Please click on the picture to be taken to the web page and story.Ghosts? Trick of the light? Some kind of double exposure? Click the photo to view a large version, and tell us what you think it might be in the comments box below.Tell him what you think via the original page :)
Psychic research in a Winnipeg family: reminiscences of Dr. Glen F. Hamilton.(Gazette)(Reprint)
Article Excerpt
I first learned of Dr. Glen Forrester Hamilton through the psychic research of his father, Dr. Thomas Glendenning Hamilton. TG, as Glen's father was affectionately known, engaged in a wide variety of studies in the psychic area during the 1900s. I obtained a research grant from the Archives & Special Collections at the University of Manitoba in order to interview Margaret, TG's only daughter, as to her recollections and reminiscences about her father and her father's psychic work. Margaret was eager to participate, so an interview was scheduled for 27 October 1986. When I returned from an extended trip to Churchill, however, I was told the heartbreaking news that, on 18 October, Margaret had died.
The death of Margaret left Dr. Glen as the sole surviving offspring of TG Hamilton. I suggested to several persons who knew Dr. Glen that, perhaps, I might contact him to see if he would agree to the sort of interviews I had planned for his sister. Unfortunately, I was always told that it would be a waste of time, because Dr. Glen never gave interviews about his own beliefs or his father's psychic research. With completely unwarranted confidence that Glen would agree to videotaped interviews and after a sufficient time interval had elapsed following his sister's death, I telephoned Glen on 8 May 1987. To my relief, he was most gracious, and immediately agreed to our working together. Our first face to face meeting was 11 June, at which time he proudly gave me a tour of his home at 123 Greene Avenue in Winnipeg, and showed me the family scrapbooks, his bagpipes, his figurines, and his models of ships and trains. Glen and I worked together taping interviews during July. To my knowledge, Glen's recollections and views of his family history, his father's psychic research, and his own beliefs have never been made public before. What follows is a summary of the reminiscences of Dr. Glen, much of which is presented through photographs as well as in his own words. (1)
Dr. Glen always presented himself as a proud Scot. His favourite song was "Road to the Isles," played on bagpipes. He also was a dedicated physician. He graduated from the Medical College of the University of Manitoba in 1934. After a brief post-graduate experience in Edinburgh, Scotland, he returned to Canada to practice medicine in Huntsville, Ontario in 1938. The next year he was back in Winnipeg, practicing from the family home in Elmwood. Between 1939 and 1944, he served with the Army Medical Corps, retiring as a Major. He became Chairman of the Medical Staff at Concordia Hospital and was for a time on the staff of St. Boniface Hospital.
Dr. Glen, like his parents, believed in personal survival after death. Though his beliefs were held with strong conviction, he came across to me as exceedingly tolerant of those whose beliefs did not coincide with his own. He approached life scientifically, though he believed in things not yet verified or perhaps even testable by the scientific method. He was fiercely independent, a sort of rebel or loner. He was a brutal realist. He confronted life simply, directly, and honestly. Yet, despite this sometimes cold, pragmatic, and practical side, I found him to be sensitive, warm, and even vulnerable with a great sense of humour and hope and optimism. Dr. Glen admitted to being a very private and shy person, shunning most celebrations and personal recognition. When I suggested that the videotaped interviews might be titled, "Psychic Research in a Famous Winnipeg Family," he modestly asked that the word, "Famous," be left out. His unique background, his broad-based expertise, and his personal charm made my meetings with him both informative and enjoyable.
According to Dr. Glen, his father was a highly principled, Presbyterian Scot physician, born to James Hamilton and Isabella Glendenning on 27 November 1873, in Agincourt, Ontario. Nine years later, TG's father and oldest brother, Robert, left their Agincourt farm as members of the Temperance Colonization Society and traveled west to homestead on the west side of the South Saskatchewan River near Saskatoon. The following year, Isabella, TG, and the other four children joined the family in Saskatchewan, living for a time in a sod house. Unfortunately, the family suffered severely through farming problems as well as the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. It was in this year that James Hamilton died. Calamity struck once more when in the next year, James' only daughter, Margaret, also died. Because of these devastating events, the family left the Saskatchewan farm, dispersed briefly, but finally reunited in Winnipeg, in 1891.
