tad. I will never
forget that feeling. So stop the car, stop the car.
Speaker 8: And we stopped the car and looked over the rich
and someone doing the three points and we were the
slash strains in sin them.
Speaker 17: So that made me think there is something.
Speaker 8: Going on here. Obviously it moot ghost because ghost of sexy.
I was a ghost of sort of loot is. I
moved into academia because me and Steve Parsons went to
a conference and basically all the academicsploin to.
Speaker 2: Us because we were just engaged ons from down the
road sort.
Speaker 15: Of got in debris, and then they all started going,
so what about your PhD? So our name is fatal
slip and started doing my pH D underpaul h. But
then but we got there in the end, Well I
did you book it off? I did something else, but yeah,
got then in the end. So yeah, that's how we
got into it. And that's one of the things that's
still pants explained about.
Speaker 8: Half had to get to the experiences that I to
this day plants explain brilliant.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 8: My family background is that there's those who've seen now
don't brilliant, but each and everything.
Speaker 32: So my mum was a very responsible woman when you
watched horror movies, actually thought it was perfectly.
Speaker 8: Fine to tell the most pegg burning story. I've got
things that actually were all should be real. And that
was my great aunties as well. So I grew up
believing it all, hearing all of these stories. How you
genuine feried And there was the experience there must have
been imagination or so where I dreamt that I had
been apoltimized in my room. And I finally seemed up
the carriage to say to it all right, or saying
as you hear you might as well introduce yourself, and
there was just as deep.
Speaker 32: And glanced being laugh this off off off throughout the
whole room, which was terrifying, but it morphed in a wakefulness.
Speaker 2: So it was going.
Speaker 8: It was, it was so I was where it was
a dream, but it was. It has a charity of
the lucid dream. And since then, as an adopt that
have noticably dreams and out of body experiences, I know
that it can be incredibly profoundly experienced. So I went
from that to just reading a lot of in some
kind of the and struct of amusing history and for fans,
pology and all that sort of thing.
Speaker 41: So I still find it's fascinating as I everty is
and having you had lots of funky experiencing myself, but
not leaving in the Superman for mechanism for them, that's
been interesting too.
Speaker 8: I'm still interested in all sorts of something sort of
fascinating pot to studying.
Speaker 2: Them, want to learn.
Speaker 35: But is there anything that's still making me thinks?
Speaker 2: I don't think so much.
Speaker 8: I would actually quite like and I like to lean
them not so I like to lean in ghosts. Frank
you Adain, Thank you.
Speaker 20: Very much, right, Okay, so you going to open it
up now, So everybody, if you have got a question,
just say who you are and then microphone's over to you.
Speaker 4: It is it in person or is it to the
panel as a whole, and then present your question?
Speaker 8: Thank you?
Speaker 4: Oh that's the hand i'd questions. Deborah only said.
Speaker 2: The small put you can't.
Speaker 4: About buying the BBC microking sorry.
Speaker 8: Saying that.
Speaker 17: My creaking No, I'll avoid that more.
Speaker 4: I think, okay, I'll over spoil.
Speaker 28: Yeah, it's really hard, but people, what happens to you
when you.
Speaker 4: Were nineteen, as you had any other experiences?
Speaker 17: Nonsense?
Speaker 4: Really okay, it's not not that.
Speaker 8: Couldn't you discants.
Speaker 4: Absolution? That excellent, right, and we're anymore, We've got all
there and.
Speaker 8: It's more intended. Can you favor that? Fankful that it
serves to reinforce gender lawless and stamiotypes? I think if
you dance and folk.
Speaker 3: Does it?
Speaker 8: Does focal comfortable needs reflect it?
Speaker 2: Or does it some partly?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 2: When I love don't the kids aign the all questure off?
Speaker 8: But they're kind of both to enforce each other. And yeah,
thankful does reinforce all sorts of believes only it's time
of the enhastulations and wisdom. People don't people don't really
technical manuals.
Speaker 42: They show stories, and it seems to be the way
our brains really take things in and acclism and so
where there are gender laws and gender stereotypes, but all
other kinds of stereotypes.
Speaker 8: That would be that would be where they are. I
think the end Bazarian, particularly one with the stories that
killed there was just linking that we learned the Pikes.
A lot of the part of the stories around Vanpoire
always needs to be will in Pavel.
Speaker 32: Yeah, it's that was That's There are two strands of
literary vampires.
Speaker 4: Really.
Speaker 32: There are the folklary vampires that come from Eastern Europe,
but they're very very different to the literary vampires. Literary
vampires were inspired why the stories can be further out
of Eastern Europe from the Ulstan Empire in the east
eighteenth century, and then when the light in central we've
got these.
Speaker 8: You know, this is a very Florida vampire literature, a
lot of which is awful, some of which is accolut.
Speaker 35: To curve, and especially because that then coincides with an
era that was very repressed in every other way, and
as you could express any kind of passion and sexuality
and everything through this tale to the vamporism, and so
I think it's.
Speaker 8: Probably less about vampire is about nineteenth century nidity. You know,
just using using aneis there's a lot of way of
talking about parent relationships.
Speaker 4: What do you want the panel wants to expand or
add to that?
Speaker 13: Yeah, I was talking to so many years ago who
had done is a masters in Calcius psychology and specialized
in brandslide and dragging ole and trains. That brand slide
was pressedidisexual and the whole antire things that the desire
the partner.
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 8: For you, yeah, yeah, there's a sort of the seal
repression in nineteenth century literature is and then.
Speaker 2: Speaking of Clok sarg bother deconstructors conn, I.
Speaker 17: Think there's.
Speaker 8: Speaking of pieteenth central literary vampires as well, so off
of them, certainly in modern academia of this, there's a
tendency to read all included sort of handy guide or
railway umpires as representations of repressed sexuality, whether that's cecosexuality
and manosexuality. I think there's also a really interesting thread
in a lot of Irish vampires, including jess As Chavn
with those Carl Miller, which is now mainly celebrated as
a suffic reading. But also it's very interesting that lots
of vampires one miss period were used as not just
as representations of folk glory beliefs and trying to figure
out religiously where a lot of the authors stoop, but
certainly in Ireland, a lot of different political ideas and
a lot of right through to the Easter or rising
Inland to nineteen nineteen minutes, twentieth century vampires are kind
of like the hearts of this underground culture of question
political aggression. There's there's a lot of obsity landlords and.
Speaker 43: Very dull things that are to do with the land
ownership between Hangliss and the original landowners that we see
discourse exclusively three representations of vanpoism, which might not be
as sexy as ghosts or romance empires, but it certainly
shows that.
Speaker 8: The vampire is a multifaceted sool it's just a family
champion of top pat chunk of really lind there. So also,
you're so likely the.
Speaker 5: IR's also okayre household.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 6: Excellent, righting some between.
Speaker 5: He wants to answer it if anyone current paranormal investigation
is going to change science, what is that for investigation?
Speaker 8: And we keep.
Speaker 1: A w one and the big guy returns from lunch
to sit right in front of my field of view
when there's probably one hundred and fifty seats in the theater. Well,
that's a coincidence there.
Speaker 44: This is with the data, and I think it's going
to look missing anything what would be stuff from well
controls of orange studies where ruled out other plations.
