Exploring Haunted Experiments: With Penny Griffiths-Morgan

Transcript

Welcome to Haunted History Chronicles, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of the past, one ghostly tale at a time.

I'm your host, Michelle, and I'm thrilled to be your guide on this Erie journey through the pages of history.

0:32

Picture this, a realm where the supernatural intertwines with the annals of time, where the echoes of the past reverberate through haunted corridors and forgotten landscapes.

That's the realm we invite you to explore with us.

Each episode will unearth stories, long buried secrets, dark folklore, tales of the macabre, and discuss parapsychology topics from ancient legends to more recent enigmas.

1:01

We're delving deep into locations and accounts all around the globe, with guests joining me along the way.

But this podcast is also about building a community of curious minds like you.

Join the podcast on social media, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to share your own ghostly encounters, theories, and historical curiosities.

1:25

Feel free to share with friends and family.

The links are conveniently placed in the description for easy access.

So whether you're a history buff with a taste for the supernatural or a paranormal enthusiast with a thirst for knowledge, Haunted History Chronicles is your passport to the other side.

1:46

Get ready for a ride through the corridors of time where history and the supernatural converge.

Because every ghost has a story, and every story has a history.

And now let's introduce today's podcast or guest.

2:06

Looking for the paranormal is so much more than standing in a dark room asking for spirits to make a noise.

It's about experimentation, testing theories, and pushing the boundaries of what we think we know.

In this episode of Haunted History Chronicles, I'm joined by author Penny Griffiths Morgan, who is inspired by these ideas and went away and researched and replicated a variety of paranormal experiments which she details in her book A Haunted Experiment.

2:41

From the fascinating origins of the Philip experiment to the use of electronic voice phenomena and the Estes method, Penny's journey takes us through history, haunted locations, and the evolving techniques used in the paranormal field.

2:57

But her story doesn't stop there.

With a lifelong passion for the unusual sparked by witnessing a light anomaly in an old barn as a child, Penny has made a name for herself as both a historian and paranormal investigator.

3:14

As the host of the Haunted Histories podcast, a regular on Help My House is Haunted, and a featured writer for Haunted Magazine, she's embraced her love for history in the paranormal in equal measure.

Join us as we delve into her book, her experiments, and what it takes to push beyond the darkness into the unknown.

3:55

Hi, Penny, thank you so much for coming back on to the to the podcast.

Yeah, I'm, I'm really excited to be back.

Michelle, I, you know, I enjoy talking to you.

So it's I'm, I'm, I was very chuffed you asked me to come back.

We get to nerd out a little bit, don't we really?

4:14

Any excuse?

We don't judge each other.

That's the that's the best part, isn't it?

Yeah, no judgement whatsoever.

No, no, it's, it's, it's a judgement free zone nerding out on your podcast.

Do you want to just maybe update everyone listening with what you've been up to since the last time we we chatted?

4:35

Oh, I, I'll be honest, when, when was it last time we chatted?

It it was it the summer we spoke, I think.

It was.

It was was.

It really a while.

Well, obviously I did.

So I've done a couple more paranormal conferences in the UKI did the Festival of the Unexplained back in September.

4:56

I'm trying to think now.

September and I did the Mystery History tour.

I don't know if anyone listening was anyone who went on it, but it seemed to I, I took them to Leicester Guildhall and gave them a penny.

Special tour of, of Leicester Guildhall.

5:15

We seem to go down really, really well.

And then what else have I done?

Oh, I've done another parameet.

I, I can't remember if I mentioned last time, but I'll be going over to America in May to be, I'm not one of the official guests, but I'm an unofficial guest at the Pennhurst Paracon in Pennsylvania way next May, which is exciting.

5:42

And yeah, that that's then sort of just doing my normal, more articles for Haunted magazine, more articles for the, the website, all of that kind of thing, the normal, the normal stuff.

And jumping on investigations and teaching my teenage son how to investigate as well because he's he's, he's my little apprentice.

6:07

Well, that's quite a busy schedule.

You'll need a break soon.

Oh, I can't give myself a break, though.

If I'm if I'm not writing something, I'm reading something.

If I'm not reading something, I'm watching a documentary on television.

And if I'm not doing that, I'm probably, well, either walking the dog in the gym or sitting there trying to think of new ideas of things I can write about.

6:29

I, I find it really hard to completely switch off.

It's, it's something, I think it drives my husband nuts that whenever we go somewhere, we'll be driving along and I'll see a sign for something.

I'll be like, oh, I didn't know that was down there.

And I'll be Googling it as we go past it to see if it's something I want to look up.

6:47

I can't.

I'm always wanting to learn.

I'm always wanting to find stuff out.

I don't know how to stop.

It's it's a sickness, I think.

I can empathize though because I'm exactly the same.

7:03

I find searching for things sometimes at the most bizarre times of the night just randomly come into my head and I'm awake and I can't not then rest until I know the answer.

So I.

Can empathize.

I have to have the phone or an iPad next to me when I'm reading books.

7:21

Now I'm reading.

I've just finished reading a book about the World War 2 Glider Glider Regiment, and now I'm reading one.

It's one I've been meaning to read for for a while.

And it's a bomber pilot.

And it was a friend of mine called James Jeffries who said you've got to read some of this guy's stuff.

7:37

It's he's really funny the way he writes, but he's also an incredibly experienced pilot.

And he was talking about different types of Flack that they used to encounter.

And so that you'd have Flack that they'd almost fly into and then Flack that would be a lot more targeted.

7:54

I can't remember right now what they were the what the two types call.

One was called predicted flak and I can't remember what the other one was.

And I'd never heard of this.

So I'm, I'm sitting there Googling it on my phone whilst I'm reading the book because I'm like, I can't put this book down and not understand what he's talking about.

8:09

There's two different types of flag and it's but that's what I mean.

I can't just read something, even if I'm reading a novel and they might mention a place and I'll be like, oh, not heard of that place.

Where is it?

I have to Google it, see if it's real and what might have happened there and oh, it's it's definitely an illness.

8:31

And I think it kind of explains, though, why you went the route up from, you know, from what I can see, I think it explains why you went down the route of, of researching the way that you did for one of your books, which is what we're going to be talking about tonight.

The the book a haunted experiment because it's that need to dig in to interrogate and understand something and then go beyond just that surface level, seeing who was involved, how it's evolved, how things are being used, the thoughts, the theories, the processes behind it before you then use it and kind of adapt and develop and bring these into your own investigation.

9:10

So it makes perfect sense that you were inspired to write that book.

I think it's something I've, I, I never one of my, one of my, my problems is I hate it if someone asks me a question about something and I only know enough to answer that question.

9:29

I don't know anything else that if they then have a follow up question.

So whenever I am researching anything, whether it be weight training exercises, whether it be dog behaviour stuff, whether it be a history thing, I never just read to answer the question that's popped into my head.

9:48

I read around it.

So I've got more information than I need.

So I've always got that buffer, if you like.

If, if I then have a subsidiary question.

And when I, the, the, I, I, I mean the idea for a haunted experiment there, there is actually, I, I can always say to people where I get the ideas for the books I write or the articles I write because I, I, I know exactly what triggered, what triggered the idea.

10:15

And with a haunted experiment, the, the, the idea came to me to write it.

I hadn't released my first book, my haunted history at that point.

I'd written it and it was just, I was just going through getting the artwork done and everything else.

And I was thinking, oh, maybe I should write a second one because I quite enjoyed this process.

10:34

And I'd been invited to be on a Daily Mail photo shoot of women in the paranormal.

And we're talking four years ago now, five years ago, I think time flies.

And, and I was sitting, I was quite inexperienced at the whole paranormal side at this point.

10:54

And I was more of a historian even then.

And I was sitting listening to some of these women.

So he had people like Jolene Jackson, MJ Dixon, Hazel Ford, all these women.

And they were talking about all these different things to do experiments and everything.

