| Paranormal 2 |
OUR RESIDENT GHOST by Brenda Diskin
About 8 of us did a mini
investigation for the RSPCA charity in June 2006. We sat in
vigil in the cellar and picked up on a man of about 50ish who
we believed to be called Dan from about 1600's. There was a
lot of movement in the cellar on this night witnessed by most
of the people attending. We also had a strange photo taken in
the shop (not an orb). He rolled an oblong log along the floor long ways and knocked my legs with it, tapped on the display cabinet glass to let us know we had customers, rung the bell above the shop door several times without the door opening and left doors open after they were closed. He was constantly hiding items then placing them directly in front of where you had just searched. We had been finding two pence pieces on the floor on a regular basis, a gift from Adam? (Could have made it £20 notes). On numerous occasions something
had fallen down in the shop when no one was in there. We had
an obnoxious talking toy bear in the shop, one day it started
talking on its own even though it had been turned off at the
switch since the Xmas before. We would be interested in
finding out any information about the shop (which was on Howard
Road), the land it stands on and the surrounding area. If anyone
knows who our ghost might be we would love to know. If you have any information for us we can be contacted at www.sheffieldparanormal.co.uk or email us.
The Talking Glass Mention of the word 'ouija' in many quarters brings a response that the phenomenon should not be touched with a barge pole and that it produces nothing but problems. Whilst this is indeed sometimes true, this article is intended to show that when treated seriously, the ouija does offer scope for some reasonably constructive research. Background Objectives " the mechanics of how the glass
moves via a series of regular experimental seances. Modus Operandi The actual composition of the team involved in this research changed slightly over time. The author and Mike Rush were involved throughout and the following were involved during various periods: Erni and Betty Maycock, Clive Ellis, Debbie Martindale, John Lavender and Brian, Simon, Philip and Nicola Royce-Dexter. Knowing that addiction and subsequent
mental health problems [1], frightening messages and after séance
RSPK had been reported as effects arising from the use of the
ouija, care was taken to After the first three experimental séances,
it became clear that it was worth devising a 'script' of standard
questions to be asked of each communicator, as it was found
to be difficult to quickly devise sensible questions 'on the
fly' when momentum had been built up. This script queried such
matters as the gender and name of the communicator, together
with the time period and location of his/her Earth life, etc. After working through the standard script, on a number of occasions, the team would then proceed to concentrate on attempting to throw light on a specific aspect of this research, via particular tests or questions. Thus, at certain séances, the team attempted to research the mechanism of the glass movement. When asked, communicators indicated that they moved the glass by controlling the finger (and not the mind) of one particular sitter, giving Simon as an example. This hypothesis was tested empirically and found to be true, by placing different combinations of sitters' fingers on the glass. For example, when only the fingers of the author, John and Nicola were on the glass, no movement occurred. Thus it became clear that the finger of certain persons could be used to produce a movement but not the finger of other persons. For the purpose of this article, the term 'medium' will be used to denote a person whose finger can be used (without conscious effort) to move the glass. Having thus determined which experimenters were ouija mediums and which were not, on certain occasions, when Simon was the only person with a finger on the glass who was a medium, he was blindfolded. The result was that sensible answers to questions were still spelled out but with more spelling mistakes than usual. When asked how communicators knew which house to come to (to communicate via this method), a typical response would be "YOU CALLED I CAME". An experiment was attempted to obtain movement of the glass with no fingers in contact with it. Had this attempt been successful, it would, of course, have demonstrated a PK effect; however, no movement ensued. At one séance, the author consciously (i.e. mentally) tried to influence the glass to spell out 'Kevin' when one communicator was asked his name. However, the name 'Billy' was spelled out, implying that thoughts in the conscious minds of the sitters do not lie behind the information conveyed. Experiments were undertaken in which a particular experimenter would write down a question (hidden from the other experimenters) and then concentrate on it, the intention being to see whether the controlling intelligence of the glass movement could telepathically pick up the question and answer it. However, these attempts were unsuccessful, the answers being unrelated to the questions. On further occasions, the team homed in on exploring the nature of time. Communicators indicated that time existed in the Spirit World but not in the measurable way that it does on Earth. When requested to provide predictions of significant World events, some communicators declined to do so but in August 2003, 'Cathy' offered "AMERICA SORROW AND UPSET". One could perhaps interpret this as being a reference to the Hurricane Katrina disaster of August 2005. However, it has to be admitted that the message is rather vague and that a more specifically worded prediction would be needed to provide concrete evidence of precognition via the ouija. The aspect of this research which potentially
offered most scope for testing hypotheses was the source of
the information conveyed. The most obvious possible explanations
