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Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar shows the shameless reality of Belle Gibson’s fraud

Abigail Kennedy
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Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar shows the shameless reality of Belle Gibson’s fraud

Netflix recently released a biopic miniseries exploring the rise and fall of Australian wellness influencer Belle Gibson. Titled Apple Cider Vinegar (2025), the miniseries investigates Gibson’s elaborate web of deception and dramatises her infamous story. Its release raised an eyebrow for me, given Netflix’s history of promoting alternative medicine and pseudoscience on its platform, with titles like The Goop Lab (2020), Seaspiracy (2021), and What the Health (2017), among many others, accused of spreading various misleading or false claims.

The new miniseries, along with the 2023 Belle Gibson documentary The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist, made me wonder: is Netflix pivoting its content strategy and trying to distance itself from association with misleading health claims?

Belle Gibson rose to fame through her wildly popular Instagram platform, which led to the release of her app and book, The Whole Pantry. The book contained recipes and health and lifestyle advice, all backed by her supposed terminal brain cancer diagnosis and claims of treating herself with natural remedies. She also claimed to have donated proceeds from the sale of her app and book to charities and people in need.

However, an investigation into Gibson’s fundraising activities revealed that not only had the promised funds never been paid, but her cancer diagnosis was also a complete lie. Legal action resulted in Gibson being fined $410,000 by the Australian Federal Court in 2017 for breaching Australian consumer law – a fine she has still not paid.

The release and promotion of Apple Cider Vinegar may be an attempt to counterbalance Netflix’s history of platforming questionable health content, especially in an era where fake news and misinformation are major global concerns. This comes at a time when Meta, one of the largest digital platforms and the company that owns Instagram – where Belle Gibson built her influence – is retracting its fact-checking initiatives. It is evident that we cannot rely on industry self-regulation to combat misinformation. Perhaps I’m giving Netflix too much credit, particularly since they have made no attempt to add disclaimers or context to any of the aforementioned titles. Still, Apple Cider Vinegar feels like a step in a different direction – maybe, generously speaking, even a breath of fresh air.

A red sign with white text hangs askew on yellow metalwork, reading "DANGER DUE TO" then "MISINFORMATION" written on by hand in blank space below
Could we see some higher standards from Netflix, or warnings on existing shows? Photo by 3dpete, Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0

In Apple Cider Vinegar and The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist, Belle Gibson is unequivocally portrayed as the antagonist, with the program primarily focusing on the stories of people who were deceived by her claims of curing multiple forms of cancer through diet and exercise while rejecting traditional cancer treatments, including chemotherapy. The show does not shy away from highlighting the damage her false claims caused, as well as how her biggest supporters helped her build an influencer empire that led to a book deal and a wellness app.

A major strength of the miniseries is its honesty about the harm caused by promoting alternative medical practices, particularly regarding cancer treatment. From the outset, Apple Cider Vinegar makes it clear that Belle Gibson was a fraud – there is no ambiguity, no element of suspense regarding her deception.

Right from the beginning, the people in Gibson’s life, including her fans and employees, attempt to expose her. Meanwhile, we see her at events promoting her book, claiming that her ‘authenticity’ is what draws people to her platform and brand. The show does an excellent job of portraying her as an almost cartoonish villain, with little to no attempt to humanise her. While this may make her a less complex character, it ensures that the producers avoid the trap of adding unnecessary drama by providing a sympathetic backstory. She is the villain, and the show makes this clear by depicting journalists breaking the story in 2015, revealing how her lies have cost lives by discouraging people from seeking necessary medical treatments.

One particularly striking moment occurs when her brand manager meets with the journalists investigating her. The brand manager remarks, “She’s probably killing people with her lies,” to which the journalist replies, “She is killing people.” This powerful exchange is even featured in the trailer that plays when you hover over the title.

When considering Netflix’s popular health documentaries, such as The Goop Lab and What the Health – though misleading content extends beyond health documentaries – it’s clear that the platform has not shied away from promoting untested and sometimes dangerous health claims. Gwyneth Paltrow, through her Netflix-promoted brand Goop, has suggested practices such as inserting a jade egg into one’s vagina, undergoing an “energy exorcism” to release stress and trauma, and engaging in “cold therapy” – all of which lack scientific backing or medical recommendation.

A peachy-brown solid background with 'the goop lab' in black text - the title card for the Netflix show of that name
The Goop Lab’s title card, from Netflix, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

While controversial titles such as The Goop Lab remain available on the platform, Netflix has removed content in the past. In 2019, for instance, Netflix took down the documentary Root Cause, which alleged that root canals cause cancer, heart disease, and other serious chronic illnesses. This inconsistency raises questions about Netflix’s commitment to content regulation.

The Goop Lab remains available on Netflix in the UK without any content warnings or disclaimers. The same goes for What the Health, which argues that meat, fish, poultry, and dairy contribute to obesity, cancer, type-2 diabetes, and toxin exposure. The filmmaker even compares consuming processed meats in childhood to smoking cigarettes. Despite widespread criticism from nutritionists and medical professionals, the documentary is still available, without any disclaimer addressing its controversies and inaccuracies.

There doesn’t seem to be much consistency in Netflix’s approach, suggesting that different departments or decision-makers have varying attitudes toward fact-checking, misinformation, and journalistic integrity. It appears that Apple Cider Vinegar comes from one side of the company, while The Goop Lab comes from another.

In recent years, there have been calls for streaming platforms to be regulated as strictly as linear TV channels, which must abide by Ofcom rules in the UK. Most Video on Demand services, however, are not currently subject to the regulator’s Broadcasting Code. This makes it difficult to enforce fact-checking requirements or hold platforms accountable for spreading misinformation.

With high-profile productions featuring well-known actors, content like Apple Cider Vinegar has the potential to shape public opinion. While most viewers are unlikely to support alternative cancer treatments, a firm stance against scammers like Gibson could contribute to shifting attitudes. If this type of content becomes part of a broader trend, it could help counteract the growing scepticism and distrust toward medical science.

While Netflix’s history with wellness-related content remains questionable, Apple Cider Vinegar suggests a shift – whether intentional or not – toward a more critical lens on misinformation. Only time will tell if this marks a true pivot or just an anomaly in their content strategy. However, it is reassuring to see that there are people at Netflix who value media literacy and believe that exposing dangerous scammers is important. Even without strict broadcasting regulations, efforts like Apple Cider Vinegar show that there are at least some within Netflix who are pushing for greater accountability in content creation.

