Indridi Indridason's contact with Emil Jensen

I think I have responded in an adequate way to all the criticisms that has been made in this thread. In my humble opinion, "the perfect case" is indeed perfect, and Indridi has been proven to have had real paranormal abilities.

Having read through all of your posts and the material you've provided, I think you've shown that the Copenhagen fire case stands. It can be regarded as evidence of paranormal cognition. Very well done. The biggest blow you dealt to the debunking was revealing that the Marconi transmission published on the 25th says absolutely nothing about the Copenhagen fire. Unwisely, I simply assumed that it did. That tears the foundation of this debunking out practically all by itself. I also see that the investigations of Indridi by Hannesson provide much better evidence than I originally realized. This is because Hannesson not only very carefully investigated the experimental house in which Indridi primarily worked for things that would enable fraud, such as trap doors, but also held a seance with Indridi in his (Hannesson's) own house, to remove possible uncontrolled or unknown factors in the experimental house that Indridi or accomplices could exploit to perpetrate fraud. This definitely undermines Max's hypothesis that to a large extent at a minimum the Indridi phenomena depended on special arrangements/equipment in the experimental house for the fraudulent production of effects. Btw Hannesson's attentiveness to the possible role of accomplices in the Indridi case is impressive, especially because in other investigations of physical mediums this factor did not always seem to get the attention it should have received.

At this point, though I could be missing things, the only thing that stands out as a remaining but not very strong possible problem has to do with newspaper deadlines. I quote the following from this post:

>The Copenhagen fire happened earlier, a night before the séance took place. It probably started late in the night of Thursday, November 23, when the fireman got alarm. The fire was extinguished early in the morning of Friday, November 24, around 2 am. And fireman left the scene around 4 am just to come again because the fire started again. The Danish newspapers reported about the fire on November 25. That would be only possible if the fire happened on the night of 23/24.11.1905., one night before the séance took place, because of the newspaper printing deadlines. For example, on November 25 the Horsens Social Demokrat newspaper writes about the fire with all the important details in the telegram column dated on 24.11.1905. Horsens is 172 kilometres away from Copenhagen. So, if the fire happened the same night when the séance took place that means that the Horsens newspapers issue for November 25 should had been printed the same day, and only after the editor got telegram form Copenhagen – probably later in that day! And that is not possible because of the printing deadlines. As a former journalist I know that the printing deadline is around midnight. So, if you want to have your newspaper on the streets early in the morning you must close it by midnight. In the 19. century that deadline would have to be even earlier because all the letters had to be adjusted manually because of the printing technology. The same telegram feed about the fire was published in other newspapers published in cities of Aarhus and Fredericia, which are not close to Copenhagen.

The argument here seems to be that information must have been circulating about the fire prior to its publication in papers on the 25th, so the fire must have been quite a bit earlier, and this opens the possibility of that information having circulated through Marconi transmission in time for Indridi or an accomplice to have gotten it by normal means. On the other hand Haraldsson does quote directly from the fire report and it seems to rule out this scenario. A presumably different critic at the White Crow blog maybe realizes this problem and so seems to suggest some kind of error or lack of detail in the fire report, which had the effect that the report ended up wrongly suggesting that the fire only happened later than when it actually started:

>The Copenhagen fire happened earlier, a night before the séance took place. It probably started late in the night of Thursday, November 23, when the fireman got alarm. The fire was extinguished early in the morning of Friday, November 24, around 2 am. And fireman left the scene around 4 am just to come again because the fire started again. The fire report was written on November 25.

I'd be happy to get your thoughts on this remaining possible problem.

Btw, I sent you a private message on here, which you can access from the "Conversations" link at the top of the page. There are some other things I'd like your thoughts on that I wrote about in that message.

Thanks for the praise. I will have to think a while about the remaining problem. I will write a post about it here when I have thought it through.

Sorry for the delay. I have been busy at work the last few weeks. Here is my response to the remaining problem.

Let us assume that the Copenhagen fire happened earlier, perhaps one night before the séance took place like the critic is claiming. The information would still not have been able to reach Iceland in that amount of time. As Haraldsson wrote, the Marconi station only carried major world news that it got from the Poldhu station in Cornwall. The Copenhagen fire was not major world news, since there was no person that died and only some damage to one building. So the information could not get to Iceland through telegraphy even if it took place one night earlier.

