The Enfield Poltergeist.

[Admin]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=440048&in_page_id=1770

Interview With A Poltergeist is on Channel 4 on Tuesday at 10pm.

I've heard of this case but never read up on it. Are there any skeptical publications that have dealt with it?

I'm sure the programme will manage to present both sides of the story without reaching a conclusion. ::)

[Melanie]

I think it would be hard to draw any new conclusion now on a case that's 30 years old. Guy Playfair and Maurice Grosse were two of the best researchers around at that time and the SPR the oldest in the biz.

It was a fascinating case at the time but Guy & Maurice will always be accused of pro-survival bias. If you don't know the case this will be a good starting point and may go some way to explaining why such things are so obsessively interesting.

Interestingly that article you linked mentions Mary Rose Barrington only in the sense that she was a barrister - not that she had anything to do with the SPR, when in fact she was one of its leading lights. Hmmm.

Also - remember Ghost Watch, that TV spoof that had thousands of viewers spooked when they missed the disclaimer and thought it was Real? The plot was heavily based on Enfield, and Guy Playfair was a consultant.

[Admin]

I was wondering just how much of it is credible and how much of it is like the Amityville Horror.

There's a few readers' comments there now - I always enjoy them. ;D

[Melanie]

Depends what you mean by 'credible' :)

But it is just about the most intensively investigated and documented poltergeist case. Valuable from that perspective.

[chillzero]

Are they all hoaxes? It seems unlikely.
>:(

I hate this - they offer no other options than 'truth' or 'hoax'. Shoddy journalism. What about honest mistakes? What about things that were just unknown at the time (e.g. how houses 'shift' over time, or plumbing issues, etc)?

[tablemonkey]

I was wondering just how much of it is credible and how much of it is like the Amityville Horror.

There's a few readers' comments there now - I always enjoy them. ;D


Me too.

One of them mentions the voice of 'Bill' coming from the girl. I remember hearing that voice and finding it very eerie myself.

I think I'll watch it as I can't remember all the details. Thanks for that.

[Dr B]

In response to the OP - yes there are skeptical accounts and there was a long argument in the 1980s I think. I cannot remember who challenged the paranormal view originally, but i seem to think it might have been someone from the Koestler unit in Scotland (possibly Beloff...but dont quote me on that ::))

I also think there were reviews in early editions of the Skeptic magazine. Let me have a dig around in some books and i will try and get one source for you to search from. There definitely is a skeptical account.....i just cannot remember where..... :(

On a side point - I met Grosse for a BBC2 programme some years ago and i put many of the skeptic points to him concerning Enfield. He was having none of it and rather than being a good arguer (as I had been told) he simply shouted alot and would not let me get a word in. When he finished talking, I simply said, its an interesting idea, but there are others that, in my opinion, still warrant consideration.....he disagreed and provided no real evidence against the child fraud accusations others were making to him.

Nonetheless, Enfield is a great and controversial talking point O0

[median]

Watched a bit of it last noght (have recorded the rest). It started off with various goings on experienced by various people including the police. Next logical step when you need help...the Daily Mirror.

It's at that point I... ???

Still must watch the rest.. ;)

[Admin]

It was like watching an X-file!! ???

How come there was so much evidence that this was genuine and yet no-one managed to capture anything conclusive?

Even the "spirit voice" captured on tape had the same accent as the girl.

I was totally unconvinced by any of it.

[Melanie]

What bothers me most is the way the children - especially Janet - were left in that situation for so long. I can't recall how long this investigation lasted, but to my mind it was a very bad decision. Granted, the investigators were trying to cover all bases, calling in as many experts as they could (physicists et al) to record the 'phenomena' and examine it to the best of their abilities. However, they seemed to ignore the effect their own interference may be having on the child/children involved.

Whilst I am not suggesting that Grosse and Playfair did not care about Janet at all - they clearly liked her and were always gentle with her - it seems to me entirely wrong that they consistently behaved as if they believed this 13 year old child - who, being young and hormonal, was suggestible and malleable. This whole affair was probably the most exciting thing ever to happen to Janet - which, it was explained, had already been upset by the break-up of her parents' marriage. To suffer that stress and then to find oneself the subject of such intense interest from experts, scientists, journalists and the general public would doubtless have helped her forget the pain of losing her dad, but at what cost to her psyche?

Seems to me they'd have served the family better by contacting the local council and badgering them to move the family to a different house, at least temporarily. A hefty dose of normality, even a holiday, a change of scene, might well have put a stop to this whole tawdry business. Occasionally poltergeist cases have been said to follow their victims to different places, but forget that, these investigators didn't even try to take the family out of the house - too concerned with finding real live proof of the paranormal. (Which they failed to do, in any case.)

Instead, they subjected Janet to weeks of undiluted attention, and then, after convincing her that they believed there was indeed a poltergeist haunting her, they dumped her in a local psychiatric ward. What was that all about? I doubt very much that the docs and nurses gave Janet the same level of confirmation they did - such a move can only have served to disturb her further, surely.