11:10

And, and I just started thinking, well, I was sitting there thinking that everyone talks about how to do these experiments.

Everyone talks about their findings from these experiments.

People talk about how the experiment can go wrong, how you can get false positives and everything else.

What's the history of these experiments?

11:28

Who came up with it?

Why did they come up with it?

What triggered them to come up with that idea?

And, and that's how a haunted experiment was born.

Because I thought I've never read at that point.

I'd never read much that actually dug into how the thing was started in the 1st place.

11:46

Who got the inspiration?

Where did the inspiration come from?

Why did they create it?

Everything I'd read up till that point was about how to conduct it, how to do it, things that might go right, things that might go wrong.

There was nothing so much about where it came from.

12:03

And, and in my view, everything has a history, you know?

Yeah, I'm sure there's a history to why you came up with your podcast.

You could tell people what motivated you, the history behind the podcast.

And I thought, no, I've never seen any.

I have now subsequently seen stuff to do with the history of some of these.

12:20

It's more the more research I did.

But this stuff isn't as prominent in the paranormal field as I find how to do the experiment is.

And I thought, well, I don't know if I want to write a book that just talks about the history of the experiments because I, I, I want to, I want to have a go at some of them and see what happens.

12:39

And so that's how it all evolved.

But it makes sense, doesn't it?

Because, you know, I think if you have that kind of a mindset, you want, you want to understand the, the science or the thought process and the actions behind why this has become so popular, how it was thought through, how it was kind of the inception of it in order to really understand what and why you're doing it.

13:06

And I think that's often the problem when we see television shows, etcetera, that they demonstrate these different techniques or devices being used, but actually there's no, there's no kind of discourse around them.

And so I think it's almost become something that everybody accepts that we just do it like this and that's it without really understanding that back that back story to it, which I think as you say is just really important to really never get to grips with what you're doing and why you're doing it.

13:35

Yeah, I mean, I also, I also see a lot of sort of sneering at some of these experiments nowadays, you know, when I see everyone going, oh, you're not taking flashing cat balls.

You know, they don't detect a ghost.

No, they don't detect a ghost as far as we know, as far as we know.

13:54

But if you have a cat ball that starts rolling along a floor that you put a spirit level down on, that's shown that floor's completely level and there's no reason why that cat ball should be rolling.

Surely that's a question mark.

Like why is it doing that?

Can we recreate it Can.

And it's an experiment.

I, I mean, I, I sort of mentioned that I'm in the process of training my son up to be an investigator.

14:16

And this is some of the things I've said to him.

You know, it's like if you've got one gadget going off and the other three you've brought with you are doing nothing.

I might sort of be a bit sceptical, but if all three of them are doing something that you can't explain, maybe look into it further.

14:34

For example, in I think this is in elements of Epping Forests actually that this happened, but I had I had a spirit box going and I had an Ovilus Iovelus going and they both said pretty much the same thing at the same time.

14:51

The there's you heard the worst shush come through on the spirit box and the word silence come up on the word generator at the same time.

That's pretty hard to sort of like just bat away, isn't it?

15:09

So, and it's things like this that I think that some of the experiments are seen to be a bit like party trick ish because of how some of the TV shows use them and don't explain what it could mean.

They it's more like, Oh my God, we're getting a voice through.

We've got an EVP.

15:25

Yes, But and, and also I do think that's partly down to the audience who watches a lot of these shows.

They don't want to know the technical side of it.

They don't want to know, you know, they just want to see a ghost hunt.

And I think it's down to sort of the the rest of us to say, well, actually, you know, I'm not a scientist.

15:45

I'll be honest, I don't really understand the science of it all.

That's not my speciality.

My speciality is looking into what gave people the ideas to come up with these things.

That's more my speciality.

There's some brilliant people who do the science of them all out there.

But I, I, I think it's, it's a case of there's a reason why people have done these experiments in the past and there's theories to be drawn off them if that's what you want to do.

16:12

But if you don't know they exist, how can you draw or decide if you want to try and use them?

Exactly.

Yeah, No, I think that's a perfect explanation and I completely agree with you.

Do you want to maybe just for, for everybody listening who maybe hasn't read the book before and who are already intrigued by what we've, we've discussed, who maybe just elaborate on some of the experiments that you, you explain the range of experiments that you, you discuss and you bring up in the book.

16:42

Yeah, sure.

Well, I mean, I my favorite experiment to do, and I'll cover this one in a bit.

It is anything to do with triggers, which is common, sometimes known as Singapore theory, sometimes known as theory of familiarisation.

16:57

That is one of my favourite ones to come up with because the range of things you can do is infinite.

And I thought, well, I'm going to cover that because I want to know why it's called the Singapore theory because it kind of doesn't make sense to me.

Why is it nicknamed that?

Another one that intrigues me was the Phillips experiment, which I'll talk about.

17:18

And I thought as well, who thought of Evps, who came up, who thought of doing Evps and almost, I suppose ITC type work.

Who came up with that?

Why did who are some of the names that I should be reading their work to understand it further?

17:36

And and then the other one I I like to talk about is, is quite a relative.

Well, it is a relatively modern one.

And the Estis method, which you see on pretty much every single paranormal, show someone using a variation of the Estes method.

17:53

And, and I was lucky enough that I actually knew, or know, I suppose you could say.

I haven't spoken to him for a few years, but I know one of the people who came up and branded the Estes method.

So I thought I could get really into his head and find out what made them think of it, what made them do the changes that they did to it, What made them think that was a way of communicating.

18:17

So it was, those four were the ones that I thought, well, let's, let's do a deep dive.

Let's give it the penny treatment and see what we can find that might be interesting to people to learn.

And then I thought, well, how do I make it a book that's not just about experiments?

18:33

Well, I'm going to have a go with them.

And so I chose 4 locations to try the experiments in so that I can do the history of these locations and talk about these locations and see if any of these experiments seem to fit and see which one did produce the most reaction for for what of a better word?

18:58

So the Philips experiment, most people have heard of it here in the paranormal field.

And, and this was something that was done back in the 1970s in Toronto actually by a guy called Doctor Arg Owen, who was a mathematician and I can never say this word, geneticist.

19:21

And he put this group together because in a nutshell, he wanted to work out if you can conjure up a spirit, can you by, you know, focusing your thoughts almost create an entity.

And So what they did was they came up for this, this chap called Philip Aylesford.

19:44

I think it was, I think there were seven of them, seven or eight of them in the group who, who would who were dealing with it.

And they all came from a massive, very variety of backgrounds.

And this is one of the things I love about the paranormal field.

We all come from many, many different backgrounds.

19:59

I mean, I come from.

I'm a, I'm, I'm in financial services, in my day job.

Obviously you're education.

I've got friends who are care assistants, I've got friends who are, I've got friends who are professional rugby players who do this, solicitors, police officers, you know, you, you name an occupation and it's a real variety.

20:23

So you haven't got nothing but academics doing it.

You haven't got nothing but doctors doing it, do you know what I mean?

You've got this, this real variety.

And this group was made-up of, of a variety of people.

And they came up with this back story of this, this chap called Philip, who was born, I believe it was in the the 1600s, joined the military at a young age.

20:46

And this is all fiction.

None of this is true.

It was fiction.

He became a knight at 16.

He was married to a woman called Dorothea, but he was in love with this gypsy girl called Margot and Margot ended up being executed for witchcraft.

21:06

And so he took his own life at 30 because he couldn't be with Margot.

They, somebody had drawn a picture of him and they were all supposed to focus and try and well, conjure Philip up.

21:22

They would say there was a success because they did get reactions to their questions when they would do sort of like group sessions.

They also came up with a few other characters.

There was one whose name I can't remember, but she was say a World War 2 French Resistance fighter who was executed and things like that.

21:43

And that produced some reaction as well.

So they did quite a few different ones, but it is primarily known as the Philip Experiment.