Paging Dr Superstitious: Why Singaporean medics believe steamed buns are bad luck

Bruce Phang
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Paging Dr Superstitious: Why Singaporean medics believe steamed buns are bad luck

A steamed bun is a delicacy that most Asians are familiar with, and a source of comfort food for many. However, to many Asian nurses and healthcare staff, consuming a steamed bun during a hospital shift is considered a big taboo. You may wonder why this small delicacy causes anxiety and turmoil amongst hospital staff. This taboo arises from the supposed correlation between the consumption of the steamed bun and the number of serious incidents during a hospital shift. In some hospitals, it is believed that the consumption of a steamed bun highly increases the chance of a patient’s death.

The high-stakes environment of a hospital fosters anxiety and unease, both for those receiving care and for the healthcare professionals providing it. It is common knowledge that humans have relied on superstitions to cope with fear, uncertainty, and a lack of control over outcomes, especially in fields like medicine, where success is often accompanied by high stress and unpredictable factors. Hospitals embody this blend of hope and anxiety, where outcomes are life altering and tensions are high. In this environment, superstitions can take on lives of their own, providing patients and professionals with symbolic means to cope.

These superstitions may take various forms. Some are as simple as doctors wearing a specific pair of scrubs for good luck, or nurses avoiding certain phrases like “quiet night” to avoid “jinxing” a seemingly peaceful shift. Others may involve more intricate rituals, such as placing open scissors on the emergency phone to “cut” the occurrence of calls. With some patients even believing in lucky room numbers or bringing personal items that they consider “protective” during their hospital stays.

These practices, though not founded on scientific evidence, are deeply embedded in the hospital culture and may well provide psychological benefits for those involved. Some might argue that these superstitions serve as coping mechanisms, while others view them as humorous yet oddly comforting rituals in the chaotic environment of a hospital.

To give further insights on these superstitions, I interviewed Melvin, a junior doctor in one of Singapore’s public hospital. As someone who has just begun his journey in the challenging and often unpredictable world of medicine, Melvin’s life is a mix of intense professional dedication and quirky age-old traditions. Despite his medical training, like many healthcare professionals, Melvin, has embraced certain superstitions tied to the hospital’s culture.

One of the first superstitions Melvin was introduced to during his hospital rotations was the steamed bun taboo. Among his peers, it is an unspoken rule that consuming steamed buns on a hospital call or duty is a bad omen.

Steamed buns, also written as “包”, uses the same word as “wrapping” in Chinese. One of the few interpretations would be that steamed buns symbolises death, inciting the act of wrapping and packing of dead bodies. He mentions that his peers steer clear from steamed buns to lower the occurrence of such “bun-related cases”. It’s little surprise – a study by the Academy of Medicine in Singapore found all manner of superstitious beliefs among Singaporean medics.

Melvin himself admits to steering clear of this fluffy treat during his shifts. “Why take a chance and tempt fate?” he says, explaining that the last thing any doctor wants is to associate their meal choice with the grim outcomes to their patients’ conditions.

Three empty hospital beds in a ward room in daylight, two made up with bedding and one showing blue under-bedding, ready to be made.
Empty hospital beds, via Pixabay

For Melvin and his colleagues, certain words are considered taboo during shifts. Amongst the many phrases they avoid, the most dangerous would include describing a shift as “quiet” or “free”. To say, “Seems like it would be a quiet night” is akin to summoning chaos and inciting more work to do.

He recalls a night in the Emergency Department when a nurse casually remarked that she was bored because there was not much to do, and it was “quiet”. Preceding her mention of the work “quiet”, the emergency phone rang, and they were notified of an incoming patient who had serious injuries. Melvin thought to himself that it was as if the word “quiet” was the password to a vault full of work and medical emergencies, and the nurse had just “unlocked the vault”.

To avoid jinxing their luck, healthcare workers rely on euphemisms or say nothing at all when the workload is manageable. Silence, in this case, is golden. Melvin finds it amusing, but also recognises the psychological comfort it offers. “In our line of work, where certain elements are out of our control, following these little rules gives us a sense of order”, he reflects.

Perhaps the eeriest superstition that Melvin has encountered involves the use of certain hospital lifts. Many staff members refuse to take the last lift in the corner, especially towards the end of a shift. Stories abound about the use of the last lift during the shift incites more work or challenging situations. While Melvin has not experienced anything firsthand, he avoids the lift out of precaution for his seniors. However, Melvin did mention that, in situations where the shifts become busy and chaotic, his team seemingly goes against this superstition as the utility of an additional lift outweighs the supposed additional work placed onto the team. “We have to strike a balance between following such superstitious practices and operational concerns during our shifts”, he mentions.

While these practices might seem at odds with the rationality of medicine, Melvin sees them as part of hospital culture. “They’re little rituals that connect us,” he says. In the high-pressure environment of a hospital, superstitions provide not just amusement, but a shared sense of identity among staff. For Melvin, they are reminders of the humanity that underpins his work, when science meets the inexplicable, and every shift that has a new story waiting to unfold.

Psychological coping mechanisms

Hospitals are inherently high-stress environments, where healthcare workers make decisions that can make the difference between life and death. For these professionals, superstitions often function as psychological coping mechanisms, offering a sense of control and reducing anxiety. By engaging in certain rituals or behaviours – such as surgeons wearing a “lucky” cap,  or nurses stacking open scissors on the emergency phone – medical staff may feel more mentally prepared and at ease before taking on high-stakes tasks. This sense of control, even if illusory, can improve focus and reduce stress, indirectly benefiting their performance and, by extension, patient care.

With superstitions often being shared within hospital teams, the collective practice of unique rituals builds a sense of camaraderie. While these practices may seem unscientific, they create a shared understanding among team members and strengthen their sense of unity. This shared connection not only fosters morale but also contributes to team resilience, an essential factor in ensuring effective collaboration and managing stress in demanding medical environments.

For patients who may feel anxious and vulnerable, superstitions can provide a source of comfort and empowerment. Believing in certain rituals, lucky numbers, or personal items allows patients to feel a sense of involvement and optimism, countering the helplessness that hospitalisation often entails. For instance, some healthcare professionals encourage patients to bring items they consider protective, such as family photos, small tokens, or jewellery, as a medium of solace and hope. While these superstitions lack empirical backing, they can bolster a patient’s mental resilience and create a more positive mindset, potentially fostering better adherence to treatment and improving their outlook.

Despite some potential practical benefits of these hospital superstitions, there are also reasons to be cautious. A primary is their lack of scientific validity. Hospitals are dedicated to evidence-based practices, where clinical decisions are informed by empirical data and rigorous testing. By nature, superstitions defy this logic. They rely on chance, coincidence, confirmation bias, or tradition, rather than reproducible scientific findings.

