She predicted two warships sinking at séances; Britain used the Witchcraft Act to silence her
Prosecutors declared in court this was fraud, not witchcraft, but what actually prompted them to invoke the 1735 Witchcraft Act was that she had correctly predicted two British warships sinking; the military feared she might leak information before the Normandy landings.
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The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
Flash photography exposed the séance hoax: newspaper and hangers propping up cloth
Photographer Harvey Metcalf took a picture during a séance Duncan herself authorized, using a flashbulb. The resulting 'spirit manifestation' turned out to be a punch-dummy head with newspaper stuffed inside, draped in fabric strung on coat hangers, with gauze trailing from Duncan's nostrils. The flash killed the theatrical effect created by red lighting, but when the photos were published, Duncan's most devoted supporters remained unconvinced.
Spiritualist league exposed the ectoplasm formula: cheesecloth, egg white, tissue
The London Spiritualist Alliance investigated Duncan for eight months (October 1930 to June 1931), with her participation in roughly 50 séances for a fee. Investigators examined her clothing, took X-rays, even fed her methylene blue dye to trace if she was regurgitating 'ectoplasm'—that session produced nothing. The inquiry concluded she was a fraud: sampled materials varied in composition but consistently contained cheesecloth, egg white, and tissue paper. Psychologist Harry Price's independent investigation reached the same conclusion and photographed Duncan wearing what appeared to be cheesecloth.
She accurately predicted the sinking of two Royal Navy warships at séances
In May 1941, an astrologer attended Duncan's séance; her spirit partner reported a Royal Navy warship had just sunk—the next day confirmed that battlecruiser HMS Hood had been struck by Bismarck, with over 1,400 crew killed and only 3 surviving. Six months later in Portsmouth, Duncan relayed a message to a sailor's mother that ‘the ship sank’—HMS Barham had indeed been torpedoed by a German U-boat on November 25, with 850+ of 1,350 crew dead, the entire ship sinking in under 5 minutes. The Admiralty kept this secret for over two months; they did not publicly confirm the loss until January 27, 1942, after German media had already reported it.
Thousands knew the secret in Portsmouth alone; leak attribution is ambiguous
Portsmouth was HMS Barham's home port and also the headquarters of the Royal Navy command. Beyond the entire ship's crew and all escort vessels that witnessed the sinking, the decision-making chain, and the censorship apparatus, British Pathé newsreel cameramen had even filmed the explosion and sinking. The episode notes that potentially tens of thousands of people knew this secret, many concentrated precisely in the Portsmouth area where Duncan operated—making both ‘she is genuinely clairvoyant’ and ‘someone in the Navy leaked’ equally plausible explanations.
The Witchcraft Act contained a logical paradox: it abolished witchcraft as real
After the January 1944 raid on her séances, Duncan and three others were initially arrested under the 1824 Vagrancy Act—the standard tool for prosecuting mediums for fraud, with a maximum sentence of three months. Authorities wanted harsher punishment, so they invoked the 1735 Witchcraft Act. This law's actual purpose was to supersede earlier statutes that took witchcraft literally; its text explicitly stated that no person could be prosecuted for witchcraft, sorcery, magic, or spirit communication. What it actually punished was *claiming* to possess such abilities in order to defraud. In other words, using this law to prosecute Duncan required the legal premise that witchcraft does not exist.
Prosecutor opened trial stating this was fraud, never a question of belief
On March 23, 1944, the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court trial began. Prosecutor John Maude opened by emphasizing this was unrelated to faith—purely ordinary fraud. The defense attorney, C.E. Loseby, was himself a spiritualist and called nearly 50 witnesses to walk through Duncan's ‘manifestations’ from the early 1930s onward—a defense aimed at proving she was a genuine medium that instead documented she had conducted this illegal business for over a decade. The judge instructed the jury to rule only on charges under the Witchcraft Act. The jury unanimously found all four defendants guilty in under half an hour, and Duncan received nine months in prison.
Churchill wrote a memo condemning the trial after reading news reports
After Duncan's conviction, Prime Minister Churchill apparently knew nothing in advance—he learned of the case from newspaper coverage and promptly wrote a sharp memo to the Home Secretary questioning why a modern court was invoking an 1735 witchcraft statute, and demanding to know how much taxpayer money had been spent bringing witnesses from Portsmouth and housing them in crowded London for a two-week trial. This memo suggests that even if intelligence agencies had engineered the prosecution to suppress Normandy invasion leaks, the conspiracy did not reach the Prime Minister's level.
1951 Fraudulent Mediums Act reversed the logic: belief became legal, fraud criminalized
Duncan's conviction drove the campaign to repeal the Witchcraft Act—because literally read, the law would criminalize the entire spiritualist industry. The 1951 Fraudulent Mediums Act replaced it, shifting culpability to ‘intent to deceive’ and financial gain; genuine believers who thought they could channel spirits were now legal. Duncan herself was arrested again in 1956 (never charged), and died a few months later from diabetes and heart failure at 59. Her descendants petitioned the Scottish Parliament for a posthumous pardon in 2008 and were refused; the Vagrancy Act used to prosecute her was not formally repealed until 2026.
In their own words · checked verbatim
as I do not believe one-tenth of what I read in the Spiritualist Press, I was not particularly thrilled.
Harry Price10:15
every person pretending or professing to tell fortunes or using any subtle craft, means, or device by palmistry or otherwise to deceive and impose on any of his majesty's subjects shall be deemed a rogue and a vagabond
1824 English Vagrancy Act23:50
no prosecution suit or proceeding shall be commenced or carried on against any person or persons for witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, or conjuration, or for charging another with any such offense in any court whatsoever in Great Britain.
1735 Witchcraft Act26:55
I want to make it abundantly clear at the very commencement of this prosecution that this is in no way connected with witchcraft. It is in no way aimed at the honest beliefs, whatever they may be, of any man or woman.
John Maude30:01
I can only describe this woman as an unmitigated humbug who can only be regarded as a pest to a certain section of society.
Arthur West31:02
let me have a report on why the Witchcraft Act 1735 was used in a modern court of justice... the recorder kept busy with all this obsolete tomfoolery to the detriment of necessary work in the courts
Winston Churchill33:05
Figures
| HMS Hood casualties | 1,400+ crew, only 3 survivors | 16:30 |
| HMS Barham casualties | 1,350 crew, 850+ dead, under 5 minutes to sink | 17:31 |
| HMS Barham sinking announced | January 27, 1942 (2+ months after sinking) | 18:31 |
| 1944 Portsmouth séance weekly fee | 104 pounds | 20:47 |
| Duncan's sentence | 9 months imprisonment | 32:04 |
| 1735 Witchcraft Act maximum penalty | 1 year imprisonment, plus 1 hour in stocks per quarter | 25:53 |
| Vagrancy Act repealed | June 29, 2026 | 0:02 |
Glossary
- ectoplasm
- Substance allegedly exuded from a medium's body to manifest spirits physically
- teleplasm
- Ectoplasm that purportedly retains mobility to move objects
- materialization medium
- Medium claiming ability to make spirits visible and tangible
- Vagrancy Act
- 1824 law used to prosecute fraudulent mediums before the Witchcraft Act
- Witchcraft Act 1735
- Law declaring witchcraft legally nonexistent while criminalizing fraudulent mediumship
- Fraudulent Mediums Act
- 1951 law replacing the Witchcraft Act, punishing deception for profit only
How to listen
Anyone curious about medium fraud techniques, WWII secrecy history, and absurd legislation—readers wondering how witchcraft trials worked in the modern era.
The first 7 minutes of family background and séance mechanics can be skipped without losing the gist of the case.