Harry Price and the Borley Rectory is a huge debate. The majority of researchers have believed Price had faked most of the phenomena at the Rectory, whilst his defenders have claimed he was entirely innocent. It is not my aim to discuss all the pros and cons of Borley in this thread but mention some strange little known information.
Price was a believer in paranormal phenomena, but he was not friend to mediumship. He did indeed expose a number of fraudulent mediums including Helen Dunan. I have read countless blogs, books and websites from spiritualists attacking Harry Price because of this and invoking conspiracy theories that Price was working with the British Intelligence, CIA or even Nazis to frame mediums, indeed the conspiracies are quite hilarious. But not many people know this, not all spiritualists attacked Price. Maurice Barbanell defended Price and even claimed that a medium had contacted his spirit.
I have just read the book Some Unseen Power: Diary of a Ghost-Hunter by the journalist and paranormal researcher Philip Paul. On Pages 35-60 he has written a chapter called "My Work at Haunted Borley". What I find interesting here, is that a group of mediums claimed to contact the spirit of Harry Price after his death. This has not been widely reported. I am glad to bring this information to a wider audience.
Here's an important quote from pages 57-58:
I have looked up Lillian Bailey, she was a trance medium. Little information about her exists. She was not tested by any psychical researchers. She was most likely a case of unconscious fraud.
More information and quotes from the apparent Spirit of Price:
On page 36 there is also something interesting. Kathleen Goldney wrote after the morning of the “Rosalie” sitting she had found Price “shaken to the core by his experience”. Eric Dingwall and Trevor H. Hall published a further attack on Price in their book Four Modern Ghosts and they had quoted Goldney in their book for some information on the Rosalie incident but they did not inform Goldney about this or the further attack on Price. Goldney was furious and informed the Spiritualist weekly Two Worlds that she believed the Rosalie sitting to be genuine.
What I can gather from all this, is that Price had more supporters than is usually believed.
Dennis Bardens author of the book Ghosts and Hauntings (1965) also defended Price, claiming he was a dedicated psychical researcher who would not of fabricated evidence. Back to the book by Philip Paul on page 28 he writes that even if Price had faked the phenomena of Borley whilst he was there on his visits, then there was still "genuine" phenomena going on:
From 1900 – 1960
Repeated sightings of a phantasm with the appearance of a nun
A phantom coach and horses
A ghostly dog
The unaccountable movement of objects
The throwing of stones
Inexplicable crashes, raps, taps, thumps, knockings, and scratching
‘Dragging’ sounds
Whisperings
Footsteps
The ringing of bells whose operating wires had been cut
Miscellaneous poltergeist-type disturbances
Odd odours – pleasant and unpleasant
Wall –writings
Spontaneous outbreaks of fire
A localized ‘cold spot’
Unaccountable door locking and unlocking
Strange lights in windows
Organ playing in the locked and empty church
All the above phenomena was reported to have been going on for over a 60 year period. Price was not there on any of these occasions. I am definitely not saying I believe the Borley Rectory was haunted as I am not a believer in paranormal phenomena but what it points to is that Price was most likely innocent. It seems to me the phenomena had naturalistic explanations with people getting carried away and interpreting/misinterpreting them as paranormal events.
It is very interesting to see spiritualists such as Maurice Barbanell defend Price because most of them have not. People waste their time reading about mediumship which is clearly fraudulent, and the Borley Rectory has sadly been ignored. I believe it has something to offer. It is an exciting topic to study.
Price was a believer in paranormal phenomena, but he was not friend to mediumship. He did indeed expose a number of fraudulent mediums including Helen Dunan. I have read countless blogs, books and websites from spiritualists attacking Harry Price because of this and invoking conspiracy theories that Price was working with the British Intelligence, CIA or even Nazis to frame mediums, indeed the conspiracies are quite hilarious. But not many people know this, not all spiritualists attacked Price. Maurice Barbanell defended Price and even claimed that a medium had contacted his spirit.