The notion that avoiding certain phrases or wearing particular items could influence patient outcomes is unsubstantiated and can even contradict the principles of modern medicine. Relying on these beliefs can potentially distract healthcare professionals from focusing solely on evidence-based practices that have been tested and proven effective.

Superstitions can also foster cognitive biases, leading healthcare professionals to erroneously link outcomes to unrelated actions. For instance, if a surgeon attributes a successful operation to a specific routine rather than their clinical skills or the patient’s health condition, this can lead to skewed perceptions of causation. Over time, reliance on these superstitions may reduce critical thinking, causing practitioners to overlook objective factors. This undermines the rigorous, systematic analysis needed in medicine and can lead to misplaced confidence in the power of rituals over proven medical protocols, which could inadvertently compromise patient care.

A lift floor selection panel from 2006, in a residential apartment block in Shanghai, showing floors -1 to 16. Floors 0, 4, 13 and 14 are missing.
A picture taken in an elevator in a residential apartment block in Shanghai. Floors 0, 4, 13 and 14 are missing due to the numbers being deemed inauspicious. Chrisobyrne, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

For patients, a sense of trust and confidence in their healthcare providers is essential. When patients observe medical professionals engaging in seemingly irrational behaviours or relying on “lucky” items, it may raise doubts about their objectivity and professionalism. The presence of superstitions in such a scientific environment could erode patients’ trust in the reliability and integrity of healthcare providers.

This lack of confidence may even contribute to heightened anxiety or decreased adherence to medical advice provided by healthcare professionals, as patients might start to question whether their care is influenced by unscientific beliefs. As a result, superstitions may, indirectly, impact both patient satisfaction and the reputation of the healthcare institutions.

The intersection of superstition and science presents a paradox: can beliefs that defy scientific reasoning actually enhance patient care by leveraging the psychological benefits they bring?

This question highlights a potential path forward. While superstitions themselves may lack empirical merit, acknowledging their psychological impacts could lead healthcare providers to find balanced approaches that respect both evidence-based practices and the value of individual beliefs.

Superstitions within hospitals represent a fascinating blend of human psychology and the pursuit of healing. Despite the objective of evidence-based treatments, superstitions continue to influence the daily routines of healthcare professionals and the experiences of patients. Superstitions might help provide a means of managing anxiety, fostering team spirit, and offering comfort to those in vulnerable situations, but these beliefs are not without drawbacks. They lack scientific validity, have the potential to create biases, and may even compromise the professional image of healthcare providers.

However, rather than dismissing superstitions outrightly, healthcare providers may benefit from acknowledging their roles as psychological tools, facilitating comfort in an environment often marked by high stress and uncertainty. The challenge lies in balancing respect for individual beliefs with a commitment to evidence-based practice.

Could there be merit in fostering these traditions, or would their continued presence ultimately erode the foundations of empirical science? This paradox invites us to consider the possibility that superstitions, though unscientific, might just be an essential part of the human experience, even within the most scientific environments.

From the archive: The Marie Celeste mystery solved

HH Trotti
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From the archive: The Marie Celeste mystery solved

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 5, Issue 2, from 1991.

In early December of the year 1872, a ship was sighted that puzzled the crew of another ship – for no one answered hails or signals. The hailed ship seemed in tolerably good shape, though carrying a limited amount of sail and, when boarded, was found to be suffering water damage as though in a past storm. But the chief question in everyone’s mind was-and became for later times: ‘What happened to the crew?’ For no one was aboard.

The windows of what appeared to be the captain’s cabin were covered with boards and canvas, but a skylight was open and there was water in the cabin. Evidently the ship has passed through a storm in the fairly recent past. But where were the people?

Ships have been found through the ages that sail or float in good shape without a crew. The Roman general Galba took one such event as a good omen for his assuming the purple and becoming emperor. A ship bearing a cargo of arms but having no crew drifted into the Spanish harbour of Dertosa; somewhere between Alexandria in Egypt and the port in Spain the crew had vanished – perhaps, it was contended (according to Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, New York: Penguin Books paperback, 1987, p. 253) the gods sent the ship to make easy the path of Nero’s successor. That ancient puzzle was not solved – if the ship was raided and the crew taken into slavery, why were not the arms (of some value in the ancient world), taken as well? In any event, the finding of a ship without a crew, while rare, has been known throughout the ages.

The case of the ship of 1872 became famous; the name was Mary Celeste (Marie Celeste apparently being a mistake in a British record of this event). Mary Celeste was found in excess of five hundred miles from the mainland of Europe, between the Azores islands and Portugal’s coast. She was boarded and taken for salvage, but was impounded by British investigators when she safely made port. A lengthy scrutiny resulted in much suspicion of her rescuers, and a wine stain on deck was mistaken for blood; blood was said to be found on a sword of the captain’s, but this was later found false.

Mary Celeste had carried ten persons: a crew of seven, the captain, his wife, and his baby daughter. The ship was engaged in commercial trade, and had carried a cargo of approximately 1,700 barrels of ‘crude alcohol’.

Theories of the past included piracy and mutiny. Though the British remained suspicious of the circumstances, no one was ever tried for a crime, and no proof ever emerged to clarify the events of this strange happening. If we discount various fictional tales and hoaxes, the mystery remains to our time as one of peculiar interest and evident strangeness.

An amusing little story of recent vintage describes a disappearance of a different nature. In an aquarium it was found that a collection of sea creatures was gradually vanishing. A tank holding examples of such would have inhabitants at the end of the day, but be empty the next morning. A careful watch discovered that an octopus was in the habit of climbing out of its tank, working its way to the tanks of other ‘specimens’, eating them, and making its way back to its own tank before morning. It ‘held its breath’, or ‘held its water’ if you prefer, on those peculiar expeditions.

Now, since we recall the story of the ‘giant’ octopus that was found washed up on a Florida beach (as featured, for instance, at the end of a Scientific American magazine some years ago), we ask: ‘Could a giant octopus have done the deed of disposing of ten people?’ Probably not. If such a thing began to take place, at least some would survive in hiding places – and only one person would provide an adequate meal at any one time; therefore we will discount this theory as unlikely. (Unfortunately I do not have the reference to the tale of the octopus in the aquarium at hand, whose interesting expeditions excite our interest, if not our applause.)

