Paranormal Pioneeers and Other Strange Phenomena

Gerald Brousseau Gardner (1884-1964)

Gerald Gardner was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. Gardner spent much of his life abroad in southern and south-eastern Asia, where he developed an interest in many of the native peoples, writing about the forms of some of their magical practices.

Before his encounter with Wicca, Gardner had already written numerous articles on the topic of magic and witchcraft. For instance, in 1939 as a member of the Folklore Society his first contribution to its journal Folklore described a box of witchcraft relics that he believed had belonged to the 17th century 'Witch-Finder General', Matthew Hopkins. In 1946 he became a member of the society's council, and eager to attain academic approval, falsely claimed to have doctoral degrees from the Universities of Singapore and Toulouse.

Meanwhile, Gardner became friends with a group of people within the Rosicrucian Crotona Fellowship. They were, according to Gardner, "unlike many of the others, had to earn their livings, were cheerful and optimistic and had a real interest in the occult". One night in September 1939 they took him to a large house owned by a woman known as “Old Dorothy" Clutterbuck. He was made to strip naked and put through an initiation ceremony of some kind. It was about mid-way through the ceremony when he heard the word "Wicca” and recognized it as an older word for witchcraft. Already being acquainted with Margaret Murray's theory of the Witch-cult and thinking that it had "burnt out hundreds of years ago,” he was surprised to learn that “… these things still survive." The group was called the New Forest coven, and Gardner believed them to be one of the few surviving covens of the ancient, pre-Christian Witch-Cult religion. Subsequent research has shown that in fact the New Forest coven was probably only formed in the early 20th century, based upon such sources as folk magic and the theories of Margaret Murray.

In 1946, with the end of the Second World War, Gardner and his wife Donna left the New Forest and returned to London. However, not wanting to abandon his new faith, and fearing that “Wicca” would die out forever, Gardner founded his own coven, the Bricket Wood Coven, with himself as High Priest. The new group met on the grounds of the Fiveacres Nudist Club, Bricket Wood, outside St Albans which Gardner, had purchased the previous year. Gardner, being a keen nudist, saw that they celebrated their rites and rituals in the nude in a building known as the Witches' Cottage, located in the center of the Club's woodland

On May Day 1947, his friend, the stage magician Arnold Crowther, introduced Gardner to the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley. Shortly before his death, Crowley elevated Gardner to the VII° of Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) and issued a charter decreeing that Gardner could perform its preliminary initiation rituals. The charter itself was written in Gardner's handwriting and only signed by Crowley. Gardner never made use of his OTO charter or performed any of the rituals it allowed him to, claiming that he "had neither the money, energy or time" After Crowley's death on December 1, 1947, Gardner was considered the highest ranking OTO member in Europe.

Gardner was instrumental in bringing the religion of “Wicca” to public attention. However, he himself never used the term "Wicca", instead typically referring to the faith as "witchcraft" or "the witch-cult", and he claimed that it was the survival of a pre-Christian pagan Witch cult that he had been initiated into by a New Forest coven in 1939. However, the simple fact is that much of Gardner's practices are clearly rooted in the ceremonial magic of his contemporaries and near contemporaries. Gardner's views of magic and religion certainly did vary somewhat from that of ceremonial magic, which was rooted in Judeo-Christian tradition, but they are clearly not rooted in any particular pagan tradition, although the influences of various practices are evident. However, Gardner is often considered to be the father of modern Wicca.

Eileen Garrett (1893-1970)

Eileen Garrett is, perhaps, the most respected medium of the twentieth century. Her contributions to the investigation and understanding of mediumship and related phenomena remain beyond measure.

Her career was quite remarkable, as was the person of Eileen Garrett. She did many things during the course of her lifetime and pursued each of them with passion, integrity, and effectiveness.

As a sensitive, she was always aware of people's moods and feelings and as a psychic researcher, she knew the need for scientific and open-minded investigation of paranormal phenomena. As an author, lecturer, and publisher, she sought to share her ideas and experiences with the public. As an administrator, she had a mind, will and a sense of perception for the more commonplace aspects of life.