TG and his siblings attended school in Winnipeg. TG taught school in order to put himself through medicine. In 1903, he obtained his MD degree from the Manitoba Medical College (now the Medical School of the University of Manitoba). He was the first physician in Elmwood, specialized in internal medicine and obstetrics, and did his rounds by bicycle, then by horse and buggy, and only later by an open-topped touring car. Soon, TG met Lillian May Forrester, who was born in Belleville, Ontario, lived on a farm, served for a while as a school teacher, and in 1905 graduated from the Winnipeg General Hospital School of Nursing (now the School of Nursing of the University of Manitoba). In 1906, TG and Lillian married, and TG was elected to the Winnipeg School Board. Their first child, Margaret Lillian, was born on 23 February 1909. In 1910, the family moved into "Old One Eighty Five," a large two storey house at 185 Kelvin Street (now Henderson Highway). Soon it became known throughout Winnipeg as "Hamilton House." Offices were on the main floor, surgery in the basement with its own entrance from the street, and living quarters upstairs. Glen Forrester Hamilton, whose recollections form the basis of the present article, was born on 16 August 1911. According to Margaret, "Glen Forrester soon grew to become my playmate, my opponent, and my best friend." (2) In 1912, Isabella, who had been living with the family in Hamilton House, died. Three years later, TG was elected by Elmwood constituents to be their Liberal Member in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly. This honour came in the same year as the birth on 27 September of twin boys: Arthur Lamont and James Drummond.
To the great shock of the entire family, on 27 January 1919, Arthur died of the widespread influenza outbreak at the end of the First World War. In 1920, TG was up for reelection as Elmwood's MLA but was defeated. On a more positive note, in this same year, TG was named a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, started the Manitoba Medical Review, and became its first editor. In 1921, TG became President of the Manitoba Medical Association and the first President of the University of Manitoba Alumni Association.
Between 1918 and 1935, TG developed a strong interest in psychic research. Although it did not seem to interfere with his medical practice, TG spent more and more time investigating psychic events as well as writing and lecturing on the work he was doing in this field. At first, he kept the two areas completely separate. His medical practice was his public profession, while his psychic research was his private secret. However, in May 1926, TG went public when he delivered a lecture on his research on telekinesis to the Winnipeg Medical Society. From then until his death, he became a national and international spokesperson--in personal appearances and in print--for psychic research. In 1931, TG became the first President of the Winnipeg Society for Psychical Research. In 1934, the Hamilton family was photographed together as a stable and secure unit. This image was shattered when, on 7 April 1935, after a year of failing health, TG died of a heart attack.
Although many articles on psychic research had been written by TG prior to his death, it was his posthumous volume, Intention and Survival (1942), under the editorship of Lillian and James Drummond, which represents the most complete summary of his work. Lillian continued TG's work until her death on 18 September 1956. In 1977, the second edition of Intention and Survival was printed under Margaret's editorship. James Drummond, who had been a physician in the US and Canada, died on 8 April 1980. Margaret carried on the family task of publicizing the Hamilton research through talks and writings for the next thirty years.
Although TG had read books on spiritualism and psychic work during the First World War, his concern over his recently deceased son, Arthur, may have increased significantly his strong attraction to the field of psychic research. As Dr. Glen expressed his explanation of his father's deepening interest in the psychic field:
Towards the end of the First War, in fact, about December of 1918, when the first battalions were coming back from the War, they brought the so-called Spanish Flu with them; and we all caught it. But unfortunately, my brother, Arthur, who was then three ... died of it in January 1919. And that was the first time I ever saw death as it really was. My mother and father took me into the bedroom where he was lying in his crib. He just looked like a little wax doll; and I can remember on the floor beside his crib there was an enamel basin with boiling water in it--Friars Balsam--that aromatic stuff you put into body rub and a little tank of oxygen. And those were the weapons to fight the Flu. That was all! And it wasn't successful in his case. It really shook my father up a great deal. Dad was a very strict Calvinist Presbyterian, and he felt that in some way, because he was so fond of Arthur--we all, he was kind of a loveable kid for some reason or other--that he was being punished by the Lord, which today we think is a little bit ridiculous. But that's the way he took it. And I think that stimulated his interest in the psychic field. He felt here he had lost a beautiful little boy. Where had the soul gone?
Interestingly, Glen's sister, Margaret, expressed a similar view of her father in a 1980 interview:
When little Arthur died at the age of three years ... dad's grief was profound. I remember being in wonderment as I watched my father cry.... He asked the question, "Does my child survive?" He wasn't sure for a long time. (3)
The investigations of TG were wide in scope and many in number. Glen referred to them as "psychic research."
He much preferred the more lofty name of "psychic research." You see, to us, spiritualism is a form of religion ... Dad did not like that type of attitude towards his work. He was interested in trying to do things as carefully and as openly and as honestly, of course, as he could.