The more modern theory of abduction by UFO may be left aside as well. for we may have in our possession the real key to the mystery. Perhaps the cargo contains, not the answer of crew drunkenness, madness and murder that surfaced at the time, but another and perhaps simpler and more mundane answer. An answer that ‘lets us down’ so that we turn away murmuring: ‘Oh. Is that all it was?’ Reality can be much less interesting and certainly less exciting than bizarre and astounding possibilities.

The answer to our puzzle may well be found in a book by John Harris (Without a Trace, New York: Atheneum, 1981 hardback, Chapter 2, pp. 42-79). His solution (giving credit to a Sir William Crocker for the answer), points to the alcohol carried as cargo. Such barrels had been known to leak and create fumes which could explode if sufficient amounts were involved and a flame or spark caused ignition. The Mary Celeste had a hole in the galley floor which gave access for gas to enter the room and find the kitchen stove. An amount of fumes may have caused a small explosion, runs the explanation, and (pp. 78-79) such an explosion would not leave burn marks or carbon evidence of what happened for others to find later. The evidence for this view is that when the ship was boarded the hatches were found thrown open: exactly what would be done if it was decided to ‘air out’ the below-deck cargo area. Further, evidence was found that a single small boat had been carried on the main hatch, and a lifted rail showed that it had been launched (Harris, p. 48).

The view presented by Harris, then, is that on a possible warning from a small explosion, the captain and crew, suddenly alerted to their danger, threw open the hatches to allow any fumes to escape – and to make certain that there would be no follow-up great explosion, launched the small boat and left the ship to wait out the airing out of the cargo spaces in the hold. In that way they would be away from the ship in the event of a large explosion, and could go back aboard after the wind had cleared the ship of alcohol fumes. (The ‘industrial alcohol’ was intended to be sent to Italy to ‘fortify’ wines, but was not good to be drunk by itself. This type of cargo, according to Harris, had been known to explode, and it was likely that the captain of Mary Celeste was worried that he was, in fact, riding a sort of bomb.)

The view presented by Harris is simple, but does seem adequate to explain the mystery ship. In fact, a small quantity of fumes of alcohol could have been smelled by the cook even without any explosion; he could have notified the captain, who then could have ordered the hatches thrown open and the ship’s boat lowered to take the ten people aboard away from the immediate neighbourhood of Mary Celeste. Did they go too far to be roped to the ship, or forget to rope the small ship to Mary Celeste in the event that the wind might pick up and carry the ship that they had left away from them? Even worse, did they tie to the ship with a faulty knot that slipped and left them at the mercy of the ocean as a freshened wind carried Mary Celeste away from them more quickly than they could row?

The entire scenario makes pretty good sense. The condition of the ship as found showed that it had passed through some rough weather successfully, but was boarded by those who discovered it in fine weather (Harris, p. 48). The ‘alcohol fumes’ solutions seems reasonable enough; if the bad weather was still in force as the ship was abandoned, it might be that the storm in some fashion prevented the waiting people from re-boarding the ship, or perhaps in some fashion caused a problem with a possible tow-line. In any case, Mr Harris is to be congratulated on his presentation of this solution. His work already cited also contains good evidence for the reason for various other sea mysteries, and is well worth the reader’s attention.

Since no trace of the ten people was ever found, writers still exploit the interest inherent in this case, but John Harris seems to have brought forward a simple and possibly true explanation: evidently, if his view is sound, then the sea must have overwhelmed the small boat, and all in it were lost.

NATO was created to ensure peace – disinformation seeks to undermine that

Tom Williamson
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NATO was created to ensure peace – disinformation seeks to undermine that

Summer 1945, the end of the Second World War. Europe lies in ruins, tens of millions are dead. The Axis powers are no more, with Nazi leader Adolph Hitler dead in a ditch, his body covered in petrol and set on fire, while Italian dictator Benito Mussolini hangs upside down from a lamp post. In the east, Joseph Stalin has the Soviet Union in his vice-like grip. In the words of Winston Churchill, an iron curtain is descending over Europe. Already, western leaders are discussing how to defend themselves should another world war break out.

Following a series of meetings in the late 1940s, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, or NATO, was born. The initial premise was simple: should one member of the alliance be attacked, the other members would come to their aid, as set out in Article 5. Although not set in stone, the de facto power NATO counteracted was the Soviet Union. They reacted in 1951 with the Warsaw Pact, a treaty that saw the Soviet Union formally ally with several Eastern Bloc countries, including the former East Germany.

The Cold War between the east and west lasted until 1991, when the Soviet Union, under the ailing presidency of Mikhail Gorbachev, collapsed. From it emerged 15 new countries, with Russia being the largest and most powerful. Rather than disbanding, NATO engaged with the former Eastern Bloc countries. The NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council was set up in 1998, while NATO expanded in 1999, welcoming Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. The expansion continued throughout the noughties with a raft of countries joining in 2004, including the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia). This, combined with their membership of the EU, marked a remarkable transformation for the Baltics after they spent 50 years forcibly incorporated into the USSR.

But, has NATO been a force for good or, as its critics would claim, an instigator of war? After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, starting a war that is still grinding on over three years later, a new slogan emerged from the Stop The War Coalition, backed by prominent politicians such as the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn: “No to war, no to NATO expansion”.

The narrative here is that NATO is somehow responsible for Russia invading Ukraine. To unpick this, we need to first examine how NATO works. Unlike the former Soviet Union, NATO does not expand by conquest. Members have to apply. If they meet the application criteria and their membership is ratified by all existing members, they are allowed to join. As Russia is not a NATO member, it does not get a say in which countries can and can’t join. So, the membership of countries such as the Baltic states cannot be seen as provocational. The Baltic States wanted to join, as is their right as independent nations. They applied and were accepted, they were not coerced or conquered.

Russia may complain about “encroachment”, but the truth is it has shared borders with NATO countries for over 20 years. In fact, the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, the westernmost part of Russia, is surrounded by the Baltic sea to the north, Lithuania to the west and Poland to the south. The entirety of its land borders are with NATO countries. If NATO wanted to annex it, they would have done so a long time ago. NATO has never invaded Russian territory, and has no plans to do so. If Russia believes NATO is a military threat to it, the threat is 100% perceived and not at all real.

A small map of the globe in the top left has a box around Europe indicating the wider image, showing NATO member states in dark green, with non-members in grey.
NATO member states as of December 2024. Via Qbox673, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

A supposed reason for Russia invading Ukraine back in 2022 was to prevent Ukraine joining NATO. Although this was given post hoc, with the actual reasons given by Russia at the time being “denazification” of a country with a Jewish president and stopping a non-existent genocide in the Donbas, it was far from valid. Ukraine is its own country with its own agency, and whether it wants to join NATO or not is not Russia’s business. Russia does not get to dictate which international organisations its neighbours can or can’t join, even if they share a border.

