60 FT383FORTEANLIBRARY
BUILDING AIt’s worth stressing that those involved –a
core of eight people from theToronto SPR- had a perfectfaith in thereality of PK,
and took atface value the claims of the
likes of Uri Geller, Prof John Hasted and
his metal-bendingchildren, and ‘Nelya
Mikhailova’,aliasNinaKulagina. Such
trust in such names might berather hard to
find among psychicalresearchers today. As
we’ll see, however, this outlookwas crucial
to the success of the Philip enterprise.
Another critical aspect of theexperiment
was the belief that ordinaryfolk, not just
gifted mediums, might have PK powers.
The question thenwas: if such powers were
latent ineveryone, could people be trained
or otherwise encouraged to manifest them?
The experimentwas thus two-pronged: to
bring out PK using people with no known
psychic talent, and to use the invented
Philip as the agency thereof. In effect,
Philip became hisown medium.
Who was Philip? Initially, his biography
was outlinedby Margaret ‘Sue’ Sparrow:
“Philipwas an aristocratic Englishman
living in the middle 1600s at the time of
Oliver Cromwell. He had been a supporter
of the king andwas a Catholic. Hewas
married to a beautiful but cold and
frigid wife, Dorothea, the daughter ofa
neighbouring nobleman. One day, when
out riding on the boundaries of his estates,
Philip came across a gypsy encampment
and saw there a beautiful dark-eyed, raven-
haired gypsy girl, Margo, and fell instantly
in lo ve with her.
“He brought her back to live in the
gatehouse near the stables of Diddington
Manor – hisfamily home.For some time
he kept his love nest secret, buteventually
Dorothea,realising hewas keeping
someone else there,found Margo, and
accused her of witchcraft and of stealing
her husband. Philipwas too scared of
losing hisreputation and his possessions
to protest at the trial of Margo, and she
was convicted of witchcraft and burned
at the stake. Philip subsequentlywas
stricken withremorse that he had not
tried to defend Margo and used to pace
the battlements of Diddington in despair.
Finally one morning his bodywas found at
the foot of the battlements where he had
cast himself in a fit of agony andremorse.”With this as a framework, the group then
discussed and established further details:
precisely what he looked like, his taste in
food and clothes, his habits and hobbies,
temperament, likes and dislikes, and his
feelings towardthe twowomen in his life.
One member of thegroup drew his portrait,
and thiswas al ways put in the middle of
the circle in which they sat when conjuring
him up.The group also “read booksrelating
to Philip’s times,found records and songs
of the period, and generallyfamiliarised
themselves with the sort of environment in
which hewould have lived.” As timewent
by, this becamemuch more elaborate.The
full story of Philip, as it was eventually
developedby the group and, indeed,
by Philip himself, occupies an 11-page
chapter at the end of the book. Philip’s and
Dorothea’sfamily seatswere based onreal
places – Diddington Hall (which lacks both
a to wer and battlements) andPackington
Hall inWarwickshire.The reasoning
was: “Wechose real places... specifically
becausewe can then prove thathistorically
Philip did notexist.” One supposes it’s not
unusualforséanceentities to befairly posh.
What’s notexplained is why thegroup
chose to invent a 17th-century English
aristocratrather than a distinguished 19th-
century Canadian, whose background (or
what toavoid in it) might have been easier
to research.
Who comprised thegroup? Besides Iris
Owen (the main author ofConjuring Philip,
formerly a nurse in England; when the
bookwas written shewas serving on the
board of a homefor unwed mothers) there
were Margaret ‘Sue’ Sparrow (contributing
author, chairman of MENSA Canada,
and formerly a nurse with the Canadian
armedforces),Andy H (housewife, and the
creator of Philip’s portrait), Lorne H (an
industrial designer, Andy H’s husband),
Al P (a heating engineer), Bernice M (an
accountant), Dorothy O’D (a housewife,
Cub Scout leader and book-keeper), and
Sidney K (a sociology student).From
time to time Dr ARG ‘George’ Owen (a
mathematician,founder of theToronto
SPR, and Iris Owen’s husband) and
psychologistJoelWhitton attended as
observers.
Their initial intentionwas to produce
a visible apparition of their fictionalNO 48. THE GHOST ST ORY WITH NO GHOSTc
THE HIEROPHANT’S APPRENTICE PRESENTSc“What is a ghost?”muses aged Rosa Diamond in Salman Rushdie’s (in)famous novel,
TheSatanicVerses. Rosa answers her own question: “Unfinished business, is what.”
Which is as neat a definition of something so elusive and enigmatic as one could
wish for. But itraises theever-unanswered question: what starts off the ‘business’
in the first place? In the mid-1970s, members of theToronto Societyfor Psychical
Research began towonder just how ‘ghostly’ the spiritsreally were that mediums
contacted in the classicséanceroom routine. Discounting known hoaxes and frauds,
the group thought it possible that genuineséancephenomena might be the product
of psychokinesis (PK), generatedby a medium or perhaps collectively, rather than
by discarnate spirits. So, they decided to test the idea: and proceeded to invent a
plausible historicalcharacter from scratch, then to invokehis presence, and see what
happened.This is the story of ‘Philip’, the ghost who never had an earthly life, and
what happened to him and those whoraised him.