Watching her retell her story for this programme, and comparing her to her sister, I couldn't help but think that this woman looked unbalanced. Permanently damaged as a pubescent child by the investigators who were supposed to be helping her, and now, in middle age, with no way back to a normal mental state. For her to deny that what happened was 'paranormal' at this stage, when her belief is so deeply entrenched, would be a long and painfully difficult road to travel.

Her sister, by comparison, seemed relatively well-balanced and clear-eyed.

For investigators of the paranormal to forget that just about every case involves real live people is, to my mind, almost criminal.

[Admin]

I think they said that this went on for about 8 months. ???

Good points Mel. I think there is a danger of a positive feedback loop developing in such cases: kids getting the attention they crave (for whatever reason) and the investigators getting the results they also crave; each feeding off the other.

There was a point in the programme when a physicist said that the girl had been tested for her ability to bend metal with her mind. He got positive results (according to him) but yet again, no video evidence. As this was not a spontaneous event he should have recorded this properly.

[chillzero]

Watching her retell her story for this programme, and comparing her to her sister, I couldn't help but think that this woman looked unbalanced. Permanently damaged as a pubescent child by the investigators who were supposed to be helping her, and now, in middle age, with no way back to a normal mental state. For her to deny that what happened was 'paranormal' at this stage, when her belief is so deeply entrenched, would be a long and painfully difficult road to travel.

Her sister, by comparison, seemed relatively well-balanced and clear-eyed.


Agreed.
My daughter and I felt at times that she seemed unable to keep a straight face when telling about some parts, so we thought she was lying. Then she seemed to overdramatise the agonised facial expressions when discussing the 'possessions'.

I am unable to decide if she's still having a laugh at those who believe it was a poltergeist, or if she is entrenched in some weird loop whereby it is to embarrassing to front up and admit it, but too silly to continue, or if she was more deeply affected by the events, as you discuss.

She seemed quite confident as a kid, and liked a good joke, so I lean more to the first explanation. It's the voice that convinced me - especially with that stupid woman sitting going on about how a child couldn't do that voice - because none of the adults could. And the man who gave the explanation as to how the voice came from a different part of the throat - proving that the voice came from her and not some entity 'behind her'. He then dismissed this, saying that a child couldn't do this for more than a minute - because the adults couldn't. Idiots.

If she as double jointed and could wrap her thumb all the way back to her wrist, and none of them could - would that mean a spirit did it to her? ::)

[tablemonkey]

I read into the voice changing, it also is akin to the voice change when 'mediums' are channelling in a trance.

There is another set of vocal cords known as false vocal cords, they are just above the vocal cords and protect them. They can be used to give a different type voice, which would explain their use when supposed 'spirits' come through. The sound is more guttural.

Apparently over use of these cords can make it quite painful to talk but I should imagine if you use them a lot they would get used to short bursts of use without showing a lot of effect.

[Cuddles]

I don't see any need for extra sets of vocal chords to be invoked. Lots of people put on different voices all the time. Just look at actors. Why would mediums need to use any other techniques? Occam's razor and all that.

[tablemonkey]

That is kind of my point actually. :)

It's just the use of the other vocal cords can make a voice sound incredibly different which is what 'mediums' use when supposedly in a trance. Which I think is how the girl managed to make the same sort of effect with 'Bill'.

In reading about the Enfield case it seems there were experts (of what I don't know, they never seem to say - could be experts on eproctolagnia for all we know!) who felt that she couldn't have used these cords because she wouldn't have been able to do it for so long. All I am saying is that with regular use I'm sure it would have been less painful for longer periods.

Sorry if I was unclear. I figure discussing a subject without showing a belief in either direction is more helpful than the other way. :)

[Outsider]

Just a wee point.
Try doing the voice yourself...









Can you keep a straight face?

:D

[Admin]

"A gottle a geer".

Nope, can't do it. ;D

I think we did see a lot of incredulity in the investigators. The phenomena must be real because children wouldn't lie and cheat would they? ::)

People can learn to use their false cords for long periods so why couldn't a child?

I remember similar incredulity with the Natasha Demkina case - she can't possibly be faking this, she's sweet little girl and only seventeen!!!

[chillzero]

Just a wee point.
Try doing the voice yourself...









Can you keep a straight face?

:D


Nor could that girl, from what I could see. ;)

[median]

Yahay! Finally saw it. O0

An essay in poor investigative processes. ???

Even my wife said that it seemed quite convenient that the activity stopped when they went away for a week :o

I thought the poltergeist activity centered on a particular child :D

[QueigBladecaster]

Guy Lyon Playfair also co-authored a book with Uri Geller called the Geller effect which pretty much came to the conclusion that geller may well have psychic powers. This may well affect my belief that the investigation wasnt particularly though.

I lived in Enfield as a child so have heard many so-called first hand accounts then and since from locals supposedly connected to the girls or the events. Most of them claiming that the girls (and in one fairly passionate retelling the mother) was responsible. Not that that proves anything at all it just adds weight to my conclusion that it was a fraud.