Electricity as a medium for spiritual contact?

[Tin Lizzie]

Hopefully there's an explanation for this one...

My dear old mum was in the dining room working away on her old 'singer' sowing machine. Feeling a bit peed off with things, she turned to a photo of her departed sister & said 'come on Winifred, help me out here'.

Later that evening my mum & dad were sitting in the room next door when they heard a sudden noise coming from the dining room. As my mum opened the door, she saw that the noise was coming from the 'singer', which was working away on its own. she turned on the light and the machine stopped.

Some strange things about this:

-the singer was plugged in at the wall, but the plug switch was turned to 'off' and the machine itself was turned off.
-to operate the singer requires no small amount of pressure on a foot pedal.

Any serious explanations?
There's also a very interesting sequel to this....later, maybe?
Thanks

[Matt]

Right, Well first of all lets ignoire dear old Winifred. Her part in the story adds a certain charm but if you're looking for a rational explanation then the fact that your mum talks to dead people is unrelated to how a machine can operate briefly in the absense of a power supply.

The answer may lie in capacitence. Nowadays safety standards tend to mean that power capacitors feeding electirc motors in similar devices have a resistor attached in parallel to slowly drain the capacitor after it has been switched off. However I do remember Watchdog demonstraing a number of appliances where the capacitors had allowed the machines to "come to life" unexpectedly whilst detached from the mains even with all the switches in the off position. The specific example I remember was of a food processor which span up whilst the owner was washing the blades.

You did mention that the sewing machine was old so this is certainly a possibility. However the amount of energy stored in capacitors could only run the machine for a few moments. A sewing machine requires only a small amount of energy - as demonstrated by the existance of handheld battery powered versions, so perhaps rather than just a quick jerk there may have been enough oomph to spin up the flywheel you see on older machines.

Pulling figures from thin air I'd sugegst that anything over a minutes operation would suggest this posibility unlikley but a detailed examination of the machine in question could perhaps put a more accurate number to this time.

It's certainly a more pleasing explanation than you mother being a fantasy prone old bat whose husband humours her for an easy life. However if it turns out that your mum is reporting that the machine was operating for longer than capacitance would explain then we should be allowed to assume that a little bit of embelishment on her part is to be expected.

[Tin Lizzie]

It's certainly a more pleasing explanation than you mother being a fantasy prone old bat whose husband humours her for an easy life. However if it turns out that your mum is reporting that the machine was operating for longer than capacitance would explain then we should be allowed to assume that a little bit of embelishment on her part is to be expected.

Right well firstly I am going to put your reference to my mother as 'a fantasy-prone old bat' down to a lack of candour on your part. As for my old man, yep he has a lot of entertaining to do but he was an embalmer most of his working life (introduced to lectures as the most experienced in his trade, dealt with famous people, murders, scattered body parts etc. etc.) and he is the most level-headed, non-fantasy prone bloke you will meet. Neither of them would embellish this.

that aside, thanks for your comments - duly noted and of course they do offer an alternative explanation which i won't rule out. it just leaves the staggering coincidence that this happened in the way it did.

not sure about the singer's capacitance, it was about 40 years old & god knows where it is now.

cheers

[Matt]

Right well firstly I am going to put your reference to my mother as 'a fantasy-prone old bat' down to a lack of candour on your part.

Ahem, I offered the explanation I did as an alternative to the "fantasy prone" explanation. I meant no offence to your mother or father. I'm being very candid (with freedom from bias) when I re-assert that it's an alternative we can never discount. I guess you're using "candour" with the obselete meaning of kindness.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/candour

I certainly would let kindness toward your mother bias my approach to this story.

As for my old man, yep he has a lot of entertaining to do but he was an embalmer most of his working life (introduced to lectures as the most experienced in his trade, dealt with famous people, murders, scattered body parts etc. etc.) and he is the most level-headed, non-fantasy prone bloke you will meet. Neither of them would embellish this.

I'm curious about this suggestion that neither of your parents could embelish such a story. You make them sound like joyless automatons. People for whom I could discount the sort of embellishment I mentioned don't exist in real life. Mr Spock may not intentionally overestimate the time the machine ran for, just for the purposes of storytelling, but only Lietenant Data or Robocop have a reliable internal chronometers. Real people exagerate even when they're unaware of it.