A claim often repeated by Russian president Vladamir Putin is that Mikhael Gorbachev was promised that NATO would not “expand one inch eastwards” by US Secretary of State James Baker. This notion comes from the tumultuous days around 1989, when the world order was in a state of flux. For decades, the USSR adopted the Brezhnev Doctrine, a foreign policy whereby any country within the Soviet sphere of influence that appeared to abandon socialism could be invaded and subjugated. This happened to East Germany in 1953 and Hungary in 1956. The Czech Republic’s Prague Spring was crushed in 1963. With the rise to power of Gorbachev in 1985, the Brezhnev Doctrine was abandoned. One by one, the Eastern Bloc countries overthrew communist regimes in the revolutions of 1989, culminating with the execution of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu on 25 December 1989. 

East Germany’s socialist government collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell, ending 40 years of the German Democratic Republic. Discussions began in earnest as to how to resolve the German question. Although a unified Germany may seem obvious now, back then the idea was met with opposition, including from British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who genuinely feared that a unified Germany could once again start a world war. On 9 February 1990, James Baker met with Gorbachev in Moscow. The topic of NATO expansion came up, and Baker uttered his famous words. Nothing formal came from this promise, and no treaty establishing it was ever signed. In addition, Gorbachev was President of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union no longer exists. In fact, after it dissolved on 25 December 1991, Gorbachev was left out in the cold with no political power whatsoever. Any verbal promises made to him back in the early 90s have no meaning today.

Margaret Thatcher's caricature puppet from the British satirical TV show, Spitting Image
The Spitting Image satirical TV programme’s puppet of Margaret Thatcher. By mattbuck, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Another criticism levelled at NATO is that it is a dinosaur of the Cold War, it has gone way past its sell-by date. However, although the Soviet Union was seen as “the enemy” back in those days, no specific nation or power is referenced in the articles of NATO. The world is an uncertain place, and no one can say where the next threat will come from. Following the Cold War, NATO represented over 40 years of international military cooperation, there was no rush to disband it. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, NATO has been involved in several military operations that have gone beyond simply defending the alliance. These include maintaining a no-fly zone over Bosnia, blockading the former Yugoslavia, and patrolling the skies over Libya during the final days of the Gaddafi regime. All of these actions were part of complex geopolitical situations, nearly always involving a United Nations mandate.

Today, NATO is very much active. After Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014, it was clear that a country that bordered NATO states was prepared to invade its neighbours. Following a summit in Warsaw in 2016, the Enhanced Forward Presence, or EFP, was created. This operation has seen thousands of troops deployed throughout NATO’s eastern flank, in an effort to deter any aggression.

To this day, no NATO member has ever faced direct military action from a third party state. Article 5, which states that an attack on one is an attack on all, was only ever invoked once, and that was by the USA following the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001.

The knowledge that powerful allies will come to your aid if you are attacked is highly appealing today. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Finland and Sweden abandoned decades of neutrality and decided that NATO membership was right for them. After objections from Turkey were overcome, the two Scandinavian nations were admitted, increasing the length of NATO and Russia’s border by over 800 miles. Once again, NATO expanded through mutual agreement and not through conquest.

NATO’s primary function remains: it is first and foremost a defensive alliance. The main reason for joining is very simple. If you’re in NATO, you don’t get invaded. If you live in a Baltic state that shares a border with a country that subjugated you in the days of the Soviet Union, not getting invaded is very, very appealing indeed.

The Skeptic Podcast: Episode #001

The Skeptic Podcast
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The Skeptic Podcast: Episode #001

From the pages of The Skeptic magazine, this is The Skeptic podcast, bringing you the best of the magazine’s expert analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal since its relaunch as online news source in September 2020. 

On this episode:

Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts, or to support the show, take out a small voluntary donation at patreon.com/theskeptic.

A psychic child bride and ghostly inspiration: the invention of chiropractic

Michael Marshall
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A psychic child bride and ghostly inspiration: the invention of chiropractic

While many will be aware that Daniel David Palmer – the inventor of chiropractic – claims to have discovered the discredited back-cracking technique while curing a deaf janitor, the pseudoscience at the heart of the chiropractic story doesn’t stop there.

Daniel David Palmer was born in what is now Ajax, Ontario on 7 March 1845. His father, Thomas Palmer, raised Daniel in the biblical literalism of the Seventh Day Adventists, moving his family to Ohio in 1865 to follow job opportunities. By his late 20s, Daniel David, or ‘DD’, had renounced his faith, declaring himself an atheist. He tried his hand unsuccessfully at a range of jobs, including beekeeping, fruit farming, and running a grocery store. He also married three times in five years – first to Abba Lord in 1871, then to Louvenia Landers in 1874, followed by his wedding to his housekeeper Lavinia McGee in 1876.

His marriage to Abba Lord was eventually annulled in 1877, but of the three it’s certainly the most interesting, and arguably had the greater impact on his subsequent life and work. Abba Lord was a spiritualist medium when she met and married DD Palmer in 1871. She was also just 13 years old. By the time she met Palmer, Lord had worked the lucrative commercial mediumship market for at least a year, offering soul readings, psychometry, handwriting analysis, clairvoyance, and even spiritual advice on how to bring up children – ironic, given her age and career.

At the time of their marriage, DD claimed to be skeptical of mediumship – which does somewhat raise the question as to what drew him to the psychic 13-year-old. Palmer wrote in 1872:

I was a disbeliever in psychometry, clairvoyance and all mediumistic phenomena, and I had satisfied myself it was a delusive humbug, and fancied that I should have no trouble to convince my equal partner that such was the case; for she was so purely honest that I knew she would not practice a knowing deception.

This apparent skepticism led to Palmer to put Lord’s psychic ability to the test – a test he felt she passed convincingly. From that same 1872 letter:

I patiently waited to inform her of the failures to guess correctly. During the first week she diagnosed ten cases of disease without a single failure, all of which were unknown to her previously. This was too good for guessing and I was compelled to acknowledge one humbug as truth.

From here, it seems, Palmer’s skepticism was gone (and with it, his atheistic doubt of an afterlife):

I soon found I could put her in a mesmeric sleep — willing her to awake at any time desired by me, whether present or absent, and send her spirit or intelligence to any place however distant, leaving it with her when to return, which was usually about five minutes, — then her apparently lifeless body would be reanimated, telling me more or less what she had seen and heard while absent.

