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The Scole Experiments

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Nap, interrupted.
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Joined
Aug 3, 2001
Messages
19,141
And here I thought physical mediumship was dead. Not so! The Scole experiments are a bunch of experiments done with physical mediums in Scole, UK. All the usual stuff with apports, moving lights, materializations, projecting pictures onto film, you name it. They even published a book in 1999.

http://www.psisci.force9.co.uk/

I can't find much in the way of critique, perhaps because it is so recent. There was some talk that Colin Fry cheated during one of the sessions.

Does anyone have any interesting information about this?

~~ Paul
 
From Keen's paper:
There is nothing unique about ESP in this context. To a great or lesser extent the same reaction, and the same process of resistance, applies throughout science, whether related to the acceptance of meteorites or the phenomenon of hypnotism in earlier days, or to the memory of water (Benveniste) or the discovery of "cold fusion" (Fleischman and Pons) in these. There is one important difference, however. Resistance to Benveniste's demonstrations or the cold fusion claims begins to weaken not simply with repeated replications but as some rational explanation to account for the modus operandi emerges from the mists, and is found not to undermine but only to extend the framework of scientific knowledge. With ESP, however, we seem to have a more direct and serious conflict. It appears not simply to go beyond prevailing orthodox concepts but to be irreconcilable with them.
Click to expand...
Oh, if only psi was accepted by the scientific community like water memory and cold fusion are! :eek:

~~ Paul
 
Paul,

Colin Fry was not one of the Scole mediums.

Two posters on this board, Mark Tidwell (dogwood) and dharlow, have read the voluminous Scole Report, and thus have a knowledge base from which to speak about this topic.

Mike
 
My current view of Scole:

I have read a number of articles about Scole and have witnessed debates on this topic by Mark Tidwell and others on the TVtalkshows board. I have not read the official Scole Report and thus have more to learn about Scole. My current opinion of it could change.

I feel that certainly *some* controls were introduced into the Scole seances but the controls did not go far enough. Given the controls that *were* in place, I feel that some of the phenomena are difficult to find a mundane explanation for. But unless other groups can replicate the Scole phenomena using more rigorous controls (such as infrared cameras), I will most likely remain intrigued but ultimately unconvinced by Scole.

As Paul points out though, the existence of Scole certainly indicates that claims of spectacular contemporary physical mediumship *do* exist, and that these claims are not simply seen in the long ago past, as is sometimes stated by some posters on this board.
 
I seem to remember putting the book down after the first three or four chapters, because the controls just seemed completely inadequate. It was a while ago I read it now, so it's hard to think of proper examples.

One bit I think I remember was to do with one of the mediums (media?) going to bed with a headache, and therefore remaining in the house but unaccounted for all night, while things flew about and disappeared and stuff. Just various things like that that seemed a bit suss.

Another example was - and I'm struggling to remember here - when the controls protecting the sealed camera film were described, there was a clear window of opportunity for one of the group to swap it for another one.

I wish I could remember properly, but the main thing I remember is being quite disappointed that it wasn't as 'experimental' or as well controlled as was claimed. But then I didn't read it all, and I can't double-check it or find examples because I've lent my copy out. I'll try and get it back.
 
The fact that the experimenters agreed not to have infrared cameras, and apparently no night-vision goggles either, is just to hard to believe. Come on, folks!

~~ Paul
 
dharlow and Mark Tidwell,

Since both of you have read and own the Scole Report, do you recall or can you cite the incident Nucular describes concerning one of the mediums going to bed with a headache?

Regarding the films, I recall reading discussions regarding potential opportunities for fraud with one or more films. Mark, didn't you discuss this one time on tvtalkshows?

Mike
 
Paul,

A question for you. If you had been one of the Scole investigators and had been denied the use of infared cameras, would you have refused to conduct the investigation on principle? Or would you have investigated anyway, taking note of what controls *were* permitted, and trying to determine what was going on?

Mike
 
Ooh, Mike, that's a tough question. If it were me, I would have tried to sneak in night-vision goggles. And surely I would have snuck in a flashlight to turn on at some opportune moment.

But if were me reincarnated as a psychic investigator, with a different set of scruples, I might think that the request was just too restrictive and refuse to go along with it.

I just ordered the book. A guess here: The Scole people either knew the investigators beforehand, or used the first couple of sessions to gauge just how credulous they were. Then, when they found out that the investigators were going to follow the rules, they pulled out the cool stuff.

Any mention of a fifth or sixth Scole collaborator to move around the room and do the tricks? Did they check for a false wall in the basement? Put a special lock on the door to the stairs so no one could enter?

Why do psychic investigators always carry a big gun and shoot themselves in the foot with it?

~~ Paul
 
Paul,

I hope you ordered the official Scole Report from the SPR and not the popularized book entitled The Scole Experiment by the Solomons.

Mike
 
Paul,

Perhaps dharlow and Mark Tidwell can answer your questions about collaborators, false walls, and special locks.

Mike
 
Paul,

Regarding false walls. One argument I've heard made is that the Scole group would have had to have some elaborate equipment concealed in the seance room in order to fraudulently produce some of the phenomena they did. Such equpiment was never found by the investigators, and when the Scole group traveled to other countries and held seances, the rooms in which the seances were held were not conducive to concealing such equipment, even if the Scole group had been secretly able to smuggle it into these rooms. And apparently the group was monitored on these trips by the investigators.

Mike
 
The link given by Druid says that Colin Fry was accused of producing fradulent ectoplasmic phenomena in seances at Scole. Scole is a town, and Fry could well have held seances in the town of Scole. I still have never heard that he was connected with the Scole experimental group being discussed on this thread. The mediums in the Scole group were Alan and Diana Bennett, and the other members of the group were Robin Foy and his wife, Sandra.

And it was also claimed by the Scole group that their phenomena did not involve the use of ectoplasm.
 
Scole

Interestingly, the Scole experiments are one of the areas that need to be rebutted to win the Zammit challenge. The Noah's Ark Report into the Colin Fry Incident is not in the public domain according to Fry. How can anyone have a realistic chance of providing a rebuttal to this issue when crucial information is being repressed? I wonder how many of the other elements of the Zammit challenge are subject to this type of censorship?

Stumpy
 
Stumpy,

As I mentioned in earlier posts, Colin Fry was NOT one of the mediums involved in the Scole Experiments. The issue of whether or not Fry was or is fradulent is wholly separate from the validity or non-validity of the phenomena of the Scole Experimental Group, whose members were Diana and Alan Bennett and Robin and Sandra Foy.

Mike
 
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