Speaker 34: It's on the one hand, if you know the people
with this, see if you remember all that stuff, we
also know sometimes you will just make.
Speaker 13: Stuff up, and so the undosal evidence it's intriguing, but
it's never going to be enough on its own.
Speaker 17: To commits someone like me that might be and missing out,
you know, because these things are true.
Speaker 2: But yeah, this isn't enough in issue.
Speaker 13: But in terms of the kind of experimental stuff, I'd
say there's one or two things within.
Speaker 34: Parapsychology that skeptics don't have definitely a conclusive counter explanation score.
I suppose I believe that ask things like the cancel studies.
Speaker 17: I think there's been interested in something interesting.
Speaker 4: In its store.
Speaker 22: The children who causes spontaneous past life memories.
Speaker 17: Present it in an effects. One of the areas like
that where you know, I know that I don't feel.
There's other areas where I think, yes, we could be
pretty sure. Right well, there are all so more than
one where I wouldn't claim that.
Speaker 2: The sketches from counters donations.
Speaker 17: So also to be able to possibility.
Speaker 4: That you like your arms. The message, I don't think
one thing will shame.
Speaker 2: It's the best.
Speaker 13: I think our definition of science will change and that
will incorporate things.
Speaker 2: But the moment can't expland either literally want this year.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think it's a revealing it's like that's
shacking my board. But I think I completely entrenched.
Speaker 28: I think more botanly societies mention science will change.
Speaker 4: People. I mean the sake example, you know that's the
Victorian age and that is amazing. Right, so there are
things that happened in fum you.
Speaker 8: Having that.
Speaker 13: I'm saying that can happen yet, and the argue for
your time that I think it will be more peace
and studies than changed. The said keep on removed from
the more from the parallel.
Speaker 17: Into the more power down.
Speaker 8: It's yeah, I mean you sort of said someone about
like Christ to say you can number back the play
with strum.
Speaker 28: You just can't do.
Speaker 8: It's just spont and we know we forgot what's it
like basically policing it down and so right, how the
ghosts things? So you never going to be like, screwed.
Speaker 2: It in moreuse.
Speaker 22: I've never roved to the extent that I mean, there's
anyone where I'm going.
Speaker 13: To say either I think so skeptical, what would it
either might proudly back over the lining it and.
Speaker 17: Just various responsibilities.
Speaker 34: One interesting thing that happened while I was kind of
thinking about I was putting that bit.
Speaker 17: Something told their own story.
Speaker 13: Of how they started off as a bit atheist and skeptic,
and then the partner had died, and.
Speaker 34: Then there's a load of things happened that she ended
up decided it must be signed from some sort of afterlife,
and that was enough to dividence her not only to
believe in the paranorm but also to believe in God again,
you know.
Speaker 17: And then I got to say I was skeptics myself.
Speaker 2: She was a proper skeptic in the first place, you know,
that's why it happened.
Speaker 17: But and then talk about how many of you have
heard David Marx?
Speaker 2: Any of you?
Speaker 17: Yeah, you like David Marx.
Speaker 34: I used to use him as an example in my
a honistic psychology lectures as saying, kind of how can
intelligent people have got the same body of evidence and
come in sort of diametrically opposed conclusions, or the one
I had liked rade him saying that the evidence is there,
it's all improved. It's just, you know, sciences are too
kind of prejudice about knowledge, et cetera, et cetera, build extreme.
Speaker 8: And I used to give David Marks as the example
because I thought it was.
Speaker 17: Being a really quite extremely skeptic.
Speaker 13: Well, anyway, in his latest book he's actually a radly
could you could not accused him of not being a
proper skeptic. He founded New Zealand Skeptics, he wrote a
classic of the skeptical literature, The Psychology of the Psychic.
Because you really deepotten too or each other, etcetera, etcetera.
So no question sold this guy was a proper hard
line skeptic.
Speaker 8: He in his latest book, has shifted his position.
Speaker 22: He's still not impressed by the laboratory effort at all,
but a series.
Speaker 13: Of things happened in his life personally moved into a
position where he says, maybe these things do happen spontaneously
in real life, but you know he should be likely
captured the laboratory.
Speaker 34: So it's very much one of the lines that you stay.
And again he was a trying kind of trying ptuf
in the myself. You know, it's what if I on
the receiving end of the stings or I don't know
it may well do you know this.
Speaker 13: If a series of weird what could be a stain
noise concidence, but is that there is a nation watch
in a bit.
Speaker 17: That's gonna be spring.
Speaker 8: But you've also hits on the other points in the
Something may convince you, it won't convince that.
Speaker 45: Something may convince me, It won't convince that.
Speaker 17: And that's so pulferable in gods.
Speaker 28: Just out you mentioned that eighteen yea, it's not so
sis skeptic and belie.
Speaker 4: The get that some.
Speaker 26: Your perfect and a real man and animals that thirty
looking still bake as adults.
Speaker 28: This diversity the criteria for methods are being here.
Speaker 46: To I've been good upon in the last four years,
and yet there's still been about what the outcome is.
So the skeptic will say, yes, there's something going on
and it's not and believes it's listed, and yet the
debate being centered.
Speaker 28: On or of the evidence, on that quality of the methods.
Speaker 2: In the moment episode, I see, it's just like.
Speaker 28: This is what we'll do that, and then suddenly Old
Puss changed, so this is this is what it's good side.
Speaker 4: I could I couldn't bang on about this. I'm not.
Speaker 17: You, okay, I was industry.
Speaker 8: She wants to bipart. Actually in the diametrics, I mean,
as you about the paranormal one and their experiences, there.
Speaker 15: Is an mountain thing and people are quite extreams in
the beliefs.
Speaker 8: And there's a guy who's a linguist in America called
George black Off, which I talked about, and he basically
says that the fast ounce.
Speaker 15: Offt your model of the world basically, So if you
have a model of how you see the world, you're
going to it's very hard. It's it's almost a hard
shell to show that unless it's through experience. And I
think for a lot of paranormal.
Speaker 8: You have to experience it to allow it in and
to change by it. But at the same time, it's
amazing how powerful that is on both you know, Mont
just saying this will never see it. But pauland I
we did our eyes sort.
Speaker 17: Of contributed to study.
Speaker 15: We round about moments againically where we look at was
looking at a belief in the paranormal.
Speaker 8: And he had a swear he was sitting believers, as
he called them.
Speaker 15: I'm sure what that means, but believes in the paranormals,
sitting in from the computer, and there would be sort
of slog and then figures would have merged out of
this smile and as soon as they saw something, they
asked to his key on the keyboard.
Speaker 6: And what happened with that?
Speaker 17: He also got people that didn't believe.
Speaker 15: People can do this a lot better than I can,
starting at me.
Speaker 2: But but what the other of that was that.
Speaker 8: The belief were not that significant. It wasn't really a
very strong study from what's very manly. But what was
really interesting, of course looking for this, so it was.
Speaker 15: It was which is fair enough, but the normal leavers
didn't see stuff that was actually there.
Speaker 6: So it's really interesting.
Speaker 8: This is this.
Speaker 17: And I agree.