Born in 1893, in County Meath, Ireland, from the beginning Ms. Garrett’s life was full of tragedy. Her parents both committed suicide shortly after her birth; she was then adopted by an aunt and uncle. The psychic world formed a part of her life from a very early age. She sensed and saw around objects various forms of light and energy which she initially termed "surrounds" and what today we would call an aura. She said that she had imaginary playmates, whom she called "the children".

Illness plagued Eileen younger years. Tuberculosis and other respiratory conditions flared up regularly, and, at age fifteen, she left Ireland for the milder climate of England. During World War I she again she fell ill, and, while recuperating, she became friendly with a young man whom she eventually married, one month before Armistice. It was at about this time that Ms. Garrett began investigating psychic matters.

One day, during a table rapping session, she started falling asleep. When she awakened, she discovered that the dead relatives of others in the room had communicated through her. Her mediumship had finally come to the surface, but various personal matters, including the break-up of her marriage delayed its development. However, she sought out J. Hewat McKenzie, founder of the British College of Psychic Science and it was under his cautious guidance at the College, that her mediumship blossomed.

In 1940 she traveled to New York. Her life now took a definitive course. Within a few months of her arrival in New York, she started Tomorrow, a monthly magazine of literary and public affairs. She also started the publishing firm, Creative Age Press. Ms. Garrett's greatest achievement was the founding of the Parapsychology Foundation, in 1951. Her honesty and shrewdness for business affairs helped make this one of today's most respected foundations of its type.

Despite the wealth of information and evidence of survival which came through Ms. Garrett, she was never quite convinced that her mediumship stemmed from a separate source, but was always searching for more information concerning the secrets behind the consciousness of the mind and its relationship to the physical organism.

The Crash of Airship R101

If the medium has any talent at all, physical manifestations can be faked, but what about mental mediumship?

Two days after the British airship, the R101 crashed in flames on a hillside in France killing 48 of its 54 passengers, the voice of a man claiming to be its captain spoke through the lips of a medium in London. He described the last moments before his incineration and described the crash. His account included a wealth of technical information that was confirmed six months later by an official inquiry. The disaster, which occurred on October 5, 1930, included two high ranking aviation officials among its victims. It shook the government’s confidence in dirigibles and ended British efforts to develop the lighter-then-air aircraft for commercial use.

Eileen Garrett was the medium at the extraordinary séance and because of the worldwide interest in the crash, the séance also attracted worldwide attention.

The séance took place at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research set up four years earlier by Harry Price. Price, his secretary, and journalist Ian D. Coster, had arranged a sitting with the young medium. The purpose was to attempt a spirit contact with the recently deceased writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and to publish the results in a magazine.

Shortly after the sitters had gathered in the séance room, Garrett went into a trance. However, instead of making contact with Doyle, the sitters heard a voice announcing himself as Flight Lieutenant H. Carmichael Irwin. In anguished tones, the voice said:

"I must do something about it ... The whole bulk of the dirigible was entirely and absolutely too much for her engines' capacity. Engines too heavy. It was this that made me on five occasions have to scuttle to safety. Useful lift too small. Gross lift computed badly inform control panel. And this idea of new elevators totally mad. Elevator jammed. Oil pipe plugged ... Flying too low altitude and never could rise. Disposable lift could not be utilized. Load too great for long flight ... Cruising speed bad and ship badly swinging. Severe tension on the fabric which is chafing ... Engines wrong-too heavy-cannot rise. Never reached cruising altitude-same in trials. Too short trials. No one knew the ship properly. Weather bad for long flight. Fabric all waterlogged and ship's nose is down. Impossible to rise. Cannot trim. Almost scraped the roofs of Achy. Kept to railway. At enquiry to be held later it will be found that the superstructure of the envelope contained no resilience and had far too much weight in envelope. The added middle section was entirely wrong ... too heavy, too much overweighted for the capacity of engines.”