It is no lack of kindness to you mother that drives me to point out imperfections endemic to humankind.

However my point was not that you mother might be wholey delusional, but that such an explanation might be unecessary.

that aside, thanks for your comments - duly noted and of course they do offer an alternative explanation which i won't rule out. it just leaves the staggering coincidence that this happened in the way it did.

Not really. I take it that the coinicidence to which you refer is the machine displaying this rare fault during the same day your mother asked her dead sister for help whilst sewing.

The fault I described will only happen whe the sewing machine had been recently used and those prone to look for a post hoc (http://www.skeptics.org.uk/explanation.php?dir=articles/explanations&article=post_hoc.php) explanation would not be hard pressed to find one whether it be an earlier request to the spirit world for help, an astrological prediction or prayer candles used to assist with sewing.

not sure about the singer's capacitance, it was about 40 years old & god knows where it is now.

cheers

[Tin Lizzie]

Ahem, I offered the explanation I did as an alternative to the "fantasy prone" explanation. I meant no offence to your mother or father. I'm being very candid (with freedom from bias) when I re-assert that it's an alternative we can never discount. I guess you're using "candour" with the obselete meaning of kindness.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/candour

I certainly would let kindness toward your mother bias my approach to this story.



I'm curious about this suggestion that neither of your parents could embelish such a story. You make them sound like joyless automatons. People for whom I could discount the sort of embellishment I mentioned don't exist in real life. Mr Spock may not intentionally overestimate the time the machine ran for, just for the purposes of storytelling, but only Lietenant Data or Robocop have a reliable internal chronometers. Real people exagerate even when they're unaware of it.

It is no lack of kindness to you mother that drives me to point out imperfections endemic to humankind.

However my point was not that you mother might be wholey delusional, but that such an explanation might be unecessary.



Not really. I take it that the coinicidence to which you refer is the machine displaying this rare fault during the same day your mother asked her dead sister for help whilst sewing.

The fault I described will only happen whe the sewing machine had been recently used and those prone to look for a post hoc (http://www.skeptics.org.uk/explanation.php?dir=articles/explanations&article=post_hoc.php) explanation would not be hard pressed to find one whether it be an earlier request to the spirit world for help, an astrological prediction or prayer candles used to assist with sewing.

Okay well i'll give up trying to convince you over the potential embellishment element of this episode. My old pops encountered a few incidences in his trade -even involving his own mum - which a 'believer' would chose to interpret as 'evidence' but which he calmy and effortlessly explains in more earthly ways. his views on this one are interestingly different but hey, i am being biased here.

I'll go with the capacitance idea....still, considering the pounding that old singer received on a regular basis, it's a heck of a coincidence!

[Legaleagle]

I have a number of (true life) ghost stories that I use at dinner parties to frighten people and introduce a light (or dark, if you like) note into conversation. I say true life (in brackets) because each of them is based upon a wierd thing that has happened to me in real life that I found interesting at the time.

Objectively, looking at each of these stories as I tell them now, in some cases 20 years after the event, I recognise all the little embelishments and exagerations that I have put into them over the years for the sake of good storytelling.

However, I didn't acknowledge this, even to myself, up until a few years ago when I started to log onto "ghost" forums and trawl through the mess of invention, confirmation bias, psychobable ( and psychic-babble) and pseudo-religious nuttery that thrives in such places.

I realised that when someone questions these stories, the honest reaction is to have a good hard think about what you actually remember to have happened. In most cases the ghost story simply disintegrates, like Dracula exposed to sunlight. The dishonest reaction (all too common) is to defend every little nuance of the story and feel hurt by any suggestion that there might be an element of fib or embelishment in there somewhere. This leads to a hardening of your worldview and a kind of paranoia against the "debunkers".

My point? Go on telling your ghost stories at dinner parties, people love them. But don't take yourself so seriously as to set them up as a serious philosophical challenge to the world around you. You'll get burnt, and you won't like it, and will come out feeling like a persecuted outsider, this will lead to paranormalis extremis, or "believer syndrome" setting in.

