The sixth annual Edinburgh Ghost Festival - slightly shorter and slightly earlier than in previous years - has just finished.


ELECTRONIC VOICE PHENOMENA – 50 YEARS ON
My first port of call was an event presented by Mark Turner of Ghost Finders Scotland. Mark is a veteran of EVP research, and as well as running the Ghost Finders Scotland group he also co-founded and runs the EVP Research Association UK. In this session, ‘Electronic Voice Phenomena – 50 Years On’, we looked at EVP’s past, present and future, and got a chance to try it out for ourselves.

This trial consisted of wandering around Mary King's Close asking questions of the alleged spirits. The device used was a Panasonic dictaphone – an early model allegedly withdrawn by Panasonic because people complained of the extra voices that were coming through on their recordings. It’s voice activated, so once you have asked your questions you just leave it running for 30 seconds or so, then when you play it back you hear your question. If there's no reply, the recording ends there and then; if the dictaphone does pick something up, recording continues – a lot better and more convenient than the pocket tape recorder I originally started with. The recordings can be transferred to computer for analysis, but this leaves the way open for sounds to be generated in processing and so is not an approach Ghost Finders favour. So, what did we hear? Not the most crowded recording sessions I have ever heard, but there were noises recorded when all was quiet. And these noises were louder than the asked questions. They were also varied and not always present, reducing the chances it was recorder noise, although the recorder was being used hand-held so that may have affected results. When the sounds were played back people were suggesting what they could hear, but was it just pareidolia or a real chat to the spirits? If you want to judge for yourselves, the results are online at the Ghost Finders Scotland website - Mark would love to hear your feedback.



BURKE AND HARE WALK
Next up was a walking tour of Edinburgh locations associated with those most famous of grave robbers, Burke and Hare. Except, of course, they never were grave robbers – that was too much like hard work – they cut out the middleman entirely and just killed people so they could sell the bodies to a medical college. West Port Tours led us through areas of the city linked to the pair and their 16 murders; much has changed since their time, and so the walk included standing around a car park trying to imagine how the early nineteenth-century guest house would have looked. As a special treat, at the end of the tour we visited the Edinburgh University Medical School Anatomy Resource Centre, which contains the skeleton of William Burke himself, not normally on display. After Burke and Hare were caught, Hare turned King’s evidence and Burke was hanged in public. It was a real occasion and afterwards the corpse was rushed off for a public dissection, with some of his skin being used to make the covers of pocket books and wallets.


CHRIS CONWAY
At the end of the Burke and Hare tour, I hurried back to Mary King’s Close to catch up with newly-departed medium Chris Conway - newly departed from Living TV's Most Haunted that is. I'll be honest, I missed the first part of this session (double booking and incompetence), but it was another wander round the Close, this time in the old-fashioned style, with a medium - none of your modern dictaphones here. Two groups had been made, so popular was this session; half started off with Chris and half with EVP, then we swapped over at halftime. Chris seems a likeable enough chap, with none of the over-the-top grandstanding of certain celebrity mediums. A few messages came through via Chris but nothing too specific, and a seance produced little else. It was enjoyable, but still gave us no proof positive that anything paranormal was happening.


SO YOU WANT TO BE A GHOST HUNTER?

Next was another Most Haunted luminary, Ciaran O'Keefe. Ciaran, Most Haunted's resident sceptic and parapsychologist, was teemed with Steve Parsons of Para.Science, and together they presented a course entitled ‘So You Want to be a Ghost Hunter?’ This was a full-day event, starting with lectures and workshops in The Scotsman hotel and finishing in Mary King’s Close. It included a look at Edinburgh's haunted history courtesy of local author and frequent FT contributor Gordon Rutter - that's me, for those who aren't paying attention. The group, most of whom described themselves as open-minded sceptics, were treated to lectures on ‘What is parapsychology?’ and ‘What is ghost hunting?’, both of which included historical overviews as well as definitions and examples aplenty: for instance, while in the mid-1980's there were about 200 ghost hunting groups in the UK, now there are at least 2,000. There was also role play, with scenarios such as: You're a ghost hunter and you receive a phone call – what do you do? A number of answers were given by different groups but there seemed to be a general consensus on how to proceed, largely in line with the printed handouts. Questioning and witness statements were also covered.