Even if they would have been able to access the information about the fire, it still does not explain the veridical information about Emil Jensen. This cannot be explained as fraud, since no one tried to verify the information until Haraldsson did it over 100 years later. What would have been the point of looking up the information and using the information to create a fraudulent case if no one involved made any attempt at verifying the information? It is not possible that the information can be due to cryptomnesia either. As I showed in post 49 in this thread, the obituaries that was published did not contain all the veridical information, nor information about where in Copenhagen he lived, so it is not possible that Indridi could have read all of the information in these obituaries and subconsciously used it, nor is it possible that someone else could have told Indridi all of the information after having read the obituaries.

Also, even if there would have been some way for them to obtain the information about the fire that would still not explain why Indiri did claim that it was the Jensen communicator out of all possible communicators that told everyone about the fire if Indiri was not aware of the fact that Jensen lived two doors away from the fire. That it would be a coincidence that Indiri just happened to claim that it was this particular person that lived so close to the factory that communicated the information is very unlikely. If Indiri would have been consciously or subconsciously aware of the fact that Jensen lived two doors away from the fire, then why did Indiri not tell anyone about this veridical information during the sitting, since that would make the case evidentially stronger?

If the fire took place one night earlier one may wonder why Indridi/Jensen claimed to experience it while it was taking place. This could be due to telepathic deferment. To quote Braude: "Furthermore, cases of crisis apparitions and modern experiments in dream telepathy suggest that there may be a period of latency between the sending of a telepathic message and the subsequent telepathic experience of the percipient (typically dubbed telepathic deferment). In fact the evidence suggests that the emergence into consciousness of (or the behavioral response to) a telepathic stimulus frequently occurs when that event is convenient or otherwise appropriate relative to the ongoing background of events or the subject’s state of mind. For example, the subject’s response might be delayed until a time of repose or relaxation or at least to a time when surrounding events are not particularly distracting." https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/artic...pparitions If it really was Jensen that experienced the fire in Copenhagen, then perhaps he experienced through ESP what was happening one night earlier due to telepathic deferment, and if it was Indridi that subconsciously experienced the fire in Copenhagen through ESP, then perhaps he experienced what was happening one night earlier due to telepathic deferment.

What a fascinating discussion. Thank you all.

Sorry for the delay. I have been busy at work the last few weeks. Here is my response to the remaining problem.

Let us assume that the Copenhagen fire happened earlier, perhaps one night before the séance took place like the critic is claiming. The information would still not have been able to reach Iceland in that amount of time. As Haraldsson wrote, the Marconi station only carried major world news that it got from the Poldhu station in Cornwall. The Copenhagen fire was not major world news, since there was no person that died and only some damage to one building. So the information could not get to Iceland through telegraphy even if it took place one night earlier.

Even if they would have been able to access the information about the fire, it still does not explain the veridical information about Emil Jensen. This cannot be explained as fraud, since no one tried to verify the information until Haraldsson did it over 100 years later. What would have been the point of looking up the information and using the information to create a fraudulent case if no one involved made any attempt at verifying the information? It is not possible that the information can be due to cryptomnesia either. As I showed in post 49 in this thread, the obituaries that was published did not contain all the veridical information, nor information about where in Copenhagen he lived, so it is not possible that Indridi could have read all of the information in these obituaries and subconsciously used it, nor is it possible that someone else could have told Indridi all of the information after having read the obituaries.

Also, even if there would have been some way for them to obtain the information about the fire that would still not explain why Indiri did claim that it was the Jensen communicator out of all possible communicators that told everyone about the fire if Indiri was not aware of the fact that Jensen lived two doors away from the fire. That it would be a coincidence that Indiri just happened to claim that it was this particular person that lived so close to the factory that communicated the information is very unlikely. If Indiri would have been consciously or subconsciously aware of the fact that Jensen lived two doors away from the fire, then why did Indiri not tell anyone about this veridical information during the sitting, since that would make the case evidentially stronger?