[Tin Lizzie]

I have a number of (true life) ghost stories that I use at dinner parties to frighten people and introduce a light (or dark, if you like) note into conversation. I say true life (in brackets) because each of them is based upon a wierd thing that has happened to me in real life that I found interesting at the time.

Objectively, looking at each of these stories as I tell them now, in some cases 20 years after the event, I recognise all the little embelishments and exagerations that I have put into them over the years for the sake of good storytelling.

However, I didn't acknowledge this, even to myself, up until a few years ago when I started to log onto "ghost" forums and trawl through the mess of invention, confirmation bias, psychobable ( and psychic-babble) and pseudo-religious nuttery that thrives in such places.

I realised that when someone questions these stories, the honest reaction is to have a good hard think about what you actually remember to have happened. In most cases the ghost story simply disintegrates, like Dracula exposed to sunlight. The dishonest reaction (all too common) is to defend every little nuance of the story and feel hurt by any suggestion that there might be an element of fib or embelishment in there somewhere. This leads to a hardening of your worldview and a kind of paranoia against the "debunkers".

My point? Go on telling your ghost stories at dinner parties, people love them. But don't take yourself so seriously as to set them up as a serious philosophical challenge to the world around you. You'll get burnt, and you won't like it, and will come out feeling like a persecuted outsider, this will lead to paranormalis extremis, or "believer syndrome" setting in.

So essentially although i accept certain rational explanations, as i have here, i have to accept that they explain everything? So in this case you are saying i have come up with a good tale and definite 100% proof has been provided to show that it is nothing other than a tale? Poor you.

[Mongrel]

So essentially although i accept certain rational explanations, as i have here, i have to accept that they explain everything? So in this case you are saying i have come up with a good tale and definite 100% proof has been provided to show that it is nothing other than a tale? Poor you.
Not at all, all we're normally trying to say is that there is often an alternative explanation which is much more likely in regards to the things that can be explained by what we know of the world through science (that also includes the fallibility of the human mind and memory)

[Tin Lizzie]

Not at all, all we're normally trying to say is that there is often an alternative explanation which is much more likely in regards to the things that can be explained by what we know of the world through science (that also includes the fallibility of the human mind and memory)

Thanks Mongrel, however it is worth also bearing in mind the not entirely infallible nature of science!

"Now you think I am looking at my life's work with calm satisfaction but there is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm. I am not sure if I was on the right track after all"

- Einstein.

"The important thing is not to stop questioning"

-Einstein


This last one applies to science as much as anything.

[Mongrel]

Thanks Mongrel, however it is worth also bearing in mind the not entirely infallible nature of science!

"Now you think I am looking at my life's work with calm satisfaction but there is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm. I am not sure if I was on the right track after all"

- Einstein.

"The important thing is not to stop questioning"

-Einstein


This last one applies to science as much as anything.

We are all aware of that, science isn't some huge, dogmatic body that steadfastly resists change - despite what the more....'alternative thinkers' may say, but for anything to be accepted by science it must have predictability, falsifiability and reproducibility. Something that, no matter how strongly it's believed, anecdotes are really not useful for.

As for the mind frelling with us Richard Wiseman's Quirkology (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Quirkology-Curious-Science-Everyday-Lives/dp/0230702155/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/203-1379842-9752738?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190890253&sr=8-2) is an excellent read O0

[Tin Lizzie]

We are all aware of that, science isn't some huge, dogmatic body that steadfastly resists change - despite what the more....'alternative thinkers' may say, but for anything to be accepted by science it must have predictability, falsifiability and reproducibility. Something that, no matter how strongly it's believed, anecdotes are really not useful for.

As for the mind frelling with us Richard Wiseman's Quirkology (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Quirkology-Curious-Science-Everyday-Lives/dp/0230702155/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/203-1379842-9752738?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190890253&sr=8-2) is an excellent read O0

I really do appreciate that anecdotes have no place in scientific method. The sad thing, and one which i think is hard to accept, is that interaction with the spirits is not something that can be 'measured' in the approriately scientific sense. I hope that one day this will be possible but until then this debate will go around in circles.

