The Scole Experiment is the last great, seriously monitored investigation of physical mediumship – and at the same time its most honest object lesson. From 1993 to 1998 a group of sitters in the cellar of a Norfolk farmhouse produced a whole repertoire of phenomena: floating lights, images appearing on sealed films, apports, voices out of the darkness. Three reputable researchers of the Society for Psychical Research monitored it for years. Their report found no fraud – and still proved nothing. Why that is so is the whole story.
What was the Scole Experiment?
In January 1993 the former RAF pilot Robin Foy (1943–2022), his wife Sandra Foy and the two local trance mediums Alan and Diana Bennett began sitting regularly in the cellar of their rented farmhouse in the village of Scole. Out of this fixed circle – the "Scole Group" – grew, over five years, a series of sittings without equal in the history of mediumship research. From 1996 public sittings were also held for a fee, and interested visitors travelled in from around the world.
What set it apart: unlike the lone mediums of the 19th century, here a practised team appeared, claiming to work with a group of deceased "communicators" – allegedly including whole teams of scientists on the "other side" who gave technical instructions. As is traditional, the work was done in total darkness.
The SPR investigators
What distinguishes Scole from hundreds of private home circles is the involvement of the Society for Psychical Research – the society founded in 1882 in which William Crookes, Oliver Lodge and Lord Rayleigh had already investigated physical mediumship. Three experienced members led the work:
- Montague Keen (1925–2004), a long-standing SPR researcher and spokesman of the investigating team.
- Arthur Ellison (1920–2000), professor of engineering and twice president of the SPR.
- David Fontana (1934–2010), professor of psychology and author of numerous books on the question of survival.
Between October 1995 and August 1997 the three monitored the series of sittings: the Scole Report cites 18 sittings at which the investigators were present, while in total Keen, Ellison and Fontana attended – individually, in pairs or together – 36 sittings. To this came a long list of prominent visitors from academic parapsychology – among them Donald West, Robert Morris, Archie Roy, Bernard Carr, John Beloff, Tony Cornell, Alan Gauld and the biologist Rupert Sheldrake. One of the early group members, Ken Britten, was a technician at Arthur Findlay College, the "world academy of mediumship".
The phenomena
The range was wide – and that is exactly what makes the case at once impressive and vulnerable:
- Lights. White, red and green luminous points that shot through the room at speed, hovered, or tapped sitters on the palm.
- Images on sealed films. Scole's trademark: in unopened, sometimes padlocked rolls of film, written characters, diagrams, portraits and puzzling patterns appeared after the sittings.
- Apports. Solid objects that appeared "out of nowhere" – a Churchill crown coin, jewellery, an old 1944 newspaper.
- Direct voice. Voices attributed to the deceased communicators that seemed to speak freely in the room.
- Touches and sounds. Bells, footsteps, splashing water, the tapping of hands.
Arthur Ellison reported seeing a crystal materialise in front of him that dissolved when he tried to grasp it. These are exactly the accounts that circulated around Eusapia Palladino in the 19th century – only a century later.
The Scole Report (1999)
In 1999 Keen, Ellison and Fontana published their findings as the Scole Report – a 452-page document in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. The core of their statement was cautiously phrased, and strong for that very reason: in the sittings they had personally observed they had been able to find no direct indication of fraud or deception. At the same time they made clear that these investigations were not enough to prove a survival of consciousness after death – that would require further investigation. No proof, then, but no exposure either – a finding that satisfied no one and challenged everyone.
The criticism – honestly considered
Here lies the real lesson of the case. The criticism does not turn on demonstrating a particular trick, but on a simpler point: the conditions did not rule out normal explanations strongly enough to justify extraordinary conclusions.
- Total darkness. The work was done in the dark; infrared cameras, image intensifiers and video recordings were not permitted.
- No control of the mediums. The sitters were not searched before or after the sittings and were not restrained – unlike in the strict tradition of a Crookes or Schrenck-Notzing.
- The group's own equipment. Much of the apparatus came from the Scole Group itself, not from the investigators.
- Rejected tightening. When the researchers proposed stricter controls – such as infrared photography or a little ambient light – these were repeatedly refused by the "communicators". Visitors who appeared sceptical were in some cases excluded from further sittings.
To this came concrete objections. The experienced poltergeist investigator Tony Cornell showed that the moving lights could be easily reproduced with LEDs on rods or threads. Donald West and Alan Gauld regarded one of the alleged spirit photographs – an image said to show Arthur Conan Doyle – as a manipulated copy of a well-known portrait. And the decisive point struck the trademark itself: on closer examination – among others at the University of Nottingham – the sealed film containers proved not to be genuinely tamper-proof; a design detail made it possible to reach the contents without touching the lock. With that, the strongest pillar of the Scole evidence had buckled.
Context
The Scole Experiment ended in November 1998, after the group, by its own account, had lost contact with its communicators. What remains is not proof – but a model case for the stance the overview article on physical mediumship recommends: neither credulous acceptance nor reflexive rejection. Three serious researchers exposed nothing over several years – and the one condition that prevents any rigorous check (the darkness, the rejected controls) is also the one under which deception comes easiest. Scole is thus the modern echo of the sittings with Palladino and the findings of Charles Richet: fascinating, unexplained, but not evidential. Who carries the field on today and what would matter methodologically is shown by the researcher Eckhard Kruse; why such research stays at the margins is treated in the article on hidden knowledge and power logic.
Sources:
• M. Keen, A. Ellison, D. Fontana, The Scole Report, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 58, 1999.
• Grant & Jane Solomon, The Scole Experiment, 1999.
• Psi Encyclopedia (SPR), "The Scole Circle".
• Critical discussion by Alan Gauld, Donald West and Tony Cornell within the SPR, among others.
For more, see our curated knowledge collection and the series on the history and science of mediumship.