And, and I thought that was interesting because one of the places we, we, well, the place we did that investigation in was a former US Air Force World War 2 bomber base in Norfolk called REF Tibenham.

22:05

So if anyone looks at the cover of my book, they will see a drawing of AUS Air Force man on the front.

And that's my equivalent of Philip.

And so I came up with a back story.

There was four of us there and all four had had the picture beforehand and the back story.

22:25

So they and I asked them to just focus on it and focus on it and imagine he was real and imagine themselves talking to him and calling him by name and all that to try and almost replicate what Owen had done in his experiment.

I have no problem saying it.

22:41

Nothing happened because nothing happened.

And whether we'd done something wrong, whether there wasn't enough of us there to produce the energy, I, I'm not sure, but it conjuring spirits, for want of a better word, creating a spirit is not a new concept.

22:57

I mean, it dates, dates back thousands of years.

In fact, the Tibetans had a name for it.

They'd call it a tulpa.

So it, it wasn't a new thing.

And, and, and I, I kind of had a, a, a bit of a theory about it in that and anyone academic listening to this will be like, well, it's not been put across very sort of scientifically, but that's not how I talk.

23:23

I talk in the way that everyone is going to understand.

And my theory is if you're a spirit and we don't know how time works, if there is a spirit world and your name is Penny and you've been waiting hundreds of years for someone to want to talk to you.

23:41

You've been sitting like theoretically by that phone for hundreds of years waiting for it to ring.

And all of a sudden it rings and someone asks for Jenny, you're going to go close enough.

I'll speak to him.

23:58

Well, I would because it's no different to when you know, when you know when someone calls you by the wrong name.

So say someone kept calling you Michaela instead of Michelle, you'd probably still answer out of being polite, wouldn't you?

Oh yeah, completely.

Same.

I think it's the same principle because I, I get called, I've been called Penny, Jenny, Peggy, Polly, Pammy, you name it.

24:21

And I always answer and then I'll say, and then I'll say, OK, who is it we need to send it to?

And I'll just, I'll give my name because I've given it twice, but I'll still answer because I know they mean me.

And, and I just wonder with the Phillip experiment, if it's a similar thing, if there was someone whose name would say Peter, not Phillip, similar back story who thought, OK, I'm going to communicate with them.

24:45

The the fact that the one of the ones they got the success with was this this World War 2 French resistance fighter.

We know from history, a lot of French, French resistance people were executed.

You only have to to like, even not even delve into the history books to look at the amount of special operations executive women who were murdered for one of a better term at places like Ravensbrook.

25:13

So it's not a stretch to think that one of them might have been on the other end of that metaphorical phone saying, great, someone wants to talk.

I'll pretend to be the person they're asking for because we can't prove it any other way.

But I just think about human nature.

25:30

You do tend to answer even if someone gets your name a little bit wrong.

But that's my theory on it.

It's one of my favorite experiments though.

I just, I find it really fascinating and I think I find it fascinating on different levels because I'm intrigued by the people who were involved in it.

25:47

I think the the makeup of the group of people who took part in the experiment is is fascinating in itself because they had nurses, they had real high academics, they had a real range.

But I also find Doctor Owen interesting himself because obviously he's someone that if you, if you kind of look into cases and more kind of study into research of, of different things, you kind of see his name crop up here and there.

26:15

I mean, he's he's the investigator that was involved in the Salkey case in Scotland.

He did all of the, you know, the interviewing and the investigation and going up there to investigate that case.

He's heavily involved in in several other quite key notable cases.

26:31

He was part of the SPR and submitted things to the SPR.

I was about to say that he was part of the like the American version of the SPR, wasn't he?

So he was, so he would have he he is kind of like anyone who's interested in the, shall we say, the, the technical side of the paranormal, the actual research and investigative, the investigative side.

26:53

He is someone that yeah, you, you want to read more about his, his thoughts because his background as a mathematician and geneticist, it's very kind of, it's a black and white thing, isn't it?

It's, it's this story, it's that.

And for him to actually, but then again, sort of going off tangent slightly, there's been quite a few people in in the paranormal world who have had that sort of that very, very black and white scientific brain who have just delved into it because there's something about it that just catches their interest and they can't quite get the head around it.

27:33

It's almost like a puzzle and I think that's where you can see the application of just theory and hypothesis to a problem by again, coming up with something like this, an experiment to try and test theories and to look into the subject in a way that is is something that you can quantify and you can measure.

27:56

As opposed to obviously what he had been doing, which was, you know, he'd been so heavily involved in specific cases.

Here's an opportunity to create a, an environment of which he can test some of these things out.

And I just find it fascinating.

It's a really intriguing experiment that when you then see sitting alongside other large phenomena and questions like poltergeist activity and you know, the questions about human agents and so on and so forth, you know, you can see real parallels and, and things that could could overlap.

28:31

And it's just a really interesting approach to dig deeper into what could or couldn't be happening and to try and find a way to answer that question.

And you're, you're right, they had some really interesting results as well because, you know, they didn't always have fantastic responses and so on, just like you, you know, you were talking about with your experiment they had, it was rather dull and flat for a really long time.

28:58

Yeah.

And of course, a large part of what they thought changed that was the introduction of the trigger objects, bringing things into the room.

Which is interesting because I think trigger experiments are the absolute bee's knees.

29:15

I, that is, that is, I get quite excited when someone asks me to put a trigger experiment together, that I, I nerd out big time.

I in fact, I've got a big grin on my face now because I'm thinking of what I'm going to be doing at Kelvin and Hatch tomorrow night that I've come up with that, that, that, that I think, I mean, that's a nice segue into triggers and, and everything because with trigger experiments, I want to know where the theory, the Singapore theory came from because I couldn't work out what was it to do with why was Singapore got to do with the paranormal?

29:54

And I really hit, I think, I think when I wrote the chapter in the book, I think I actually put this is going to be a very short chapter because even with my ability to to sort of, well, to literally get blood out of a stone when I'm researching something, I really struggled with this one to find where it came from.

30:14

And yeah, I think what should I say?

So whilst this chapter may be brief and may not contain as many corroborated facts as the rest of the book, I mean, that really was how it was.

And it, it was actually talking to, it was Steve Parsons who said it first.

30:31

And then it had it corroborated by Doctor Kieran O'Keefe.

And they, they said that the theory of familiarisation is a psychological theory that's been around what in the history of psychology.

But the Singapore theory was to do with a ghost hunting show that was being filmed in Singapore.

30:53

And they were trying to sort of create some activity by dressing up in World War 2 costumes.

I can say after writing the book I was talking to, and I'm name dropping here, I do apologise, but I was talking to Barry Fitzgerald, who was obviously one of the original Ghost Hunter show people and I was talking to him at an event and I said about that.

31:15

And he goes, yeah, that was my team.

We came up with that.

So I should maybe I should do a rewrite of the book and add that in.

But yeah, so.

But it all relates back to the theory of familiarization, which relates to trigger theory.

And.

And the whole point about it is there are certain things which makes your memory go aha, even living and, and and sort of looking, if you look into it deeper, if a spirit is a sentient being, it should have the same emotional responses to things that we do.

31:49

So if a certain piece of music makes you cry because it makes you remember a bad time of your life, is that going to have the same reaction on you when you've passed?

My answer is I think so.

32:06

If if a spirit is a sentient being that can find humour, can have an intelligent conversation with you, it's going to have the same emotional response.

I'm not a psychologist.

I, I, I'm, I just dabble in these things.

But, and I also think that triggers can you, you, you.

32:27

There is no limit to what you can think of it.

It really is the most expansive type of experiment that you can do.

One of the things that I sort of spoke to, it was actually the only psychologist I knew at this point was Jane Harris.

32:45

And I spoke to her about it and, and she said, yeah, there is no limit as to what you can come up with.