[Mongrel]

I really do appreciate that anecdotes have no place in scientific method. The sad thing, and one which i think is hard to accept, is that interaction with the spirits is not something that can be 'measured' in the approriately scientific sense. I hope that one day this will be possible but until then this debate will go around in circles.

Whilst we may not have any means of measuring them science can, and does, get around that and produce predictable results in given situations, experiment and observe the things we can measure to falsify and reproduce those experiments in other independent labs.

The existence of dark matter has been fairly well documented by inference and observations that satisfy the three requirements (VBloke and Woolery are the best people to ask about that), DNA is still beyond the viewing scope of even the best equipment but we still know it's there and can even manipulate it.

If mediums can contact the dead or if spirits can make it through and interact with us it an experiment should be easy to set up (I'm sure there's plenty of dead scientists who would be more than willing to assist), unfortunately the spirit world seems to shy away from experimentation, the tighter the controls get to make sure there's no cheating the faster the effect goes away.

[Tin Lizzie]

Whilst we may not have any means of measuring them science can, and does, get around that and produce predictable results in given situations, experiment and observe the things we can measure to falsify and reproduce those experiments in other independent labs.

Induction has already been shown to be fallible. As for the rest, you speak with great logic but that is all it is, logic - another produce of the human mind

[Matt]

I really do appreciate that anecdotes have no place in scientific method. The sad thing, and one which i think is hard to accept, is that interaction with the spirits is not something that can be 'measured' in the approriately scientific sense. I hope that one day this will be possible but until then this debate will go around in circles.

Interactions with real world conciousness can be and are analysed scientifically. The stumbling block with analysing interactions with the spirit world is pinning down what is claimed about the nature of the communication. When very limited claims are made the analysis suffers those same limitations i.e. if it is claimed that the spirits can reproducably give an indication of knowledge regarding a sitter then empiricism can tell us is whether this claim bears scrutiny. If however the claim is that spirits occassionaly make contact in an unpredicatable manner to offer unverifiable information then there's obviously far less to look at.

[Mongrel]

Induction has already been shown to be fallible. As for the rest, you speak with great logic but that is all it is, logic - another produce of the human mind


Given where logic has gotten us Vs wishful thinking it's a bloody great bit of produce O0

[Tin Lizzie]

Given where logic has gotten us Vs wishful thinking it's a bloody great bit of produce O0

There's a rather large difference between wishful thinking and knowledge gleaned through experience, which i would prefer over 'logic' O0

[Araneus]

Induction has already been shown to be fallible.

Are you suggesting that there is some kind of knowledge which is not based on induction (apart from deduction)?

That personal experience you value so much is absolutely worthless without the induction that what you experience today will be the same as yesterday. Otherwise, the sun may not rise tomorrow, and that spirit world of yours might have vanished while you weren't looking.

[Tin Lizzie]

Are you suggesting that there is some kind of knowledge which is not based on induction (apart from deduction)?

That personal experience you value so much is absolutely worthless without the induction that what you experience today will be the same as yesterday. Otherwise, the sun may not rise tomorrow, and that spirit world of yours might have vanished while you weren't looking.

I have yet to have two spirit communications that are the same and if the spirits do vanish, we will vanish with them :smiley:

[Matt]

if the spirits do vanish, we will vanish with them

Is that based on experience?

Actually as an empiricist I favour certain types of experience over certain applications of logic.

A saying I'm fond of is the knowledge will tell you that a tomato is a fruit rather than a vegetable but wisdom will tell you to leave it out of a fruit salad.

Similar comparison can be made regarding logical knowledge or empirical knowledge. Famously aerodynamic theorists, reportedly announced that bumble bees can't fly. The knowledge that bees can fly is of course empirical.

Of course this isn't the whole story.

http://www.theness.com/articles.asp?id=41 (http://www.theness.com/articles.asp?id=41)

Scientists don't say that bumble bees can't fly. Instead theorists test their theories against know empirical facts to find if the theories they're using are sufficient. In this case the aerodynamic theories applied to the bumble bee were clearly insufficient to explain the lift produced by the bumble bee. This lead to further investigation and the discovery of further exotic forms of lift.

Scientists and sceptics use both empiricism and logic. Logic to generate hypotheses, empiricism to test those hypotheses and logic once more to interpret the results.

