Greetings!
>This brings to the mind the famous Helen Duncan case in WWII.
>
>Was there any suggestion that she may have got her hithertoo top secret
>information about the sunken ship from the deceased crew she claimed
>contact with from any source other than her mediumship?
A quick scan of Alan Crossley, Story of Helen Duncan, Materialisation
Medium, Stockwell 1975 p.67 suggests that this is unlikely. It
states:-
"In 1943 a Percy Wilson, a high ranking civil servant at the Ministry of
War Transport received a report of a seance that Mrs. Duncan had given
only the previous day in Portsmouth, when a sailor had materialised and
claimed he hasd gone down when H.M.S. Barham was sunk. He (Percy Wilson)
made enquiries of high officials of the Ministry and found that they
were unaware that the Barham had been sunk. The sinking was not
announced until three months later.
Brigadier Firebrace attended a seance in Scotland and a message was
given that a great British battleship had just been sunk. Firebrace was
then head of |British Military Intelligence in Scotland. He contacted
Headquarters and learned that H.M.S. Hood had in fact gone down. At the
time of the seance, however, the authorities had no knowledge of the
sinking. He revealed also that earlier in the war, the police had
consulted the International Institute for advice on how Mrs. Duncan
could be prevented from giving out information which, for security
reasons, became an increasing embarrassment to the authorities."
Information concerning this is quite sketchy of course as these
incidents were not the subject of the legal action against her. I don't
think there is any doubt the police took her to court to remove her
from public circulation with D Day drawing near.
Photographs of her materialisations in the same book look deeply
unconvincing to me, but then I consider fraudulent mediums and dodgy
seances can be a good vehicle for clairvoyant perceptions that are
supernatural.
With my best wishes
Ben
--
Ben Fernee
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