Kathleen Goligher. Northern Ireland.
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Kathleen Goligher Northern Ireland
Later became Lady G. Donaldson
Medium Kathleen Goligher of Northern Ireland, was born in 1898 within a poor Belfast family house of Mr. Goligher, four daughters, a son and a son-in-law. All the four girls were mediumistic, Kathleen having the strongest link with the Spirit World. When 16, she started experiments with Dr. W. J. Crawford which continued for 6 years until the Doctors death in 1920. For the first four years of their mediumship, even though they were very poor the family did not charge anything for their demonstrations or their seances, which were held in the family home or the home of the doctor. Most of the seances were held in low red light and the photographs were taken with infra red plates and lights. During the seances Dr. Crawford was permitted to move around the Circle so he could get better sight of any phenomena set up any experiments and and record it all on film. Some of the communications by the Spirit World was done by rappings. The deep trance link was mainly done by Kathleen who by her strong link with the Spirit World produced ectoplasm so an etheric amplifier was formed by them and then the communications started. But sometimes she was not so far into the altered state that she was speaking whist in trance and was accused of fraud by a Dr. E. E. Fournier d'Albe after she allowed him to sit in one of her seances. After that she never allowed outsiders to sit in any of her Circles.
source http://www.survivalafterdeath.org.uk/mediums/goligher.htm
Ectoplasm being produced by Kathleen Goligher in an experimental seance 1918 at which Dr. W. J. Crawford was present taking notes and recording his findings on camera.
More ectoplasm being produced by Kathleen Goligher in an experimental seance 1918 at which Dr. W. J. Crawford was present taking notes and recording his findings as well on camera.
Energy being produced by Kathleen Goligher in a shape of a walking stick in an experimental seance 1919 at which Dr. W. J. Crawford was present taking notes and recording his findings on camera.
Medium Kathleen Goligher producing ectoplasm, which is levitating a trumpet ready to be used to form an "etheric amplifier" (some might know it as a voice box, BUT the Spirit World does not like that word as it is not technically a voice box)
SCIENTIST DISCOVERS SECRET OF TABLE
LEVITATIONS
Following the outbreak of the phenomena called
spiritualism in 1848, there were many reports of tables being levitated through
Mediums and spelling out messages. Typically, the table would hover off the
floor and tilt or turn one time for each letter of the alphabet, e.g. five tilts
meant an E, or the sitters would recite the alphabet and the table would tilt or
turn at the desired letter. Occasionally, however, there were reports of table
levitations not involving Spirit communication; rather, it appeared that the Spirits were simply trying to offer some kind of evidence that they were present
and could manipulate matter.
In 1914, Dr. William J. Crawford, a lecturer in mechanical engineering at
Queen’s University of Belfast, Ireland, began investigating the mediumship of
16-year-old Kathleen Goligher. The phenomena surrounding the young girl included
communicating raps, trance voice, and table levitations.
In his 1918 book, On the Threshold of the Unseen, Sir William Barrett, professor
of physics at Royal College in Dublin, tells of joining Crawford in one of
Crawford’s many sittings with the Goligher Circle. At first, they heard knocks,
and messages were spelled out as one of the sitters recited the alphabet.
Barrett then observed a floating trumpet, which he tried unsuccessfully to
catch. “Then the table began to rise from the floor some 18 inches and remained
suspended and quite level,” Barrett wrote. “I was allowed to go up to the table
and saw clearly no one was touching it, a clear space separating the sitters
from the table.”
Barrett put pressure on the table to try to force it back to the floor. He
exerted all his strength but was unable to budge it. “Then I climbed on the
table and sat on it, my feet off the floor, when I was swayed to and fro and
finally tipped off,” Barrett continued the story. “The table of its own accord
now turned upside down, no one touching it, and I tried to lift it off the
ground, but it could not be stirred; it appeared screwed down to the floor.”
When Barrett stopped trying to right the table, it righted itself on its own
accord. Apparently, the Spirits were having a bit of fun with Barrett as he then
heard “numerous sounds displaying an amused intelligence.”
Somewhat similar folly had been observed by Professor William Crookes on April
12, 1871, during a sitting with Daniel Dunglas Home, when sitter Frank Herne was
carried out of his chair, floated across the room, and then dropped at the other
end of the room. When Crookes asked the Spirits why such foolishness, it was
explained that they were experimenting on their side just as Crookes was on his
side.
Crookes and other researchers had recognized that Mediums were exuding a strange
foamy substance from various orifices of the body that seemed to be responsible
for producing different physical phenomena. With some Mediums, it was very
apparent and could even be photographed. With others, however, it was more of a
vapory aura around the Medium’s body. This substance came to be called
ectoplasm. Through much experimentation Crawford discovered that “psychic rods”
emanating from the Medium and made up of this ectoplasm were responsible for the
levitations.
During his experiments with the Goligher Circle, Crawford began communicating
with Spirit Entities, one of whom said he was a medical man when on earth and
that his primary function was to look after the health of the young medium. This
Spirit explained to Crawford that two types of substances were used in the
production of the phenomena. One was taken in large quantities from both the
Medium and the sitters, then returned to them at the close of the seance. The
other substance, apparently the ectoplasm, called “psychic force” by Crawford,
was taken exclusively from the medium in minute quantities and could not be
returned to her as its structure was broken up. It was pointed out that it came
from the interior of the Medium’s nerve cells and if too much were taken she
could suffer serious injury.
Some of the communication took place through Goligher’s voice mechanism while
she was in trance while much of it came through raps and table tilting. Crawford
came to see the experimentation as a joint venture with the Spirit “Operators.”