It is worth dwelling on this period of Palmer’s life a little, as it implies he was either taken in by the tween charlatan he had married… or that he was willing to imply as much in his writing. Either way, it gives us some invaluable context to the next chapters of Palmer’s life. Once Lord had moved on, several marriages later, when a harsh Midwestern winter killed off Palmer’s bee business, Palmer reinvented himself as a magnetic healer before founding the chiropractic movement.

As the story goes, Palmer was practicing magnetic healing in his office in Davenport when he noticed that the building’s janitor, Harvey Lillard, had a severe hearing impairment. Palmer decided that such deafness had to be related to the presence of a lump he noticed on the janitor’s back, which he began to treat. Once the lump was treated, the deafness was miraculously cured, and chiropractic was born.

Unsurprisingly, Lillard’s family tell a slightly different story – that Palmer overheard Lillard telling a joke outside his office, and joined the group just in time to catch the end of it, and at the punchline, he slapped Lillard on the back in a hearty 19th Century expression of amused camaraderie. Several days later, Lillard remarked that his hearing had improved. Neither his deafness nor his subsequent recovery were documented in any measurable way, but on such scant foundations, a pseudoscientific empire was built.

As a result of this encounter, Palmer decided that spinal lesions – which he began to call subluxations – were responsible for 95% of anything that might go wrong with the human body, and that the other 5% was due to displaced joints elsewhere in the body. His reasoning was that the spine was a superhighway for what he called “innate energy”, which told the body how to be healthy, but when that energy hit a subluxation, it would prevent that energy from arriving, and the body would go haywire in its absence.

This was, of course, untrue, but it wasn’t even new untruths – people soon noticed that what he was suggesting was incredibly similar to Andrew Still’s principles of osteopathy, invented a decade earlier. Initially, Palmer denied having any knowledge of osteopathy, but in 1899 he finally admitted that he had taken some osteopathy classes in the past, but they weren’t the inspiration for chiropractic. Instead, as he explained in 1910, he had learned about the fundamentals of chiropractic from Dr Jim Atkinson… who was a spirit he talked to via a medium. As Palmer wrote in his book, “The Chiropractor”:

The knowledge and philosophy given me by Dr. Jim Atkinson, an intelligent spiritual being, together with explanations of phenomena, principles resolved from causes, effects, powers, laws and utility, appealed to my reason. The method by which I obtained an explanation of certain physical phenomena, from an intelligence in the spiritual world, is known in biblical language as inspiration. In a great measure The Chiropractor’s Adjuster was written under such spiritual promptings.

In fact, by this point Palmer was professing to be so explicitly religious that he would talk of chiropractic as a religion – a religion that required him to be the leader. Writing in 1911, he compared himself to Mary Baker Eddy, who twenty years previous had founded the Christian Science movement:

Mrs. Eddy claimed to receive her ideas from the other world and so do I.  She founded theron a religion, so may I.  I am THE ONLY ONE IN CHIROPRACTIC WHO CAN DO SO…. We must have a religious head, one who is the founder, as did Christ, Muhammad, Jo. Smith, Mrs. Eddy, Martin Luther and others who have founded religions. I am the fountain head. I am the founder of chiropractic in its science, in its art, in its philosophy and in its religious phase.

Those block capitals are present in Palmer’s original letter – he was extremely clear that no other person could lay claim to being the head of the chiropractic movement. The reason for his agitation? He was not the only Palmer looking to run the family business.

BJ Palmer

Bartlett Joshua Palmer, or “BJ” Palmer, was the son of DD’s third wife, Lavinia. BJ was at least as committed to chiropractic as his father, having been one of the first students to attend the Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, which DD had founded in 1897. The two men did not see eye to eye on much – a disagreement that was at least in part rooted in DD’s treatment of his children after Lavinia died in 1885. BJ wrote that his father would beat him and his sisters with straps so severely that DD would sometimes be arrested, and spent nights in jail:

Our older sister was badly injured and has been sickly all her life. Our younger sister had a severe abscess caused by beatings. We have a fractured vertebra and a bad curvature from same source.

Aside from the regular beatings, DD didn’t have much time for his children – most of his time was spent growing the chiropractic movement. Although, it’s worth pointing out, DD did find time to take three more wives – Martha Henning in 1885. Villa Amanda Thomas in 1888 and finally Molly Hudler in 1906.

1906 was a big year for DD Palmer, because it was the year that the law came knocking: Iowa had recently passed a new medical arts law against practicing medicine without a license, essentially to clampdown on charlatans like the Palmers, and DD was the first chiropractor they prosecuted. Despite having more than enough money to pay the fine – and, more to the point, having enough acolytes who would have been willing to pay the fine on his behalf – he elected instead to play the martyr and serve 17 days in jail, no doubt hoping that the resulting publicity would help spread the message of chiropractic, and of its founder so committed to his ideals he was willing to be imprisoned for them.

Things didn’t quite work out as he hoped, and upon his emergence from prison, he had a falling out with his son which resulted in him selling the chiropractic college to BJ and heading out West, founding new schools in Oklahoma, California and Oregon… all of which failed, while BJ’s practices flourished. The disparity in success soured the relationship between father and son even further, and the pair soon became rivals. DD would write in criticism of the direction BJ was taking the chiropractic movement, even giving lectures to opposing chiropractic colleges. Then, in August 1913, DD was marching on foot in a parade in Davenport when he was struck from behind by a car, injuring him sufficiently that he never really recovered. The driver of that car? BJ Palmer.

DD Palmer died two months later, in LA. While the official cause of death was listed as typhoid, some saw foul play. As the book Trick or Treatment explains:

it seems more likely that his death was a direct result of injuries caused by his son. Indeed, there is speculation that this was not an accident, but rather a case of patricide.

With DD Palmer now fully out of the picture, the chiropractic movement grew and grew under BJ Palmer, becoming the pseudoscience we know today. Along the way, BJ had a son of his own, and named him David Daniel Palmer, who himself went on to become a leading chiropractor, giving himself the nickname “The Educator”.

In 1922, the Palmers bought a radio station to market their chiropractic industry, as well as broadcasting weather reports and sports updates – rather incredibly, the young sports journalist they hired to fulfil that role in 1932, was a 21-year-old Ronald Reagan.

To this day, Daniel David Palmer remains revered by chiropractors as an inspirational and visionary figure. DD was a man born into a deeply religious movement, who recognised it was all nonsense, until he met a barely-teenaged con artist who pushed him back into belief… or, perhaps, a willing collaborator who eagerly took on board the tricks of the trade, how to sell a con successfully, and how much money and influence could be gained from dishonesty.