Speaker 34: I think you know, one of the under researched areas
is virus is on art cetics. I totally agree because
most of the research on the psychology of paranorl releases
carried out by skepties like me, And so you're kind
to say, well, is this cognitive virus and it's stronger
relievers and non believers. But I think there's a good
a lot more research where you set things up to say,
you know, you can imagine.
Speaker 17: Doing a group, especially these days with the synces we've got.
Speaker 34: It is for editing videos et cetera, et cetera, and
a look at whether skeptics were can just deny.
Speaker 17: Deeficularly didn't happen in the video.
Speaker 4: We know that it works around.
Speaker 17: That actually didn't happen. Well, it's very rare.
Speaker 47: Now.
Speaker 1: That was my opportunity to ask Professor Chris French about
his experience with Gordon Smith, the medium on This Morning
program that was aired some years ago on ITV. It
was a test between him and Gordon who could get
the most accurate reading, with Professor Chris French doing cold
reading and Gordon doing his mediumship, which Chris alleged was
just cold reading well who came out on tops. I
think Chris French wasn't really prepared to say, but let's
take a look at it.
Speaker 4: Right, Okay, we've got a question. Thank you.
Speaker 22: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Neil.
Speaker 48: Just going back a little bit a few years for
Chris on this morning program. I think it was he
was on with Gordon Smith. I think it was talking
how mediumship because he's a medium for those that don't there,
and I think, if I'm correcting this, it was about
Barnum statements. Mediums make Barnum statements. Are you still kind
of got that impression of Gordon Smith that you're doing that?
Speaker 49: Yeah.
Speaker 17: I wasn't particularly talking about Gordon. I just got very
well with Gordon John hills Lap in the green room
before he went on.
Speaker 13: I remember once we were we were comparing notes on
the kind of those ridiculous lines we've ever heard from
from mediums, and he did feel along with one session.
Speaker 17: You know, and the media was there, did anybody had
to cross a road to get it?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 34: I mean again, I was not particularly accusing him directly.
You know what I did do on that prono he's
the one and if you know, I pass myself off
as a psyche.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the one. And that was quite an.
Speaker 13: Interesting experience because basically you are the researcher of filled
me up. I mean, there's more of cold reading than
just barn and statements. But barn and state it's are
very beautiful padding out reading.
Speaker 6: And then the.
Speaker 13: Research is replying such and me they were going to
be doing this sighter on mediums and psychics. I'd obviously
start hanging on about cold reading, and the researcher says, oh,
that sounds great.
Speaker 4: Can you come on and do it for us?
Speaker 17: And I think, oh god, no, it doesn't always work,
you know, but she twisted my arms.
Speaker 34: She'd got me to do it, and yeah, you know,
I am now an officially approved psychic.
Speaker 13: It wasn't a question of trying to make that person,
that volunteer who'd been told that I was a psychic
called sinny.
Speaker 2: Far from it.
Speaker 13: It was just if you hear about these techniques, I
think a lot of buildings that I would be fooled
by that.
Speaker 4: But yes, they are very powerful techniques.
Speaker 34: I mean, I'm not particularly good, but I managed to
pass myself off as a psychic on TV.
Speaker 17: Exactly.
Speaker 4: I'm in an.
Speaker 13: You know, they didn't do this stuff, even when you
know theody using cold read even be watching the thing.
Speaker 17: Could how didn't they get?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 17: But those techniques are are very powerful.
Speaker 34: And of course now you've also got if you're over
hot reading, you've got social media where you can find
out an oplob.
Speaker 4: About psibly before the put on for the reading.
Speaker 17: So the only way you could.
Speaker 4: Properly test that is on the property control the additions,
which is I was just gonna say, which is what.
Speaker 6: Sary Schwartz do was in his laboratory.
Speaker 13: Yeah, not too convinced by Schwartz's stuff at all, There aren't.
Speaker 8: There's some more.
Speaker 17: There's some more convincing evidence of that, you know, from.
Speaker 2: Your point of view, and be beber point of view.
Speaker 17: Than the Gary Schwartz stuff, and again replicate that stuff
and then see where we go from there.
Speaker 1: Who won in the competition between you and Gordon?
Speaker 4: Then well.
Speaker 17: Who did they vote? Call?
Speaker 48: All right, thank you.
Speaker 1: Let's take a look at how you can apparently four
people with general cold readings, according to Chris from this
segment of ITV's This Morning.
Speaker 14: Time.
Speaker 16: Now for the results of our psychic challenge, we welcome
Anna and Angela, who have had readings all morning from
two psychics.
Speaker 50: Well, psychic one.
Speaker 16: Is Chris, who you thought was called Derek, and psychic
two is Gordon, who is called Gordon. And we'll be
meeting them in just a second. But first, ladies, how
have you got on? Anna? What did you think of
today's readings?
Speaker 47: I thought the first guy was quite business like and
he was called whereas Gordon, I fold he was much
more in tune with spirits and me, and I thought
his answer, you know, he guessed a lot of things
very accurately.
Speaker 16: So Gordon, you felt, was altogether slightly better. Yes, okay,
and Angela, what did you make of the two of them?
Speaker 49: I had to say the same. The first one very
business like and very generalized. I felt Gordon I felt
picked up straight away, straight away on.
Speaker 16: But in terms of accuracy, how accurate were both of
the Manna?
Speaker 14: Well, I think the first guy was fine because he
was accurate on really quite mundane things like my washing
machine breaking, do.
Speaker 49: You know what?
Speaker 14: It wasn't that interesting, Whereas the second guy was very
much more in tune with people from the past, you know,
my husband, children, So therefore I think, you know, they
were both sort of accurate but the second guy was
much more interesting.
Speaker 49: Okay, and Angela, you felt this guy in the same Yeah,
very accurate, well factory in fact, the second interesting results.
Speaker 51: Yes, well, it's time to bring on our two psychics,
Gordon Smith and Derek O'Connor in your come both of you.
What we didn't tell Anna and Angela is that is
that Derek O'Connor is actually not a psychic, but in
fact so the country's leading skeptic.
Speaker 8: And he said, Chris French, which.
Speaker 7: Is why you were blind for face, sorry about that,
which is quite interesting because I think the summing up
of both our ladies there said that Gordon, you went
straight to the heart of the matter, you know much
more in tune.
Speaker 51: And Chris, you've been on here before saying listen, you
can cold read anybody, but you've been Suster's being a
bit general.
Speaker 52: My feeling was that the first reading went a lot
better than the second one. I mean, I wasn't you know,
there were a few times. There was quite a few
things I came up with for you that you saought. Oh,
they said, that's good and you and admittedly it was
all fairly mundane stuff. I'm not at all so I mean,
the reading I did with you, I came out, I
thought that didn't go very well. I mean, I'm not
at all surprised that Gordon did a better job than
me job doing it for you.
Speaker 17: He does it day in, day out.
Speaker 8: That's what he does. You know.
Speaker 52: I'm kind of trying this after you know, reading a
couple of books on it and trying on a few
people and so on. Overall, I was I was kind of,
you know, I was quite happy with my performance with you,
even though it was all the things that you would
like to do, the ambitions that you've got that you've
not really made as much progress with as you like, some.
Speaker 49: Kind of.