TG at one time or other investigated the Ouija board, mental telepathy, table rapping, table tipping, table traveling, table flipping, bell-box ringing, bell-box cables, super-normal lights, automatic writing, scripts, deep-trance drawings, direct voice, communications from deceased persons, dictatorial spirit guides, trance personalities, and ectoplasmic constructions. The results of these investigations contributed greatly to TG becoming convinced that there were capabilities of the human spirit that go beyond mere physical capabilities, that these capabilities are particularly high in special people, that deceased persons can communicate with and produce material through these special people, and that these communications and productions show intelligence and intentionality and, thereby, provide proof for the survival of the human spirit after death. In addition, one may surmise that TG's experiences during these investigations played a major part in his eventually coming to terms with Arthur's death through the belief that Arthur's life was ongoing in another world.
In 1918, Dr. William Talbot Allison, an English Professor at Wesley College (now the University of Winnipeg) introduced TG and Lillian to the "Patience Worth Phenomenon," which involved spiritual communication and inspiration through the Ouija board and other means based on the mediumship of Pearl Lenore Pollard Curran of St. Louis, Missouri. In Dr. Glen's description of the family's use of the Ouija board around the time of the First World War, he also refers to Elizabeth Poole, TG's first medium.
The number of dead led to the appearance of what was called at first "planchette" ... English Canadians called it the "Ouijee"--I always called it the "Ouijee board".... Certain people seem to have an ability to put their hands on this thing, and it would point to different letters. It would send you a message. It was a tedious method but it worked! And you could say--ask it questions-and the planchette would point to "yes" or "no." Undoubtedly, 99 percent of the results that were gotten were fraudulent, people just fooling around. But mother and dad had this close friend, Mrs. Elizabeth Poole, a little wee Scottish woman.... She was sort of a baby sitter, I guess.... So it was noted that when Mrs. Poole was around--and remember she was a Scot, a pure Scot, she had a heavy Scottish accent--this planchette or Ouija board would go nuts!
TG also experimented with mental telepathy with his United Church minister, Reverend Daniel Norman McLachlan. Telepathy or thought transference involves communication from one mind to another through mental (rather than sensory) channels. The two men tried to send mental messages to each other from different rooms rather than merely receiving public messages through the Ouija board. By restricting conditions so misinterpretation could be avoided, they soon became convinced that their telepathic experiments were successful.
About 1920, TG and Lillian became involved in table rapping, the listening for table raps to provide "yes" and "no" answers to questions similar to those previously posed to the Ouija board. (Interestingly, Lillian and the other Forresters came from Belleville, Ontario, near Consecon, where the famous Fox sisters, Margaret and Kate, were born and later initiated a spiritualistic resurgence because of their table rapping feats in Hydesville, New York in 1848. (4)) The involvement in table rapping led to other table-related phenomena, namely, table tipping, table moving, and table flipping. Of particular importance to TG's investigations into the psychic world was the time in 1920 when TG, Lillian, and Mrs. Poole were introduced to the popular parlour game of that era, table tipping. It was thought that as the alphabet was verbally repeated, a table would stop tipping when the "correct" letter was reached; in time, a series of letters could then be expected to spell out a message. On the first occasion, in dim light, the table began to move, tilt up on two legs, and finally spell out a meaningful message. This event impressed Lillian, who continued working with Mrs. Poole to develop her surprising psychic capabilities further. Only later did TG take over this work from Lillian. One evening, a table rose up on two legs, and Lillian could not force it down. After considerable effort, TG pushed it down with what he estimated was about fifty pounds of pressure.
Despite these message-bearing occurrences, TG was becoming more critical of his psychic work. Somewhat reluctantly, in 1921, TG initiated his investigation into telekinesis, the movement of physical objects through mental (rather than physical) activity. Despite his waning interest, TG received a message in early 1923 through table raps that said "Go on with your work." Within a year, this message was to stimulate a whole new direction of study for the Hamiltons.
These were the days in which Mrs. Poole did her most productive work. Glen describes how his father in conjunction with sitters and Mrs. Poole set up experiments in table moving.
He took plywood, and he built a cabinet, three-sided vertical box, open on one side ... and on the front here he put a roller blind on end, and it had a netting in it about five feet high. There was a hook here, and when you put the psychic table in here (the psychic table was made all of wood--there was no metal used in its construction) and Mrs. Poole would put her hands on this table to charge it with energy, and other sitters would hold hands to reinforce the charging, and she would push the table into the cabinet. Dad would then draw this net across the face of it. He had a flash camera.... This was all done in the dark.... This table could be heard to charge forward and bulge the net a way out as though it was trying to escape, and it was this that got my dad interested. He said there is some kind of psychic force working there.