The reporter, who took this astounding communication in shorthand, soon began to realize that he had been part of a dramatic moment in psychic history. He published the story, and happened to be read by a Mr. Charlton, who had been involved in the R101's construction. Charlton asked Harry Price for a copy of the séance report. After studying it he and his colleagues described it as "an astounding document," containing more than forty highly technical and classified details of what occurred on the airship's fatal flight. "It appeared very evident," said Charlton, "… that for anyone present at the séance to have obtained information beforehand was grotesquely absurd."

Charlton was so impressed by the evidence that he began his own psychic investigation. The only hypothesis that he could put forward to explain all the evidence was that "Irwin did actually communicate with those present at the séance, after his physical death."

Ghost Adventures Crew

Ghost Adventures began as an independent film, produced in a documentary style. It was filmed in 2004 and produced by 4Reel Productions in 2006. The Syfy Channel premiered 4Reel's Ghost Adventures on July 25, 2007. The documentary centered on the trio's investigation of alleged paranormal activity in and around Virginia City, Nevada. The crew returned there during the series' fifth season. The film also featured the Goldfield Hotel in Goldfield, Nevada, where the crew later returned to during the series' fourth and seventh seasons and caught more substantial evidence.

Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, and Aaron Goodwin investigate reportedly haunted locations, hoping to collect visual or auditory evidence of paranormal activity.

Each episode begins with a tour of the investigation site with its owners or caretakers. These introductions typically include voice-overs by Bagans describing the history of the location. There are also interviews with people who claim to have witnessed paranormal phenomena there. On the basis of these interviews, the crew place what they call “X Cameras” (which are simply cameras on the position of the Xs they’ve made with black or gray tape) at the sites of some alleged paranormal activity. They later return to these spots in order to set up static (meaning non-movable) night-vision cameras to try and film activity happening.

After completing the walk-through, they discuss their strategy, then lock themselves in the location overnight, which they believe will prevent "audio contamination". They use a variety of equipment, including digital thermometers, electromagnetic field (EMF) meters, handheld digital video cameras, audio recorders, the Ovilus (an electronic speech-synthesis device which utters words depending on environmental readings, including electromagnetic waves), point of view cameras, and infrared night-vision cameras in an effort to capture evidence of ghosts. The members sometimes place objects and shout verbal taunts they believe ghosts might move or respond to.

At the end of the episode, they analyze their audio, photographs, and video footage, often with the assistance of alleged paranormal experts, and present anything they feel is "unexplained phenomena" to the audience.

During the series, the crew claims to capture and experience various phenomena, which they say include simultaneous equipment malfunctions such as battery drain, voltage spikes, fluctuations in electromagnetic fields, sudden changes in temperature (such as cold spots), unexplained noises, electronic voice phenomena (EVP), and apparitions.

The crew also claims to have recorded spirit possessions on video. Bagans believes that he was possessed at the Preston School of Industry and at Poveglia Island in Italy. Groff claims that he was overtaken by a "dark energy" at the Moon River Brewing Company. Goodwin claims he was "under the influence of a dark spirit" at Bobby Mackey's Music World and Winchester Mystery House.

The methods they use are common to many paranormal research groups, but once in a while they come up with a unique way of investigating. The evidence they collect can sometimes be rather thought-provoking, but much of it is not unlike the evidence others have collected in those same locations. In my opinion, the main difference between this show and other “live” paranormal research shows is that in all episodes they seem to have a great deal of fun and the show is entertaining because of that.

Ghost Hunting Kits

Throughout the 19th Century, ghost hunters used the most sophisticated equipment available at the time. Harry Price, for example, had a whole suitcase loaded with ghost hunting equipment. Here is a comparison on what his ghost hunting kit contained and what the contemporary ghost hunter’s kit might contain.