Speaker 53: Kitchen malfunction, and about an unfinished book as well, some
kind of an event coming up soon that you've got
quite a big part to play.
Speaker 8: A hundred percent sold him, but certainly little things.
Speaker 54: Yes, the name of Kenny or Kennedy actually calls forward.
So if you go back to the year two and
it was a really important time for you, I've seen
a computer.
Speaker 17: Some just put a computer in front.
Speaker 8: Of me here.
Speaker 17: I've also talked to little bit in New York.
Speaker 54: You remember, I've said that to you because it's important
and it's to do with a working thing not being
in New York.
Speaker 55: But I feel as other's messages going back and forward,
you've got a lot of things. He's very accurate actually
with a lot of things. And yeah, he was definitely
much more I think in tune.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 16: Well, here is Anna and you were talking to Chris.
First of all, you gave yourself the name Derek O'Connor
because O'Connor sounds like you're conning them, and to me,
well that's a whole other story now.
Speaker 8: Then he said you were quite ambitious.
Speaker 16: Yes, yes, bubbly at a party, need a good sorting
out around the home. Can see Now this is interesting
because I can see generalized things and people say, yes,
I'm bubbly at a party. Yes, I'm rather you know,
but can you can see water on the floor in
the kitchen, a kitchen malfunction and lorsh maching did break
a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 8: Yeah, maybe I'm psychic more than you thought.
Speaker 16: You have a boy and a girl and they missed
out another one.
Speaker 8: All right, so you have another little girl.
Speaker 16: There was an occasion when you regretted something good general question. Yeah,
photos haven't been put in an album that was obvious. Yeah,
it said at the time, it wasn't obvious. It is
now the name John comes to mind and the date
twenty six is coming through.
Speaker 14: Well, that was quite good because that is a friend's
husband and it's their daughter's birthday on the twenty sixth.
Speaker 2: So why do you think I did badly?
Speaker 52: Why do you pick John and twenty six because there's
John's a very common name. Very few people wouldn't know
of John. The twenty six is a Saturday, a couple
of months, a couple of weeks ahead, quite lightly that
there is something, but it is a get I mean
it was a guess you said, no, I'd have tried
to twist it.
Speaker 17: Around fish.
Speaker 4: General fishing.
Speaker 51: So this is this is something that you've been doing
for a very long time. This is how do you
How do you see it when you're reading someone? How
do you see it?
Speaker 54: I get the situation was very different from you because
obviously the ladies were blame forwarded and it's you know,
it's not something that's common to me to set every
blamefolded people. But you just have to try and feel
tune into your feelings, and that's why I would pick
up on any emotional thing that the foster lady I
didn't feel there was a great need to have a
setting with the medium. The second lady here I certainly
did feel there was more emotional things and more healing need.
Speaker 51: You've got the name Kennedy coming through.
Speaker 17: That's married name.
Speaker 51: Concern over a job, maybe a partner concerned to concern
with the job. Birthday has been very close just two
weeks ago. Last three years have been hard working for you. Yes,
if it wasn't a few things would fall apart. Yes,
but everyone would say that there's a birthday around Christmas. Actually,
husband's name John comes to mind. It's your friend's husband.
Another job, So new build in North London, tried to move,
but you hate new builds. I'm seeing someone who passed
away in your teens. You lost your in teens and
you did say a lady, So on the on the whole,
you're saying, yes that although you weren't, you wouldn't look
to go to someone for a reading. Okay, now that's well,
that's all pretty spot on. So let's let's have a
look at at Angela's.
Speaker 53: An accident about teenage years. I'm getting the number, the
number two coming through with you, and well that's your
house number and the name John. Again, I don't know
if this makes any sense.
Speaker 2: You've got an unfinished book.
Speaker 8: I thought it was quite general. Really, my my reading
is quite general, nothing specific.
Speaker 54: I've gone along with terms I feel as I want
to go to.
Speaker 8: Was the East end of London.
Speaker 54: A strong connection with that name Angela or angel But
there's a reason for it, and I feel whether it's
the neme or whether it's the song, I don't know.
I've got to talk about a new house. Let's talk
about a new house or suddenly moved in your house
two thousand and three. I've got to go back then
and it's a real emotional tank.
Speaker 49: I'm just quite overwhelmed with it, really, I'm just trying
to still take it in.
Speaker 8: But he was just amazing.
Speaker 39: Wow.
Speaker 16: Wow, Well, Chris, you admitted already that you're reading didn't
go according to plan, and Angela wasn't particularly impressed with you.
But Gordon, this is when you're at tears at the
end you see Gordon's work. I hope you don't mind
me saying this is with grief counseling absolutely, and you
don't charge for your one to ones but you do
earn your living with your books, by the way, I
have one here, Gordon Smith, through my eyes. There you
are through your books and the book tours. So that's
how you earn your living. But this grief counseling is
very interesting. And you hit foot Angela on the sense
of a man with a heart condition.
Speaker 49: And this is your father, yes, that's right, who died
in December, and we weren't. You couldn't say goodbye, and
that came through quite clear.
Speaker 16: So for you, however, and whatever you think about the
work that Gordon does, did you feel somehow lighter by
hearing some news?
Speaker 8: Absolutely?
Speaker 49: Absolutely, to say, have a sense of a man with
smiling eyes saying the words, singing the words, and your
baby Helen ready who would know that?
Speaker 16: But you used to sing that for you, Yes you did,
actually yes, But.
Speaker 51: Both of you, gentlemen that say, I think you're both
united in saying be careful how you part and where
you part.
Speaker 28: With your money.
Speaker 56: Absolutely definitely, and especially somebody who's had a loss, because
you are lately to be drawn into somebody's advert or
something with us because they do pillion And I would
say trust the mediums by the charge and by that,
I mean those who don't overdo it.
Speaker 8: So yeah, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 16: What I like is that they both really enjoy each
other's work.
Speaker 8: It's pretty genuine, very good.
Speaker 16: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: Despite my not agreeing with Chris French's opinion of mediums
saying they're all doing cold readings or giving out Barnum
type statements, I just want to stress that he's actually
a very nice chap and Ben can back that up too,
because Ben knows him better than I do. I only
met him the once, so yeah, he's a great guy actually,
But he's just likes to be cautiously on the skeptical side.
But he did actually say during the conference that you know,
he could be persuaded. He's somewhere lying out on the
skeptical side, but there could be things that might pull
him back in to believe certain things that might be
a little bit stranger than we're led to believe.
Speaker 8: Just tenuously have something on to that I have found
that we mentioned out well. But historically and magicians in
particular than have made the best team bonkers. They're the
best grend cats and the best mediums three times because
arguably they weren't. We're seeing a lot more scientific rigor
on their media bistic practices than those who are actually
much like Facebook today. We often think that mediums have
things easier, and if they're for audulent obviously, but everything
is so easy accessible on our fingers, Whereas that has
been a tradition for well over all fifty years. There's
a lot of documentation I magicians of the nineteenth century,
people like William Marryott and David Abbotts, who toured countries.
