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Arthur Conan Doyle: Ghost Hunter

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Phantom Stranger:
http://paranormal.about.com/od/ghosthuntinggeninfo/a/Arthur-Conan-Doyle-Ghost-Hunter.htm?nl=1

Barek Halfhand:
I know he participated in attended a “sitting” or two conducted under the auspices of Dr.T.G. Hamilton in the early 1920’s in at UOM in Canada …I have studied Hamilton’s work extensively and while there is little doubt a few parlor hoaxes and cheesecloth ecto-photos were perpetrated (probably to continue university research funds and assorted honorariums ) but I have dug the digitized archive photos and read endless hand written notes penned by Mr  and Mrs Hamilton and it IS fascinating reading …some of the old ecto photos are really creepy too (cheesecloth or not) and a few of them (of medium Mary Marshall) were actually used in the “Haunting In Connecticut” movie…
Really interesting stuff for believers and skeptics alike ….b
www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/archives/hamilton.shtml

  Dr. Thomas Glendenning Hamilton - president of the Manitoba Medical Association, MLA, and noted spiritualist.

Winnipeg was near the end of Conan Doyle’s 1923 tour which started in New York City in April, ended in Montreal in July, and included more than thirty cities (including Rochester, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Columbus, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Victoria, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Port Arthur and Montreal). The British author, accompanied by his wife, Lady Jean, and their three children, Denis, Adrian, and Jean, reached most of their venues by train. They arrived at Union Station in Winnipeg on Dominion Day, Sunday, July 1st, and after travelling the short distance to the Fort Garry Hotel, where he may have stayed nine years earlier, he prepared himself for press interviews, luncheons, psychic services and, of course, his lecture.
In most of the cities they visited Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle attempted to meet other believers in psychic phenomena. On the day they arrived in Winnipeg they attended “a circle for psychical research;” held at the home of a prominent Winnipeg resident, Thomas Glendenning Hamilton. The circle was made up of approximately ten doctors and lawyers and their wives, who shared Conan Doyle’s enthusiasm for Spiritualism’s “proofs” that life continues after death. Like Conan Doyle, Hamilton was a medical doctor, and at the time of Conan Doyle’s visit, he was immediate past President of the Manitoba Medical Association and a member of the Dominion Council of the Canadian Medical Association. He had been a member of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly from 1915 to 1920, and was an elder in the King Memorial Church. He first became interested in psychic phenomena in 1918 when he studied and performed rudimentary experiments on thought transference. His interest was rearoused in 1921 when a neighbor, Mrs. Elizabeth Poole, a Scottish immigrant, moved tables (“telekinesis”) and communicated with spirits. In 1923, Hamilton formed a small circle which met secretly each week to perform experiments concerning the “Poole telekinetic and phenomena.” [21] The circle’s experiments initially concentrated on Mrs. Poole’s “physical mediumship”; she was able to tilt, levitate and invert a small table merely by touching it with her hands. During his visit to the Hamilton home, Conan Doyle described Poole as a “small, pleasant-faced woman from the Western Highlands of Scotland,” whose “psychic gifts” were “both mental and physical.”
    The circle, which contained ten persons, including my wife and myself, placed their hands, or one hand each, upon a small table, part of which was illuminated by phosphorous so as to give some light. It was violently agitated, and this process was described as ‘charging it’. It was then pushed back into a small cabinet made of four hung curtains with an opening in front. Out of this the table came clattering again and again entirely on its own, with no sitter touching it.
From his position, Conan Doyle observed the table   like a restless dog in a kennel, springing, tossing, beating up against the supports, and finally bounding out with a velocity which caused me to get quickly out of the way.
  Beginning on April 8, 1923, a little less than three months before Conan Doyle’s visit, Mrs. Poole manifested a talent for “mental mediumship.” On that day she entered, for the first time, into a trance and saw a vision. Her hand and arm were activated, and, as the alphabet was called out by Dr. Hamilton, she slapped her hand on the table to indicate the desired letter, until a message was completely spelled out. Following the trance, Mrs. Poole awoke, and described her vision, but had no recollection of slapping her hand. [24]

Source:
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/mb_history/25/doyleinwinnipeg.shtml

Nina:
Wow, didn't know that, great info Barek :)

Barek Halfhand:

--- Quote from: Nina on July 03, 2012, 02:38:21 AM ---Wow, didn't know that, great info Barek :)

--- End quote ---

The most perplexing part of it is; why would reputable men like Sir A.C. Doyle and Dr Hamilton be accompli to the perpetration of such hoaxes?...
There are a few video complications and documentaries on Youtube of the Hamilton archives since viewing the digitized material on the University server is such a pain ….b

T.G. Hamilton's Photos of Ectoplasm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0HncGNBCqY

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