And if you think about, for example, war veterans with PTSD, they hear a certain noise and it takes them back to that memory when something horrific happened to them.

33:05

It's a trigger.

It's everywhere.

So the reason I love it as an experiment is I would say when I've used it on investigations, I'd probably be as far to say as 90% of the time it produces something, something so subtle, sometimes not subtle.

33:27

But it's also, it can be such a cheap and inexpensive way of doing an experiment because it can be as simple as just playing a piece of music from your phone in a room to see if that creates any activity.

33:45

I actually used it at a place called the Kersl in Southend with the guys from Fright Nights Essex.

They sort of let me have free reign to use all their guests.

So I had like 25 people, so loads of energy.

34:02

And I do think it triggers to do them well.

You, you, you need to look at the history of a place and find something that you think might work.

And with the Curzle, the Curzle had sort of 150 years worth of history.

But what I did know is during the 60s, it was a music venue and a lot of very big sort of 60s and 70's rock bands played there.

34:26

So we're talking Judas Priest, we're talking Hawkwind, we're talking Thin Lizzy, ACDC, all those kind of ones.

And that's my, that's my jam.

I love all of that stuff.

So I put a playlist together with all those kind of bands.

34:42

And so we're in the room where these bands would have played and I've got a speaker attached to my phone.

So the playlist is going through and I was singing along to a whole lot of Rosie by ACDC.

34:58

And as it hit the hyena and I'm like jumping around really trying to get the energy building.

And as it hit the high note, I hit the high note.

And as I hit it, we had, I think it was 8K twos along this ledge.

Every single one of them pinged to red.

35:15

At the same time.

Someone suddenly said there's someone moving around in the bowling alley, which is what there was there then still got the music going.

I've got, I'm not a massive fan of SLS cameras because I think they can produce a lot of false positives.

35:31

But then one of the, the organisers who was sat down, she goes, come here, come here.

And I'm looking at her SLS.

She's got two set up and, and one I'm joking.

There was someone playing air guitar on the SLS and on the other one someone is windmilling their hair, head banging.

35:48

And it was like, Nah, this is ridiculous.

And I took screenshots and I sent them to someone who wasn't there without giving them any context whatsoever as to what was happening.

And she she actually said there's one playing air guitar and there's one head banging.

36:06

What were you doing?

It was that it, it was.

But the the point is these triggers, they the only limit is your imagination and your research into the premise, premises premise and the fact that they can, you know, just playing those songs.

36:25

People that that I think we had a glass flew off a shelf.

We had very weird.

We were doing table tipping and anyone with their fingers on the table could smell hash.

What marijuana.

The minute you stepped away from the table, you couldn't smell it anymore.

36:42

And so I went around sniffing everyone who has stood at the table to see if anyone had it on them.

No, and we kept changing the people at the table, not telling them what we could and somebody knew would come to the table and he went, who's been smoking it?

It was and that was just from playing music.

36:59

The, the, the one thing I will say with people doing their own trigger experiments is to make sure they're respectful.

Because, you know, if this isn't what I'd do because I'd never investigate there.

But if somebody went into to like one of the concentration camps and started screaming abuse in German, you know, to try and trigger an emotion, I, I would have them over my shoulder and thrown over the fence.

37:23

Do you know what I mean?

Because that to me isn't, but going into a, a German fortress and speaking German, that's a trigger.

You've got to be respectful.

You can't, you know, I, I, I do know someone who went into a house where they know people were murdered and started sort of threatening to cut people's heads off and everything else.

37:46

And yes, there, there was activity.

But to me that was very disrespectful for those spirits who, who will be suffering, who were murdered there, who were still in pain, who was, if they were, you know, So that's the only limit.

I think if you're an ethical investigator with triggers, it's, it's, but they are ones that they are so exciting.

38:11

You can make them, like I say, you don't have to spend a lot of money.

I mean, what we did actually do one at, at Tibenham when we were doing the Phillip Experiment, because we knew it was US Air Force.

One of the other investigators, a lady by the name of Gaynor, she brought her, her husband was ex REF and so she bought his REF hat badge.

38:33

And knowing history, we know there wasn't, there was, it was friendly rivalry, but a rivalry between the REF and the US Air Force.

And yeah, we had stuff come through when she put the REF badge on the table of the clubhouse we were sat in.

38:49

Whoever was around us did not like it in a, in a, a bantry kind of way.

But they they it, it, it caused a reaction.

So it it really is it's limitless what you can do with triggers.

And I think what you said is really appropriate.

39:07

Not only is it limitless in terms of how you can use it, but it is something that is so easy to do and doesn't actually need you to have to bring anything or to prepare for anything.

I mean, the trigger object like you spoke about could be language, It could be using a different language, you know, Old Cornish, French, German, or it could be a song, something that would have been known during a particular time frame.

39:33

I mean, I can think of an example of a location that I was in where we used the Lord's Prayer.

But we were mindful of the history of this, of this property in terms of Henry the Eighth, the Reformation.

And so we were using a very specific prayer, the prayer obviously created as a result of Henry the Eighth's changes.

39:53

And again, that just caused so much activity, but it was being mindful of the history and what would have been happening at that period of time.

So it can be something really simple all the way through to.

You know, dressing up, bringing props, bringing artifacts, having things that you can use, staging something and re reenacting something which I think has real interesting connections.

40:17

Then when you look at locations like Gettysburg where you have reenactments with, you know, people dressing up and so on.

But it is so simple and like you said earlier is something that I think has real power and the ability to connect.

I mean, if we think about someone maybe who has an illness like dementia, Alzheimer's, we see the power of something that triggers a memory in bringing that person back.

40:45

And I think if you can understand that, you know, seeing someone come back to life for a few moments and remember so much detail about an event from their childhood because something creates that memory and reminds them of that moment, then I think the same is absolutely possible when it comes to trying to communicate with spirits.

41:05

Definitely.

I mean the dementia 1 is, is a, is a really good sort of, I mean, I, I, my day job, I do work with people with dementia And you know, I, I remember one of my care homes I went into there was this, this young gentleman and I could hear his beautiful piano playing.

41:23

And I said, Oh, is that someone on record?

Because it was, it was beautiful.

And the manager goes, no, no, that's chap's name.

I can't see.

I won't say it chap's name from room whatever.

And I said, but every time I've been here, he's just sat in his chair doing that.

And she goes, his alarm goes off at a certain time every day.

41:42

At that point, he gets up, he goes to the piano that we've got in the dining room.

He plays for half an hour perfectly, no music, all from memory, perfectly.

And I can confirm this music was perfect.

Once he's finished that half an hour, he gets up, goes back to his room and sort of just zones out again.

42:02

But it's the fact that the alarm triggers the memory.

He goes and plays as soon as he starts playing, he's it's there.

And, and, and there's just so much about the human brain.

Obviously, if you don't understand, and I don't even profess to know any of it, but it, it is one of those things that it's, it's, I mean, they, they say that music is, is more important than people realise and say, you know, I, how many times have you heard your favorite song or a song that you read?

42:33

I mean, one of my favorite songs is Hotel California.

The minute I hear it being played by a band or the minute I hear it come on the radio, it makes me smile.

It's a powerful response, isn't it?

It's, it's, and it's something that, you know, you can utilise in a respectful way.

42:52

One of the ones I did when I wrote the, the, the book about the British school at Hitchin and, and I was up in the girls, what would have been the girls classrooms.

It was really quiet and I'd been up there before when stuff had been going off left, right and centre.

And I just thought, hi, this needs a little bit extra.

43:10

So I was thinking what happened in schools?

What, what used to happen in school that would get all the kids to sort of move And it was the school bell going, you know, I remember when I was at school, the minute the bell would go, everyone would stand up and the teacher would be like, no, not until I release you.

But it was kind of like almost like Pavlov's dogs, wasn't it?

43:26

The minute the bell goes off, you move.

And so I found a school bell on my phone on YouTube and I played it, I'm not joking.

