There Was Ectoplasm

A British high court last week upheld the conviction of a Scotswoman charged with practicing witchcraft. To jail for nine months, technically as a violator of a 1735 law forbidding "conjuration of the devil and evil spirits," went 46-year-old Mrs. Helen Duncan, a spiritual medium.

At her seven-day trial last April, a policeman testified that he attended a Duncan seance, tried to grab a ghost, instead caught Mrs. Duncan stuffing a white cloth down her bodice.

Ardent defense witnesses included the egocentric gossip columnist of the London Daily Herald, Hannen Swaffer, whose story was that he and a committee of four others had once tested Mrs. Duncan's spectral powers, tied her securely with handcuffs, sashcord and thread, watched her wriggle loose in three minutes. Concluded Swaffer: "There was ectoplasm, but no one appeared. Obviously she had been released by Albert, the spirit guide."

Albert, surnamed Stuart, a fun-loving Scotsman dead since 1909, was identified by other Duncanites as a disembodied soul who appeared frequently and clowned at the medium's sessions. These witnesses said that they had seen, shaken hands with, sometimes kissed: 1) Albert, 2) Mary, Queen of Scots, 3) a lipsticked, perfumed girl spirit.

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