I have just read the book Some Unseen Power: Diary of a Ghost-Hunter by the journalist and paranormal researcher Philip Paul. On Pages 35-60 he has written a chapter called "My Work at Haunted Borley". What I find interesting here, is that a group of mediums claimed to contact the spirit of Harry Price after his death. This has not been widely reported. I am glad to bring this information to a wider audience.
Here's an important quote from pages 57-58:
Quote:
A week after publication of Dingwall, Goldney, and Hall's The Haunting of Borley Rectory in February 1956, Spiritualist editor Maurice Barbanell ran a front-page article in ''Two Worlds'' headed 'Spirit message from Harry. "Borley is haunted ... it will prove itself ... I will be vindicated." Written by Barbanell, the piece revealed that he had received the statements attributed to Price during a sitting with a well-known clairvoyant, Lillian Bailey. 'Harry Price gave me a spirit message last week on the day that the book was published accusing him of faking some phenomena at Borley. He refuted the charge,' the article began. |
I have looked up Lillian Bailey, she was a trance medium. Little information about her exists. She was not tested by any psychical researchers. She was most likely a case of unconscious fraud.
More information and quotes from the apparent Spirit of Price:
Quote:
"The rectory is definitely haunted" he said. "Borley will prove itself and I will be vindicated, even if I have to go there and manifest myself". Though he admitted that much of the criticism in the book written by his two ex-colleagues (There were, of course, three authors, but Trevor Hall was even less of an "ex-colleague" of Price's than the other two) was true, he refuted the accusation that he had done anything fraudulent. But he was adamant about genuineness of the Borley hauntings." Pointing out that the SPR authors had alleged that many of the Borley phenomena happened only when Price was there, Barbanell reported that Mrs Bailey's spirit guide had told him that Price possessed 'latent physical mediumship'. "Thus phenomena were more likely to happen in his presence. This is borne out by his secretary, Lucie Kaye, now Mrs Meeker, who repeatedly said that Price attracted poltergeist disturbances. |
On page 36 there is also something interesting. Kathleen Goldney wrote after the morning of the “Rosalie” sitting she had found Price “shaken to the core by his experience”. Eric Dingwall and Trevor H. Hall published a further attack on Price in their book Four Modern Ghosts and they had quoted Goldney in their book for some information on the Rosalie incident but they did not inform Goldney about this or the further attack on Price. Goldney was furious and informed the Spiritualist weekly Two Worlds that she believed the Rosalie sitting to be genuine.
What I can gather from all this, is that Price had more supporters than is usually believed.
Dennis Bardens author of the book Ghosts and Hauntings (1965) also defended Price, claiming he was a dedicated psychical researcher who would not of fabricated evidence. Back to the book by Philip Paul on page 28 he writes that even if Price had faked the phenomena of Borley whilst he was there on his visits, then there was still "genuine" phenomena going on:
From 1900 – 1960
Repeated sightings of a phantasm with the appearance of a nun
A phantom coach and horses
A ghostly dog
The unaccountable movement of objects
The throwing of stones
Inexplicable crashes, raps, taps, thumps, knockings, and scratching
‘Dragging’ sounds
Whisperings
Footsteps
The ringing of bells whose operating wires had been cut
Miscellaneous poltergeist-type disturbances
Odd odours – pleasant and unpleasant
Wall –writings
Spontaneous outbreaks of fire
A localized ‘cold spot’
Unaccountable door locking and unlocking
Strange lights in windows
Organ playing in the locked and empty church
All the above phenomena was reported to have been going on for over a 60 year period. Price was not there on any of these occasions. I am definitely not saying I believe the Borley Rectory was haunted as I am not a believer in paranormal phenomena but what it points to is that Price was most likely innocent. It seems to me the phenomena had naturalistic explanations with people getting carried away and interpreting/misinterpreting them as paranormal events.
It is very interesting to see spiritualists such as Maurice Barbanell defend Price because most of them have not. People waste their time reading about mediumship which is clearly fraudulent, and the Borley Rectory has sadly been ignored. I believe it has something to offer. It is an exciting topic to study.
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=268261&goto=newpost
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