And I was recording this 2 seconds after I played it.

All of a sudden I can hear footsteps running down the wooden corridor.

And it was that immediate and I was like well OK, that worked.

43:43

So it's you can have so much fun with them and it's so they're so interesting to do and to and you can do off the cuff ones that just work for that time, especially if you've got a phone on you or you can plan them and you can have so much fun with them, like genuine research fun that they really are ones that I so it doesn't surprise me though, with the Phillips at the minute, they brought some triggers in, things started kicking off, but then I would argue, was it the triggers that made it work or was it the Phillips or what?

44:19

Or was it a culmination of two?

And that's when it starts to get, yeah, that that would probably be a book in its own right.

But those are the, that's the kinds of thoughts that I've had exactly.

Was it the trigger objects?

Was it the, you know, the Philips experiment?

Or was it a combination of the both of them both and and that's where you then can do some exciting things in trying to recreate them yourself to try and see, you know, what results do you have that you can compare with?

44:45

And again, that's the that's the interesting, exciting bit when you know more about these, these experiments and again, the purpose and how how they were set up, how they were, how they were carried out, you know, all the kinds of details and things that we've touched upon.

You then can go away and really understand and, and play around with doing some of that, some of these yourself and understand more about it.

45:08

And it's that process of understanding that I think sparks further questioning.

Which it should, It should.

That's the whole point of me writing any of the books I write.

It's not so that I've given you every all the information you need.

It's so that you read it going now, what about this?

45:24

Because for me, if I read a factual book and I am not left with questions, it's not done its job.

Do you know what I mean?

I everything I read, you know, like we were, we were saying earlier about sort of being nerdy and everything.

45:42

Everything I read gives me more questions, you know, even if it's something as simple as I'm reading about a specific aeroplane.

Well, why was that aeroplane so good?

What made it better than that one?

I want to find the answer to that.

Now, the writer might not put it in the book because I can't cover everything, but it gives me something else that I want to learn.

46:00

And, and, and that's why, you know, I, I haven't gone into much detail on Owen in the book when I'm talking about Philips, because I want to give people loads of information and then they can find out which bit they think they want to research further.

But it's all about just just getting these names out there, getting these theories out there, getting these locations out there.

46:23

So the people who had never heard of that one, I'm going to learn more.

And and that's my sort of what I want to do.

As the days grow shorter and the winter nights draw near, the chill in the air invites us to gather closer to the fire, where the flickering flames dance like spectres in the dark.

46:47

It's during these colder months that our spectral journey deepens, revealing even more chilling tales and unsolved enigmas.

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47:05

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47:48

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48:08

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48:33

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49:18

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49:43

Every contribution fuels our pursuit of unearthly truths.

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50:00

What secrets lie dormant, waiting to be unearthed?

Let us venture forth, for the journey into the unknown has only just begun.

So just.

50:16

Kind of carrying on with what we've been talking about and some of the the different experiments and things that we've touched on so far.

You've mentioned that obviously another aspect of the book was this diving into EVP.

Do you want to maybe share some more about how that fits in, you know, these early attempts to communicate and how that then evolves into other forms of direct communication, that kind of history and how it evolves?

50:44

Well, I mean, you, you've read the book, you've, you've done your brilliant research as you always do, Michelle, you'll know EVPS is probably a show in its own right.

I mean the the the the the area is huge.

Massive.

I, I was, I was, I was actually reading, rereading the chapters and I was like, how do I collate this into sort of an hour?

51:05

It's, I'm not sure how I'm going to do it.

I mean, EVP, obviously it's the start of being able to record stuff or, or, or, or, or communicate because the different type of voice phenomena.

So for those people who'd EVP stands for electronic voice phenomena.

51:23

And then you also get a term called DVP, which is a direct voice phenomena.

Now, a direct voice phenomena could be a disembodied voice for you know that that's something you don't need gadgets to hear.

I have heard DVPS.

They are very odd, even more so when you have your name mentioned and you can guarantee you never have any recording equipment going when it happens.

51:49

Never, ever an EVP is something that gets captured.

Now again, I'm not a scientist.

There's a, there's a lady in Australia called Sarah Tumocero who she actually wrote the foreword to a haunted experiment.

She's written some really interesting work on the different sort of frequencies that the human ear can hear and what voice recorders can pick up and everything else.

52:13

But it really is sort of seemed to have been kind of, I suppose, pioneered for want of a better word by a name that most people will have heard of, Thomas Edison.

And he, he wanted to do that.

52:29

It wasn't it a phone or something, a spirit phone.

He, he was sort of trying to invent.

But thing is that I found an awful lot of stuff by him where he's quite sort of derogatory about communication with the spirit world.

But then you also find that he does want to communicate.

52:46

I mean something he's supposed to have said.

If our personality survives, then it is strictly logical or scientific to assume that it retains memory, intellect, other faculties and knowledge that we acquire on this earth.

Therefore, if we can evolve an instrument so delicate as to be affected by our personality as it survives in the next life, such an instrument, when made available, ought to record something.

53:12

Which is basically what an EVP is.

It's, it's using an instrument to record a voice or a thought projection or something else.

So he, he was kind of one of the first ones to start talking about it.

Then you had so, so he was obviously 19th century.

53:27

Then you had, and I can never pronounce this guy's name from Sisley.

Sisley, who was trying to use 78 RPM records to record communications.

He then started working with someone called Raymond Bayliss, who was a parapsychologist.

53:47

And there's, there's other people doing it.

These aren't exclusive.

These are just some of the ones that I mentioned.

He then started working with Raymond Bayliss and they started using the old style reel to reels and it kind of evolved from there.

So it's quite a modern phenomena, but I think we see a lot of this sort of spirit communication capturing spirit communication, capturing anything to do with spirits.

54:09

A lot of it is from the late 1800s onwards.

I mean, you see this sort of the the Society of Cyclical Research starting, you see spiritual communication, First World War, there was a massive jump in spiritual communication name because so many people were dying.

And so that's why I think it all came from there.

54:27

And then you had books like Phone Calls from the Dead by D Scott Rogo.

You have people like Frederick Jurgensen coming out with things.

And Frederick Jurgensen was quite an interesting one because he was a, and I love this word, a polygot.

I can't remember how many languages he spoke, but it was, it was many.

54:45

He was also, he was an artist.

He was a painter and I think he was an opera singer who damaged his voice in I think it was World War 2 due to the atmosphere and stuff.

So ended up working more as a painter.

And he actually even worked with the Pope.

55:01

He he was invited to survey the Vatican records.

I mean, you know, as a historian, that would be like the mother lode, wouldn't it, getting into those records.

And he was actually practising with recording stuff, not, not aiming to get a spirit voice, but he was practising recording stuff.

55:21

And I believe he was trying to record birdsong outside his house or something along these lines.

And when he played it back, he heard someone speaking Norwegian.

And because of being a polyglot, he knew it was Norwegian.

55:38

And then he did another, he kept doing it.

And then he got another one, which was he identified as his mother's voice.

He picked up because whoever spoke used his nickname that only his mother would ever use.

It was, it was actually when he he died, though, that was the interesting thing because some friends of his said they, they heard a message from him to turn their television on.

56:03

And I got a photo of it in the book.

And they turned the black and white television on and his face appeared in the sort of the, the, the, if you like the white noise.

And I mean, he worked a lot with chap by the name of Radovae as well.

56:21

And they were all kind of The Pioneers.

But what I find interesting is what people are doing now to do with this kind of it.

It's kind of crossing into spirit boxes as well, which obviously is what they use for Estes method.

But you've got people like Doctor cow Cooper, who he he did a kind of a revamped book of phone calls from the dead.

56:45

That's based on Rogos, because Rogo was one of his his heroes.

And that's he's a brilliant one to listen sort of from an academic point of view.

