Aside from the importance of his comments in the context of his levitation photos, there's the issue of the general quality of Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair's investigation of the case. They've been criticized a lot over the years - by Anita Gregory, Tony Cornell, and others - for allegedly handling the Enfield case poorly. You can click on the links just provided for responses to their criticisms. (And I've written other responses.) Some of the criticisms have had some validity, like what I've discussed here and in other posts, but the criticisms have been largely inaccurate. Many of the best aspects of Grosse and Playfair's work have been overlooked or underestimated. See my discussion with David Robertson about the scientific documentation they gathered for Janet's paranormal abilities, for example, such as testing her ability to bend metal at the Hodgsons' house in 1977 (as described in the video clip here) and a weight gain experiment conducted at Birkbeck College (part of the University of London) in 1982. Skeptics often object to the lack of video evidence, but Grosse and Playfair arranged for a video team from Pye Business Communications to come into the house the same month the investigation of the case began. Go here to listen to Ron Denney of Pye describing how their camera equipment malfunctioned in apparently paranormal ways while they were in the house, ways he describes as "absolutely impossible" and "one chance in a million". And Stewart Lamont's video captured what seems to be the poltergeist's knocking occurring elsewhere in the house while the Hodgson girls were being filmed sitting on a couch (with the other Hodgson children also accounted for), contrary to the typical skeptical argument that they faked all of the phenomena. I've discussed other examples of the quality of the investigation here. Graham Morris' recent comments about how they handled photography issues, quoted below, are worth adding to the list.
I'll be quoting his comments from two different sections of the podcast he appeared on, the first starting here, the second starting here:
The first I saw of that [levitation photograph] was the following day. It was all taken on color transparency, which needed to go to a professional lab, be processed, and I would pick it up sort of late afternoon the following day, and that's the first I saw of that. I'd normally pick it up on my way back up to Enfield, where either Maurice or/and Guy would be there waiting. And we all sort of looked at it together, really. I'm not the expert. I just press the button, you know. I'm there to photograph it. I can't tell you what's happening [in the photographs]. I don't know....
Well, [my impression of what the photos show is] slightly clouded by the SPR [Society for Psychical Research] guys that were there who were so excited that, "Oh, my God! You've got this picture of a levitation!", and, you know, various other things. And, all right, I was young, so I'd believe them. But it is what it is, you know. It, but the argument there is the sequence from her not just sort of clambering out of bed and then jumping and flying through the air. It's the sequence of a motor-driven sequence of pictures where in every one - there probably half a dozen frames of each one - she is in exactly the same position right the way. So, she's up [in the air] already and going across the room. And that's the bit that everybody finds hard to believe....
Well, I think I wouldn't say impossible [is the term to use to describe what the photo shows], but I think what sort of proves it to me is Janet is, not just that expression on her face, and the fact that she flew across the room, hit the headboard of this bed on the right, which you can see there, white with that piece of wood missing. She'd hit that, she'd hit the floor, she'd hit the door, the door handle, she'd hit all sorts of things. Why would she do that? Why would anyone who, you know, for no reason? You don't, you're not, you don't crave publicity that much that you damage yourself. And, also, talking to her, days, she just frightened to death by everything that was happening....
There was far too much over eighteen months [for everything to be faked]. Far too much happened. The first night you have things flying around the room. Then from there on, you know, we'd sit there. We were, it all actually got to the point where we were bored when the [drinking] glasses started moving around [paranormally] and things like that....
What you're not seeing [when you look at an isolated photo of Janet in the air] is the start of the sequence. I mean, you never see that, because you only ever see the spectacular picture of her flying through the air. But the sequence starts with just her head above the [bed covers], and then it's within a very, very short space of time [a sixth of a second or less] she is there. She's up there [in the air] from that prone position, with her tucked in the bed. And that is seen on most, if not all, of the sequences that I've done. Right from the start. They [the photo sequences] start off with her lying down. But, that said, that the only way that I can, I'm not in the room. I'm downstairs. I'm listening to a tape. We tried to devise all sorts of different things without upsetting the family or kids or whatever. Different switches that would trigger the camera without us having to hear for sound. I mean, the sound that we heard the first, that first thing we heard was a scream normally or, you know, a crash as she hit something. So, we're trying to work backwards, but we were putting in photosensitive beams, pressure switches under the bed, so that when the bed springs started to go, when the bed, there was no pressure on the bed, that would trigger the camera off and all sorts of other things. But it started off with her flat out and covered up....
[Asked whether one of the levitation photos was a hoax:] Certainly not a hoax. She wouldn't put herself through that.
Since an audience member asked about Janet's bed covers being tucked in, and Morris commented on the subject, I want to address that issue briefly. It's something Maurice Grosse did from time to time. You sometimes hear it discussed on the tapes. It makes sense, since tucking in the covers after Janet has gotten into the bed makes some forms of faking more difficult. It's another example of how well Grosse handled many aspects of the case.
But getting back to Morris, I agree with him that Janet's getting hurt during these throwing incidents has some significance. The bigger issue, though, and what I'm focused on here, is the use of so many means of recording what happened and preventing hoaxing (the use of tape recorders, tucking in the covers of Janet's bed, a camera controlled remotely that the children didn't have control over, taking multi-photo sequences at a sixth of a second apart or faster, "photosensitive beams, pressure switches under the bed", and "all sorts of other things").
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