Harry Price’s Ghost Hunting Kit

Felt over-shoes, Electric bells, lead seals for motion detectors, Batteries / Switches, Camera, Notebook/drawing pads, mercury for detecting vibrations, Flashlight, Balls and string, First Aid Kit, Measuring tape,

Today's Ghost Hunting Kit

Sneakers , Electronic motion detectors, Batteries , Cameras - digital / video , Pen and Paper , Vibration detectors , Flashlight , Trigger objects , First Aid Kit, Two Way Radio , EMF meter , Thermal Imager, Digital Recorder

As we can see, except for just a few items which weren’t available back then, today’s ghost hunting kit is pretty much the same as Harry Price’s ghost hunting kit. Both kits used the best equipment available for the time and for pretty much the same functions.

What is also noticeable is that the equipment used then, and now, were all designed for purposes other than ghost hunting. The EMF meter, for example, is routinely used by electricians. Since there’s no specific equipment designed for paranormal investigating, investigation teams need to make do and adapt what already exists.

The Ghost Club

The Ghost Club was founded in London in 1862 by an exclusive group of London gentlemen with the goal of exposing fraudulent spirit mediums and investigating authentic psychic phenomena.

One of the group's earliest investigations was of the Davenport Brothers, two mediums who literally invented the idea of the spirit cabinet that was later used in most séances. The detail of the investigation, as well as most of the early activities of the society, remains unknown today.

Not long after its founding, the Club began to attract other members, some of whom were quite well known. One such member was Charles Dickens, who is said to have had many paranormal events in his life, including encounters with ghosts. But despite these experiences, he was opposed to the Spiritualist movement and supported the efforts of the Club in their continued exposure of phony mediums.

The Ghost Club eventually became inactive but started up again in 1882. This time the group lasted until 1936, when it was broken up and arrangements made to store all its records and papers in the British Museum.

However, in 1938, ghost hunter Harry Price began the group one more and became the chairman. He limited membership to 500 persons and for the first time, admitted women into the Club. He made the point that the Club was not, and never had been, a Spiritualist association and stated that it was a

"… body of extremely skeptical men and women who get together every few weeks to hear the latest news of the psychic world and to discuss every facet of the paranormal."

The present-day Ghost Club was revived in 1954 and In November 1963, the papers of the earlier society were retrieved from the British Museum and the full history of the Club became public.

The Ghost Club takes pride in the fact that it does not subscribe to any specific belief about the paranormal or about survival after death, nor does it follow any one approach to investigations. Membership includes scientists, amateur investigators, authors, Spiritualists, philosophers, skeptics, and professional and lay persons. Members live mostly in England but there are others around the world.

Glastonbury, England

Glastonbury, in the Somerset region of England, in many ways is the spiritual center of England and has been used for Celtic May Day festivities, Christian worship and present-day New Age festivals.

The Romans conquered Great Britain during the first century B.C. and built several wharves on Bristol Bay which enabled Glastonbury to become a shipping area.

Legend has it that Joseph of Arimathea landed in Glastonbury and established the first Christian church there, bringing with him the Holy Grail. Several centuries later, the legend states King Arthur's knights undertook quests to find the lost Holy Grail.

When Joseph arrived in Glastonbury, it is claimed he pushed his staff into the ground on a ridge called Wearyall Hill and the staff miraculously sprouted into a tree, now known as the Glastonbury Thorn. It flowers around the around Christmas time and the original tree is already centuries old. Interestingly enough, the Glastonbury Thorn is not like any native species of tree in Great Britain; it is related to a thorn tree of the eastern Mediterranean area.

The Saxons, who had converted to Christianity, conquered the ancient county of Somerset in the 7th Century. Their King was Ine of Wessex, who is regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of the Abbey, and is said to have erected a stone church, the base of which forms the west end of the nave. This church was enlarged in the 10th century by the Abbot of Glastonbury, St. Dunstan, who became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 960.