Then you've got, there's, there's a chap in America called Tim Woolworth, who's got a really interesting website, which I mentioned in the book and he talks about all of this kind.

57:04

He also talks about Estes and, and it's all these different methods of communication and, and it's then the, the sort of, is it one of the interesting things about it, and this actually relate back relates back to Estes as well, is does it depend on who's in effect holding the recorder as to whether the message comes through?

57:27

Because is it using their thought process to imprint that message onto the recorder?

Or is it literally a voice speaking in a frequency we can't hear with the human ear?

And that's when it does get very those kind of ideas, then they, they sort of switch into the Estes as well.

57:44

And they are all quite like they're a giant Venn diagram that overlaps it's.

Spaghetti Junction, It's quite it's quite honestly how I kind of see it because you have this incredible.

I mean, the more you dig into it, the more you realize that the Shin number of people who have been involved in this evolving kind of broad question of spirit communication and how that's looked and the type of kind of method or tech, you know, technique device that they thought of to be able to do that.

58:18

And we see that now all the way through to more modern versions of that.

But again, it's those deeper then questions that come of it, which again, when you start looking into this, you see some really fascinating results like the skull experiment where whereby they didn't even have a battery or a tape or anything in it and yet you had recorded, recorded information.

58:40

So again, it's that that question of is it just simply something being transmitted into it, put into it as a projection?

Again, you then start making sideway movements of, well, those people who, who are more sensitive, who have these mediumistic tendencies, are they just able to hear that frequency?

59:01

Is it something that has been projected directly to them to hear?

Or is it something about how they hear that you know, someone else cannot?

It's, it's fascinating.

And again, that just opens up this world of questions that makes you think, which then allows you to bring some of this into your own experiment.

59:19

Try some of it out, have different people holding the recording device to see if it makes any difference.

You know, something as simple as that is a fascinating experiment to try and test some of these very big theories and questions that come out of spirit communication.

59:35

I mean, the one morning I would give people if you are going to do EVP work and it is, it's, it's, you know, without sounding like I'm sort of a bit like dismissive.

It is good fun.

Yeah.

I would say is if you're listening back to the VPS at night on your own at home on headphones, don't.

59:55

Because when you're listening back to something that you couldn't hear at the time when you played it, yet you're listening back afterwards as just double checking.

And you've got your headphones on and it's 12:30 at night and you're on your own downstairs in the house with all the lights off.

And all of a sudden you hear a strange voice in your headphones that you didn't pick up at the time.

1:00:13

It can make you squeal.

And want to go around and check all your doors are locked.

I would I would warn people about that one.

But but even then, I mean, I find it fascinating.

I've done a few investigations with Barry Guy, who most people know from Help My house is on.

1:00:28

Did Bob see he was he was an investigator before that and he will openly admit he's deaf in one ear.

That guy has got amazing hearing.

Because I remember once I would think it was Hellfire Caves and I was, I was doing a recording and we asked a question and you wait.

1:00:45

And that's the other thing is just just it's the same when you're doing spirit box work.

And we'll come on to that one in a minute because I've got a great quote by the guy who invented the Franks box about that.

But you're waiting for an answer.

1:01:02

And Barry, Barry.

So I remember Barry going, Yep, I just heard someone speak and don't be daft.

Play it back.

No, they did.

But he can hear it.

Whether it's because he's only got 1 ear that works, I don't know.

But the guy has phenomenal hearing or like you say, has he got some kind of mediumistic ability that he doesn't realise and he is actually hearing the spirit talk.

1:01:23

It's it's a really, yeah.

I mean, you've also got like, like things like Spiracom, which was devised by some engineers and they reckon that one of their deceased friends was the one communicating and facilitating it for them from beyond the grave.

1:01:38

That's, that's one that I've never dug into too much because it seems a bit odd.

But yeah, there, there is so much.

And then, you know, even if you want to take an EVP experiment that bit further, just take it that bit further.

Record playing back the EVP.

1:01:54

So say for example, you, you, you've listened to an EV, you're going to listen to your EVP session back.

So say you're going to do what they call a burst session.

So you're going to do probably about two minutes.

Don't fire questions off left, right and centre because we don't know what timings, if spirits exist, what they work on.

1:02:15

You've got to give them time to maybe get that energy up to communicate back.

But when you're playing that back record, playing it back on another device, because I've experienced before playing it back a spirit voice coming through on the original EVP and then answering themselves on the one that's being recorded subsequently, it's never ending the options.

1:02:41

And again, it's quite a cheap experiment to do.

Most people have mobile phones.

Most mobile phones have a voice recorder on them.

Use it.

Yeah, absolutely utilize what you have.

You don't have to spend.

Normal leg, yeah, yeah, you don't have to sell a kidney, but it is it's utilizing the tools that we have.

1:02:59

And, and again, this is where I think though, if you have just that little bit more of an understanding of some of what has happened before, it allows you to realize that you don't need that gadget that costs £1000 to be able to to try something like this.

1:03:16

You really don't.

And I think that's the the kind of the trap and the pitfall that people can fall into, yeah.

Flashy lights.

Yeah, exactly.

They're fun.

Flashy, light stuff is fun.

But when someone says, what's your favorite gadget?

And I'll say a pen and paper so I can write down what was going on if I, if I had to, if I had to.

1:03:36

Well, obviously I like my torch.

It's always useful.

And I like having my phone because it's got a camera, it's got a voice recorder, everything else.

The one gadget I absolutely love is my spirit box.

I love my spirit box.

1:03:52

That is my favorite, favorite gadget.

I love my spirit box.

And, and and that is a hill I will die on my spirit box and me, we will be buried together or cremated together.

1:04:09

Yeah.

And you mentioned you wanted to to say something specifically about the spirit box.

Were you going to a lead to?

Well, I mean, obviously the other experiment we talked about was the Estes method.

And the Estes method, it's it's a it's a relatively modern one and, and it was devised by two guys called Connor Randall and Carl Pfeiffer.

1:04:30

And the reason it's called the Estes method is because they came up with it in Estes, Colorado.

They were two of the resident investigators at the Stanley Hotel, which most people know more as the IT, it was used in the TV show the Shining, the the Stephen King.

1:04:50

It was the TV version of the Shining.

And it wasn't the original overlook in the film, I don't believe, but it was used for the T And it's it's got quite a gnarly history itself anyway.

And that's in Estes Colorado.

So that's why it's called the Estes method because they came up with it in Estes Colorado.

1:05:08

And and anyone who reads my book, there's actually an interview with Carl in there or where he gets he's quite technical.

I mean, he's a he's a Cam.

He does.

He's a film maker, excuse me, by trade.

So he understands equipment and sound recording and all that wonderful stuff.

And the brilliant thing about the Estes is, again, there's no limit on what you can come up with because the conventional way of doing it is you have someone who has been basically put into a sense a sort of sensory deprivation state.

1:05:40

So they've got noise cancelling headphones on, they've got the spirit box which anyone who's listened to one knows.

It's flicking through radio stations at a ridiculous speed and all you can kind of hear is constantly that's in your headphones.

Then you can have it, then you've got someone asking questions that the person who is the receiver, are you the one with the headphones and the spirit box can't hear the questions and they're just calling out what they're hearing through the spirit box.

1:06:11

And, and you do get correlations.

You do get answers being given to what that I mean, I, I did one, I did it recently with on when I did the Festival of the Unexplained.

I had to take a group round the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham and Shane Pittman of Shane Pittman, the investigator, had offered to go and sit in this cell and do the Estes and it was quite quiet.

1:06:38

But then me and one of the other guests, who I know quite well, were having a little mini argument it it was all it was in jest.

It was like we were messing around and all we heard Shane's thing was shut up because her and I were pretending to argue.

And when we said to him, did you hear us arguing?

1:06:56

And he went, no, but the spirit did because it told us to shut up.

So sometimes it could.

But then you can take it one step further.