Over a century later, the pseudoscientific ideas he promoted – whether handed to him by helpful ghosts or plagiarised from osteopaths – have become a worldwide industry that’s globally and erroneously synonymous with spinal health, cementing a legacy that enriched, empowered and ultimately divided three generations of his family.

The Beecher story, the origin of the placebo effect myth, likely didn’t happen

Mike Hall
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The Beecher story, the origin of the placebo effect myth, likely didn’t happen

Henry Knowles Beecher, a medical doctor and anaesthetist who served with the United States Army during the Second World War, is widely credited with popularising the modern concept of the placebo effect in medicine.

According to the story, while working at an army field hospital, Beecher faced a critical shortage of morphine for wounded soldiers in need of urgent pain relief. In desperation, he administered injections of saline (salt water) instead. To his astonishment, the soldiers responded as though they had received actual morphine. This remarkable observation sparked Beecher’s interest in the placebo effect and initiated decades of research into its extraordinary power.

The most extraordinary thing about this story, however, is that it probably never happened.

In 2015, the writer Shannon Harvey spent some time reading through Beecher’s published work and even contacted the library at Harvard, which holds his private archives. Harvey discovered that, while Beecher wrote extensively about the placebo effect, the story about running out of morphine does not appear in any of Beecher’s public or private writings. Nor does it appear in his 1976 obituary in the New York Times.

While Beecher wrote extensively about the placebo effect, the story about running out of morphine does not appear in any of Beecher’s public or private writings

Several years later, science communicator Jonathan Jarry and I tried tracing the origins of this tale. Jarry documented the numerous variations he encountered. In some versions, the events are set in North Africa; in others, they occur on a Pacific island or in Italy. Some accounts involve a nurse mistakenly administering saline, with the observant and guileful Beecher taking note. Others depict Beecher himself administering the saline. In one telling, Beecher even hands out cigarettes instead of salt water.

Curiously, the earliest version of the story we found wasn’t even about Henry Beecher. It appeared in a 1978 episode of the TV series M*A*S*H, in which wounded soldiers are given powdered sugar cribbed from the tops of doughnuts after a supply of morphine is accidentally contaminated and fresh stocks won’t arrive until morning.

When Jarry spoke with the writer of that episode, he learned that the plot had been provided by the series producer, Gene Reynolds. Where Reynolds got the idea from remains a mystery. He passed away in 2020.

The closest parallel we found in Beecher’s work comes from a 1946 paper, titled ‘Pain in Men Wounded in Battle’. In it, Beecher criticises the rote use of morphine on the battlefield and argues that other factors, such as anxiety, traumatic shock, or even simple thirst, are often the immediate cause of a wounded soldier’s distress. He recounts the case of a 19-year-old soldier who was severely injured and ‘wild with pain.’ The soldier was mistakenly given a sedative instead of morphine, which it turned out was sufficient to calm him down and allow him to sleep, without the need for pain relief. Beecher notes, ‘the dose [of sedative] given would not have controlled pain’ and concludes ‘his manic state was not due to pain.’ 

Regardless of whether the legend is true, Beecher played a pivotal role in highlighting the importance of the placebo effect in clinical research. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the publication of his landmark paper, ‘The Powerful Placebo,’ which found that 35% of patients in clinical trials improve after the administration of a placebo alone.

This appears to be the origin of the widely circulated medical truism that 30% of the effect of any drug is placebo, but these are fundamentally different claims. Saying that ‘30% of patients improve after a placebo’ is not the same as stating that ‘30% of a drug’s effect is attributable to placebo.’ This distinction is overlooked, and the latter interpretation has become the commonly cited version.

Beecher derived this statistic by examining fifteen studies which reported placebo effects, but the specifics of these studies raise questions about his methods and the legitimacy of this figure. For one thing, Beecher claims that the fifteen studies were ‘chosen at random’, but almost half of them were authored or co-authored by Beecher himself. This somewhat undermines the claim of random selection and suggests the possibility of a selection bias.

Also, none of the fifteen studies Beecher analysed were explicitly designed to investigate the placebo effect. Consequently, Beecher attributes all improvements in the control groups to the placebo effect, ignoring other possible explanations.

For example, in a 1933 study on the common cold, patients are reported as showing an improvement a couple of days after receiving a placebo, but six days after the onset of symptoms. Beecher attributes this improvement to the placebo effect, disregarding the fact that many colds will naturally improve within that timeframe — a fact even noted in the original paper! This failure to account for the natural course of an illness will have inflated the apparent placebo effect.

He also overlooks the influence of parallel interventions, where patients receive some additional treatment alongside the placebo that influences their outcomes. A patient who is coincidentally taking penicillin for an unrelated condition might see their improvement attributed to the placebo when the penicillin was actually responsible. Despite some studies explicitly mentioning such additional treatments, Beecher still credits all observed improvements to the placebo effect.

Another oversight was conditional switching of treatments. In this 1933 paper on angina, which is referenced in ‘The Powerful Placebo,’ patients in the placebo group were switched to the treatment group if their condition deteriorated. They were switched back to placebo once they were stable again. This practice exaggerates the apparent placebo effect, as patients are only permitted to remain in the placebo group for as long as they are improving.

In 1997, researchers Kienle & Kiene revisited the original fifteen papers cited in ‘The Powerful Placebo,’ and concluded that not a single one of them presented any compelling evidence for a real, therapeutic, placebo effect. They identified numerous unaddressed factors that could create the illusion of a placebo effect, including the natural progression of illness, parallel interventions, and conditional switching of treatment, as well as regression to the mean, observer bias, and answers of politeness. Perhaps the most damaging, however, is Beecher’s frequent misquoting of data. Reporting on a 1954 study on coughs by Gravenstein, Beecher claims that 36% of 22 patients showed an improvement with a placebo. However, Gravenstein does not have a placebo group of 22 patients, or any figure reported as 36%. Gravenstein even remarks that it was ‘not possible to answer the question’ of placebo effectiveness, as patients could not be studied without medication for any extended period.

This is not the only example of misquotation or even the most egregious. According to Kienle & Kiene, Beecher also ‘cited as a percentage of patients what in the original publications is referred to as something completely different, such as the number of pills given, the percentage of days treated, the amount of gas applied in an experimental setting, or the frequency of coughs after irritating a patient.’

Despite its reputation, nothing in ‘The Powerful Placebo’ demonstrates a convincing effect which could only be explained by a real, therapeutic placebo effect. Yet it remains one of, if not the, most cited paper in the placebo effect literature. This prompted Kienle & Kiene to comment that something about the placebo topic invites ‘sloppy methodological thinking.’

