The Scole Experiment

Said to be the best evidence yet for the afterlife -- but how good is that evidence? By Brian Dunning, Skeptoid Podcast Episode 1 7 9, Nov ember 1 0, 2009 http://skeptoid.com/episodes/41 7 9 Turn out the lights and link y our hands, for today we're going to hold a seance and contact the dead, and hav e them perform parlor tricks for us in the dark. We're going to look at the Scole Ex periment, a large, well-organized series of seances conducted by members of the Society for Psy chical Research in the late 1 990's in Scole, a small v illage in England. Reported phenomena included ghostly lights flitting about the room, images appearing on film inside secure containers, reports of touches from unseen hands, lev itation of the table, and disembodied v oices. Due to the large number of inv estigators and sitters inv olv ed, the number and consistency of paranormal episodes observ ed during the seances, and the lack of any finding of fraud, many believ ers often point to the Scole Ex periment as the best scientific ev idence that spirits do surv iv e in the afterlife, and can and do come back and interact with the liv ing, demonstrating an impressiv e array of conjuring powers. There were a total of six mediums and fifteen inv estigators from the SPR. The Society for Psy chical Research, or SPR, is based in London and is more than a century old. Its membership consists of enthusiasts of the paranormal. The authoritativ e source for what happened in the Scole Ex periment is a report sev eral hundred pages long, called The Scole Report, originally published in the journal Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, and written by three of the lead inv estigators who were present at the sittings, all current or former senior officers of the SPR: plant scientist Montague Keen, electrical engineer Arthur Ellison, and psy chologist Dav id Fontana. I hav e a copy here on my desk. It goes through the history of how the ex periments came together, details each of the many seances, and presents analy sis and criticism from a number of the SPR inv estigators who observ ed. Unfortunately , the Scole Ex periment was tainted by profound inv estigativ e failings. In short, the inv estigators imposed little or no controls or restrictions upon the mediums, and at the same time, agreed to all of the restrictions imposed by the mediums. The mediums were in control of the seances, not the inv estigators. What the Scole Report authors describe as a scientific inv estigation of the phenomena, was in fact (by any reasonable interpretation of the scientific method) hampered by a set of rules which ex plicitly prevented any scientific inv estigation of the phenomena. The primary control offered by the mediums was their use of luminous wristbands, to show the sitters that their hands were not mov ing about during the seances. I consulted with Mark Edward, a friend in Los Angeles who giv es mentalism and seance performances professionally . He knows all the tricks, and luminous wristbands are, apparently , one of the tricks. There are any number of way s that a medium can get into and out of luminous wristbands during a seance. The wristbands used at Scole were made and prov ided by the mediums themselv es, and were nev er subjected to testing, which is a gross dereliction of control by the inv estigators. Without hav ing been at the Scole Ex periment in person, Mark couldn't speculate on what those mediums may hav e done or how they may hav e done it. Suffice it to say that professional seance performers are not in the least bit impressed by this so-called control. Tricks like this hav e been part of the game for more than a century . Since hand holding was not employ ed in the Scole seances, the mediums effectiv ely had ev ery opportunity to be completely hands free and do whatev er they wanted to do. Believ ers in the Scole Ex periment are likely to point to specifics in the Scole Report and say

something like "But according to the detailed notes, the medium nev er mov ed his hands," or something like that. But we hav e to remember that, assuming the Scole mediums were using trickery , the authors of the Scole Report were merely witnesses who were taken in by the tricks. Of course their report is likely to, and does, state that they could not hav e been fooled. This is a perfect ex ample of confirmation bias. These Society for Psy chical Research fellows firmly believ ed they were witnessing genuine spirit phenomena, and desired a positiv e outcome. They followed the mediums' instructions to the T and acted as an audience only and not as inv estigators. The Scole Report details the authors' perceptions of what happened in the room; no reader has cause to believ e it describes what actually happened in the room. Repeatedly , throughout the Scole Report, the authors state that no ev idence of fraud or deception was found. For ex ample: There is a further complaint: that w e made little mention of the view s of people like West or Professor Robert Morris, "w ho expressed reservations on the basis of their experiences." That is partly because no such reservations w ere expressed to us at the time... We w ere looking for evidence of deception... We looked in vain. If I go to Penn & Teller's magic show to look for ev idence of deception, but I impose the rule that I hav e to stay in my seat and watch the show as presented, and I'm not allowed to go onstage and ex amine the performers or the equipment, or watch from behind, or observ e the preparations, I guarantee y ou that I also will find no ev idence of deception. Placing illuminated wrist cuffs on the seance mediums, and allowing no further controls, is perfectly analogous to hav ing Teller show y ou his arms "Hey , look, nothing up my sleev es," then allowing him total control ov er ev ery thing that follows. It can reasonably be argued that the Scole Ex periment inv estigators (whether deliberately or through near-total inv estigativ e incompetence) created the conditions of a stage show designed to fool an audience. The phenomenon most commonly reported in the Scole Ex periments were small points of light that flitted about the room, often striking cry stals and illuminating them from within, or causing disconnected light bulbs or a small glass dome to light up. Since the mediums banned v ideo gear, there's no way we can really ev aluate these claims, other than by reading the Scole Report, which only tells us the perceptions ex perienced by a few true believ ers who were present. Mark Edward said these tricks hav e been commonly performed in seances with laser pointers since the 1 97 0's when they first became av ailable: Strike a light bulb or rock cry stal with a laser pointer and it lights right up. An adv antage of laser pointers is that the tip can be easily cloaked, obscuring the orifice from any one whose ey eball is not the target of the beam. We hav e no ev idence that the Scole mediums used such techniques, but their rules also prev ented us from establishing that they didn't. The nex t most impressiv e feat was the spontaneous appearance of images on film. During the seance, factory -sealed film cartridges were placed inside a padlocked box . The spirits were then asked to imprint images upon the film. The locked box was then taken and the film dev eloped in the strict constant superv ision of the inv estigators. This feat was repeated many times. One of the inv estigators, Alan Gauld, wrote critically of how he discov ered this locked box could be quickly and easily opened in the dark, which allowed for easy substitution of film rolls. This box was prov ided by the mediums. Whenev er any other sealed container was used, no images ev er appeared on the film. Y et ev en while acknowledging these facts, the authors of the Scole Report still maintain that the film images are most likely ev idence of the supernatural. Perhaps the biggest red flag in the Scole Ex periment is the v enue in which the sittings took place: a room in the basement of the house in Scole where two of the mediums liv ed, Robin and Sandra Foy . Rather than controlling the env ironment, the inv estigators ceded total control ov er the room and conditions to the mediums. The seances were held about once a month, which gav e the Foy s ample time to make any desired alterations to the room. There's no ev idence that they did so, but granting them unrestricted opportunity pretty much torpedoed any hope for credibility . The Scole Report states that the room was av ailable for ex amination before and after ev ery seance, but there's no reason to believ e that any truly thorough ex amination was ev er performed; and in any ev ent it's a poor substitute for what the inv estigators should hav e done,

