The Witch of D-Day

An interesting story I found that I hadn't heard before. It's about one Helen Duncan, a Scottish witch who was arrested and jailed because it was feared she'd give away the time and location of the D-Day landings.

Mrs Duncan, a Scotswoman who travelled the country holding seances, was one of Britain's best-known mediums, reputedly numbering Winston Churchill and George VI among her clients, when she was arrested in January 1944 by two naval officers at a seance in Portsmouth. The military authorities, secretly preparing for the D-day landings and then in a heightened state of paranoia, were alarmed by reports that she had disclosed - allegedly via contacts with the spirit world - the sinking of two British battleships long before they became public. The most serious disclosure came when she told the parents of a missing sailor that his ship, HMS Barham, had sunk. It was true, but news of the tragedy had been suppressed to preserve morale.

Desperate to silence the apparent leak of state secrets, the authorities charged Mrs Duncan with conspiracy, fraud, and with witchcraft under an act dating back to 1735 - the first such charge in over a century. At the trial, only the "black magic" allegations stuck, and she was jailed for nine months at Holloway women's prison in north London. Churchill, then prime minister, visited her in prison and denounced her conviction as "tomfoolery". In 1951, he repealed the 200-year-old act, but her conviction stood.

www.theguardian.com...

Was she the real thing? Or were the authorities just being paranoid at the time?

a reply to: underwerks

Maybe Julian Assange is her reincarnation. About the same end too.

Nothing like a good witch story. I’ve never heard of this before today.
I wonder what they practiced over there at that time, just normal pagan, Thelema, or that outdoorsy sounding one? I forgot the name. lol

a reply to: underwerks
Good yarn...thanks for that!
S&F4U

There is a story....maybe urban myth......that Churchill employed the 'talents' of witches to cast a spell to protect the South coast of England with an invisible and impenetrable barrier

Rainbows
Jane

a reply to: underwerks

I think she escaped and ran to the Craigh Na Dune stones where she was able to travel back to 1744 to warn the Jacobites of an impending war at the Battle of Culloden where they would be defeated. (The tv series was only off by a year)

On a serious note, this is very interesting and I'm going to look into it a lot more. I do believe we have people like this who can tell the future.

a reply to: TexasTruth

Wicca?

Feel the drugs:

a reply to: angelchemuel

I think that referred to some unsolicited help from Aleister Crowley who claimed to have a talisman that would protect from air raids. Didn't seem to work very well, though but I am short on details at the moment and am going from memory.

Anyone who has examined this case knows that Duncan was NOT a witch. She was a Spiritualist medium who used her clairvoyance and telepathic communiction from a dead sailor to reveal in public that the ship he had served on had been sunk by the Germans. The British authorities had not announced this at the time in order not to damage public morale. She could not have known this yet did.

a reply to: angelchemuel

Not entirely myth. It is true that the stories of a secret cabal standing upon the Cliffs of Dover in August 1940 casting a protection spell are probably romanticized. It is also true that there was a concerted effort made by England's occultists, led by Dion Fortune, to repel evil forces they perceived to be coming from the Nazi's own occultists. Fortune even wrote a book about it titled The Magical Battle of Britain.

a reply to: micpsi
Thanks, was waiting for someone to clear that up. I think the whole 'witch' thing just came from that charge of witchcraft when they put her on trial. I guess they had no spiritual medium law to charge her with breaking....

a reply to: wtbengineer

She was a convicted and serial fraudster.

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: Freeborn

From where came her knowledge of the dead sailor then.

Also don’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia.

a reply to: underwerks

They went on a witch pursuit thing. A witch round em up shoot em up.

Yes , but how many niplels did she have ladie ?

a reply to: surfer_soul

Wikipedia provides links to it's sources.

The sinking of HMS Barham wasn't really that much of a secret.

Just have a look at the photo's of her and the 'ectoplasm', that wouldn't pass the scrutiny of a primary school child nowadays.

Some things are unexplainable, this is.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
Feel the drugs:

Wow! You don't even have to press play for that video to move, man! Groovy!

originally posted by: oldcarpy
a reply to: angelchemuel

I think that referred to some unsolicited help from Aleister Crowley who claimed to have a talisman that would protect from air raids. Didn't seem to work very well, though but I am short on details at the moment and am going from memory.

Ooohhhh...hadn't heard it was Crowley...heard it was a 'coven' of witches

Rainbows
Jane

originally posted by: Xcalibur254
a reply to: angelchemuel

Not entirely myth. It is true that the stories of a secret cabal standing upon the Cliffs of Dover in August 1940 casting a protection spell are probably romanticized. It is also true that there was a concerted effort made by England's occultists, led by Dion Fortune, to repel evil forces they perceived to be coming from the Nazi's own occultists. Fortune even wrote a book about it titled The Magical Battle of Britain.

Thank you! I'll have a search for that book
Rainbows
jane