If the fire took place one night earlier one may wonder why Indridi/Jensen claimed to experience it while it was taking place. This could be due to telepathic deferment. To quote Braude: "Furthermore, cases of crisis apparitions and modern experiments in dream telepathy suggest that there may be a period of latency between the sending of a telepathic message and the subsequent telepathic experience of the percipient (typically dubbed telepathic deferment). In fact the evidence suggests that the emergence into consciousness of (or the behavioral response to) a telepathic stimulus frequently occurs when that event is convenient or otherwise appropriate relative to the ongoing background of events or the subject’s state of mind. For example, the subject’s response might be delayed until a time of repose or relaxation or at least to a time when surrounding events are not particularly distracting." https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/artic...pparitions If it really was Jensen that experienced the fire in Copenhagen, then perhaps he experienced through ESP what was happening one night earlier due to telepathic deferment, and if it was Indridi that subconsciously experienced the fire in Copenhagen through ESP, then perhaps he experienced what was happening one night earlier due to telepathic deferment.

Thanks for another interesting post. The points you make are good. But I've been thinking about this, and believe there is a more direct reply to the remaining problem, which is that its assumptions about newspaper deadlines might be completely wrong. The skeptic who proposed that criticism was basing it on his own experience working at newspapers, probably in the mid-late 20th or early 21st century in a country that isn't Denmark. That things may have been different in early 20th century Denmark seems like an obvious possibility.

You'd think there'd be at least one suggestion in the evidence we've got that the fire took place a day earlier than the evening of the 24th/early morning of the 25th, but as far as I can tell there isn't. The Politiken and Berlingske newspaper reports of Nov 25th both write of a fire "Last night around 12 o'clock." The fire brigade report coincides perfectly with this, stating that they were called about the fire at 11:52PM (Nov 24), extinguished it by 2:00AM (Nov 25), but had to return as the fire had flared up again and it was extinguished for good by 6:00AM. According to Haraldsson it's likely the fire started a little earlier than when they were called, probably about 9:00PM (Nov 24), because it seems certain it was unnoticed for a while until it grew enough that it was a conspicuous problem. There is simply nothing here at all to enable a skeptic to honestly claim the fire could have been a day earlier. The only possible exception I found was this from the skeptic's post:

>The Danish newspapers reported about the fire on November 25. That would be only possible if the fire happened on the night of 23/24.11.1905., one night before the séance took place, because of the newspaper printing deadlines. For example, on November 25 the Horsens Social Demokrat newspaper writes about the fire with all the important details in the telegram column dated on 24.11.1905

I'm pretty much certain that the last date the skeptic gives is a typo because otherwise what he says makes no sense and is contradictory. [EDIT: I was wrong about this, see post #69 below.] He says the piece about the fire in the Danish Horsens Social Demokrat is from Nov 25, and before that he says the Danish newspapers "reported about the fire on November 25." But at the end he inconsistently writes that it was dated Nov 24. I think he meant to write Nov 25 in the last instance too, which in any case is redundant, unless he meant to say that it was documented that the telegram with information about the Copenhagen fire was written or arrived on Nov 24. But then what would be the point of his whole convoluted argument about newspaper deadlines? It would be completely unnecessary if he actually had a telegram report dated Nov 24 about the fire, as then he'd have direct evidence confirming the fire was probably a lot earlier and he wouldn't need to support his hypothesis indirectly by appealing to how newspapers work.

I haven't seen this Horsens Social Demokrat piece though and Haraldsson doesn't seem to cite it anywhere. Does anyone know how to find a digital copy? It would be good to know exactly what it says and what the dates are.

I've found links to the Nov 24 and 25 Horsens Social Demokrat issues. But I don't know how to translate whole newspaper articles. Can anyone figure out if either of these has a story about the Copenhagen fire?

https://www2.statsbiblioteket.dk/mediest...7ab7af6%22

https://www2.statsbiblioteket.dk/mediest...7ab7af6%22

I've found links to the Nov 24 and 25 Horsens Social Demokrat issues. But I don't know how to translate whole newspaper articles. Can anyone figure out if either of these has a story about the Copenhagen fire?

https://www2.statsbiblioteket.dk/mediest...7ab7af6%22

https://www2.statsbiblioteket.dk/mediest...7ab7af6%22

Thanks for your work in tracking these down. I have no knowledge of the Danish language so can't help directly. So far I downloaded the PDF version of these two issues of the paper. From there I did some random and short copy+paste of bits of text and put it into google translate but so far, though it worked and was useful, I did not find anything relevant.

