Petra’s Reviews > Hellish Nell: Last of Britain's Witches > Status Update

It’s absolutely mind-boggling how these noted psychical researchers were taken in by Helen Duncan at these Seances. Their test controls must have been quite lax. Were they so desperate to prove an afterlife because they didn’t want to believe otherwise? Helen’s own maid uncovered a huge amount of damning evidence of fraud in the home. Interestingly, it took a fraudster (Harry Price) to recognise another fraud.

“The Simpler the Soul, the purer the results”. This sentence from Malcolm Gaskill illustrates how socio-economic background was an advantage for Mediums/Spiritualists. It was considered that the lower and working classes weren’t intelligent enough to pull the wool over their wealthy patron’s eyes, so that followed that their messages from the dead must be real and true.