for the information source were considered to be:- On one occasion, the team experimented with one or other of the known mediums deliberately moving the glass to spell out a word. Even when the other sitters were not aware of the word being spelled, words were still successfully spelled. However, to achieve this, it was noticed that the glass swivelled in a manner different from that occurring during the seances and both mediums reported the need to apply much more force to the glass than during a séance. Such observations, coupled with the experimenters' personal knowledge of the extent to which the mediums take the whole subject of psychical research seriously, make the possibility of deliberate, i.e. fraudulent, movement of the glass during seances unlikely. Various surnames, names of roads and pieces of historical information were communicated of which the experimenters had no prior knowledge. For example, at one séance, a 'Sarah Bord' came through, claiming to have lived in the Shetlands. The experimenters had not heard of the name Bord but follow-up research on the WWW revealed that Bord was a name used in the Shetlands for a plank or board, that it had other meanings in Gaelic, that it is used as a surname even today, that a Sarah Bord had died in America and that there had been at least two people by the name of Bord in the Shetlands. At other séances, addresses previously unknown to the communicators of 3 Norton Terrace, Huddersfield (see fig. 3), of Kirkdale Drive, Oldham (see fig. 4) and of a road beginning with 'Royal Park' in Leeds were given. The name 'Belk' (see fig. 5) and the name 'Prest' and its association with Tyneside (see fig. 2) were given, despite the experimenters not having heard of these names. Information concerning the 1st (Royal) Dragoons being stationed in India in 1904 and the British Army fighting the Indians at that time was similarly unknown until the relevant information was looked up. At one séance, a communicator by the name of 'Claude' claimed to have been the German Captain of a ship. The author therefore asked several questions in German, to which sensible answers were received, despite the fact that the only mediums in contact with the glass were Simon and Debbie and Simon had no knowledge of German and Debbie had insufficient knowledge of the language to understand some of the questions. The foregoing observations make it difficult to see how the information could have been sourced from the unconscious minds of the sitters. Date of Séance 12th May 2003 Research Source Finding The British responded to terrorist attacks
by firm police and military action. However, the demand by Indians
for power-sharing and constitutional changes convinced British
politicians that urgent changes were needed, which led in 1909
to the setting up of a new electoral (voting) system. Date of Séance
Date of Séance 22nd August 2005 Research Source Finding
Another indication was the incorporation
of humour into some of the communications. For example, when
'Adam' indicated that he designed wings for flying machines
and Mike asked what the flying machines were used for, he replied
"FLYING" and when asked what the cause of his passing
was, he replied "DEAD"! Similarly, a facetious remark
by Simon resulting from the habit of 'Olive' of addressing different
sitters with the endearments 'dear' and 'love' produced a response
of "STOP MOANING" and a later comment from Simon,
as a result of the particularly strong rapport that built up
between this communicator and the sitters, that he would like
to take 'Olive' home with him, produced a response of "WELL
YOU CANT SO THERE". Humour is surely a characteristic of
the human personality, thus implying that a personality was
more likely to be behind the communications than a mere mechanistic
process. Invariably, the communicators came across
as being genuine, well meaning personalities. As an indication
of this, when asked for a helpful, constructive message, the
typical response would be something along the lines of "KEEP
SMILING" or "SIMON TRUST IN YOURSELF". However,
were the information to have come from the spirits that the
communicators claimed to be, one would have expected their personal
details to match those in the demographic records. Possible
explanations for this anomaly are " that most communicators were 'incognito'
spirits The use of a standard script, together
with retention of the transcripts of the seances, enabled various
analyses of the background of the communicators to be produced.
Of course, all the analyses are only meaningful if the communicators
are actually the spirits of the deceased and are providing truthful
information. The communicators were roughly equally split between
male and female. A geographic analysis of the communicators'
claimed Earth lives is given by the pie chart in fig. 6, where
'local' is arbitrarily defined as Yorkshire / Derbyshire / Nottinghamshire
(being the area surrounding where the seances took place). It
will be seen that the great majority of communicators claimed
to be the spirits of people who lived in England. The use of a standard script, together
with retention of the transcripts of the seances, enabled various
analyses of the background of the communicators to be produced.
Of course, all the analyses are only meaningful if the communicators
are actually the spirits of the deceased and are providing truthful
information. The communicators were roughly equally split between
male and female. A geographic analysis of the communicators'
claimed Earth lives is given by the pie chart in fig. 6, where
'local' is arbitrarily defined as Yorkshire / Derbyshire / Nottinghamshire
(being the area surrounding where the seances took place). It
will be seen that the great majority of communicators claimed
to be the spirits of people who lived in England.
Figure 7 An analysis of the communicators' claimed
causes of death is given in fig. 8, 'violence' being murder
or death in battle, 'medical' being premature death through
illness or in childbirth. No claim is being made here for mathematical
accuracy, as in strict scientific terms, all deaths commonly
ascribed to 'old age' are actually due to a medical condition
and so in some cases it would be a matter of opinion on the
part of a communicator as to whether his death was perceived
to be due to old age or due to illness. However, as only 32%
of the communicators specified that they had died of old age
and as something in the order of 70% of people in developed
countries died over the age of 65 during the early 1990s [8],
it can be observed, by way of a generalisation, that a far higher
proportion of communicators who came through during these ouija
seances died prematurely than one would expect in a random population
sample, even allowing for higher mortality rates amongst younger
people in years gone by. Whilst gaining the communicators' views on spiritual matters was not strictly a research task, as there was no way of corroborating the results, it was nevertheless felt to be worthwhile for general interest purposes. In summary, all the communicators asked claimed that reincarnation did take place and that the nature of God and the Spirit World was rather more aligned to the general understanding of these matters within Spiritualism than to the teachings of orthodox religion. Conclusions In short, it has been easier to obtain evidence of which hypotheses are not true than to obtain evidence of which hypothesis is true.
