joequinn
12-28-2006, 11:19 PM
This evening, while strolling through the Net, I came across the following article on the British Portsmouth News for today, 28 December 2006. It concerns the English psychic, Helen Macfarlane Duncan, who died fifty years ago on 6 December 1956.
http://www.portsmouthtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=680&ArticleID=1948501
Mrs. Duncan, a Scotswoman who discovered herself to be psychic in early childhood, became a professional psychic in the 1930s, a time when parapsychology was especially popular in the British Isles; and during World War II, she moved to Portsmouth, England, where she set herself up as a séance medium. There she specialized in psychic readings for the wives of Royal Naval sailors, who feared that their loved ones had been lost at sea.
On 25 November 1941 the British battleship, H.M.S. Barham, was sunk by a U-boat in the Mediterranean, with a loss of 861 lives. But the British Government, terrified that release of this information would demoralize the British people, instituted a strict embargo of news on the fate of the Barham. Now the position of the psychic within society is always a tenuous one, since he or she can be blamed for being either a fraud or an instrument of the devil. In Mrs. Duncan’s case, however, she became an enemy of the state when the British Admiralty Office discovered that she was informing her clients about the sinking of the Barham, a subject on which she could not have gotten any information through the gossip grapevine. Terrified that she would reveal plans for the impending, and even more secretly guarded, D-Day Invasion of Normandy, the Admiralty Office put her under constant surveillance.
On 19 January 1944, Mrs. Duncan was arrested during a séance at a private Portsmouth home. She was originally arrested for vagrancy (a minor offense), but official fear of her possible paranormal knowledge of D-Day quickly escalated the charges to conspiracy, and finally to outright witchcraft, under section four of the Witchcraft Act of 1735, which condemned all fraudulent “spiritual” activity as witchcraft. Mrs. Duncan was tried on the following morning, and the delighted media observers promptly demonized her as “Hellish Nell.” The presiding judge refused to allow her to demonstrate her psychic powers in court as part of her defense, and after only thirty minutes of deliberation, the jury convicted her of witchcraft.
She thus became the last person in Great Britain to be convicted of witchcraft, and she was sentenced to nine months in London’s Holloway Prison. In spite of the fact that this sentence clearly was imposed to make sure that Mrs. Duncan would remain incommunicado during the Normandy Invasion in June of 1944, many people felt that the sentence was both unjust and unduly harsh. One of Mrs. Duncan’s most adamant supporters was none other than Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who wrote the Home Secretary complaining about the “obsolete tomfoolery” of Duncan’s trial. But nothing availed. Mrs. Duncan went off to Holloway Prison, served her full nine months, and was released only when she promised that she would never give a séance again. Churchill, however, never forgot what had happened to Mrs. Duncan, and when he became Prime Minister for the second time in the early 1950s, he had the Witchcraft Act of 1735 repealed in 1951.
In spite of the fact that psychic séances now were decriminalized in Great Britain, Mrs. Duncan was by no means free and clear. The British Home Office, terrified that she might become a psychic spy, kept close watch on her. And about twelve years after her release from prison, she fell into its clutches, once again. In 1956 she agreed to give a séance in Nottingham, England, where she was arrested and subjected to the indignity of a strip-search. Although she did not go to jail on this occasion, Mrs. Duncan suffered a physical breakdown as a result of this arrest, and she was rushed to a hospital. She remained there for five weeks and died shortly after her 59th birthday in December of 1956. Yet even in death, the British Government continued to pursue her. Just this month, on the fiftieth anniversary of “Hellish Nell”’s death, her supporters attempted to persuade British Home Secretary John Reid to overturn the original verdict. He refused.
http://www.portsmouthtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=680&ArticleID=1948501
Mrs. Duncan, a Scotswoman who discovered herself to be psychic in early childhood, became a professional psychic in the 1930s, a time when parapsychology was especially popular in the British Isles; and during World War II, she moved to Portsmouth, England, where she set herself up as a séance medium. There she specialized in psychic readings for the wives of Royal Naval sailors, who feared that their loved ones had been lost at sea.
On 25 November 1941 the British battleship, H.M.S. Barham, was sunk by a U-boat in the Mediterranean, with a loss of 861 lives. But the British Government, terrified that release of this information would demoralize the British people, instituted a strict embargo of news on the fate of the Barham. Now the position of the psychic within society is always a tenuous one, since he or she can be blamed for being either a fraud or an instrument of the devil. In Mrs. Duncan’s case, however, she became an enemy of the state when the British Admiralty Office discovered that she was informing her clients about the sinking of the Barham, a subject on which she could not have gotten any information through the gossip grapevine. Terrified that she would reveal plans for the impending, and even more secretly guarded, D-Day Invasion of Normandy, the Admiralty Office put her under constant surveillance.
On 19 January 1944, Mrs. Duncan was arrested during a séance at a private Portsmouth home. She was originally arrested for vagrancy (a minor offense), but official fear of her possible paranormal knowledge of D-Day quickly escalated the charges to conspiracy, and finally to outright witchcraft, under section four of the Witchcraft Act of 1735, which condemned all fraudulent “spiritual” activity as witchcraft. Mrs. Duncan was tried on the following morning, and the delighted media observers promptly demonized her as “Hellish Nell.” The presiding judge refused to allow her to demonstrate her psychic powers in court as part of her defense, and after only thirty minutes of deliberation, the jury convicted her of witchcraft.
She thus became the last person in Great Britain to be convicted of witchcraft, and she was sentenced to nine months in London’s Holloway Prison. In spite of the fact that this sentence clearly was imposed to make sure that Mrs. Duncan would remain incommunicado during the Normandy Invasion in June of 1944, many people felt that the sentence was both unjust and unduly harsh. One of Mrs. Duncan’s most adamant supporters was none other than Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who wrote the Home Secretary complaining about the “obsolete tomfoolery” of Duncan’s trial. But nothing availed. Mrs. Duncan went off to Holloway Prison, served her full nine months, and was released only when she promised that she would never give a séance again. Churchill, however, never forgot what had happened to Mrs. Duncan, and when he became Prime Minister for the second time in the early 1950s, he had the Witchcraft Act of 1735 repealed in 1951.
In spite of the fact that psychic séances now were decriminalized in Great Britain, Mrs. Duncan was by no means free and clear. The British Home Office, terrified that she might become a psychic spy, kept close watch on her. And about twelve years after her release from prison, she fell into its clutches, once again. In 1956 she agreed to give a séance in Nottingham, England, where she was arrested and subjected to the indignity of a strip-search. Although she did not go to jail on this occasion, Mrs. Duncan suffered a physical breakdown as a result of this arrest, and she was rushed to a hospital. She remained there for five weeks and died shortly after her 59th birthday in December of 1956. Yet even in death, the British Government continued to pursue her. Just this month, on the fiftieth anniversary of “Hellish Nell”’s death, her supporters attempted to persuade British Home Secretary John Reid to overturn the original verdict. He refused.