which was to prov ide their own room ov er which the mediums had no control at all. (A few seances were held at other locations, but the Scole Report describes the results from those as "v ariable".) The nex t biggest red flag was the mediums' insistence that the seances be held in complete darkness and their refusal to allow any night-mode v ideo cameras or light enhancement equipment. The mediums' ex planation was that they felt such equipment would distract the inv estigators! That's like telling a pilot that hav ing instruments might distract him from fly ing. Astoundingly the inv estigators agreed to this, though they did ex press dismay , as if their desire and good intentions alone v alidate their conclusions. Audio recordings only were permitted, but since the claimed phenomena were primarily v isual, the audio tapes are of essentially no v alue. A third red flag is the fact that there's been no followup. If amazing phenomena truly did happen at the Scole Ex periment, it would hav e changed the world. Mainstream psy chologists and other academics would hav e gotten in on it, it would hav e made worldwide headlines, and it would be repeated in labs ev ery where and become mainstream science. They did hav e the opportunity : ex perimental psy chologist and author Richard Wiseman prov ided secure env elopes for the film rolls to the ex perimenters, within which film alway s failed to be ex posed. Rather than coming away impressed and spreading the word, Wiseman summed it up to me in six words: "It was a load of rubbish!" This same principle ex plains why we don't see articles from the Proceedings of the SPR, like the Scole Report, republished in scientific journals. A scientific inv estigation of a strange phenomenon assumes the null hy pothesis unless the phenomenon can be prov en to ex ist. But the authors of the Scole Report, with complete credulity , did the ex act opposite: Their stated position is that the lack of disproof means their seances were real supernatural ev ents. But a primary feature of good research is the elimination of other possible ex planations, at which the Scole inv estigators made no competent effort. Many of the inv estigators ex pressed that they were not v ery conv inced by what they witnessed, and it is to the credit of the Scole Report authors that they fairly reported this. But this raises the question: Why then write such a lengthy and credulous report, making such obv ious conclusions that these phenomena were real? The lesson to take away from the Scole Ex periment is a simple one. Although we all hav e preconceiv ed notions, we hav e to put them aside and follow the ev idence when we inv estigate.

Brian Dunning 2009 Skeptoid Media, Inc.

References & Further Reading

Keen, M., Ellison, A., Fontana, D. "The Scole Report." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. 1 Nov . 1 999, V olume 58, Part 220. Mellenbergh, G.J. Advising on Research Methods: A consultant's companion. Rosmalen: Johannes v an Kessel, 2008. 1 43-1 80. The Sey bert Commission. Preliminary Report of the Seybert Commission for Investigating Modern Spiritualism. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company , 1 887 . Troy Tay lor. "How to Hav e a Seance: Tricks of Fraudulent Mediums." The Haunted Museum. Dark Hav en Entertainment, 1 Jan. 2003. Web. 5 Nov . 2009. <http://www.prairieghosts.com/seance2.html> Wiseman, R., Greening, E., Smith, M. "Belief in the paranormal and suggestion in the seance

room." British Journal of Psychology. 1 Aug. 2003, V olume 94, Issue 3: 285297 . Wiseman, R., Morris, R. Guidelines for testing psychic claimants. Hatfield, UK: Univ ersity of Hertfordshire Press, 1 995.