You can have it so you are recording the output of what's coming out of the spirit box and you're also recording what the person who's the receiver is saying.

1:07:15

I've done one where I recorded what was coming out of the spirit box.

I recorded what the receiver was saying, but I had the person asking the questions in a completely different room asking the questions.

So they weren't even in the same room as the receiver.

So there's no way the receiver could have heard what they were.

So you can do it.

1:07:31

You can change who the receiver is because sometimes again, it's a psychic thing, a mediumistic thing.

And, and it's all, and then, but when you start looking at the sensory deprivation stuff, you're taken back to the Gansfeld experiment where they, they use sensory deprivation and the red lights for the eyes on someone as a psychological experiment.

1:07:51

And, and the, the, the amazing thing about this experiment, it hypnotises people.

I, I, I've done it before where I think this was at Bosworth Hall and everyone was taking turns in it.

And this one chap, he, he, he, he says, I know him well, he's a lovely dude.

1:08:10

He asked to do it, and after about 20 minutes, he'd not said a word.

And we were like, is he OK?

And so he sort of told his wife to, and he'd almost hypnotized himself.

And he said, did I say a lot?

And we said, you didn't say a word.

I don't.

1:08:26

I was talking.

You weren't.

No, no, I was.

I was.

You didn't say a word.

He wouldn't believe us.

It's almost like he'd been hypnotized by the spirit box and had gone into a trance.

He thought he was talking to us, but he didn't say anything.

1:08:45

And, and this is what's so fascinating about it.

And, and like I say, there are so many different things you can do with it.

Like you said with the Evps, you could have someone, a different person holding the recorder.

It's the same thing with the Estes.

You can have, you know, go to a different room, have a different person as the receiver, change the the sort of frequency on the spirit box.

1:09:05

But the the quote I wanted to come out with, and this is actually it was Tim Woolworth, who's he's written some brilliant articles analysing there's there's this sort of spirit box and Estes and everything else.

So I would say to people, go and check out his work.

One of the original developers of Ace type of spirit box was it was called something called the Franks box.

1:09:23

And it was created by a guy called Frank Sumption.

And I'm going to have to bleep out part of what he says.

But when someone said to him, what's the biggest advice you can give for communicating through this?

His words were shut the up and listen, IE sometimes you just don't talk, just listen.

1:09:45

And some of the stuff that's coming out now to do with this kind of ITC work, I mean one of the most interesting projects I think that is coming out is something called the Staticom project.

Ron Yacovetti, who's again does done loads of books on this subject, fascinating, very technical.

1:10:05

I get lost when he starts explaining, when I say to him, can you explain what you're doing to me in simple terms?

After about 5 minutes I'm like, Nope, didn't understand the word of that, but you obviously know what you're doing.

His partner, Lordes Gonzalez, They, they, they, they, I mean, they were over in the UK in September and they, they sort of took the spirit box and took it to the next level in that there's no radio signal.

1:10:30

It is just using white noise, but they've got an isolator on the white noise and, and you can hear voices.

So it's not even like a form of audio pareidolia that you bought your mind's trying to hear voices in the white noise.

You hear voices and, and it's almost like you're eavesdropping a conversation, a mass, mass conversation that's going on.

1:10:53

And every so often one of them comes forward and actually speaks directly to you.

It's fascinating.

And I've, I've, I've been on a few of their sessions and got direct answers and, and that's something to look at.

1:11:08

I'd say sort of for development of it, that, that project, it's, yeah, it's taken it to the next level.

But even in that one, sometimes you as, as Frank would say, you just shut them up and listen.

And, and you do hear them talking, you hear them chatting amongst themselves, which is you almost feel like you're intruding.

1:11:27

And then every so often they'll come and say something to you direct.

And again, following on from that, I think that the importance of listening just is so really important because I just think we don't listen well enough.

1:11:43

We're still used to so many things drowning out noise that it often means we don't have those, those moments of stillness.

And I think coming back to the SDS method, you know, you've got again, something really interesting that I think comes out of it, which is that sensory deprivation element, which again does raise that question of is it the is part of it the human agent effect again, where because you were able to completely switch, switch off, you get into that meditative state.

1:12:11

You know, you described it as, you know, being almost being hypnotized, which we think is absolutely appropriate.

Does that then lend itself to that kind of mediumistic having that moment of your SO switched off that it means that you are receptive in your open to receiving something that you would normally never pick up again?

1:12:33

It's just you.

Your mind can go down these very different tangents and rabbit holes when you really start to understand more about it and what other people are also adding to the conversation, which again, I think just allows you to bring these things so brilliantly into what you do as an investigator.

1:12:50

I agree.

I mean, I, I think one of the things I find it quite easy when I'm investigating to just switch off and listen.

I, I, I, I don't find it easy in my everyday life to just switch off.

I've never managed to meditate.

I have tried because I know it's meant to be really good for you.

But when I'm investigating, put me in a room on my own and I will switch off and just absorb.

1:13:14

I don't know why I can do it there.

And I say I've mentioned my son a few times, he can do it, which for a teenager is, is unusual.

And he, he, he was on an investigation with me.

It was a local place.

And we, we, I, I was teaching him some of the different things that people do, even the ones that I think are a bit questionable about whether there's any validity.

1:13:34

And they're more of a party trick.

And one of them was the human pendulum, you know, where the, you have a receptor in the middle and then they rock backwards and forwards. 1 means yes and one means no.

And I was asking questions that I knew pertained to the area that we were in because I'd done my research, but nobody else knew them because I hadn't told them.

1:13:53

I don't tell people what I've done in my research because I kind of want it to be a control.

And I could see that he was pre empting what might quote the answer to whether it was a yes or no answer.

So I sort of said, why don't we do it almost like a sensory deprivation pendulum.

1:14:09

So I'm going to have white noise blasting through his ears, and he has to have his eyes shut so he doesn't know what I'm asking or what the other investigators were asking.

And not only could he potentially hear the answers through the white noise, which he did a couple of times, oddly enough, even though he couldn't hear what I was asking, he got every single one of my historical questions right about the area, every single one.

1:14:40

And he didn't know them.

And he swears he and I know he couldn't hear me because I said a few things that I knew if he could hear me, he would have pulled a face.

You know, like I love my little boys so much.

He would have pulled the headphones of mum.

1:14:56

He didn't react.

So I knew he couldn't hear me.

He got every single one right.

Yet if I asked him them afterwards when he'd come out of the state, he didn't know the answer.

So it's, it's just sometimes it's taking something and thinking, well, if, if spirits can channel through us, then logically they could.

1:15:18

But you want to remove the area of doubt.

Yeah, you put the controls in and, and again, I think that's where if you start to dig into the into these things a little bit further in the way that, you know, you bring to the book.

It's that if you have that beyond the surface understanding, you start to see how you can do something really simple like adding in that control measure or the human pendulum whereby you are depriving them of being able to hear and being able to pick up on other communication.

1:15:49

To mean that the responses are simply responses that have more validity in the sense that they're not reacting to a question and therefore imposing their own answer.

You know, there's, there's so much more than you can say is coming out of that that makes it much more interesting.

1:16:08

And I, you know, I think the same is true of, of Rachel Hayward, who's done similar things with where they have the Zener cards rather.

And they're using the picture cards to help prompt responses and having them in, in different rooms with different questions being asked.

1:16:24

And they're in the, in the room with the Zener cards or the picture cards, whatever they're using to give the response and seeing if they're matching up, they can't hear what the questions are.

And again, it's that it's that level of control that comes with that, that allows you to then see something that is really quite fascinating and interesting.

1:16:42

Yeah, I mean, the fact that he, he, my son did not.

And the weird thing was he was only rocking when I asked a question.

And.

And that was interesting because I did it.

I, I also introduced it when I did the Galleries of Justice with this group.

And they were, they were, they were a bit skeptical.

1:16:58

But what we found is we changed the person who was the pendulum a few times because it wasn't working.

