The Scole Experiment: the Norfolk cellar, moving lights and the surviving séance archive

The core group associated with the Scole Experiment comprised Robin and Sandra Foy and Alan and Diana Bennett. Their work took place principally in a cellar at a farmhouse in the Norfolk village of Scole, near Diss.

The group’s own interpretation was spiritual: communicators speaking through the mediums were understood as members of a team helping develop a new form of physical mediumship. The archive’s presentation also includes claimed non-human communicators alongside those identifying as deceased people.

The surviving archive distinguishes the wider experimental series from the smaller set of visits by outside investigators. Its catalogue dates the sequence of 464 sessions from 4 October 1993 to 6 November 1998, including sessions held abroad.

This UKPX file concerns the Norfolk case. The overseas sessions form part of the documentary background, rather than additional locations on the strictly UK historical-case map.

Montague Keen’s 2001 paper describes a converted cellar with a central table, crystals and a glass dome. Sitters used luminous wristbands to help track movement, and music commonly accompanied the sittings. Proceedings were recorded and transcripts prepared.

Keen said the observers could search the room before and after sittings. He also acknowledged their inability to secure infrared filming at that stage, an issue that later became central to the disagreement over the observations.

His most vivid descriptions concern points of light moving through the room, apparently responding to requests and illuminating objects. He reported lights striking the table with a sharp sound and spreading through a crystal and the supports of a glass dome.

These were experiences Keen regarded as significant. His paper is valuable as a participant-investigator’s own explanation of what impressed him and what conditions he described, rather than a later programme’s reconstruction of the sitting.

Photographic material became especially important because a developed image could be examined after a session. The published report devotes separate chapters to early film work, positive and negative results, a Wordsworth-related text, diagrams, recordings and later video.

That range is worth keeping in view. Scole did not produce one universally recognised ‘ghost photograph’; its photographic claims involved different images, scripts and procedures across different sittings.

The current official presentation gives two identifiable examples. A filmstrip associated with Session 254 on 22 November 1996 is described as bearing panoramic glyph-like material after being held in a security box. A video anomaly called ‘Blue Two’ is associated with Session 417 on 20 April 1998.

Those are the archive’s labels and attributions. They provide precise starting points for reading and listening, while the relevant session record is needed to follow who supplied the material, how it was handled and when the result was inspected.

The publisher’s introduction describes the home circle attracting SPR researchers’ attention in late 1994, followed by more than twenty investigative sittings between 1995 and 1997. The principal report authors were Keen, electrical engineer Arthur Ellison and psychologist David Fontana.

They concluded that they had not detected direct evidence of deception during their observations and regarded the combined material as favouring an unusual intelligent agency. That is the position of the report’s authors, rather than a unanimous verdict from everyone who visited.

The original report appeared in the SPR’s Proceedings in 1999. A later book reprint has different pagination, which is why page totals quoted online can look inconsistent.

For source work, distinguish the investigators’ report, Robin Foy’s diary account and Grant and Jane Solomon’s popular book. They concern the same project but are different publications with different authors and purposes.

The SPR’s modern overview records that other researchers were less persuaded. Their objections concerned darkness, restrictions on proposed tests, control of equipment and whether familiar images could have been introduced by ordinary means.

Tony Cornell discussed ways moving lights could be reproduced; Donald West and Alan Gauld raised questions about photographic evidence. The investigators responded to criticisms in the published debate.

The important historical point is the specificity of the disagreement. It was not simply a vote on whether spiritual experiences are possible. It concerned what a particular observer could see, the handling of particular materials and which alternative procedures the group would accept.

The surviving report therefore contains both enthusiastic conclusions and criticism. Reading them together provides a more interesting account than presenting either side as if the other had never attended or written.

The current Scole Archive separates audio, transcripts, video, bulletins, diaries, photographs, session records, participants and correspondence into identifiable series. That structure makes it possible to follow a particular claimed occurrence through more than one type of record.

A recent curator explanation distinguishes cleaned, readable transcripts from raw audio. It says fillers, repetitions and some non-verbal material may be removed in an ‘intelligent’ transcript. For a case involving sounds and timing, that distinction is especially relevant.

A transcript can help locate a passage; the recording is needed to hear pauses, background noises and changes of speaker. An image caption can identify a result; a session record is needed to understand its handling history.

These are practical ways to read this particular archive, not a demand that a visitor accept or reject its conclusions before exploring it.

Scole sits in a long British tradition of private sittings becoming public investigations. The comparison with D. D. Home at Ashley Place is useful: both involve named sitters, unusual room phenomena and later arguments over what the accounts establish.

The differences are equally important. Home’s window episode reaches us mainly through written descriptions and correspondence; Scole has a much larger body of audio and photographic material to organise and compare.

The village pin and modern photograph deliberately provide geographical context without directing readers to a private cellar. The case’s continuing interest lies in the sequence of sittings and the surviving records.

UKPX will expand this canonical file when specific additional session material can be read and linked. The strongest additions will identify the session, participants, procedure and resulting record, rather than simply repeat that something remarkable happened somewhere in the dark.

1992 — Publisher’s account describes the development of a small home circle.

4 October 1993 — First session in the archive’s numbered experimental sequence.

Late 1994 — The group came to outside psychical researchers’ attention.

1995–1997 — Principal investigative sittings by Keen, Ellison and Fontana.

22 November 1996 — Session 254, associated with a later archived filmstrip example.

20 April 1998 — Session 417, associated with the ‘Blue Two’ video example.

6 November 1998 — Final session in the archive’s sequence.

1999 — Publication of the investigators’ report and wider debate.

2001 — Keen published his account of the investigation and controversy.

The Scole Experiment / ScoleTV — Current official presentation, core participants and labelled examples.

Scole Archive — Session chronology and current catalogue series, including the distinction between audio and cleaned transcripts.

Montague Keen, The Scole Investigation (2001) — Journal of Scientific Exploration 15(2), pp. 167–182: participant-investigator’s account and argument.

Publisher’s introduction to The Scole Report — History of the investigation, authors’ conclusion and later reprint.

The Scole Report: publication details and preview — Contents and publication history; full book access may require a subscription.

SPR Psi Encyclopedia: The Scole Circle — Overview of the visiting investigators and differing assessments.

Helen Steed, Scole village sign and memorial — Modern village reference and licensed context image.