In 1066, the wealth of the Abbey could not cushion the Saxon monks from the disruption caused by the foreign invasion and subsequent conquest of England by the Normans. Even though the Normans exerted force on any of the Brothers who failed to toe the new party line, skilled Norman craftspeople contributed to the Abbey by adding magnificent buildings, built to the east, away from the ancient cemetery. The great Norman structures were consumed by fire in 1184 when many of the ancient treasures were destroyed

The most distinctive and highest of the hills in the area is the Tor or the hill. A commanding hill, the Tor can be seen from as far as 25 miles away. A ruined tower of a Christian chapel is on the top of the Tor and nearby are the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, the oldest Christian church in England.

No one seems to know for sure what the Tor was used for. Was it a center for fertility rites based on legends of the great Mother Earth Goddess? Was it the mystical island of Avalon? A center for ley-lines - routes of spiritual energy? On the sides of the Tor is a strange system of terracing which has been interpreted as a maze following some sort of ancient magical pattern. If the maze on the Tor is real, human labor formed it four or five thousand years ago.

Two thousand years ago, the sea washed right to the foot of the Tor and it was gradually succeeded by a vast lake whose name, Ynys-witrin, means the Island of Glass. And it certainly would have looked like an island of glass from most angles of approach. But it is from Celtic legend that it was given the name Avalon which means the isle of enchantment.

Glastonbury Abbey was already an old, established at the site when it became a focal point for Arthurian legends in 1190. King Henry II (1133–1189) had claimed that a writer told him that King Arthur's bones were buried deep at Glastonbury.

After his many feats it is said Arthur was wounded by Mordred at the battle of Camlan. This was supposed to be around the year 542 and he was then taken across the water to the Isle of Avalon for his wounds to be healed. Records show that Glastonbury would still have been an island at that time, and it makes sense that he would have been brought to one of the only places where any medical attention was available, a monastery. Arthur was mortally wounded however, and it is said he was buried in the cemetery on the south side of the Lady Chapel, at Glastonbury Abbey. He was buried between two stone pyramids and at great depth.

One story goes, that in order to raise the money to rebuild the abbey after the fire the monks began to dig, based on a vision two of the monks claimed to have had about the site where they were told where Arthur was buried. Pilgrims, of course, donated to the dig by providing the necessary funding. After digging a hole sixteen feet deep, they claimed that they uncovered two stone markers and a giant coffin. Inside the coffin were the bones of a man and a woman together with a tablet identifying them as those of King Arthur and his wife, Guinevere. These bones were reburied, much later, in 1278 within the Abbey Church, in a black marble tomb, in the presence of King Edward I.

By the sixteenth century, when King Henry VIII (1491–1547) dissolved all Christian monasteries in Great Britain, the bones and artifacts alleged to be Arthur's were lost and the authenticity of the burial find was generally disproved. However, the claim continued to be taken seriously because of the area's associations with Arthurian legends. Even to this day, the Pomparles Bridge that spans the River Brue that runs through Glastonbury is reputed to be the site where Arthur's sword, Excalibur, was returned to the Lady of the Lake.

It is said that after Arthur's death, a powerful spirit haunted the ruins of the Abbey, appearing as a knight with glowing eyes and a burning desire to stamp out all trace of the Arthurian legends. Perhaps this is why it is claimed that those looking for the truth find so few facts available.

Today a notice board marks the spot of Arthur's final resting place and one can occasionally see flowers people have left there to honor this King whose life and death gave birth to so many myths and legends.

In the present day, Glastonbury remains the site of official festivals and unofficial gatherings that celebrate its Celtic and Christian roots and pilgrims of all sorts say that, when you set foot on the grounds of the Abbey or the Tor, there is just something in the air that isn’t quite as it should be. Perhaps they’re feeling the charged energy in the atmosphere as one often does when come in contact with the sacred.

On a personal note, in September of 2013, I went to Glastonbury and walked up the Tor to the St. Michael’s Tower. As I got closer to the top of the hill, I started to feel a bit dizzy and had to sit down several times. On the top of the hill there is, indeed, a feeling of something not quite ‘normal’ and a palpable feeling of static electricity in the air. It felt like if I had touched something it would give off a spark. I never would have believed it if I did not experience it for myself.