(2023-08-22, 06:24 AM)MarcusF Wrote: [ -> ]Some of his contemporaries said that Indridi was a skilful imitator and ventriloquist.
The independent investigator Hannesson was aware of the possibility that Indridi could be a ventriloquist and took that into account in his investigation. The investigation can be read here:
http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/aspr...8_1924.pdf
(2023-08-22, 06:24 AM)MarcusF Wrote: [ -> ]And most of the sources come from proponents and one report written by a sceptic happened during seances conducted under the control of proponents.
I don't understand why it would be a problem that the séance happened under the control of proponents, as long as the independent investigator was allowed to do what he thought was necessary in order to ensure that fraud was not possible.
I think that the best way for a skeptic to argue would be to claim that the séance with the fire did not take place and that the case was made up later after they had gotten information about the fire in Copenhagen. Then all the veridical information about Emil Jensen would have to be explained with Indridi getting the information about Jensen from some unknown source and subconsciously remembering it, in other words cryptomnesia. Then the fact that the made up fire case involved the Jensen communciator while at the same time the Jensen communicator lived so close to the fire would have to be explained as an coincidence. I don't think that it's possible to rule this out with complete certainty, so for that reason I don't think the case is "perfect". However, I do think that a paranormal explanation is a much more likely explanation.
(2023-08-22, 09:17 PM)Wanderer Wrote: [ -> ]There are no good reasons to assume that Nielsen was a fraud. Haraldsson argues in this article in Edgescience 30, on page 10-12, that Nielsen was an genuine medium. https://www.scientificexploration.org/edgescience/30 Try this link instead if it would not work: https://web.archive.org/web/202209051622...m3q%2Bo%3D No matter whether Nielsen was a genuine medium or not, the accusations from the norwegian commitee are not a good reason to consider Nielsen fraudulent. Haraldsson explains why on page 10-11 of the article in Edgescience. The psychical researcher Eric Dingwall wrote on page 327-328 that "it is difficult to accept the committee’s findings as to fraud on part of the medium. There is really very little evidence to indicate that the medium acted as the committee allege." http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/spr_...921-22.pdf
Kvaran was aware of the accusations, and Haraldsson writes on page 11 of the article in Edgescience that "In light of the Oslo investigations, extraordinary precautions were taken and Nielsen was thoroughly tested."
Not to go to deep in other direction of discussion… You quote sources in favour of Nielsen. I'll quote the opposite from Wikipedia:
"The psychical researcher Harry Price sat with Nielsen in Copenhagen with "unsatisfactory results."[5] Nielsen was also caught hiding his ectoplasm in his rectum.[6] In 1932, Johs Carstensen the leader of Nielsen's spiritualist circle wrote a pamphlet which exposed his tricks.[7] Nielsen continued to work as a medium until his death but was never considered credible again by people outside his small circle of influence. He published the book Solid Proofs of Survival in 1950.[8]”
So, who are we to believe? I know I stopped believing he had a genuine skill after the part with the rectum and ectoplasm
.
(2023-08-22, 09:27 PM)Wanderer Wrote: [ -> ]I think that the best way for a skeptic to argue would be to claim that the séance with the fire did not take place and that the case was made up later after they had gotten information about the fire in Copenhagen. Then all the veridical information about Emil Jensen would have to be explained with Indridi getting the information about Jensen from some unknown source and subconsciously remembering it, in other words cryptomnesia. Then the fact that the made up fire case involved the Jensen communciator while at the same time the Jensen communicator lived so close to the fire would have to be explained as an coincidence. I don't think that it's possible to rule this out with complete certainty, so for that reason I don't think the case is "perfect". However, I do think that a paranormal explanation is a much more likely explanation.
Yes, this could be a plausible scenario. Although, I believe that most probably Indridi was instructed by the Circle members and had associates that helped him with the tricks, at least in some of the occasions. We have a reason why would they act like that. Regarding the street where Jensen lived, I think that during his lifetime he changed his place of living in the city five or six times (can't remember correctly). I would say this raises the coincidence probabilities...
You lean towards paranormal explanation; I think the opposite. And that is completely fine
In the end, it is very hard to assess a case that happened more than a century ago. But it is interesting trying it. Perhaps one day a historian will find new material about Indridi that will introduce new facts… Who knows…
(2023-08-23, 06:46 AM)MarcusF Wrote: [ -> ]Regarding the street where Jensen lived, I think that during his lifetime he changed his place of living in the city five or six times (can't remember correctly). I would say this raises the coincidence probabilities...
Haraldsson lists all the places Jensen lived on page 218-219 of his "A Perfect Case?" paper.
https://www.homepage-baukasten-dateien.d...ndridi.pdf From the age of eight until his death Jensen lived on adresses very close to the factory where the fire happened. So I don't think this raises the coincidence probabilities.
