UNDER THE WITCH SERIES

The sГ©ance that followed was notably bereft of ectoplasm. Further investigation had her swallowing a tablet of methylene blue, a dye which would have exposed her regurgitation trick. It was surmised that Duncan would swallow her ectoplasmic concoction and regurgitate it during a sГ©ance. In 1931 the London Spiritualist Alliance (LSA) examined DuncanвЂ™s ectoplasm and found that it was a combination of cheesecloth, paper mixed with the white of egg and lavatory paper.

UNDER THE WITCH SERIES

Her career survived despite a series of similarly concrete exposГ©s. Photographs by Harvey Metcalfe during a 1928 sГ©ance, revealing the dolls beside Duncan. Illuminated by the flash bulb, her materialisations were revealed to be fraudulent вЂ“ crudely constructed dolls composed of white sheets and papier-mГўchГ© masks. Her stagecraft was first exposed in 1928 when a photographer, Harvey Metcalfe, took a series of flash photographs during one of her seances. Early scepticismДuncanвЂ™s act may have pulled in the punters, but it also attracted plenty of scepticism. ItвЂ™s hard to know how convincing DuncanвЂ™s seances would seem to a modern eye but there was a huge appetite for spiritualism in the 1920s вЂ“ seances and Ouija boards were every bit a fashionable as bobbed hair and jazz вЂ“ and she clearly had a flair for theatrics. As Duncan slipped into a trance like state and took on the persona of one of her spirit partners вЂ“ Peggy or Albert вЂ“ spectral figures appeared and she began to produce вЂectoplasmвЂ™ from her moth. Her act, which started to take shape in the mid-1920s, was notable for the spiritual вЂmaterialisationsвЂ™ she appeared to conjure. Hellish Nell, as she was known, was a Scottish medium who earned a decent living conducting seances вЂ“ in which she summoned the spirits of the recently deceased вЂ“ in dimly lit rooms across Britain. She was, however, one of the last people to be imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act of 1735. ItвЂ™s hard to resist referring to Helen Duncan as вЂBritainвЂ™s last witchвЂ™, but in truth her story hinges on the fact that she was wasnвЂ™t a witch.

Under the witch