There is another related approach. Grab a screen image of a section of a page and save it as an image (such as a png or high-quality jpg file). Not tried this yet, but google allows the uploading of an image and will offer to translate any text it finds in the image. May be quicker that way. edit: Just had a quick try. Not very effective for me. My opinion so far, copying the text from the pdf version is better, more accurate.

I've found links to the Nov 24 and 25 Horsens Social Demokrat issues. But I don't know how to translate whole newspaper articles. Can anyone figure out if either of these has a story about the Copenhagen fire?

https://www2.statsbiblioteket.dk/mediest...7ab7af6%22

https://www2.statsbiblioteket.dk/mediest...7ab7af6%22

I’m a native dane (and a highly skeptical one). The fire is mentioned in the Nov 25 issue, page 2, column 5 below the “Sidste nyt” heading.

I’m a native dane (and a highly skeptical one). The fire is mentioned in the Nov 25 issue, page 2, column 5 below the “Sidste nyt” heading.

Thanks a lot for figuring that out.

Here is the original text I copy-pasted from the column heading:

>Sidste Nyt,
(Telegrammer gennem Ritzaus Bureau.)

Here is Google Translate's translation:

>Latest news,
(Telegrams through the Ritzaus Bureau.)

Here is the original text I copy-pasted from the story:

>Brand Paa Københavns Lampeog
Lysekrouefabrik
København, 24. Novenber. Kl. 1
Nat opstod ifl. þÿ  S o c . - DI led mi . "
København« Lampe- og Lysekronefabrik
i St. Kongensgade 63. Fabriken blev
delvis ødelagt. Ejeren, Hr. Wilson
lider et meget betydeligt Tab. Fabriken
er nu standset og han har store
Bestillinger. Ilden flyldeL en Kortflutning.

Here is Google Translate's translation:

>Fire at Copenhagen's Lampeog
Light fixture factory
Copenhagen, 24 November. At 1
Night arose in accordance with þÿ S o c . - DI led me. "
Copenhagen' Lamp and Chandelier Factory
in St. Kongensgade 63. The factory remained
partially destroyed. The owner, Mr. Wilson
suffers a very considerable loss. The factory
is now stopped and he has large
Orders. The fire caused a map transfer.

The translation is pretty rough. sbu, would you be able to give us an English translation?

It's clear I was incorrect and there was no typo in the skeptic's post. As anyone can see it says "24 November" in the Horsens Social Demokrat piece.

Crucially, however, there doesn't seem to be any sign that the telegram about the fire was received on the 24th, but it would be good to have a proper translation to be sure of that. Haraldsson in his "Perfect Case" paper captions the Politiken article this way: "Politiken’s report on the fire in Copenhagen on November 24th 1905." Therefore the Horsens piece may just be indicating that the fire began on the 24th as the Politiken article does too.

The whole Sidste Nyt column seems to entirely refute the skeptic's argument anyway. Why? Obviously this issue was published Nov 25. And yet there are entries in the Sidste Nyt column dated Nov 24 and others dated Nov 25. Therefore stories concerning events that occurred on Nov 25 were able to be printed in a newspaper issue published Nov 25. So the newspaper deadlines argument definitely is a failure.

Btw I've been searching through historical Icelandic papers here for any evidence that a story was carried in 1905 about the Copenhagen fire: https://timarit.is/?lang=en. I've done this by searching for the address where the fire happened, "Kongensgade 63," and Icelandic words for fire, factory, factory fire, and also the factory's owner, Wilson. I haven't found anything so I'm tentatively concluding that no Icelandic paper carried the story. A skeptic could argue that Jonsson prevented the publication of a Marconi transmission about the fire in his Isafold paper, since we know it's not in the Nov 25 Marconi column, to help perpetrate the fraud. But as Haraldsson pointed out other newspapers had access to the Marconi transmissions, so you'd think if the Copenhagen fire story came over, some newspaper in Iceland would've printed the story. But like I said so far I can't find any evidence of that.