Easington Council in County Durham, UK, were held to ransom last week and they decided to pay up rather than face the consequences of the threat.
The Fallon family who live in a council property told reporters they heard banging from the loft, saw items fly across rooms and had doors slammed in their faces. They called police, who found nothing. Then they called in psychic Suzanne Hadwin and asked the council to help pay.
After the receipt of £120, Hadwin allegedly used her Russian spirit guide and some angels to help rid the property of evil, which she said was linked to the murder of a woman in the house years earlier.
Council officials believed that the money they paid was well spent as the Fallon family are now willing to stay in the house, and the cost to the council of re-housing them in emergency housing would have been far greater than Hadwin’s fee.
I don’t know what was happening in the Fallon household that lead to their distress, but I do know that we are all capable of coming up with the most bizarre explanations for natural phenomenon (see Nessie, God, and the Creation of Meaning). For millions of years people have resorted to the spirit world to explain the initially unexplainable.
I can understand the economic argument in favour of appeasing the household, but personally I would prefer that more of my taxes were spent in rehousing them, rather than in giving a purveyor of snake oil £120.00. It sets such a dangerous precedent. “I can’t stay in this house because it is haunted by the spirits of the marsh people that died here. I can hear them groaning. Unless you get someone to appease the spirits you will have to rehouse me. I have found someone on the Net who can talk to marsh spirits …”
This appeasement seems to open up the Pandora’s box of imaginary friends and complete irrationality. I can claim anything, and if I shout loudly enough and appear distressed and can find a purveyor of snake oil, someone will feel pressured to pay because the cost of that will be less than the cost of rehousing me.
If people want to pay the costs of their own imaginary treatment and solutions, let them do so (see A Dodgy Parable), but don’t support quacks with public money. Giving quacks credibility and income just clogs up cognitive evolution, and for that reason alone, is evil.
(Source: Reuters )
This is an interesting case which raises quite a few questions. When several people witness an unusual event, this may be taken as proof of its reality whereas in fact it is often the case that in a small, closely-knit group, members reinforce one another’s delusions.
In this case, we would want to know what investigation of the causes was done, over what sort of period. Ghosts do have an annoying habit of hiding while investigators are around and coming out again after they have gone. At the very least, movement-activated cameras and sound recorders should have been deployed.
Noises in the attic, assuming they are real, can have many causes. It is not unknown for birds or squirrels to get in under the eaves and when they do, they can make quite a racket. Also, just because several phenomena happen together, it doesn’t mean they have a common cause. Wind can slam doors independently of squirrels running around in the loft or passing heavy lorries causing objects to slide off shelves.
What you see depends on what you think you see. For example, if an object falls off the mantelpiece into the grate and you are nervous or believe in poltergeists you may well think it “flew across the room” when it merely dropped. When trying to convince, people often exaggerate, coming to believe their own exaggerations.
While I don’t doubt the Fallons’ sincerity, I am sceptical about what they think they experienced, frightening as it was for them. It is quite possible that some series of real but unconnected events became woven in their minds into a story of poltergeists. As recent horror stories of cruel exorcisms show, you don’t get rid of demons and poltergeists that easily and the sudden cessation (if indeed it has ceased) is itself suspicious.
The intriguing possibility is that if it wasn’t poltergeists, then the problem can’t have been solved by Ms Hadwin’s intervention and may therefore happen again. If so, I hope that this time the investigation will be a little more thorough.
Regarding the action of the Council, it does at first sight seem like pandering to superstition and quacks. On the other hand, if the problem was indeed a group delusion, then the best way of solving it might be through an application of psychology humoring the deluded. On that score, the Council’s action might be seen as a skillful move rather than a giving in to superstition. Reason was unlikely to work in this case. Perhaps next time they would be better off using a psychiatrist, albeit giving him a pointy hat to wear and referring to him as “The Magician”.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Will the problem reoccur? If it does, then Ms Hadwin will be deemed to have failed and bigger guns will have to be brought in. My goodness, it might even be necessary to call in one of the Pope’s new brigade of exorcists!
I do believe things like this can happen and seem very real.
I have lived in a house that needed prayer and the most unusual events occured involving my own family who witnessed these.
I also accept that it was a time of complete personal chaos in my own life, though that would not explain what was seen by my own family.
Interestingly, My aunt explained some of the detail to a physic women? and she drew my house out in detail on paper and pinpointed the exact place of my spooky experience and confirmed what my father had seen with out being told.
She confirmed a murder or suicide had taken place with a knife and it was this my relative saw across the kitchen.
Ok, sounds all complete clap trap but how do we explain these things?
I know people who have seen happenings. Jugs crashing to the floor, crosses turning upside down. I have seen a ghost and know of others who have had strange goings on.
I don’t think I am in a state of delusional pyschosis then or now, nor my relatives.
Deja view, sceances and supernatural things I believe exist. Hence, if this is evil then what is good? and the power of the cross, if this is all nonsence. Supposing the power of Christ’s crucfixion is powerful enough. Now that’s a scary thought!
onethoughtfulwoman
If you have real evidence of the alleged power of Christ’s crucifixion, where is it? Show me. It is a simple enough question, and I would like to know. And I mean evidence, not nostalgia, or wishful thinking or things that could have a million and other quite rational explanations. If that power is alive and well today and REAL, in this country, where I can see it, WHERE is it?
SilverTiger
Interesting point about psychiatrists with pointy hats. I thought they all wore them anyway, or perhaps it was just mine.
In truth to answer your question. I don’t have it but I would like to find it.
I could say but Christ live in people’s heart but I know the little I have studied concerning research that that is not evidence, but very subjective and open to all sorts of interpretations.
I did think on my walk today that God may want to be invisible because that is the whole essence of faith: that faith is believing in something you can not see.
Perhaps God wants to be invisible. We will never find real evidence because that is the whole point of faith.
Just a thought.
onethoughtfulwoman
OK:
1) God is invisible.
2) The way to know him is to believe in something you cannot see.
3) You get rewarded for crucifying your god-given mind on this issue, but on every other issue you are meant to use it and ask questions about reality and truth.
To me:
1) That seems very weird.
2) If it works for you, fine.
3) Fraid it won’t work for me.
I am not saying it works for me either but I am in a muddle with this right now.