By now, TG had established a separate room on the second floor of Hamilton House specifically for his psychic research. (I have visited the house and the old research room twice, both times with Eileen Sykes, TG's medical and seance secretary.) TG not only succeeded at table moving, but table flipping as well. About this time, TG began to pursue another capability of Mrs. Poole, namely, spontaneous deep trance. TG as a medical man performed many measurements on her performance in various psychological states, including automatic writing (continuous longhand scripts written supposedly without conscious control). All of these phenomena were strange, yet they were to evolve into something even stranger.
TG and a group of other similarly interested people regularly witnessed and documented the construction and appearance of teleplasms, or manifestations of cloud-like faces, bodies, and objects. Most of the work was accomplished between 1928 and 1935. Over a thousand trance-periods were held in a darkened room, in the Hamilton home, with over 500 photographs taken by a bank of cameras recording teleplasms which appeared inside TG's wooden cabinet. A significant change occurred in the formation and direction of the Hamilton research.
Mrs. Poole introduced two other Scottish ladies. They were sisters-in-law, both named Mrs. Marshall. The larger of the two had a name given by the psychic controls, Dawn, and the smaller of the two ladies was given the name Mercedes. And they were known as that.... All three were very simple, almost uneducated people.
Mary Marshall began her work with the Hamiltons in January of 1928. As the focus on Mary Marshall increased, the focus on Mrs. Poole decreased to the point that in September 1933, Mrs. Poole retired from mediumship due to failing health. In 1928, in addition to teleplasms, TG became aware of certain auditory communications through Mary Marshall that appeared to come from a "voice box," thought to be external to the vocal organs of the medium. This "direct voice phenomenon" occurred only infrequently in the Hamilton research, because it supposedly took too much power to accomplish. The major purpose of the s6ances was the building up of teleplasms, and their production supposedly required considerable energy input itself. About this time, another observation was reported concerning "supernormal light" (psychic light). A light varying between a dull glow and a brightly illuminated watch dial infrequently appeared about a foot from Mary Marshall, as low as a few inches from the floor to a position level with her head. Sometimes it moved rapidly; sometimes only slowly; sometimes only some sitters saw it; but never was TG able to photograph it.
Occasionally, famous people arrived in Winnipeg and came to Hamilton House, some attending sittings and some even taking their own photographs of the proceedings. Three of the most noted visitors were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1-3 July 1923), who wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories, Dr. and Mrs. L.R.G. Crandon (21-24 December 1926), who were associated with the Houdini versus Margery controversy, and the Right Honourable William Lyon Mackenzie King (20 August 1933), who was former Prime Minister of Canada, then Leader of the Opposition, and soon to return once more as Prime Minister. In May, June, and July of 1932, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle returned once more to Hamilton House--through seances--because he died on 7 July 1930. Another post-death visitor was TG himself, who "came through" in a seance in Dr. Allison's study the night of TG's funeral in 1935 as well as in the picture-producing seance of 22 May 1939 and in numerous scripts written to Lillian between 1940 and 1944.
An important category of people coming to Hamilton House was visitors. However, six other categories of people, who were essential to the Hamilton...
I wish I had more but time... and well no visitors anyway, so I am just talking to myself ;)“At first I was a skeptic,” said Antoniuk. “But it kind of makes you wonder.”
“It’s good for the community and it’s good for Winnipeg,” said Antoniuk about the documentary.
Chasing Hamilton’s Ghost will air as part of CTV’s Manitoba Moments on June 24 at 6:30 p.m.
tHIS SOUNDS CRAZY....DIRTY, NON SENSICAL.... BUT IF YOU HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING MY BLOG OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS, I HAVE MENTIONED, AND NOT IN A LONG TIME......THAT THIS BUIDING IN HOHOKUS IS HAUNTED.please click on the text for the rest of the story :)
"‘High caffeine users’ – those who consumed more than the equivalent of seven cups of instant coffee a day - were three times more likely to have heard a person’s voice when there was no one there compared with ‘low caffeine users’ who consumed less than the equivalent of one cup of instant coffee a day."You can follow through for the story by clicking on the text.
As far as I know, whatever entered our house that summer night was never caught or identified. I do know he or "it" intended to tie me up and hurt me. I do know he or "it" had little fear and enjoyed terrifying us that night. I also know he or "it" was beast-like and far from human given its loud haunting screams and incredible physical strength. I will always believe the monster that ripped the window and frame out of Kim's wall was the same monster that intended and tried to kill me.
"The photo, taken by a night time LCDI security guard just a few months ago, has been deemed by experts as authentic and reignited examinations into the ghoulish goings on at the former workhouse."You can read more here:
A Flickr picture from Morgen1967 , which is part os a set he took of some abandoned factories in Cassopolis, Michigan.