After a meal break, we reconvened in Mary King’s Close where tours were still going on, so members of the group were positioned around the Close to observe, and if anyone on the tours experienced anything they were encouraged to approach these nascent ghost hunters. The theory was that ghost reports at GhostFest were coming from people on guided tours so the chance of seeing a ghost as part of one of these must be better than being in a group of people sitting around waiting for ghosts to come to them during an overnight investigation. When the tours finished, there was also a chance to wander around the Close – not an experience normally granted to people.


EVENING OF CLAIRVOYANCE
I then moved on to an ‘Evening of Clairvoyance’ at the Malmaison Hotel in Leith. I'll be honest, I have issues with mediums. Either they have the most important message ever to convey to us (continued existence after death – in some form or other), or they are lying, or they are mistaken. I've met some so-called psychics who I am convinced just make it all up, but there are others who I do actually know and do not seem to be liars in any other aspect of their lives. There are also, as in all walks of life, some mediums who are better at presenting themselves than others.


‘Evening of Clairvoyance’ was organised by Spirit Seekers (North West) and had about 30 attendees, reducing the chances of the medium playing the numbers game. As the advert for the evening said “Join us for an evening of clairvoyance with our resident medium who will provide messages from spirits, a rather rewarding yet sometimes emotional experience. The evenings can be a very moving experience with specific details being passed from spirit people through our medium to their loved ones in the audience – especially if you are the lucky recipient of one of their detailed and accurate messages. “ So how did they do? Well, there were some comments of the ‘Who can take a person of such-and-such a name?’ variety, but there were also times when the medium came specifically to a person and started giving a message without any preamble. At one point, the medium was walking past me and she turned to me and commented on the fact that I was nervous. Erm, nope, no reason to be and can't say I was. So a definite no-hit there. There were some individuals who, after being delivered a message, burst into tears, so they obviously took something from it - whether that was positive or negative is, I feel, up to the individuals concerned and as no message was given to me I can't comment. I think the important thing is that people seemed to enjoy the evening, and got something out of it – even if that was only being asked to remember something the medium had said (i.e. if there was no hit the medium would say “Just remember I said this,” as if it would come true at some unspecified point in the future).


AN EVENING WITH EDINBURGH COLLEGE OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY
And finally, there was 'An Evening with the Edinburgh College of Parapsychology'. The College of Parapsychology – not to be confused with the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at Edinburgh University – was founded in 1932 to help people understand that life continues after death. Throughout the year they offer public demonstrations and opportunities for seances and psychic healing. On the night we were there, we had three mediums for the price of one. As with the earlier medium event, I don't feel it is appropriate to detail other people’s readings, but I was read by two of the mediums and am happy to divulge the information here. Firstly, Roberta Gordon, who is a clairvoyant, clairaudiant and principle of the college, had a message for me. It must be stressed that she picked me out from the group and started speaking to me. She predicted a career change for me come August, a prediction that is easy enough to check – I'll keep you posted – but for me the logical time of year to change career would be August. Apparently, I was also being watched over by someone very similar in appearance to me but clean shaven (I have a beard), and have a (grand?) mother with a back problem. Not that I'm aware of. For some of the other people present there were names given, and in one case a double suicide was spoken of. 


Ewan Irvine, a council member of the College, was up next. Ewan mentioned that I brought writing and photography together, and that a recent venture was not as successful as I had hoped it would be and that I should not let this put me off, I should try again - all of which is, in essence, true, and I never had any thought of stopping the project in question. He also picked up on the name Isabelle. I have never met any family members named Isabelle, but as I know my family back to 1750 I can say that there have been individuals of that name. However, I do have records for over 300 members of my family. There was also something about a car crash round about secondary school time – it wasn't stated how serious this was or if it involved me. Whilst at school I did have a minor prang in a car and someone I knew was killed in a crash during this period. The third medium, David, did not come to me. All three spoke with other members of the group and passed information which some seemed to feel was very accurate. Afterwards, over tea and biscuits, there was a general chat and a chance to look around the small museum and well-equipped library.



This year's Ghost Fest may have been shorter than normal, but there were still a number of good events, as well as clashes meaning there were some things I was not able to go to. For younger ghost hunters, there were ‘Horrible Histories Bus Tours’, and for older participants there were overnight vigils and opportunities to try out various pieces of ghost-hunting equipment and to develop your psychic skills, as well as some suitably-themed films. Some events had to be cancelled: are we seeing a waning of interest in Ghost Fest, or was the earlier date off-putting for people, or for those based further away, did the shorter programme mean it was no longer worth the journey? I hope Ghost Fest continues and I hope it goes from strength to strength - those who do attend definitely enjoy themselves and many keep coming back time and time again.