I'm guessing Nielsen was a "mixed medium," fraudulent when his powers weren't working but able to produce genuine effects when they were. The feces incident definitely looks pretty bad, but it seems there's enough strong evidence there to believe he had real paranormal abilities.
>I think that the best way for a skeptic to argue would be to claim that the séance with the fire did not take place and that the case was made up later after they had gotten information about the fire in Copenhagen. Then all the veridical information about Emil Jensen would have to be explained with Indridi getting the information about Jensen from some unknown source and subconsciously remembering it, in other words cryptomnesia. Then the fact that the made up fire case involved the Jensen communciator while at the same time the Jensen communicator lived so close to the fire would have to be explained as an coincidence. I don't think that it's possible to rule this out with complete certainty, so for that reason I don't think the case is "perfect". However, I do think that a paranormal explanation is a much more likely explanation
I agree. Something that undercuts this possibility is that we have surviving testimony from three people, maybe more, about the Copenhagen fire case having happened in a paranormal fashion. They aren't completely consistent but agree on the essential facts, which is how all reliable testimony from different people on one event is basically. Memory error explanations are more likely when they pertain to just one person because the more people are involved the less likely it is that they all had memory errors leading to a consistent false memory shared by all.
>both Haraldur Nielsson and Einar Kvaran biographies say that they had been living in Copenhagen
Without knowing when they lived there this doesn't tell us anything. For example, Encyclopedia Britannica only mentions a connection between Kvaran and Copenhagen in his student days, well before the death of Jensen. Same with Wikipedia.
The same problem about timing applies to your argument referring to "socio-political" aspects maybe pertinent to the case. Encyclopedia(dot)com suggests that Nielsson became a spiritualist because of what he experienced with Indridi. Your argument requires he was a spiritualist first then brought Indridi in to perpetrate a fraud as part of some propaganda campaign, which if Encyclopedia(dot)com is right doesn't match the facts.
>I don’t think that Kvaran was so naïve that he wasn’t aware of the accusations before he invited Nielsen to “perform” in Iceland. So, perhaps he promoted spiritualism with the political agenda on his mind.
Thanks to Wanderer finding the EdgeScience piece, although it's also in Haraldsson's book, it seems we can say that Kvaran did know about the fraud accusations and took special precautions accordingly.
>In some of the Haraldsson papers it is clearly stated that Indridi performed only in the dark
The performance in the dark undermines the value of the paranormal evidence from the Indridi case a lot especially for the physical effects. There's no denying it. It doesn't prove fraud but it means we have to have serious doubt about the reliability of the observations. But that only goes so far because as Haraldsson points out various paranormal happenings did spontaneously occur around Indridi in light.
>one report written by a sceptic happened during seances conducted under the control of proponents
What evidence is there that all seances investigated by Hannesson were under the control of Indridi proponents? Hannesson imposed many conditions himself in a number of sittings with Indridi and brought Indridi to his own house to have a seance in an environment that Hannesson controlled. This is all described in Haraldsson's book on Indridi. It's unfortunate that Hannesson didn't exclude everyone from the seance in his house apart from himself and Indridi and maybe other skeptics. The evidence would be stronger if he'd done that. But to say the seances were all under proponent control doesn't seem accurate at all.
Something no one has mentioned yet but that creates a gigantic problem for the idea that Indridi proponents were helping him commit fraud is the fact that on one occasion the proponents documented Indridi likely committing fraud. This happened on 6 December 1907 during an experiment with him involving photography, where he draped a sheet over a broomstick. There is some evidence he was in a trance at the time and unaware of what he was doing. Again this is in Haraldsson's book. Whether the fraud was unconscious or not, I've got no idea why a gang of fraudsters would document and discuss fraud by the person they were helping to commit fraud. That doesn't make sense.
>do you know Kaare Claudewitz? Do you know if he is well?
I wish I did but no, I was just quoting Haraldsson's statement of Claudewitz's objection.
(2023-08-20, 06:06 PM)Wanderer Wrote: [ -> ]I just realised that the obituary translation that MarcusF posted is incorrect. I did just take a look at the obituary again and saw that it means something different.
Here is the full obituary in danish: https://imgbox.com/DPYPkvdG
It does not say "On behalf of my sister and myself (names of the brother and the sister)". It does say "On behalf of (søstres) and ourselves. (Name of brother #1). Parish priest. (Name of brother #2). Fabricant." However, I am from Sweden and although I can understand danish since danish and swedish are similiar languages, I'm still not good at danish. So I'm uncertain if the word "søstres" in the sentence "paa søstres og egne vagar" refers to one sister or several sisters, or if it can refer to either one or several sisters. Perhaps can explain this?
This obviously doesn't make any real difference, because just as wrote, all the facts that Indridi mentioned cannot be extrapolated from this information. However, it is still good to get all the details correct.