Your experience is empirical knowledge however your interpretation of your experience is not necessarily logical.

If I conclude from the fact that the battery ran out on my phone this morning that I will win the lottery this evening no-one doubt the empirical nature of my experience. There is some sliver of doubt that I may have been mistaken or lying about my phone's battery. However it is the logic of my conclusion that is not sound even if by coincidence I do subsequently happen to win the lottery. However if every time the battery went flat I won the lottery with reproducible results that would be another matter….

[Tin Lizzie]

Is that based on experience?

Ironically I am using logic based on my knowledge of the existence of spirit - they share the same space as us...

If I conclude from the fact that the battery ran out on my phone this morning that I will win the lottery this evening no-one doubt the empirical nature of my experience. There is some sliver of doubt that I may have been mistaken or lying about my phone's battery. However it is the logic of my conclusion that is not sound even if by coincidence I do subsequently happen to win the lottery. However if every time the battery went flat I won the lottery with reproducible results that would be another matter….

ER....I get the point there! :smiley:

'tis a sticky issue to say the least, 'proving' the existence of spirit through science and logic.

[MRT]

I'm a bit disappointed! I really thought, from the title of this thread, that someone had discovered some new paranormal effect involving electricity. Alas, it's just the old 'machine turned itself on' story. :sad:

[Tin Lizzie]

Yes, but given the incidents referred to, namely the fact that the overriding means of operating the machine was the rather heavy foot pedal (not sure, sadly, if the complete circuit depended on this), how can it be pssible that a surge in power would still account for the operating machinery?

[MRT]

I never said there was a power surge. It is more likely to be a mechanical fault in the pedal. Most switches have a mechanical element which, inevitably, degrades with age.

[Tin Lizzie]

So we are looking at an appliance that is switched off at the mains and at the appliance, still managing to operate without electricity?

[MRT]

Back to reliability of witnesses, I'm afraid ... (see other thread)

[wooo_oops]

So we are looking at an appliance that is switched off at the mains and at the appliance, still managing to operate without electricity?

I take it you've gone off the capacitance theory then?

I'll go with the capacitance idea....still, considering the pounding that old singer received on a regular basis, it's a heck of a coincidence

[Tin Lizzie]

on second thoughts nope, i don't think that capacitance thing would work, as the pedal still needs to be pressed.

*yawn*

[dalriada]

I've been reading quite a bit recently on the history of spiritualism and the early days of the SPR and parapsychology. Strangely enough the whole "electricity and spirits" debate was very current then- back in the 19th century:

"Indeed, both those who wished to prove such communication authentic and those who wished to expose it as fraud used inaccurate descriptions of electricity to explain its source. Skeptics who wanted to descredit mediums required them to stand on materials presumed to be nonconductors of electricity, hoping to show that the phenomena attributed to spirits was actually caused by electricity. One Spiritualist called electricity "God's Principles at Work" while another believed that the "delicate organization of spirits" enabled them to produce " a refined species of electricity " through which they communicated with living people. An early message attributed to Benjamin Franklin (a frequent communicator) gave credit for the success of the telegraph to "The intelligence of disembodied spirits..."

(From Radical Spirits by Ann Braude: 1989)

One may have hoped the whole "Spirits" debate might have moved on in the past century-and-a-bit...

"Just turning round & round in a circle and is never a spiral..." (Horton, 1914)

[Tin Lizzie]

Ahh, Spirits Don't Exist Because I May Have Got A Slight Detail Wrong? Hmmmmm....

[Tin Lizzie]

Any Ideas Why The Research Was Stopped?

[dalriada]

Well, to be honest for all I know people could still be carrying out such studies (I think there has been some recent stuff published about skin conductance and ESP)However, as far as the Victorian psychic research goes, I think there were some rather too salaciously written descriptions of middle-aged male investigators stripping young female mediums down to their underwear, describing all their physical details and then buckling them securely and tightly into small confined spaces while dwelling possibly a little too much on the thickness of the leather straps and the ecstatic groans and moans which occurred as "phenomena" then took place...


In the "post Freud" era which followed all that may have been a bit too much for anyone to take entirely at face value as "Science" !

