ArsGeek

See this woman? Her name is Helen Duncan. She was convicted of witchcraft in 1944 under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 for disclosing World War II Secrets. You’re looking at the last woman convicted of Witchcraft in the UK - as are a bunch of mediums, psychics, and whatnot. Many people feel she deserves a pardon for spending 9 months in jail after revealing the fate of a WWII ship sunk by U-boat. Apparently she conjured forth the apparition of a sailor from the doomed ship.

It probably didn’t hurt that she resided in Portsmouth, the home of the Royal Navy. I mean, what’s more likely, that she heard about it from a Navy bloke, or that she conjured up the spiritual remains of some poor sailor?

Is this a case of the state using whatever law is applicable to punish someone for revealing war secrets or just aimless persecution of a practitioner of the dark arts or the not so dark arts.  Or the downright new age arts.  Anyhow, a group of self stylized mediums and perhaps a few larges and smalls have banded together to demand that the British Government offer a pardon to all those convicted of witchcraft since 1735.  Thanks to the BBC for the full story.

It is thought some 4,000 people, mainly women, were prosecuted and often put to death for witchcraft.

The last Witchcraft Act conviction was in 1944 when Scottish medium Helen Duncan was imprisoned for allegedly disclosing World War II secrets.

She told a seance a warship had sunk before the news had been released.

The witchcraft petition came from a group of self-styled “mediums” called Full Moon Investigators.

Seance ‘visitation’

The group said many of today’s occupations such as herbalism, alternative therapies and midwifery had their roots in the same traditions as the women burnt to death in previous centuries as “witches”.

They want the state to apologise and grant those convicted a pardon.

This includes Mrs Duncan, who was born in Callander, Perthshire, who they said in particular deserves a pardon.

She was convicted under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 and spent nine months in Holloway prison in London.

It was claimed that she endangered the war effort by using her powers as a spiritualist or medium to reveal the fact, kept secret, that the ship the HMS Barham had been sunk.

When HMS Barham was sunk by a German U-boat in November 1941, Mrs Duncan lived in Portsmouth, the home of the Royal Navy.

During a seance, it was claimed that the spirit of a sailor from the stricken ship appeared.

The vessel was only officially declared lost several months later.

Technorati Tags: newt, witch, witchcraft, 1735, pardons, government, odd, medium, ghosts, wwii