Thanks for figuring that out. The original Marcus translation seemed to make sense because one of Jensen's sisters had the name Julie, so the idea that one brother, Ferdinand, and one sister, Julie, were involved seemed to make sense because the names are given as "Ferd. Jensen" and "Jul. Jensen." But now it looks far more likely that it was Jensen's brothers Ferdinand and Julius who wrote the obituary, saying they were also acting on behalf of their sisters. This means my argument that a fraudster in possession of the obituary would've probably had the fake Jensen incorrectly say that he had a sister and a brother is wrong. For me the main problem with the idea that the obituary or maybe other documents about Jensen were used by fraudsters is how vague the information in the communication is, along with the fact that Haraldsson's book quotes Kvaran as saying as late as 1934 they never found out who Jensen was, when you'd think they'd make something of all their efforts to perpetrate the fraud based on info they collected about a real guy.
(2023-08-22, 09:27 PM)Wanderer Wrote: [ -> ]I think that the best way for a skeptic to argue would be to claim that the séance with the fire did not take place and that the case was made up later after they had gotten information about the fire in Copenhagen. Then all the veridical information about Emil Jensen would have to be explained with Indridi getting the information about Jensen from some unknown source and subconsciously remembering it, in other words cryptomnesia. Then the fact that the made up fire case involved the Jensen communciator while at the same time the Jensen communicator lived so close to the fire would have to be explained as an coincidence. I don't think that it's possible to rule this out with complete certainty, so for that reason I don't think the case is "perfect". However, I do think that a paranormal explanation is a much more likely explanation.
Something that undermines the cryptomnesia possibility is that Indridi didn't know Danish other than being able to speak a few words. Since he was in Iceland his whole life at that point, it seems unlikely he could've innocently encountered info about Jensen through any means other than Danish text, which he couldn't have read.
There is one very interesting fact I only just now appreciate the significance of. Kvaran in 1910 and possibly Nielsson in 1922 stated that Jensen manufactured clothes. But Haraldsson says he couldn't find any documents stating what Jensen manufactured. The obituary describes him only as a "manufacturer." I know you read several other obituaries though. Do any of them say that Jensen manufactured clothes? If not this could be the one piece of information about Jensen that the Experimental Society thought they had that has a very high probability of not having been available in 1905 from a normal source in Iceland.
(2023-08-24, 02:41 AM)RViewer88 Wrote: [ -> ]I'm guessing Nielsen was a "mixed medium," fraudulent when his powers weren't working but able to produce genuine effects when they were. The feces incident definitely looks pretty bad, but it seems there's enough strong evidence there to believe he had real paranormal abilities.
The same problem about timing applies to your argument referring to "socio-political" aspects maybe pertinent to the case. Encyclopedia(dot)com suggests that Nielsson became a spiritualist because of what he experienced with Indridi. Your argument requires he was a spiritualist first then brought Indridi in to perpetrate a fraud as part of some propaganda campaign, which if Encyclopedia(dot)com is right doesn't match the facts.
Something no one has mentioned yet but that creates a gigantic problem for the idea that Indridi proponents were helping him commit fraud is the fact that on one occasion the proponents documented Indridi likely committing fraud. This happened on 6 December 1907 during an experiment with him involving photography, where he draped a sheet over a broomstick. There is some evidence he was in a trance at the time and unaware of what he was doing. Again this is in Haraldsson's book. Whether the fraud was unconscious or not, I've got no idea why a gang of fraudsters would document and discuss fraud by the person they were helping to commit fraud. That doesn't make sense.
Mixed medium argument is very convenient. When a medium is low on battery he cheats. But when he isn’t caught cheating, he is genuine. Sounds perfectly logical.
I don’t know when Nielsson became a spiritualist, but Kvaran sure was well before he met Indridi.
As for the photo shutting incident where a photographer caught Indridi cheating here is what happened after, I used Google translation:
“After discussing the matter with Einar H. Kvaran, it was decided to investigate this incident not further to avoid humiliating the medium. Indrida was told that the attempt had failed and he was asked to attend a meeting three or four members of the Experimental Society. Indridi asked to get to see the film but to "keep his mind at ease" he was told that she would have been damaged by accident. At the meeting on December 7, the day after the photo experiment, the door was locked from the inside as was customary so that no one could enter. The meeting lasted four and a half hours in the dark. Some brightness seems though have come from a fire burning in the hearth. Attendees who were all seated the meeting was Júlíus Ólafsson, Haraldur Níelsson and Einar H. Kvaran who held both of Indrida's hands or held around him with both hands all the time. Indridi was in a trance throughout the meeting. At the meeting, the management announced that they had discovered that the man who committed suicide would have played a prank on them and interfered with the photo experiment. They said Jon was at the meeting, building over "the force" and would be in a bad mood. Literally they said, "God knows how this one." A medium meeting takes place where Jón is now a semi-materialized ghost"
Page 88
So, the Board decided the photo incident was a result of a “naughty” ghost. Crisis communication at work. To me this sounds like a convenient explanation afer someone was caught with his hands in a jar.
And we could go on like this forever…