They taught the North America and in the UK, and
would chronicle power. Different mediums would have central points of
central notebooks and for repositories are things there's famosifically Boston,
which is Boston in America, not Boston in Mencoshire. I'm
sure we'd still read there, but Boston did allow traveling
medias who had this this knowledge of me to visit
Beautia Blue Book for Boston, which was a list of
recent from the people, these beavements, things that would be plumpty,
quite unusual for out of towns to know. So there's
always been on this this archive, this sort of transient
archive that's developed over years and over the centuries. We
broadly applied that was North America and Western Europe. So
a lot of things, a lot of abilities that people
like and like Organs nineties eighty two thousands to be medias,
a lot of things that ever criticized for, but essentially
just working in not apartment state. But it's got a
great tradition of forging passing around information for financial gains.
So I'm big regardless of when Romot he was a
fantastic legitimate being or not, I think they the still
should be celebrated as part of the fantastic either spiritual
or exploitative tradition.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for a call and drawing or pulse basting. There
are cases out there where you.
Speaker 13: Have spontaneous sports us and yet what happens is then
you need to get involved with research.
Speaker 4: That involved is a little pressure.
Speaker 13: Usually get that teenage you know teenagers for the treasure
trump PHTA for this is off showing in the media
and one is it's leading stick skills our sponsor.
Speaker 2: Aliens can't control.
Speaker 4: Then then become special media.
Speaker 13: You are using complings sort of maintain stagy, have the
skills and that is rand think.
Speaker 2: So they you know ultimate scuts as though you will
with it. I think Janet that with the.
Speaker 13: Okay has admitted to about five percent of the after
human food being.
Speaker 2: Four of them.
Speaker 13: You put pressure to give something back, but I have
no doubts that are based on the tail book. So
maybe the mean scientific now of pressure. This in my
choice in my identity Bilt the juice, and that's when
you get these I used to have to Blackpool.
Speaker 2: I mean, well, I'm not said I was up in overseas. Yeah,
with stings.
Speaker 32: Else.
Speaker 4: So the.
Speaker 37: Fact when media gets involved with stuff, there is always
going to be no expectations.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeahcome tall.
Speaker 8: On. Sorry, yeah, I was speciation with reference to two
girls and young women performing. I mean it's us. We're
going back further into the history because it's happened through
the entry of prior, which is jail or. It seems
to be part of the reder square of the young woman.
And could to wonder whether actual question and I confirmings
to female roles, whether or not this is the way
that the old woman gets attention. See so that I'm
just sort of pruning around playing football or shout or
do anything like that. I know that there are not
on the young girls. There are young girls associations. Things
were just general scripture of nomine. You've got box sisters
and things like that, and going back further tould be
witness of ball boys and the three can wind up
being executed for which roughly say year it because the
local had of our classed at or type family. Their
girls started up. The young with skill managesting one's sorts
of distress she was throwing fits someone that kind of
seeing the other girls chilling in, so it happens time
will twine again. Is the old woman there and there's
one of the social dynamics. You see, you're able there,
you're saying king of action, pleasing thing on that. Generally
young I mean can't start whole group and and attracted
attention entirely by themselves. They need an accelerate. So they
need something who will come in and to draw attention.
Chapel seem the who munities okay and rostros the of
Greenfield and the design to please them must be incurrently
over long. Pop sisters lunch important to our assaulted religion.
They needed to promoted by asking posts who had coats? Yes,
the pictures on this. So I think that I think
that the advising little ciles more chowerful promoters probably have more.
I will roll in the face and come up from them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the adult odd guys India.
Speaker 8: The name of it. But it happens time to only
got this commotions. I do be the temptation to perform
with veil and must be in all us okay, And
I met.
Speaker 15: Nice having been the only female and having also got
into the experience.
Speaker 17: There is a lot of credit.
Speaker 8: One of the problems with it, or a lot of
them not in there is it just doesn't want to
playball when he wanted to. It does the very opposite.
Speaker 15: And we had sbr over for our case and that
will be explained tomorrow. But to try and cat it,
which is kind of difficult.
Speaker 19: But there was two gentlemen from supposedly from Mescal and
the lad's confused in it, and they were there to
investigate what was going on.
Speaker 8: And there are two judge and will sitting with myself
the young girl then and.
Speaker 15: We had an almighty what stairs really really loud at.
Speaker 57: I don't even know how to responsory my recosation was
in fact, so both of the looked.
Speaker 8: At each other and I said, well, are you going
to go any time soon? You know?
Speaker 17: And they didn't want to go.
Speaker 15: They didn't want to go upstairs, and when they're a
bloody investing at it, and they would not go up
the stairs, and that's more follow me.
Speaker 17: Then, and they are not other men.
Speaker 8: So I went upstairs and one of these but what
are you well remember these? But while times it's real.
So we're about that. And it was on a bitterly
a share. But the feet of this real, real tape
recorder was sitting on the chair and it was it
was sort of leaning back to the little bit into
the chair backwards, and it had gone across the room, basically,
is it now. The problem with that was I knew
the cat was upstairs.
Speaker 28: And I thought.
Speaker 8: The pressure for me to not embarrass them became overwhelming.
Now I don't want to dis stay he had trunks
on it. That would be the logical exclamation, and it
was an easy one to do. They'd go down there
and said, you know, this tape recorder is news across
the room. But if they'd only got up there, they
might have the cat was actually in the room.
Speaker 15: I lied the cat was in the other room. There's
possibly the cat cake through I don't know. But as
the room stood, they take.
Speaker 8: Part and they come off a share and the gone
across the room, and so the pressure for you to
satisfy the people there can work the opposite way, so
because you don't want to, you know, and see that
they're not they're not you know what you're saying. They're
just going to go even though they were the ones
going up there and then to look at it. So
it's really frustrating. It plays us a way, right, certainly
understands you know, it's so wasn't happening in Ny. If
they wanted to face on the thing, then I can
understand why they went on to you know, if it
wasn't happening, or to fill my gap for those people
that are just there for back films and now you
would do you good. I understand completely the any film
cans and then the only thing that you get it
followed them. I was the damage in the house.
Speaker 2: It was attending.
Speaker 8: And so we all remember hand boys, portending ages and semteenes.
It was begetting by anything else. So I saw as
in Spidingfield. Yeah, and I mean I understand they did
not believe It's the point I was making was the
pressure I was actually reiterated, so and that was basically
the pressure will work there with wars, and that you
can sometimes if there is an expert there to see
it and they're there all about purpose and then there.
Speaker 15: Is lots of pressure. And I basically saying that cat
when the truth was I didn't know what it was.
It could have been anything, and the cat was at
that time as the logical thing. But we're talking a big, real,
real it's very very heavy.
Speaker 2: So then you did speak fast barrow with it. Even the.
Speaker 15: Well as as researchers there there was supposed to be
the one spoken control over, so they didn't.
Speaker 8: So you know that is frustrating. Spers can be very frustrating.
Speaker 4: But you look probable than this that you've you've.
Speaker 45: Hit on something there by saying it happened a stairs
and almost.
Speaker 8: Knowing these are that it's in every story itself hard
and never.
Speaker 45: I mean see one see you see the beginning, but
you tend to speak the film. I mean I've been
in the policy at places where it's trensing, but you
don't see the origin.
Speaker 8: I know there's nobody that you could have done it,
but you don't see it or you don't film it.