Mysterious Marbles by Dianne Drinkwater (edited by Brenda Diskin) As a child I was brought up as a Christian, so the mention of the paranormal or the afterlife in our household was a definate no no!. My parents never spoke of it and I had a very strict upbringing. So why then did I believe in the paranormal?. All this started when I was very young, around the age of 7 years. One day, while at school, I thought I saw children on the other side of the high fencing but when I looked again they just dissapeared. I never mentioned this to my parents and never made an issue of it. Could it have been my imagination? I was a Lonely child so it could have been that I just wanted other children to be my friends. To this day, I do not know, all I can remember is seeing the children, I cannot remember how they looked or how they were dressed. When I was 8 years old, we moved home to an old village called Woodhouse. It was a new adventure, exciting, on a brand new estate where houses and flats were still being built. We were a happy family, mum, dad, me, my two sisters and our dog Blackie. It wasn't just the house that was a new adventure it was also the surrounding area. About a hundred yards in front of the house it descended into a valley, commonly known as "Sally Clarks". It was a beautiful sight and made a great place to explore. I often went there, exploring all the paths and even non paths, which led to old air-raid shelters. I felt so at home there, like I belonged. This must have seemed strange coming from a child, but that is how I felt. I often walked barefoot across the small field, it all felt so natural to me. I was a 'tom-boy', liked to play with cars and climb trees. I played football & cricket and often wrestled with my dad. I loved to play marbles and had a huge stash of them. We quickly settled into our new home, it was lovely, everything felt perfect. I shared a bedroom with my younger sister, whilst my elder sister had the smaller room, I was quite happy with this arrangement. I started at my new school and quickly made friends, especially when there were always 'marble' matches going off in the playground, this was something I was very good at, hence the large stash I had at home. As the months passed, the 'ghostly' feelings I had experienced earlier in my childhood started to return bringing back memories of the 'spirit' children I had seen whilst at my old school. This time I did not see the children I just felt that something was with me. It never scared me probably because I loved watching the cartoon "Scooby-Doo" with all the pretend ghosts in it.Was it that something had logged in my mind that ghosts really do exsist?, or was it because I was 'tuning' in to the other world?, I am not sure. As the evenings grew shorter, nights grew darker, and bedtimes got nearer the feeling of not being alone became stronger. One night, Mum took my younger sister off to bed she slept in the top bunk and I in the lower. I was allowed to stay up slightly later as I was older and went to bed about an hour after. We had no T.V. to watch in our bedroom, and bedtime meant bedtime. We were not allowed to play with toys or read, so it was a case of lay down, go to sleep. Sleep would have been easy if something hadn't happened on that particular night. As mentioned earlier, I had a stash of marbles that I loved to play with. These marbles were kept under my bed, with many of our other toys, which were always kept neat and tidy, even my marbles had their own little space into which the jar containing them fitted. I had been in bed about 10 minutes, when suddenly, there was a clattering sound of marbles right from under my bed. I froze!. My younger sister asked me what the noise was and I told her it was just me playing with my marbles, which wasn't so, I didn't touch them. When I finally manged to pluck up courage and dared to look at what was happening, one of my marbles came rolling out from under my bed and stopped dead in the center of the floor. I pulled my eiderdown up over my head not daring to take a peek or move. I felt my heart racing, I was very scared. Eventually I fell asleep, and when I was woken for school, I was thankful it was morning!. I checked the marbles, they were still in their own little space under the bed. There was no solid explantion for what had happened. Nothing had fallen over so there seemed to be no reason for my marbles to clash together and roll. So what had caused this to happen? Remember, that same day I had the feeling of not being alone. Was it the 'spirit' children who had come to play marbles with me?.......
Spooky Photo's from Conisbrough Castle by Dianne Drinkwater About our Castle visit....i cant remember the date exactly, i know it was the beginning of January, just after the kids had gone back to school. We had with us our digi- cam, no faults on it or screen smears etc, always checked before we take photos. Now this particular photo was taken by Glynn, who had the strangest feeling of 'i need to take a photo here, right now' , even though there was nothing visible to the eye,. Taken on one of the stairwells whilst myself and our friend Eric had only just gone up them. All we noticed on the camera was what looked like a mist, then i placed the photos on the comp and this is the results. What is seen, are two faces. There wasn't any draughts, any fog, anyone smoking etc, absolutely no possible way for anything to have caused the mist. I have also sent you a pic/portrait of William Plantagenet...the likeness to this picture and the picture of the "ghosts" is a very good one.. (Although i am not sure which William it is, there seem to have been many in the family).
If you have a true ghost story or 'spooky' tale to tell please email them to us for inclusion in this magazine. or If anyone wants to contribute an article or story to this online magazine please email me with your ideas. Many of the articles, stories and pictures on this page are copyrighted and must not be copied or reproduced in part or whole without prior written permission from the owner © Brenda Diskin 2008 |
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