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The Enfield Poltergeist

Watched it yesterday, good lord, what an enormous bucket of goat wank it was.

Apparently the reason why a case the Warrens had little or no involvement in became the second movie about them was that was the only one the studio had rights to produce:

http://weekinweird.com/2016/01/07/c...-lorraine-warren-never-investigated-the-case/

I've always felt that the Warren's were well meaning but ultimately a bit blinkered, i.e. if the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything like it's a nail, they expected demons, so demons is what they thought they got everytime. That said if you read the comments from Playfair in the above article it is much more damning.
 
GNC said:
Totally agree, CI, to invent a bunch of shite about a killer demon nun was bad taste in the extreme, in fact the whole thing was just wrong, and not only the poor historical details (a massive council house with a cellar that still looks like a tip inside, quite unlike Mrs Hodgson's neatly kept little home, for example). For what it's worth, Janet is interviewed on the disc release in a featurette, and seems to endorse the whole thing. Amazing what a fat cheque can make people say.
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Wow. That is surprising. Does make you question their motivations a little bit, given that knowledge in hand. Although, to be fair, decades after it happened I'd hardly begrudge them taking the money.
 
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Heckler20 said:
Watched it yesterday, good lord, what an enormous bucket of goat wank it was.

Apparently the reason why a case the Warrens had little or no involvement in became the second movie about them was that was the only one the studio had rights to produce:

http://weekinweird.com/2016/01/07/c...-lorraine-warren-never-investigated-the-case/

I've always felt that the Warren's were well meaning but ultimately a bit blinkered, i.e. if the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything like it's a nail, they expected demons, so demons is what they thought they got everytime. That said if you read the comments from Playfair in the above article it is much more damning.
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Most interesting. To watch that movie, you would think that Warrens were not only intimately involved with the case but in fact its lead proponents.

This is Hollywood papering over awkward details like the few facts that are provable (i.e. who was actually there) to make a buck. And by the sound of it that's something which the late Ed Warren would have approved of.

That GLP seems to suggest that the conversations which The Warrens claimed to have had with the girls they don't seem to even remember is interesting too. In particular of both girls did accept money to endorse the film.

Demon Nuns... FFS...
 
oldrover said:
Janet was admitted to the Maudsley Hospital on several occasions, and today judge for yourself how well it all seems to have turned out.
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According to Gauld and cornell (1979, p226) 15% of focal individuals were known to be suffering from a mental or emotional problem, and in many other cases such a problem was discovered during the period of the poltergeist activities. ( an introduction to parapsychology, Harvey j irwin and Caroline a watt)

So I would say any problems Janet had was already there and cannot be blamed on grosse and playfair
 
I agree, Titch, that Janet's issues would have been pre-existing, but the presence of Grosse and Playfair encouraging her to do her party pieces over such a long time, deliberately or otherwise, would not have helped much.
 
GNC said:
I agree, Titch, that Janet's issues would have been pre-existing, but the presence of Grosse and Playfair encouraging her to do her party pieces over such a long time, deliberately or otherwise, would not have helped much.
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but what's the alternative? you are the expert, the media, family and neighbours expect the experts to do something, do you say "nah sorry, it's bad for the girls if i stay" and walk away? then maybe we would be debating why grosse and playfair left a family that needed help in the lurch and something terrible happened.

They tried to get professional help in, few were interested, so they done what they could. Maybe they should have left near the end when whatever strangeness was happening had given way to trickery, but i think they both done the best anybody could for the family.
 
titchagain said:
According to Gauld and cornell (1979, p226) 15% of focal individuals were known to be suffering from a mental or emotional problem, and in many other cases such a problem was discovered during the period of the poltergeist activities. ( an introduction to parapsychology, Harvey j irwin and Caroline a watt)

So I would say any problems Janet had was already there and cannot be blamed on grosse and playfair
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Firstly, that sounds like an interesting book, do you have a copy, is it worth reading?

And yes, there were clearly problems there in the first place, but that's my point. You had two unqualified twits turning up in a situation where help was needed but instead of behaving like responsible adults, and backing out and calling someone who might have helped, they jumped in and played along. Even if they did believe it, which I'm sure Grosse did and am stating to believe GLP might have too, they should not have used the Hodgsons in their research. There was no proper ethical considerations taken, nothing put in place. As I keep saying, today it wouldn't happen, there'd be an outcry, but then people like the Hodgsons didn't matter.
 
But they asked for help and got none! it was grosse and playfair or nobody, and i think they done as well as could be expected. If you were in their shoes what would you have done? a newspaper asks for help, you turn up to see something beyond your experience, nobody is willing to help so do you just turn your back on a family in crisis?