So the pressure is there to make something happen. But
even if something genuine happened, is our and see something
yeah as a s.
Speaker 4: Little And then no one.
Speaker 2: Was Yeah that why that's too nice John and said
upside the.
Speaker 4: Upstairs he went the lie.
Speaker 13: I don't they believe there was the same patterns he said,
or they didn't mind the un will you might then
some chums by seeing something that can explain that's any
next place dot.
Speaker 4: I can let's move on. We've got another question. And
then there's a guy, Chris, there's a guy just.
Speaker 8: Crack by there and just an observation. Really, I really
appreciate the paranel's kind of respond just really slight.
Speaker 58: So either the paranormal is the one sub that he
capsulates so many disciplines.
Speaker 8: So for example, the cultural anthropologists.
Speaker 58: Will see it in terms of gender norms and culture
and society and all the rest of it. And the
biologists will see it as, oh, it's a psychosis, it's hallucination,
there's something that it's an initial issue with the brain.
The psychologists a mass, a mass psychosis, and the religious
people will see, well, it's God, so you know, there's
all that no other subject it Perhaps it's so many
disciplines and what you said earlier that you think about.
Speaker 8: You know, it's it's like the.
Speaker 58: Double exper the observer of just observing it is affecting it,
which makes it thinks it beyond human understanding, and it
is that part of it is that we are we
trying to understand something, but we are not meant to understand.
I think some famous physicist whose named escape you want
to say something along the lines of the first step
from the glacs of human sciences, or how the as
a confirmed but at the bottom of the glass God
is we think?
Speaker 4: For you?
Speaker 58: I think, okay, if we could cruise stay beyond depth,
we sat with the issue. There is life after death.
It is a wonderful experiences. It's just a passing phase.
Speaker 8: We come in to learn, but when we die, we
pass off.
Speaker 58: If we all knew that beyond doubt, we don't throw
ourselves after being spread.
Speaker 8: So maybe we're not meant to know.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't go with the not meant to know phrase
that controlling that for me.
Speaker 13: I think there are things we don't understand which science will,
hopefully when should be given them.
Speaker 4: I want say science.
Speaker 2: As explain just the you know, it's a way and
think it's mething.
Speaker 13: Score Popka said before sacond II five percent.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I think it's we're st off remember something of them,
you know, but now I make as everything normal. So
there are things we're going to come in sume shup.
But it steps norm of the vinyl helpless.
Speaker 4: And so so.
Speaker 8: But it's not working with sites is that you know
we do the siding to stay and we still.
Speaker 4: Power work it out.
Speaker 17: Why does limited but.
Speaker 13: Really think about you know what Homo sapians three hundred
thousand years been Homo saplings. Science has gone back to
fifteen degrees. I guess so I was that five hundred
of years with scientists method and even then we go
with psychology goes back to eighteen eighty six thing first psychology,
lab power, psychology nineteen thirties. It's nothing compared to the
length of which have a sampling has been alive and
that's only suppings back with a four point three billion
years plan has been about so sciences that really.
Speaker 4: Goes to the new.
Speaker 37: The facts arend as well about that there's parapsychological investigations
of those two Yeah, tradicial st on that.
Speaker 13: It's a fascinating subject of me now in an Irish
fagous system which is about getting jobs for students. So
have a few parents have anything purely give us all,
especially panel because it's always have a bill of them.
There's a lot of psychologists anyway, no hesitantles I might
imbibe them. Yeah so, but nowadays it's a huge one
of the psychology at least things like forensics.
Speaker 2: Or counseling as a job.
Speaker 13: Lying at the end of it, as I spending thirty
grand a lesially going to get professional ghost sumpters on.
Speaker 2: Court the bar.
Speaker 4: It's not jobs at the end of it, that's it,
Chrish Sorry and.
Speaker 8: Again Stain. He was saying, if we called the pruiser
was life after death, the whole subjectives were tied and
than that because there are postive phenomena that don't less
souling have to rely on. Whfe after death times is
a bif one. I'm looking at that's up as interviewing
life after that, and it might be that none of
it and he's interviewing with life after lass it's a
completely different Now.
Speaker 58: Yeah, I'm just saying that as an exactly It's just something.
Speaker 8: I picked up on it because it's something winter you know,
improve life after death. Ever, will childre themselves off the building?
You know?
Speaker 59: Although having said that right, reading some of the books
from the Easing Pius where they describe what life is
on the other side from the communications, I thought, I'm
not actually sure.
Speaker 4: Also, oh, fatal.
Speaker 13: Outside in the car par My question is for the
people who have been experiencing pouts.
Speaker 2: Do you believe the past can see you? Which means
that sometimes or if you heard it laughing, it will
help boy spots?
Speaker 4: Or is it a living thing?
Speaker 15: Simple answer that we should ned likes.
Speaker 8: Don't mean I'm non opt enough. I'm looking.
Speaker 15: So what I think from that experience, I do believe, yes,
and I do think they're influenced by people in my experience.
Speaker 8: So who was I speaking to hold your hand? But
we've got the lights that you look could Yeah, So
I do believe that the panter geist can see you,
and I think that there is some connection with people,
an intention.
Speaker 15: So you might think I just need to go and
make a coffee. You may find a coffee. I mean
I didn't have this book. You may have had the
coffee jars moved or something like that. There seems to
be some sort of connection. So I don't know if
the word seeing is right, because I don't know ifficulty
about is, but that they seem to be responsive to
what people.
Speaker 4: Think and feel.
Speaker 8: That's all I can gather from my experience.
Speaker 4: Really.
Speaker 45: Yeah, again, in my experience, if a poltrygeist throws something
an't you, then there must be some agency that knows
in some.
Speaker 59: Way where that's going, unless, of course, we're generating it
off from ourselves.
Speaker 8: If we're generating it from ourselves, then we are directing
that experience. And he obviously say that, of course, all
this to happen and butt in on loss of the
polity geist the more mind. In post Guy's experience a
circling there does seem to be some sort of human agency,
not deliterate human agency, but there does seem to be
some sort of effect coming from the people selves causing
these things.
Speaker 2: Isn't it dinos or whatever?
Speaker 4: I just add to that?
Speaker 13: So you do what the history about time in ages,
it was all witchwists, the devil going into them about
eighteen hundreds onwards, become more less witchcraft list if you know,
devil worship decide for them. And we moved into an
area and out where the psychologists referred to miss.
Speaker 2: Misinterpretation of natural floorma and video stuff in florna. So
a shadow might be considered an advision. Something might move
or some ways might come out as a rack or house.
Speaker 13: Great could been since up. But in the nineteen fifty
eight it was the first time the guy called Bill
Roll he may have heard little bit wrong. He optigeist
and he come up with then with RSP carr correspontaneous cybercons.
Speaker 4: He's taken the stirit out of publicists.
Speaker 13: And I argue that it's a manifestation of cybercons that
is on base that he originally said the pressed sexuality,
but this is this is the spoiling his nik. And
then look over he was with the more than now
it's his frustration. It's hands up frustrations and manifest that's
what a mouth psychologists.
Speaker 4: Say it is.
Speaker 13: I might incite commit about that particles of those case.
