Scottish non-secular medium Helen Duncan, also known as Hellish Nell, the latest user to be incarcerated under the Witchcraft Act of 1735. Her supporters continue to crusade for the Callander-born con artist, whom she scolded for falsifying ectoplasms and “spirits. ” false, posthumously pardoned from the 1944 conviction.
Dressed in black, Helen Duncan sat at the front of the room, illuminated only by a dim red light, while holding a session.
A sepulchral silence gripped the audience when the overweight woman’s eyes rolled back on her head, her body comfortable and went into a trance.
Silence became a cry of disbelief when, a curtain, a ghostly white figure gave the impression and began to speak.
Impulses rushed when Duncan, collapsed in his chair, began producing an “ectoplasm” of his mouth and nose that took human form.
Duncan, known as Hellish Nell, is known as Britain’s last witch, but she none of that.
She is a non-secular medium, hailed by many as one of the greatest ever, and by others as a shameless con artist.
In 1944, Duncan, the last woman to be tried and convicted of witchcraft in the United Kingdom, was imprisoned for nine months for violating the Witchcraft Act of 1735.
Even Prime Minister Winston Churchill, one of the medium’s clients, called the condemnation “obsolete stupidity” and asked “why was the Witchcraft Act of 1735 used in a fashionable Court of Justice?”
According to some accounts, Churchill visited him in prison.
Helen Duncan was born Victoria Helen MacFarlane in Callander, Perth, on November 25, 1897.
He would have shown psychic talents from an early age, having visions, communicating with spirits and receiving ghost visits.
I would also be waiting for the death and destruction of all kinds of people.
His parents suspected his “gift” and warned that they opposed his use.
When Duncan reported seeing a soldier dead, his mother deceived her and warned her, “They’ll put you in jail like a witch. “
Known for acting like a tomboy, his boos, temper and outbursts of hysteria have earned him the nickname Hellish Nell.
After leaving school, he worked at the Royal Infirmary in Dundee and in 1916 married Henry Duncan, an injuredbanist and veteran, who supported his supposed paranormal talents.
They’ll put you in jail like a witch. “
Duncan worked part-time in a bleach and the couple had six children.
In the 1930s, Duncan had one of Britain’s leading mediums, traveling across the country for sessions.
They were in excess of subscriptions, there were a lot of nominations to participate, and they were surrounded by a livid debate.
Duncan said he could allow the minds of other recently deceased people to materialize.
His sessions included chains of white ectoplasms from some other global produced from various holes, as well as ghostly photographs of faces and bodies of lacking “spiritual guides. “
Such an activity attracted a lot of skepticism and in 1928, photographer Harvey Metcalfe took various flash photographs of Duncan and his supposed spirits of “materialization” in one session.
The photographs of the spirits had been fraudulently taken, like a doll made from a painted papier-mâché mask wrapped in an old sheet.
A 1931 survey through the famous psychic researcher Harry Price concluded that ectoplasm, in fact, is a stamen covered with egg whites, iron salts and other chemicals, which Duncan stored in his abdomen and then regurgitated.
The “spirits” were photographs of heads cut into magazines, while a “spiritual hand” noticed in a consultation turned out to be a rubber glove.
Later, in 1931, Duncan paid 50 euros through Price to conduct a series of verification sessions.
She reacted violently to X-ray attempts or to allow infrared photography, which in her childhood at the time.
Price described Duncan as a “great thief. “
He said, “She refused to have an X-ray done. Her husband approached her and told her without pain. She jumped in and punched her in the face, which made her wobble. “
Then he went looking for Dr. William Brown, who was present. He dodged it.
“Ms. Duncan hurried out into the street, had hysterical compatibility and began tearing her garment from sitting in pieces. A 17-stone woman, dressed in black satin stockings, tied to the railings, screaming with all her might.
“A crowd piled up and the police arrived. The doctors who explained the position with us and prevented them from taking out the ambulance.
“Is there more childish than an organization of adult men who waste their time, money and power on the antics of a great thief?
