Witness: James McDougal Duncan

James McDougal Duncan, a jeweler unrelated to Helen Duncan, testified under oath at her trial. He and his daughter had experiences and dialogue showing his materialized wife was alive although her body was dead. She exhibited

• All the physical, mental, and memory characteristics known to him and his daughter as she came near to them
• Her mental and sensory awareness when she referred to a trip to Canada the family had been discussing just prior to the séance

Excerpts from the trial testimony follow. You can listen to a narrator reading the transcript.

Transcript of Excerpts from James Duncan’s Testimony

Mr. Duncan:  [my wife] went to the side next the light and pulled the curtain aside and stood there with the light shining clear on her face. I went up to her and saw her. I was within eighteen inches of her. I spoke to her. I saw her most clearly, the best I have ever seen her.

Defense Attorney: What did she say? Do you remember?

Mr. Duncan:  Intimate things. We have discussed certain intimate and domestic things. She knew that we had considered going to Canada to my son there, and she told me at the sitting there once, “Go to Canada. You will be much happier. You will be in better health. Go there.”

Defense Attorney: What about the voice? Was it her voice?

Mr. Duncan:  My wife’s voice.

Defense Attorney: What about the appearance?

Mr. Duncan:  Yes, the appearance of my wife. I lived with her forty-five years; I should know her voice and her appearance…. I have not a shadow of doubt in my mind that the form I saw was that of my wife, speaking to me, as she used to speak, in a quiet voice. She had a quiet voice.

Defense Attorney: How close to you did [your father] come?

Mr. Duncan:  I went right up to the cabinet and spoke to him…. Because I knew my father. He had a beard and spoke in the voice that I knew well. He was just about my height….

I went right up to the curtain too, and [my mother] spoke to me. She said, “Are those the lassies?” My two daughters were there. I said, “Yes.” She said, “It makes me feel old.” Now that is just what she would have said had she been on the earth, just the very same expression she would have used.

Defense Attorney: How do you know it was your mother at all?

Mr. Duncan:  By seeing her and hearing her. I saw her quite clearly. I was quite close to her.

Defense Attorney: You recognized your brothers?

Mr. Duncan:  Yes.

Defense Attorney: By appearance and voice?

Mr. Duncan:  Yes.

Defense Attorney: No doubt about it at all?

Mr. Duncan:  Not at all. Not at all.

[i] Helen Duncan and C. E. Bechhofer Roberts, The Trial of Mrs. Duncan (London: Jarrolds Publishers, 1945), 171-172.