But there are other cases out. There's a really interesting
case over in auss of State in Settle the commost
did bottle so both was ninety twelve versus sixty four
years APO him and he had all the classic noma,
but he also had three hundred ev pins and he
was here with license, and he's attributed those voices to.
Speaker 2: The phenomena ultimist.
Speaker 13: So the Jews out, yeah, don't mean howso God just
referred to p K and we still can examples would
suggest some sort of stirhye coasting.
Speaker 2: That was full for explansions.
Speaker 4: Got one.
Speaker 8: If I can along on my personal experiences because I
was also a young woman when I was experiencing a
lot of things that I has when it comes to
perceived consciousness because I'm not a scientist, I do not
have a scientific background. I'm surely literate literally, and so
I still necessarily have the you know, the high bukshuy
brains that this slot through. I just sort of football
through life in the bookmarking land. But during the few
years in apsticular house, I'm when I think about it now,
I separate the experiences with whatever it was you call
it the man or being a lounged for the thetails,
separates it into like the situal loops, just this constant
and pre manifestation saut so we just have then the
same night every night, footsteps, lights always is burning. Things
like that, and those I would never attribute to any
form of consciousness. So I wouldn't say that that entity
could see me, interact with be do anything, because it
was just the same thing every night and for months
ultimately and then and then cutting in on the years.
But when that changed to what we believed he saw
and that there was basically the man in the bedroom
and the way that we saw this, and we were
all very much away. Even in the middle of the day,
he would be not so much interacting with us, but
he would be looking directly at us and not in
the same way that like a cap the syrup and
name on the wall, looking at us sort of curious.
And so then he said there was an elemence of
consciousness to it and vision. So I would say that
there was. There was an elegence before of like opposite
compability within what we were experiencing. But it was very
much on a scale. It was like a that's for
its consciousness, if that's what it was. It was very
much on spectrum. Sometimes it would just be sometimes it'd
be more printed what we were, but it was very
much and environmental. That's what it would fluctuate. So watch
the classes and say, I sorted, when we do we
get the SCR And we did get anyone in is
that the power of the hindsight, isn't it? Because right
now and when I'm the three Bob DEALERWAM series going
through Lady House. But we didn't that time, we didn't.
We did the Watson didn't pact that that body of knowledge,
not mind us, but either certainly say that it was
personally for me, it was is on spectrum, a very
fast moving section.
Speaker 2: I just asked, what was this hounds dressed like.
Speaker 8: An and suit and or what soup and bond suits one,
So we'll say late eighties.
Speaker 13: One weird five ideas to fight out there that made
these are most limits made.
Speaker 2: Some years of people with the salvage.
Speaker 8: You stick clips out to my man, it's the first thing.
Speaker 60: Ugly and yes, okay, uh I forgot. Yeah the report
popular or something like that. Oh yeah, this is just
an open hand or questioned.
Speaker 2: I hate thinking really about why paranormal research has the
sort of reputation and stages that it has now.
Speaker 3: When I think about sort of science rebranding up, I
always think about just Victorian edge, where people doing all
sorts of crazy experiments in actual sciences psychology somehow.
Speaker 4: Normal, and there's experiencist movement.
Speaker 3: Where people are really desperately trying to, like said, the
spiritual realm, and people's for leads to the experiences and
I can't have the thing that you know, natural science
is very well.
Speaker 39: Respected and now psychology is very well respected. But at
the same time with psychology there was a point where
it was very very taboom and very shameful when people
talk about the mental helvi. Everyone were trying harder and
they had the pressure of anxiety, your own psychosis.
Speaker 3: Whereas I think now it's moved on and think and
more accepting, people talk about it, and it's funding and
it's counting, like you said, and there's the whole sort
of chained work in services around SLA Welsh Support now
whereas we of that was the booth. And I'm trying
to sort of pinpoint at what point did people researching
paranorlar or missing the experiences of the paranorm war. Why
did that become such a sort of like dirty thing.
And I'm thinking, I'm thinking to the point where so
before I went to university, I found that people around
me would can you be quite open to talk about
these things, whether it was like a religious belief or
whether it's a a belief in those experience they had.
And then seeing they got into the university, I suddenly
found that people would never talk about that. At least
they did, it would be very quiet and they were
very embarrassed. They didn't want me to know because they
thought that they wouldn't be taken seriously in their skill
with whatever that was.
Speaker 2: And then were ever even's professional said thing I do
to people also think about that.
Speaker 4: That's very embarrassing, that's very a shameful.
Speaker 3: What I don't really understand at what point and why
sort of para activity came to I think when people
just sort of quite often roll their eyes at or
they don't want to they don't want to admit they.
Speaker 4: Believe film Maurice, Ghostbusters.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know we say that the Gamble, it
doesn't exaust in the Hollywood, but they all things. But
we have to be having that fluffer, you know, besides
of insturments going wrong, that's joke. So what do you
have any insight on on when that turning point was?
Speaker 4: And is it sex change? Do you think that interesting?
Speaker 2: Was pup?
Speaker 4: I'm thinking more of the parasy.
Speaker 17: So obviously.
Speaker 13: So I got it that was mean so yes, there
was a real cipher was call interests in the Francisco
eighteen eighty so so und fifty years ago it was
considered to be a serious subjects.
Speaker 2: In sense why has changed politics? A small people would say.
Speaker 4: There are.
Speaker 13: Cycles of interest in different topics. I mentioned earlier about
the vocational aspect of psychology. Now I went to a
forensic conference fifteen years ago. It was the third of
anniversary of the division of the forensic forensic divisions. The
guess and really feel that we'll manage the guy at
the editor this partic command was said that when I
started will be forensic, my my chuldor said, don't do it.
There's no career in forensic. It's nonsense. That was in sixties,
about the nineties. It's the indy thing. And I think
we're going to going a few piers. Whether power psychology
ever takes off, I don't know. There's no career. There
are catnings in psychology become offer health, psychologies matic, now
forensic well school you say sports big, yeah, so.
Speaker 4: These are big ones.
Speaker 2: Now there will be out of changers.
Speaker 4: I'm thinking friends are psychologically it's so defferend.
Speaker 2: Psychologists go out there now were the jobs.
Speaker 13: You know there will be two of these students with
MSCs and and there's no jobs, so they have to
shank you again.
Speaker 2: Why why changed to him? I mainly made it for
nine No longer there.
Speaker 8: I was, So I just following on from your anecdome't
I interdue to black walls once by great virus too?
Speaker 61: Black walls wurg And I said, saying it was an
interesting subject are you've gone into? And it had such
a sexual career And she said, whom dare you? I
haven't made a respect and.
