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Authors: Elenor Gill
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been passed on to the national papers and there’s been no interest. People who don’t know the Fens are not impressed. Still, a feature might go down well locally; it might even get some follow-up interaction in the letters page. OK, go ahead with it, if it’s really what you want to do.’
‘Yes, it is. Thanks, Jack.’
He goes back to his own desk and the page he was reading, then looks up as if something is going through his mind. ‘This Stanton woman. Some sort of historian, you reckon?’
‘So Drew says.’
‘Yes, that’s good. But how about another angle as well? What say we get a psychic involved?’
‘A what? You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘Not at all. They’re flavour of the month right now. All those programmes on TV.’
‘And where are we going to get a psychic from?’
‘There’s that writer chap, Gideon Wakefield.’
‘Wakefield? That’s him! He was at that lecture the other night—I’ve been trying to remember his name.’
‘What does he call himself? A parapsychologist? I’ll give him a ring and see if I can persuade him to co-operate. See what you can dig up about him, background stuff. I know he’s quite respected in certain circles, so he can’t be a complete nutter.’
Lacey spends what little is left of the afternoon at the computer, trying to get some background on Gideon Wakefield. Jack has managed to contact him and, to Lacey’s amazement, he’s agreed to meet with her this evening. There’s quite a lot of information on him. She prints it out, intending to read up on him over a quick bite to eat at The Eagle. She stuffs the printout into her bag and is about to close the computer down when, as an afterthought, she types in Crop Circles Cambridgeshire and clicks on the search button.
Seven
People differ greatly in their attitudes towards the paranormal. The devout believer and the aggressive sceptic often have much in common, in that their attitudes are formed by social and emotional causes and have little to do with intellectual consideration. The open-minded inquirer, on the other hand, has no particular axe to grind and is willing to consider the evidence on its own merits. The problem is that, as yet, I have been unable to find anyone without an emotional and social background and a personal and cultural history.
Parapsychological research aims to operate somewhere in this open-minded middle ground. It is an ideal with which, in principle, I am in full agreement. The problem is that, as science has now conceded, the experimenter, by his very involvement or mere interest, becomes an additional factor in an experiment and so would influence the outcome.
There is, therefore, no such thing as the impartial, objective observer.
Extract from The Cosmos of Illusions by Gideon Wakefield
I T IS APPROACHING SEVEN O’CLOCK in the evening and Gideon is feeling annoyed with himself. He received a call earlier from the chiefreporter of the Herald, something about Fenland history and strange phenomena and how people are affected by the atmosphere. He can certainly do without that kind of sensationalist nonsense, and so his first impulse was to hang up. But somehow a memory of Cassandra slipped between him and the voice at the other end of the line. A man will ask it as a favour, she had said. I know you are impatient with people sometimes, but, Gideon, this is too important. So he found himself agreeing to assist with a newspaper feature, something totally against his personal policy. Now he is waiting for someone named Prentice to call on him. As soon as he put the telephone down, he wondered what the hell he had let himself in for. Press interviews are one of life’s minefields. No matter how painstakingly he prepares his material, no matter how comprehensively he explains his subject, they always manage to twist his words into something unrecognizable. He’ll make every effort to get rid of them as quickly as possible.
He goes out onto the balcony, hoping to catch
‘Yes, it is. Thanks, Jack.’
He goes back to his own desk and the page he was reading, then looks up as if something is going through his mind. ‘This Stanton woman. Some sort of historian, you reckon?’
‘So Drew says.’
‘Yes, that’s good. But how about another angle as well? What say we get a psychic involved?’
‘A what? You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘Not at all. They’re flavour of the month right now. All those programmes on TV.’
‘And where are we going to get a psychic from?’
‘There’s that writer chap, Gideon Wakefield.’
‘Wakefield? That’s him! He was at that lecture the other night—I’ve been trying to remember his name.’
‘What does he call himself? A parapsychologist? I’ll give him a ring and see if I can persuade him to co-operate. See what you can dig up about him, background stuff. I know he’s quite respected in certain circles, so he can’t be a complete nutter.’
Lacey spends what little is left of the afternoon at the computer, trying to get some background on Gideon Wakefield. Jack has managed to contact him and, to Lacey’s amazement, he’s agreed to meet with her this evening. There’s quite a lot of information on him. She prints it out, intending to read up on him over a quick bite to eat at The Eagle. She stuffs the printout into her bag and is about to close the computer down when, as an afterthought, she types in Crop Circles Cambridgeshire and clicks on the search button.
Seven
People differ greatly in their attitudes towards the paranormal. The devout believer and the aggressive sceptic often have much in common, in that their attitudes are formed by social and emotional causes and have little to do with intellectual consideration. The open-minded inquirer, on the other hand, has no particular axe to grind and is willing to consider the evidence on its own merits. The problem is that, as yet, I have been unable to find anyone without an emotional and social background and a personal and cultural history.
Parapsychological research aims to operate somewhere in this open-minded middle ground. It is an ideal with which, in principle, I am in full agreement. The problem is that, as science has now conceded, the experimenter, by his very involvement or mere interest, becomes an additional factor in an experiment and so would influence the outcome.
There is, therefore, no such thing as the impartial, objective observer.
Extract from The Cosmos of Illusions by Gideon Wakefield
I T IS APPROACHING SEVEN O’CLOCK in the evening and Gideon is feeling annoyed with himself. He received a call earlier from the chiefreporter of the Herald, something about Fenland history and strange phenomena and how people are affected by the atmosphere. He can certainly do without that kind of sensationalist nonsense, and so his first impulse was to hang up. But somehow a memory of Cassandra slipped between him and the voice at the other end of the line. A man will ask it as a favour, she had said. I know you are impatient with people sometimes, but, Gideon, this is too important. So he found himself agreeing to assist with a newspaper feature, something totally against his personal policy. Now he is waiting for someone named Prentice to call on him. As soon as he put the telephone down, he wondered what the hell he had let himself in for. Press interviews are one of life’s minefields. No matter how painstakingly he prepares his material, no matter how comprehensively he explains his subject, they always manage to twist his words into something unrecognizable. He’ll make every effort to get rid of them as quickly as possible.
He goes out onto the balcony, hoping to catch
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