From Psychic News, March
10th, 2001.
Dear Sir,
Before the correspondence prompted by John Samson's letter
on the policy and posture of the Society for Psychical Research gets
swamped by a dispute with Ronald Pearson, can I clarify one rather
important matter about the SPR's Scole Report on the activities of the
mediumistic group based at Scole, Norfolk?
As our Hon. Secretary, Professor John
Poynton, says
opinions about the genuineness of the physical phenomena, which my
colleagues and I describe in our very lengthy Report differ, both within
and outside the Council of the SPR. No doubt there may be people who think
all or some of the evidence is fraudulent. If so, they have yet to publish
or provide the authors of the Report with a shred of hard evidence to
support that view. They have had more than a year (and every opportunity
and incentive) to do so. The reservations of our three principal critics
were printed alongside the Scole Report. None either produced such
evidence or made the specific charge of fraud. They were concerned to
point to the possibilities of fraud in relation to a number of specified
events.
Along with virtually everyone who has corresponded with or
talked to me about the Report, my colleagues and I consider our rejoiner
to these reservations dealt pretty conclusively with those criticisms,
both in the Report itself and subsequently in the Study Day held to debate
it. Indeed, only one person who claims to have read the Report has written
to me in the belief that it was obviously fraudulent, and he did not
attend the Study Day when Professor David Fontana and I, as well as a
number of members of the audience, gave examples to show the feebleness of
the fraud hypothesis when matched against actual evidence. Virtually all
my other correspondents have been profoundly impressed by the Report.
What is depressing about the critics is their willingness
to construct an upturned pyramid of hypotheses and speculations, all
balanced on one improbable assumption after another. What is so remarkable
is their unwillingness to accept the oft-repeated challenge to take the
scientifically warranted course of viewing all the evidence together,
rather than attempting to pick theoretical holes in every individual item.
May I add a more general point to those of your readers
who still believe that the SPR is somehow inherently hostile to evidence
indicative of survival or consciousness? The most recent issue of our
Journal contains Professor Gary Schwartz's not unimpressive account of
blind experiments with five leading USA mediums in identifying and
providing evidential details of deceased members of a sitter's family,
when the sitter was unknown to them and screened from them.
From Psychic World, June 2001.
Dear
Sir,
... As the principal author of the
Scole Report, and the person who has borne the
brunt of criticisms from colleagues, perhaps I could comment on Mr Zammit's
attack on Professor Poynton's references, in an extempore radio interview, to
magicians' claims. I have no doubt that some magicians, particularly those
who have taken the trouble to remain in ignorance of the Report, will say that
all claims of physical paranormal phenomena can be explained by clever
deception. However, only two persons with professional qualifications and long
experience in illusionism have offered public comments. One was Dr Richard
Wiseman, a colleague who is a noted sceptic. He had no opportunity to attend any
sittings of the group, but his observations were extremely circumspect. He
pronounced the report as a whole to be "very impressive" and, at the
Study Day meeting where the newly issued Report was discussed confined his
remarks to explaining how undesirable it was to have anything happen in
darkness, that the absence of infra-red cameras made it difficult to assess what
really went on, etc. That view is difficult to dispute, but it does not amount
to a claim that all we heard, felt, saw, and were able to a greater or lesser
extent to control, could be replicated by skilled conjurors. Any careful reading
of our analysis of just what assumptions would have been made to account
normally for the evidence will show why Dr Wiseman has prudently remained
silent.
The
only other qualified magician, Mr Webster, attended three sittings, well before
our entry onto the scene. He was and remains quite clear that what he
experienced could not have been fake. Another critic, Mr Comell, went to much
trouble to show how certain Polaroid pictures produced when I was experimenter
in charge could have been faked, and how a so-called apport, in the form of an
issue of the Daily Mail for April 1, 1944, carrying a report of Helen Duncan's
prison sentence, was nothing but a readily purchasable replica. It is
regrettable, but by no means rare, that when evidence was produced, as it has
been in our response to critics, showing the faking hypothesis to be
inconsistent with the physical conditions prevailing at the time; while the
Daily Mail apport was proved to have been printed by letterpress on wartime
newsprint, no admission of error has been forthcoming.
There
is growing interest the Scole Report. Professor Gary Schwartz's valuable
experiments are continuing. They are being further refined to meet criticisms.
The SPR is just about to publish the results of another study, this time by Mrs
Tricia Robertson and Professor Archie Roy. It will add significantly to the
weight of existing evidence that mediumistic statements simply cannot be
dismissed as a product of cold readings, secret briefings, body language and the
other familiar but long-exposed pretexts for ridiculing mediums and mediumship.
Current research promises to reveal even more striking evidence pointing to
intelligent discarnate communication.
The
SPR has a huge task, and responsibility. It is seriously short of funds to
enable its work not only to progress but also to become more widely known. It
depends more on benefactions from sympathetic supporters than on income from
members. The continuation and extension of its work, as the world's oldest
scientific body dedicated to exploding the paranormal, is in everyone's
interest: of Spiritualists seeking scientific validation and hence
respectability; of honest sceptics seeking to test fresh evidence objectively;
of psychical researchers seeking to gain a clearer understanding of the
mechanism, nature and limitations of mediumistic transmissions.
Yours
sincerely,
Montague
Keen
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