He soon realized that these “Operators” didn’t understand much about the
scientific aspects of the phenomena. “I am convinced that the Operators know
next to nothing of force magnitudes and reactions,” Crawford wrote in his 1918
book, The Reality of Psychic Phenomena. “Their idea as to the prime cause of the
phenomena is ‘power.’”
On one occasion, a clairvoyant joined in the Circle and told Crawford that she
could see “a whitish vapory substance, somewhat like smoke,” forming under the
surface of the table and increasing in density as it was levitated. She could
see it flowing from the Medium in sort of a rotary motion. From other sitters,
she could see thin bands joining into the much larger amount coming from the
Medium. She also saw various Spirit Forms and Spirit Hands manipulating the
“psychic stuff.”
Crawford brought in a scale large enough to hold the Medium while she was
sitting in her chair. He discovered that when a table was being levitated, the
weight of the table, usually around 16 pounds, was transferred to the Medium
through the “psychic rods.” Most of the time, the transfer of weight would be a
few ounces short of the weight of the table. Further experimentation revealed
that the extra weight was being transferred to the sitters in the room, who
might have had furnished small amounts of the “psychic force.”
Crookes had used a spring balance to record the variations in weight of the
levitating tables, but apparently did not have the equipment to weigh the
medium. At one sitting, Crookes and Darwin collaborator Alfred Russel Wallace,
two of the world’s foremost scientists, were crawling around under a levitating
table searching for some kind of explanation.
Crawford pointed out that he continually worked under the levitated table and
between the levitated table and the Medium and conducted many of his experiments
in adequate light, although it became obvious to him that light affected the
rigidity of the rapping rods, i.e., the rods could not be made stiff if strong
light was playing upon them.
During his 87 sittings with Kathleen Goligher and the Goligher Circle, Crawford
made a number of other observations, including that the psychic rods could
extend only about five feet from the Medium’s body and that it often took a half
hour for the psychic energy to build up. He further observed that the psychic
energy often caused the Medium to make slight involuntary motions with her feet
– motions which might suggest fraud to a careless observer.
“I have come to the general conclusion from the results of my experimental work,
and from observations of the Circle extending over two and a half years, that
all the phenomena produced are caused by flexible rod-like projections from the
body of the medium; that these rods are the prime cause of the phenomena,
whether they consist of levitations, movements of the table about the floor, rappings, touchings, or other variations,” Crawford wrote.
Some of Crawford’s findings, such as the weighing of the Medium, were objective
and scientific. However, other aspects of it were based on things that were
purportedly communicated by Spirits or seen by a clairvoyant.
“I have seen and heard sufficient at the Goligher and other Circles to convince
me that man does not really die at physical death, but passes on to another
state of existence, and that, for the most part, the entities who demonstrate at
good seances are really human beings who have so passed on,” Crawford said.
On July 30, 1920, Crawford committed suicide. Skeptics immediately concluded
that Crawford must have realized he had been duped. However, Crawford’s suicide
note, in part, read: "I have been struck down mentally. I was perfectly all
right up to a few weeks ago. It is not the psychic work. I enjoyed it too well.
I am thankful to say that the work will stand. It is too thoroughly done for any
material loopholes to be left."
In 1922, Dr. E. E. Fournier d’Albe had 20 sittings with the Goligher Circle and
observed no phenomena similar to that reported by Crawford. Crookes and other
researchers had come to realize that too much skepticism causes a negative
environment or a disharmony that defeats the production of phenomena. That may
very well have been the case with d’Albe, as other researchers later reported
phenomena involving the Goligher Circle similar to what both Crawford and
Barrett had witnessed. However, debunkers accepted d’Albe’s report as evidence
that Goligher was a charlatan.
Barrett described Kathleen Goligher and her small family group as “uncritical,
simple, honest, kind-hearted people,” and he was certain that what he had
experienced was beyond any conjuring. “That there is an unseen intelligence
behind these manifestations is all we can say,” Barrett concluded his discussion
of the case, “but that is a tremendous assertion, and if admitted destroys the
whole basis of materialism.”
– Michael E. Tymn
Source
http://www.aspsi.org/feat/life_after/tymn/LEVITATIONS.htm
ISBN 9781905961108
First published 1916, this edition 2008,
192 pages, 2 pictures, 39 diagrams, paperback.
The Book
Kathleen Goligher was a physical medium. In her presence tables levitated and
raps ranging from gentle taps to “sledge-hammer blows” were heard.
W. J. Crawford was a mechanical engineer. He turned his keen intellect to
investigating Kathleen over a period of several years.
This book is that investigation. It contains 87 experiments along with 39
diagrams. With the cooperation of the spirit operators he established exactly
how levitation phenomena works.
Do they defy the laws of gravity? What happens to the weight of the table when
it is suspended in the air with no visible means of support? Crawford answered
these questions through scientific investigation.
This is not a light read, but a must read for those interested in understanding
physical mediumship.
Source
http://www.auragraphs.com/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=15
The Spirit World is using Kathleen Goligher as a catalyst, and is producing ectoplasm from her lower orifices, which is forming an ectoplasmic rod to lift the table. The photograph was taken by Dr. W J Crawford to did a lot of research with the Kathleen in the 1910s in many seances.
Kathleen Goligher (born in Belfast,
1898) pioneering medium and member of the Goligher home circle who with Dr. W.
J. Crawford conducted his famous painstaking and thorough investigations.
Crawford's conclusions are summed up in three important books: The Reality of
Psychic Phenomena (1916); Experiments in Psychic Science (1919); and The Psychic
Structures in the Goligher Circle (1921).