Speaker 8: When she firsted, and it's the subject has become respect
because people let us. When she started her pah, she
was full of sort of noaouts. You know. She she
set out she was a legal, she set out proobal
source of is and she she couldn't proved any of it,
which of course is as Chris was saying, with these
vertication hypothesis, you know Google, he kind of uned our
replication prices. But it's just bound into any other kind
of things, machines trying to create things. And she's she said,
he could be I'm one day. A lot of this
stuff is to do with the agency because William James
did stands for very respectable train of thought, but he
had pindeings the seeds other things, rather than being able
to start off for those proble stuff himself. And certainly
it kind of to my way and complete things. Things
kind of lost their way a bit, and all the
Freudian stunt or psychoanalysis. But then when you get actually
Hagel psychology and combistion psychology, things that you can things
that you could predict to the things that you can huntify,
and all aso measures that you can, you know that
pharma colom genes helped enormously a hypological and psychiatric distress
over the last fifty years of things like S's opinior
and my burd sort of and things like that. So
actually having Agel is silly, I think makes people more
more certainly, it makes things more respectable. It also make
completely our respective things respectable. So there is a great
deal of work in Bride with witchcraft and how pinker
witches and how they mechanisms work, and hand diagnosed witches
and then you find out what they are and how
you find it out, the phenomenon that they cause. It's
all bollards, But it was he specially for humility as
a priority.
Speaker 38: That's as well.
Speaker 8: So I wonder if it's im You wonder if it's
just that element of agencies. So Sue you can risk
on something and predict it and they could change in
the world with it in that respectable distancing.
Speaker 45: And I think it was sort of all the way
when he started ghost Busters can.
Speaker 8: Talk about the paradormal? What can you think of TV?
Ghost onto s wod be around with them athletis, So
the whole subject is always going to be changed by
not I'm just going to go back to the model.
Speaker 17: You can't predict and control.
Speaker 8: It's a simple sad And you know, I do believe
that the model should be in science. We're not there yet,
you know, we don't have enough information, or.
Speaker 15: Rather we've not been looking for it. We've not been
you know, I'm a great leader in complex masses. I
don't think you can. You know at the moment, the
way that we do, we're doing very linearly in that
you know, we chop all the outpine excelle.
Speaker 8: And yet it's the other waist we should have been
paying attention. So but because science wants to predict your control,
as you say, it is sensibly You're right.
Speaker 17: They bought the middle there. They bought the.
Speaker 8: Juicy bears and not the things that that has been
predicted to be our wise. So without a decent model,
you don't you call predicting childs.
Speaker 13: The simple stuck And nobody's mentioned the F word either,
No one station four.
Speaker 4: Sorry.
Speaker 13: I mean that in a few cases where you've been
unterially forging power psychologia on intribute things.
Speaker 2: But that's not just power psychology I'm thinking about.
Speaker 13: I think the guy wascated psycho civil Virgin in the Yeah,
he was underfold it was the education what plus as
research and no being that this is educational psychology.
Speaker 2: But because if one or two case get the powers begin,
it takes pop thing in.
Speaker 4: So there's the questions called I think.
Speaker 38: I'm just reminded of personal experience. By the time I
was actually kind of doing research and publishing papers, ends up,
I was already a confirmed skeptic. But still even then
I can just you know, when my think government made
me very clear that my interest in this stuff would
be tolerated.
Speaker 17: But not encouraged, And from all the time I had
to have a kind a parallel.
Speaker 13: Stream of more respectable conventional research and I wish in retrospect,
I wish I had kind of jump ship earlier because
the stuff that really interestedly.
Speaker 2: Was was the issue.
Speaker 62: And you know, I for a long time carried on
to research in the area of cognition and emotion, which
has kind of been a great mentionally accepted area for research.
Speaker 38: I'd been really made me very sympathetic towards parapsychologists who
actually were saying, well, actually, you know some of this
stuff anything at old play were actually entertaining that idea.
And so the people, those people that few people in
university lectureships and you know, so on would face what
I face for a thousand times worse. You know, because
I do support parapsychology, I want a parapsychologists to carry
on doing the research, make as good quality as they
can see it. Yeah, I'm kind of open to being convinced,
and I think I am big with self consciously of
not I think I have, but it will have to
be very good quality and still do that job. But
I'm all in vador of the parapsychologists trying their best
to do that when they were an atual one. We
be into that earlier where kind of no matter how.
Speaker 62: Strong the evidence was, the conventional, conventional scientific community just
would refuse to be swayed by it.
Speaker 2: I don't known, but now they got starting on when
somebody like me over, no, it needs to go. I
mean he's going back, he's worked back in that direction.
Speaker 4: He's really.
Speaker 61: But you know, I.
Speaker 4: Didn't really really sympathize with.
Speaker 38: And Edinburgh, various other places where they are much sympathetic
to all the idea that sign might be real because
they must, they must face this kind of hostility.
Speaker 60: Perhaps some times we've got we've got literally a minute, labs,
and we've got one one quick question.
Speaker 45: Like I was in the middle of my PhD whole
lass called sons that enormous passion to stop the parapsyche
and move on to.
Speaker 8: Just so something that could get some funding and something
you're like that was.
Speaker 2: Pulled onto massive passion.
Speaker 8: But locally, I'm yourself fully link.
Speaker 4: So we got one fun question and we got four minutes,
So go for it.
Speaker 8: Okay, it's a bit of a nuts and bolts question really,
so I can understand how people in the scientific community
are afraid of, you know, speaking out about the parenal.
I had a friend you as a scientist a double
bank who have experienced politicize activity and we never ever
talk about it. But equally in the religious community, there
are a lot of people my family were very religious
who experience the paranormal phenomenon against friedened of talking about
it and with the rise of what seems to me
and then I'm new to all of this, so an
interest in the paranormal.
Speaker 50: I'm just wondering when whether you guys are approached by
the church in your investigations, how does it work, How
does the church perceive this new rise of the paranormal
in mainstream media.
Speaker 17: Well, I'm certainly not approached club.
Speaker 8: Right, I'm not involved in parapsychology, but I've been heavily
involved in both the church and burial space as a
relation to paralorl investigator has gone God speak right okay,
and the church has not this. I can't speak if
they've been approaching any university's partners, but certainly church deliverance
teams and careernos of our workers as well. There are
certain departments within the church being with the different type
of canosis and there that are incredibly aware. There aren't
necessarily in parapsychological developments, of paranormal investigation developments and the
intersection between paranormal investigation and the desire for free locations.
So this public perception of places like centeries, rave the arts,
various splaces, even churches or places of public access, public
ownership and therefore completely revible public engagement regardless of the
nature that engagement has become a real issue. And so
a lot of different dioceses are having crisis books to
put in the CCTV the policies and be very very
careful about what public policies they put out and also
what behavior they call that because a lot of investigating
just build into churches that with various spaces and lie straight.
Because TikTok and Instagram, Facebook has been a real light,
they will listen produce concept of these spaces. But a
lot of dioceses and a lot of large sentry trusts
a lot of challenges. They're very very grate to speak
out and say don't do this here. Others they believe
and I acknowledge learns people's our courage like so with
from bad side things there are massive issues, but it's
that we need to speak out, but we don't know
how to and how would it reach the VIT people
without reaching everyone, And then before you know it, there's
six hundred people with go stacks in the cemetery. Go
byby start.
Speaker 1: So that was excerpts there from the Seriously Strange Conference
in Winchester. I hope you found that of interest, and
hopefully I'll be able to tend that next year as
well and get some more interesting reports here. So this
is Neil war reporting on location in Winch for the
Seriously Strange Conference on the Paranormal UK Radio Network. Join
us next month on the Paranormal Peep Show with myself
and Andy Cheers.
Speaker 2: Good night,