The same errors made by Beecher are still being made in the modern placebo effect literature. Correlation (the patient took a fake pill and improved) is mistaken for causation (the improvement was prompted by the fake pill.) Confounding effects like disease progression, parallel interventions, and regression to the mean are ignored.

Placebos have a crucial and perhaps irreplaceable role in medical research as a control, but that doesn’t mean they have a role in clinical care. After 70 years, perhaps it is past time we put the myth of the Powerful Placebo behind us.

From the archive: Scratching Fanny – the accusant ghost of Cock Lane

Richard Whittington-Egan
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From the archive: Scratching Fanny – the accusant ghost of Cock Lane

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 5, Issue 2, from 1991.

A small, inexplicable scratching in the wainscoting of a house in Cock Lane, a narrow thoroughfare within the purlieus of Smithfield and the parish of the tolling of the hanging bell of Newgate Prison, was the modest herald of a curious case which was to blossom into a classic eighteenth-century enigma. All London was set, literally, by the ears by the escalating furore of rappings, crashings and scratchings perpetrated by an alleged spirit entity nicknamed ‘Scratching Fanny’. No less a personage than Dr Samuel Johnson was to set forth upon intrepid investigation and, in due course, pronounce the prankish poltergeist a great sham, and the whole paradox was to culminate in court, with a man accused of murder by a ghost defending his good repute by counter-charging criminal conspiracy.

To unfold the origami-complex pattern of this ‘Cock Lane Tale’ we must travel first to Norfolk. There, in 1758, dwelt one William Kent, innkeeper and owner of the post office at Stoke Ferry, who, the previous year, had wed Elizabeth Lynes, daughter of a prosperous Norfolk grocer. Within 12 months she died in childbirth. Her sister, Fanny, who had come to tend her during her confinement, stayed on to look after the child, who soon died, and she remained with the widower. Predictably, they fell in love. Marriage was, however, out of the question. A deceased wife’s sister came within the forbidden degree of consanguinity. They decided to live together as man and wife, and, in October 1759, took lodgings in the Cock Lane home of Richard Parsons, officiating clerk of the church of St Sepulchre without Newgate.

In November, Kent had to attend a wedding in the country. While he was away, Elizabeth, Richard Parson’s ten year-old daughter, kept Fanny company, sharing her bed. And that was when, for the first time, the eerie scratchings and knockings were heard. Shortly after William ‘s return, the Kents left Cock Lane. Not only was Fanny by now a good six months pregnant and needing a house of her own, but bad feelings had blown up between Kent, who had lent Parsons, a feckless drunkard, 12 guineas, and Parsons, who having failed to make any effort at repayment, had been informed that the matter was in the hands of Kent’s lawyer.

On February 2, 1760, Fanny died, at the new house in Bartlet’s Court, Clerkenwell, of smallpox. She was buried in the vault of St John’s, Clerkenwell. In the course of the ensuing year William Kent did his best to put his twice shattered life back together. He set up in business as a stockbroker. He married again.

A heavily filtered and stylised photograph of the St John's gate in central London, with some people moving through the main arch. The photo is slightly yellowed and has effects around the edges mimicking an old-style monochrome photograph
St John’s Gate, Clerkenwell. Used as a tavern and Victorian commercial premises before reverting to the Order of St. John in the 1870s. By Alison Day, via Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0

Meanwhile, at the house in Cock Lane the noisy manifestations had, after a lull, broken out afresh, the unquiet spirit which seemed to focus on and around the bed of little Elizabeth Parsons proving more boisterous than ever. Parsons called in a carpenter to dismantle the wainscoting. No down-to-earth explanation there. Turning his eyelids heavenwards, he humbly prayed the Reverend John Moor, assistant preacher at St Sepulchre’s, to bring his spiritual expertise to bear. A code of taps was introduced – one for yes, two for no, a scratching for displeasure.

By a system of leading questions, the entity was induced to state that it was the spirit of Fanny, that her ‘husband’ had poisoned her with red arsenic administered in purl (a popular restorative infusion of bitter herbs and ale or beer), and that she hoped he would hang! The spirit knocking while Fanny was yet alive was said to have been that of her sister, Elizabeth, warning her against Kent. It was a scenario which did not entirely displease the grudge-nurturing Parsons, and one, moreover, which it was his pleasure to bruit abroad. Neither was it exactly anathema to Fanny’s brothers and sisters, who were disputatious regarding her will, in which she had devised bar half-a-crown apiece to them – to William. A caveat was entered to prevent Kent from proving the will in Doctors’ Commons, but it stood legally invulnerable.

It was not until January 1762, that Kent saw an item in a newspaper, the Public Ledger, and became aware of the ‘phantastic’ accusation being levelled against him. Horrified by the public scandal, he went promptly to attend a seance at Cock Lane, and hearing the accusations rapped out, shouted angrily: ‘Thou art a lying spirit!’

In February 1762, the Reverend Stephen Aldrich, Rector of St John’s Clerkenwell, persuaded Parsons to allow his daughter, Elizabeth, to come to his vicarage to be tested by an ad hoc committee of learned investigators, including Dr Johnson. Fanny did not manifest. She had, however, previously promised to rap evidentially on her own coffin if at 1AM the investigators adjourned to St John’s vault. They did. She didn’t. Then… little Elizabeth was caught in the act of secreting a sounding board of wood in her bed. The Cock Lane Ghost collapsed amid widely echoed charges of fraud.

To complete his already partial vindication, William Kent brought, on 10 July 1762, the affair to the Court of Kent’s Bench at the Guildhall. On an information laid against them by William Kent, the Reverend John Moore, Richard Parsons, Mrs Parsons, Mary Frazer (who had acted as entrepreneurial ‘medium’ at Cock Lane), and Richard James (responsible for the prejudicial insertions in the Public Ledger) were charged with a conspiracy to take away Kent’s life by charging him with the murder of Frances Lynes.

The trial judge, Lord Mansfield, summed up for 90 minutes. The jury took a quarter of an hour to find all the defendants guilty. Moore and James were ordered to pay £588 to Mr Kent Richard Parsons was sentenced to two years imprisonment and three spells in the pillory. Mrs Parsons got one year, and Mary Frazer six months.

Parsons protested to the end that the knockings were genuine, and it must in all fairness be said that posterity has come to recognise that the Cock Lane manifestations did unquestionably bear the characteristic stigmata of similar outbreaks of poltergeistic infestation subsequently held by serious investigators of psychic phenomena to display the diagnostic hall-marks of paranormality.

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