The book is for my parapsychology course...i don't know if it's any good because the sentence about poltergeist focal points was the only one i understood...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0786430591/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
titchagain said:
The book is for my parapsychology course...i don't know if it's any good because the sentence about poltergeist focal points was the only one i understood...
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Nice one titch. I think that sounds like a very interesting read. When I'm not so up to my eyes in bloody thylacines I'll give it a go.

titchagain said:
But they asked for help and got none! it was grosse and playfair or nobody, and i think they done as well as could be expected. If you were in their shoes what would you have done? a newspaper asks for help, you turn up to see something beyond your experience, nobody is willing to help so do you just turn your back on a family in crisis?
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I agree they got no help elsewhere, and that in my opinion is one of the main parts of the problem. But Grosse and Playfair didn't help, they fueled things. As much as Grosse may have genuinely wanted to help the girls, he was obviously too clouded by his own loss to think or act in their best interests. He really need evidence for life after death, that's why he was there, to try and convince himself his own Janet wasn't gone forever. Ultimately, but I believe unconsciously, those children were as incidental to him as they were to everyone else. Someone should have helped them rather than themselves.

Rant not directed at you of course, but at the two middle aged men, and the rest of the public who at the time, sat back quite willing to swallow this stuff, when all the while they'd have given Grosse and GLP the bum's rush if they'd turned up at their doors. And that's the point, no one ever stood up for the Hodgsons, they were purely unimportant extras in everyone else's drama.
 
Just to add, the reason I'm so against what they did is that nothing ever happened in that house that isn't best explained by witness bias and the antics of the kids.
 
I asked my parapsychology tutor if she knew about the poltergeist acoustic tests, she didn't, if the head of parapsychology of Edinburgh university hasn't heard of the tests I guess there is nothing too them.
 
On Radio 4 next Sunday, 8 April,

BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion, The Enfield Poltergeist

Sue MacGregor reunites the witnesses of the so called Enfield Poltergeist.
Joining Sue to discuss, and attempt to explain, what they witnessed are former BBC Radio reporter Roz Morris, who recorded the poltergeist for The World At One; Graham Morris, then of the Daily Mirror, who took a famous series of photographs of the girls levitating; and Richard Grosse who, as a newly qualified solicitor, helped his father cross-examine the Enfield poltergeist.

The programme also features Janet and Margaret Hodgson, the two daughters at the centre of the case, reflecting on events forty years later.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09yck6b
 
GNC said:
I don't listen to it religiously
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It's always a good listen. Usually the participants are pleased to be brought back together and will reminisce happily, but that's not always the case. When people from both sides in the Wapping dispute were featured, and confined in a small studio together, there was still a lot of hostility and I swear it was nearly a punch-up!
 
What a good programme, predictably it cleared nothing up but worth hearing from the witnesses (no Janet and Margaret, though). Thought the Grosse son was a bit woo, but the journalists were credible. They basically said, if you weren't there, you won't believe it, if you were, you'll know it was true. Seems like they had a revolving door of media and celebs (Ray Alan meeting them to see if they were ventriloquists made me laugh!). I'd forgotten it went on for eighteen months.

Didn't know the story about the motorbike crash, seemed tangential to be honest, but it's a remarkable coincidence. Anyway, highly recommended.
 
That's good news. I've recorded it but was worried it might turn out rather pointless and disappointing - not that anyone's been expecting miraculous revelations.

Ray Alan eh? That's an odd twist in the tale. Looking forward to listening now.
 
In terms of this entering popular culture, I can't see that we have mentioned this yet? The House at Spook Corner is a radio drama about the aftermath of something akin to the Enfield case. You can listen here :)
 
Swifty said:
This might have already been posted in this thread
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The death of his daughter is frequently mentioned in connection to Grosse's paranormal interests - indeed he makes the link himself in the video, which I don't remember having seen before. Her fleeting appearance in the home-movie footage reveals that not only was she named Janet but she bore a striking resemblance to the girl at the centre of the Enfield case. :(
 
JamesWhitehead said:
The death of his daughter is frequently mentioned in connection to Grosse's paranormal interests - indeed he makes the link himself in the video, which I don't remember having seen before. Her fleeting appearance in the home-movie footage reveals that not only was she named Janet but she bore a striking resemblance to the girl at the centre of the Enfield case. :(
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While obviously that *may* have somewhat effected Grosse, I'm still not exactly sold on those who seem to think that this is some unquestionable Silver Bullet to be used in way of classifying Grosse as a fraud.

Sure, I do believe he found a kinship with the girls and the family. Unquestionable. But it doesn't write off the number of people who believe they saw or experienced things at the House during that period.

Even the girls admit some of it they faked themselves, but of all the cases of this kind to have made it into the public consciousness it's hard to completely classify it one way or the other without plenty of questions and nagging doubts left behind.

I guess that's why we're still talking about it today.
 
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The fact Janet did the "Knock knock, who's there, Doctor, Doctor Who" joke in her "ghost" voice suggests she was seriously messing with the investigators.
 
GNC said:
The fact Janet did the "Knock knock, who's there, Doctor, Doctor Who" joke in her "ghost" voice suggests she was seriously messing with the investigators.
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Quite probably. The girls themselves admitted to faking some of it. That's not to say that they were *all* of the time of course.
 
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