And, and in the end, they were like, why don't you show us?

OK, fine.

So I became the pendulum.

I can't hear a thing.

I've got white noise blasting through my ears.

1:17:16

And apparently, yes, I did only rock.

Whenever they asked a question, they were on the other side of the of the grounds.

So I really couldn't hear them.

And yeah, apparently I only rock.

So it also could be people who've got that ability to channel and channel fast who it's going to work with.

1:17:34

But talking about sort of doing Estes, I know we did a little experiment at Bosworth Hall.

There was myself and Jane Rowley, who's a psychic medium.

She does a lot of work with the Haunted Antiques Paranormal Research Centre. her and I were both laying on this bed and you'd think we'd get the same spirit come through.

1:17:55

No, I was apparently my voice.

I was talking like a very, very angry, misogynistic man.

She was talking by a very scared young woman.

And apparently I, they, they recorded this because I couldn't hear her.

1:18:11

She couldn't hear me.

And I can't quite remember what it was now because I'd say it's a while ago, but apparently she said something about how she really hurt.

And apparently I came out with, oh, get on with it.

And it, it, we don't, we weren't talking to each other.

1:18:28

We couldn't hear each other, but it, it was it, it is it's say I've also, I've say I've done it with experience with people who are known psychic mediums and seeing if they get more of a response than a member of the public.

1:18:44

And there it it.

The thing is with a lot of these things, they are infinite.

But no, I, I, I mean it, it say what, what Frank Sumption said is just shut up and listen.

It's true because you can hear vibrations, you can hear noises that if you just switch your brain off and listen.

1:19:12

Yeah, absolutely.

You can learn so much.

Even someone like myself who talks for a living, I have to sometimes shut up and listen.

And, and what I would say is for anybody who's listening to this podcast, because we've, we've really only scratched the surface in terms of the level of detail and things that you go into in the book, but also the level in detail that others could then follow this up with and then try for themselves.

1:19:36

And I think, you know, if you're listening and you're interested in finding out more, Penny's book is a great place to start.

Sarah Toom Sarah's books, who you know, you mentioned in her blog, they are fantastic.

She's been a guest on the podcast before.

Her knowledge is also impeccable.

1:19:52

She's phenomenal, yeah.

And you know, there are people who are really adding to this, you know, to this understanding in this picture that could really be really useful as a tool and a resource you bring into what you're doing.

So, you know, make sure if you if you are interested to follow Penny, follow others.

1:20:10

Some of the others that we've mentioned, Penny's book is accessible.

You know, you can pick it up on Amazon and it is a really good read.

You will find yourself turning the pages and coming across a researcher or something that you have never heard of before and thinking, actually I could try something like that.

1:20:28

In this location by doing XY and Z and that just opens up the world, I think in terms of paranormal investigating to really exciting places that maybe people could try for the first time, like a trigger object, try something simple.

1:20:45

But the book is a really inspiring 1 I think to to kind of use as a sound board for some of that.

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, there are so many other people that, like I say, Tim Woolworth, Sarah Chimacero, Ronnie Acavetti and Lordes Gonzalez, Cal Cooper, all these people are.

1:21:05

So, I mean, I'm not, I'm, I'm going to be forgetting people.

I've probably got someone going when they're listening to come.

She didn't mention me.

There were just so many.

And it is worth reading their thoughts on it, their research on it, their theories on it, because it helps them form your own theory.

1:21:23

You don't have to, you don't have to do what everyone else has done.

I'd say, like, I, I mean, I'm sure there's someone else with the pendulum who's had the idea of doing it almost as a kind of, I almost call it my Estes pendulum, you know what I mean?

Because of the, the, the, the, the spirit box, like white noise.

1:21:40

It doesn't have to be a spirit box.

It can be any kind of white noise.

I'm sure somebody else has done that.

I'm not saying I'm the only one who's ever come up with it, but it's something that I'd never seen done in the 10 years, 12 years I've been doing this.

And it was something that myself, Mark Dudley and Mark Williams came up with when we were doing this investigation and I thought my son was pre empting the answers.

1:22:01

So, but that's how it works.

That's how development works.

It's having sort of minds together going well, actually, what about if we try this?

If it, if you get something, you get something.

If you don't, you don't, you might tweak it slightly, you might sort of go, well, actually, I don't think that's going to work.

1:22:17

It it.

This is why when people say, oh, such and such equipment doesn't detect ghosts, I'll say, right, scientifically, it says it shouldn't.

How do we really know?

How do we really know if, if, if say, I don't like the word ghost, but ghosts exist.

1:22:35

How do we know what does or doesn't detect them?

Unless a ghost has told you, that ain't going to work.

How do we know?

And and that's what's so much fun about it all that you just, you never know.

No, absolutely.

1:22:51

Honestly, it's been such a pleasure to chat with you.

We could talk about these and so many more topics for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and just nerd out.

It would be brilliant.

Oh, like last time you made it?

It's always fun.

It's always fun though, when you find someone who is, who is in your tribe, who has that same kind of brain, who you can just talk about this and then it segues really nicely into this and then it goes into this a little.

1:23:17

Yeah, it's also when you get an experienced podcaster who doesn't like empty time either and knows how to word it into the next question and how to that's that's always fun, that's always helpful.

Honestly, it's, it's always such a joy to to kind of catch up with you and to have these conversations.

1:23:37

So honestly, thank you so much for your time and you know, as always, just like before, I will make sure to include the link to your podcast and you know where you can get hold of your books and everything.

So all those links to you and what you do are really easy to find on the website and in the podcast description notes because Penny writes lots and lots of books.

1:23:58

They are all very, very good.

And they will, I'm sure there will be something there that will inspire someone to, you know, go and investigate somewhere or to dig deeper into something, you know, an aspect of history.

And, you know, the the paranormal investigation that you've done in these locations is really incredible.

1:24:17

And I just think it, it's such a body of of information and resources and research that I think, yeah, someone who is who enjoys this, who is part of this field, who has a curiosity, would not be disappointed by so.

1:24:34

I think my goal, my goal is, is is to get people who are into the paranormal but think history is boring and fuddy Duddy and you know, something they had to do at school and hated it to actually go actually some of this is pretty cool.

1:24:50

But then to get historians who are like, Oh, all you paranormal people are wacky and fruit loops and, you know, go and talk to empty rooms to actually go, actually, there might be something in this.

And, and you know, I, I, I, that that's always been my goal.

1:25:09

And, and when I meet historians who say, oh, why do you do this then?

Well, I want to make it accessible.

I, I want to make history accessible for those people who failed it at school or had a bad experience with a history teacher, so didn't enjoy it, who actually can start to go actually, that's actually quite interesting.

1:25:28

I never knew that.

And, and, and give them this sort of, you know, when, whenever someone says to me, do you know what, I've just bought a book about this blah, blah, blah history.

That's what I want that I, I, I just want people to go actually, there might be more to this than I realised.

1:25:45

And, and I have got more books coming out.

You know, bit of a bit of an issue with my publish, the publishers of my new book that's going to be called Becoming Peggy, which has been written.

There's been a few issues there.

So that's been delayed a bit, but should be out at some point.

1:26:01

I've also doing a second edition.

So there'll be a second edition of my first ever book, My Haunted History, and I will have a a new chapter, an 11th chapter in I'll be starting to write.

I can't decide yet.

1:26:17

I've got 3 possibilities for book 7 and I haven't decided which one I'm going to follow yet.

So so I've I've got a pretty much 7-8 and nine already, but I've just got to decide which one to write next.

Lots of things as always keeping you busy, but lots of things that we can look forward to, which is.

1:26:34

Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully.

Honestly, like I said, thank you so much for your time Penny.

It's it's always a pleasure.

And I will say goodbye to everybody listening.

Bye everybody.

Thank you.

Bye.

Thank you for joining us on this journey into the unknown.

1:26:55

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