Psychologist William McDougall, who attended two of the sessions, said that “all of its functionality is fraudulent. “
Following Price’s report, Duncan’s former maid, Mary McGinlay, confessed to helping Duncan in his psychic tricks, and Duncan’s husband was suspected of acting as his partner to hide his false ectoplasm.
Ms. Duncan hurried out into the street, had hysterical compatibility and began tearing her garment from sitting in pieces. A 17-stone woman, dressed in black satin stockings, tied to the railings, screaming with all her might.
However, polls reduced enthusiasm for Duncan’s sessions.
Nor was a consultation in Edinburgh rebuked as fraud in January 1933 when the “spirit” of a little woman named Peggy materialized.
Lighting fixtures were turned on and it was revealed that the “spirit” was made from a cloth vest.
This was used as evidence that led to Duncan’s conviction for the crime of Scottish fraud at the Edinburgh Sheriff’s Court in May 1933.
It wasn’t until World War II that his sessions began to arouse the anxiety of the establishment.
In 1941, he reportedly informed his guards of the sinking of a warship before they released the information.
In 1943, a sailor dressed in a hat dressed in HMS Barham had supposedly given the impression in one of his sessions.
Barham officially declared lost only a few months later.
The War Office cared about Duncan’s supernatural revelations: could she be a spy?- and feared that she would reveal ultra-secret plans.
Two lieutenants were among their own at an assembly on January 14, 1944.
One of them, Lieutenant Worth, was not inspired when a white cloth figure gave the impression that the curtains, pretending to be his aunt, did not have a deceased aunt.
In the same session, some other character gave the impression of impersonating his sister, however Worth replied that his sister was alive and well. Worth got upset and reported him to the police.
Police officers dressed as civilians interrupted one of their sessions on January 19, 1944, in which a blank-wrapped figure gave the impression that it turned out to be Duncan he he hes.
She arrested and accused herself of vagrancy, conspiracy, robbery and violation of the Witchcraft Act of 1735.
The case, which had 75 defense witnesses, caused a media stir, and newspapers took advantage of it to print witch cartoons on broomsticks.
However, she did not discover that she was a witch.
She was charged and convicted of “pretending to practice or use human conspiracy” and sentenced to nine months at Holloway Criminal in London.
Duncan is the last user in Britain to be imprisoned under the law.
In 1945, Duncan promised to avoid conducting sessions.
In 1951, Churchill nevertheless repealed the 200-year-old Witchcraft Act, but Duncan’s conviction remained.
He died five years later, in 1956, at his home in Edinburgh shortly after another police raid.
Officers broke in and arrested her while she was in a trance session.
The spirits said the party left her seriously ill, with second-degree burns to her stomach.
However, her medical records showed that she had a long history of health problems and until 1944 described as “an obese woman who can move slowly because she was suffering from problems at the center. “
Duncan’s descendants and followers continue to ask that she be forgiven superhumously of accusations of witchcraft.
Helen Duncan’s official describes it as “the world’s largest means of materialization that has suffered the hands of ignorance. “
Her granddaughter in Edinburgh, Mary Martin, is determined to remove the stigma associated with her expired grandmother’s name.
In a 2008 interview, he said he thought the 1944 conviction was “ridiculous, ridiculous. “
“What were you doing, in the midst of the war, looking for an old man for witchcraft?She.
Last year, Callander Community Council recommended naming a street in a new progression in the town of Perthshire, Duncan Drive, in his honor.
The circle of relatives of the non-secular environment accepted the proposal.
What were you doing, in the middle of the war, looking for an old man for witchcraft?
Granddaughter Margaret Mahn, who was born in Dunfermline but lives in Tennessee, said: “I would be revered if a street were named after my grandmother. Many other people asked me if there were any monuments in Callander and I had to say “no. “
“Many other people make a stopover in Callander every year just because that’s where Helen Duncan was born.
“My dream is to have a memorial in Callander committed to my grandmother so that other people can there. “
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