[Tin Lizzie]

I think there were some rather too salaciously written descriptions of middle-aged male investigators stripping young female mediums down to their underwear, describing all their physical details and then buckling them securely and tightly into small confined spaces while dwelling possibly a little too much on the thickness of the leather straps and the ecstatic groans and moans which occurred as "phenomena" then took place...



And all in the name of science! What an honourable sacrifice to make *sniggers, because my smileys arent working*

I remember reading how there was a lot of religious revulsion too. And then Crooke died, which probably didn't help at all. Unless he could have got back in touch....hmm

[MRT]

It is not surprising that electricity was considered a possible cause of the paranormal in Victorian times. New ideas in sciences have always been seized on to explain the inexplicable. People still abuse quantum mechanics to explain the paranormal even though it's a bit long in the tooth now. It is a completely pointless exercise as you first need to demonstrate that there is anything that NEEDS explaining first.

[Matt]

on second thoughts nope, i don't think that capacitance thing would work, as the pedal still needs to be pressed.

*yawn*

The pedal would close the circuit which charges the capacitor. Once the capacitor had charged the machine could be disconnected from the mains and yet under certain circumstances the capacitor discharges through the motor. It would be active only for a short time as there would be no power recharging the capactor.

As I originaly said.
I do remember Watchdog demonstraing a number of appliances where the capacitors had allowed the machines to "come to life" unexpectedly whilst detached from the mains even with all the switches in the off position.

What was that someobody was saying about the reliability of memory?

[MRT]

Yes, you should watch capacitors in electrical appliances. I have several times received a shock from the pins of a mains plug which I held in my hand just after disconnecting it from the mains ie. the device was completely unplugged but I still got a shock.

[Tin Lizzie]

The pedal would close the circuit which charges the capacitor. Once the capacitor had charged the machine could be disconnected from the mains and yet under certain circumstances the capacitor discharges through the motor. It would be active only for a short time as there would be no power recharging the capactor.

As I originaly said.


What was that someobody was saying about the reliability of memory?

er....and what closed the pedal in this case?

[Mongrel]

er....and what closed the pedal in this case?

That should say "...electrical contact that's normally operated by the pedal". Sticky contacts could easily do it and, whilst a bit presumptuous, a quick check of the pedal (treading on it) could unsticky it....

[Tin Lizzie]

Okay. Well i just find it odd that an appliance turned off at the mains and at the machine, requiring a considerable external force to complete the circuit (via heavy footpedal) should suddenly spring to life.

[Mongrel]

Okay. Well i just find it odd that an appliance turned off at the mains and at the machine, requiring a considerable external force to complete the circuit (via heavy footpedal) should suddenly spring to life.

Well the heavy footpedal is generally just an interface to an electrical device that you'd find in a dimmer switch (potentiometer I think). The pedal is built heavy because of it's intended role (to be trod upon) and will rely on friction\springs or some other mechanism to ensure the ruggedness of the pedal.

BTW - how old was the wiring in the house and how old was the sewing machine. Old wiring can do some odd things as can power surges (depending when this took place)

[Tin Lizzie]

Well the heavy footpedal is generally just an interface to an electrical device that you'd find in a dimmer switch (potentiometer I think). The pedal is built heavy because of it's intended role (to be trod upon) and will rely on friction\springs or some other mechanism to ensure the ruggedness of the pedal.

BTW - how old was the wiring in the house and how old was the sewing machine. Old wiring can do some odd things as can power surges (depending when this took place)


In summary, the wiring was 14 years old and the machine was 24 years old at the time this happened.

[Matt]

er....and what closed the pedal in this case?

Nothing need "close" the foot pedal. The motor is powered temporarlily by the capacitor rather than the mains.

Having already provisionally accepte dthat the mains was off the foot pedal would make no difference anyway.

[scoobyjack]

Has a reoccurennce of the incident happened since, or has Winifred been asked for help again?
If the premise is that a spirit was inadvertently or indirectly summoned, and then performed this action for whatever reason, surely it can be repeated? Whilst conversely power being stored in a capacitor and discharged for example, could not be replicated on demand.

What was the second story btw