WHO WAS HELEN
DUNCAN
Who
was Helen Duncan?
Helen Duncan
article by our Helper Vi Kipling
Who
was the medium Helen Duncan?
 HELEN
DUNCAN 1897-1956
Helen Duncan
who was born in Callander in Scotland in 1897 and was to
become one of the most maligned physical mediums of the
20th Century and also one of the most magnificent. All Spiritualists
everywhere owe a debt of gratitude to Helen Duncan
that can never be repaid.
Helen Duncan
was both a mental and physical mediumship
which means that not only was she able to communicate and
bring through messages using a clairvoyant link with the
spirit world, but she was also capable of being entranced
and producing materialised forms of the deceased.
The most notable
control of Helen Duncan was Albert who was
tall and slim while Helen Duncan was small and rounded
and when Albert materialised, as with all the consequent
materialised forms, it was obvious to see that it was impossible
for it ever to have been Helen Duncan dressing up
with intent to defraud people, as so many of the physical
mediums were so accused.
 HELEN
DUNCAN ACCUSATIONS
Unfortunately
the accusations against Helen Duncan went further
resulting in a Court Case held in the Criminal Courts at
the Old Bailey in 1944 when she was tried under the ancient
Witchcraft Act of 1735. Helen Duncan's crime was
that she pretended to be a medium and that mediumship did
not exist; the Witchcraft Act attested to this so-called
fact. One of the major problems encountered by the Law was
the fact that Mrs Duncan was bringing back men killed in
World War II before the release of this information had
been made, thus seen as infringing security
|
HELEN
DUNCAN TRIAL
The trial was
a farce with the strangest allegations being made against
Helen Duncan, especially her ability to swallow and
then regurgitate butter-muslin which was purported to be
the animated spirit forms that moved around the room and
who spoke and touched their loved ones. During the trial
Helen Duncan submitted to much testing, having her
stomach x-rayed to prove it was normal. In spite of the
fact that some of the most knowledgeable people within Spiritualism
spoke on her behalf, Helen Duncan was found guilty
and imprisoned for nine months.
HELEN
DUNCAN CAMPAIGN
It was because
of this tragedy that Spiritualists everywhere lobbied Parliament
and started a Parliamentary Campaign to have the ancient
law repealed. This was done in 1951 when The Fraudulent
Mediums Act was put on the statute books; this Act repealed
The Witchcraft Act 1735 and s.4 of The Vagrancy Act 1824.
Unfortunately this was a little too late to help Helen who
passed to spirit in 1956 five weeks after the Police raided
one of her seances and grabbed her, searching for a shroud.
If the people
involved in sitting in judgement on Helen Duncan
had been well versed in psychic
phenomena, the case against her would have been dismissed
and the Police held responsible for her death.
Some
HELEN DUNCAN Links:
Helen
Duncan
and other women accused of witchcraft
Helen
Duncan The BBC's article
Helen
Duncan Historic UK article
Helen
Duncan Article from the Survivalist Society
Helen
Duncan Interesting article by John G Sutton
DISCUSS HELEN DUNCAN AND PHYSICAL MEDIUMSHIP IN OUR SPIRITUALIST FORUMS
Back
to FREE PSYCHIC ADVICE Section
|
