Skeptics Being Evasive About Recent Miracles

Critics of the supernatural often object to paranormal claims that occurred in the more distant past, since there's no ability to question the witnesses, consult the larger number of records that tend to be available with more recent events, etc. But they often provide poor responses to the evidence we do have for those more distant events, which raises questions like how much these skeptics actually need the larger amount of evidence they're asking for and how sincere their objections are.

Another way of addressing the line of objections I'm focused on here is to look at how these skeptics handle more recent miracle claims. How much interest do they show in asking the witnesses the relevant questions and examining the evidence involved in other ways?

A New Enfield Poltergeist Documentary Next Month

Apparently, it's the one that's been discussed for a few years now. It's set to appear on Apple TV+ in late October. Here's a Reddit thread about it. And a short description here explains, beneath a photograph from the documentary:

"By rebuilding the 1977 Hodgson home and casting actors to synchronize performances with real audio, the series plunges viewers back into this incredible story of two hauntings: the haunting of the youngest Hodgson daughter, Janet, and the haunting of the main paranormal investigator and father figure, Maurice Grosse."

I had a brief email exchange with one of the individuals who was working on the documentary a couple of years ago. And I had a discussion about it with one of the people interviewed for it after the interview. I've also seen some comments Melvyn Willin and Douglas Bence have made about the documentary at different stages in its production. But I don't know a lot about it. I want to watch it, and I'll probably post about it here if it's worth commenting on, which it probably will be.

For those who don't know, I've done a lot of work on the Enfield case and have a large collection of articles on it here. Here's a page with some recommendations about how to begin studying the case.

Where should Enfield research go from here?

This is the last of my monthly posts on the Enfield Poltergeist, though I intend to continue posting about the case periodically as circumstances warrant it. There's another Enfield documentary on the way, and I suspect there will be more around the time of the case's fiftieth anniversary in 2027. I expect to post about those. But this marks the end of the monthly posts I've been doing for most of these past six years in which I've been writing so much about Enfield. I want to offer some concluding thoughts here and outline what direction I think future work on Enfield should take.

Incidents Involving Music In The Enfield Poltergeist

Music didn't have much of a role in the Enfield case, but it was involved to some extent. And it's an aspect of the case that's been neglected.

As I discuss the subject, I'll be citing the tapes of Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair. I'll use "MG" to refer to one of Grosse's tapes and "GP" to refer to one of Playfair's. Therefore, MG1B is Grosse's tape 1B, GP70B is Playfair's tape 70B, etc.

Music And The Paranormal

Melvyn Willin, the archive liaison officer for the Society for Psychical Research, just published Music And The Paranormal: An Encyclopedic Dictionary (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2022). The relationship between music and the paranormal is a significant and neglected topic and one that Willin has studied in a lot of depth for a long time. I'll quote some of his comments from the preface:

Since music is arguably the most intangible of the arts and since the paranormal, in all its manifestations, continues to intrigue people, the placing of these two subjects together seems long overdue. My own career in music as both a teacher and performer was infiltrated throughout my life with anomalies that intrigued me and my fellow musicians. Nobody seemed to be able to explain why some people appeared to be able to compose music or perform beyond their normal ability which, in some cases, they attributed to the deceased. Nobody seemed to be able to explain why music was sometimes heard when there was no obvious, or even un-obvious, source of the sound. Nobody seemed to explain why a number of people heard music when they were close to death which they remembered when they were resuscitated. Nobody seemed able to explain how intrusive operations could be conducted on people without anesthetic, but by using music to eliminate the pain. Nobody seemed able to explain why autistic people often possessed phenomenal musical abilities….I decided to undertake research into these and other related musical anomalies over a period of many years which culminated in two doctorates being awarded by Sheffield University and Bristol University, both in the UK. Previous pure music degrees were awarded by London University and Surrey University and a graduate diploma from the Royal Academy of Music, London. For more than thirty years I have been a member and then council member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and more recently the archive liaison officer. During this time, I have been directly involved with the archiving of the Society's manuscripts collection stored at Cambridge University Library. The audio-visual archive is held at my own premises in Essex, England….

The printed sources for my extensive research are many and varied, but I have not found a single book that has brought the multiple strands together….An earlier work of my own, Music, Witchcraft and the Paranormal (see Willin, 2005), outlined my original academic study of the material. I shall also be able to present my own case histories taken from interviewing a wide range of people and visiting sites where music has allegedly been heard from unknown sources. The end result will be a reference work that can be used to explore the academic study of music and the paranormal in a comprehensive alphabetical order as well as be of interest to the general public.

A Tribute To Guy Playfair

(I'll be making reference to the Enfield tapes of Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair. I'll use "MG" to refer to Grosse's tapes and "GP" to refer to Playfair's. So, MG90B is Grosse's tape 90B, GP87A is Playfair's tape 87A, and so on.)

It was a September 11, 1977 program on BBC Radio that convinced Guy Playfair to get involved in the Enfield case. Part of what he heard on the program that convinced him was the exhaustion that was evident in Maurice Grosse's voice. Playfair would later write, "I knew what Grosse could expect at Enfield. Sleepless nights, a great deal of constant confusion, and at the end of it all the same feeling of utter bewilderment. I had helped research several cases in Brazil…'Let me know if you get really stuck,' I said to Grosse as we left the meeting room of Kensington Public Library. I cannot have sounded very sincere…[A few days later] I happened to hear the [BBC Radio] programme while eating my Sunday lunch. It was dramatic stuff, and Grosse, who had not had a proper night's sleep that week, sounded really worn out….I rang Maurice Grosse and asked if he needed some help. He did, he said. And so, on Monday 12 September 1977, I postponed (as I thought) my holiday plans, and went along to the 'house of strange happenings.'" (This House Is Haunted [United States: White Crow Books, 2011], 23, 30) That September 11 radio program is in Playfair's collection of Enfield tapes (GP36B). On the program, Grosse's weariness is obvious, and so is the significance of the case. Grosse later told Playfair, "Well, I mean, if you hadn't have come on the case, it would have been bloody awful for me, to say the least." (MG20Bi, 36:06)

Grosse made that comment in November of 1977, which probably was the most difficult month of the case, largely because of Janet Hodgson's trance states. But even before that, Grosse had been sick for a while, and the poltergeist's embodied voice was to begin the next month, in December, which involved a lot of additional work. So, Playfair's assistance was beneficial on many fronts from the start.

Melvyn Willin's Book On Enfield Is Out

Melvyn Willin's book on the Enfield Poltergeist is now available. I've posted a brief review on the Amazon page just linked. The book mentions me a few times, and there are some references to Triablogue.

A New Book By Melvyn Willin On The Enfield Poltergeist

It should be out soon. For those who don't know, Willin is an archivist for the Society for Psychical Research, and he's known some of the people involved in the Enfield case, including Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair. I haven't read the book yet, but I expect it to be good. You can read more about it here.