Final post - Review of our presentation

Here is my reflection on the module and our groups presentation and work:

Firstly the class sessions
These were quite informative I liked the idea of jack the ripper in music and films to show just how widespread the fascination with the ripper is. I think the field trip to London would have made me a lot more interested in the module, however I can see it is hard getting 40something students down to London.

Secondly, our group as a whole
For this I feel that we did not have the urgency straight away to actually write on the blog which was a problem, however I am pleased with what we finally came up with although it proved somewhat difficult to get everyone to contribute equally. Also the subject we had chosen seemed hard to research but we managed to focus well and get some good information into our presentation.

Thirdly, My research
I think I have definately made my effort with the work load and contributed to the blog very well and with getting people together to actually put all of our ideas into the final product. Although finding useful sources for the subject we had proved difficult I think I gave a good amount of usefullness in my research.

Fourth, doing the presentation
Putting the whole thing together took a lot longer than I had anticipated but once we got everyone together as a group our ideas managed to flow and it was not such a burden. Doing the presenatation was generally good as we knew when to talk and we all followed a script. Nerves were present as with most groups but I think we managed to over come this and perform quite well. Also I think we had a good amount of knowledge in the presentation along with hints of humour which I think is quite important.

Thats my analysis and my final post, thanks Lynsey, Sammie-Jane and Oliver nice working with you!

Tom

Things I should have uploaded a while ago

Okay chaps, here is what I managed to garner from that research document I got off of my suspicious friend.

Adolph Hitler was born on the 20^th of April 1889, therefore he would have been conceived within the region of the first murder (nine months before!?) - perhaps this day was intrinsically evil?

1888 was a Trisarithmic year – if the Ripper was trying to conduct some form of ritual, it would not bear fruit until 1999, might give rise to beleif that ripper still lives

Another theory is that 1888 was the year of the Leonid Meteor Shower, which works on a 33 year cycle. Meteor showers have long been associated with strange behaviour and this could be attributed to the Ripper murders.

A popular aspect of the paranormal is ‘astrology’. It is noted that the Astrological sun was moving thorugh the Virgo, Libra and scorpio sectors during the period of the muders, and the body parts which these star signs represent are the intestines, kidneys and genitals respectively. The Murders which were carried out featured mutilations of these bodily organs specifically.

The first four murders, which took place outside and were therefore ‘offered’ under the stars represent a pagan ‘Canaan’ sacrafice, which involves amongst other things the canabalistic consumption of the flesh and organs of the sacrafices.

Today / Tomorrow

Hello Folks

Was in the library at half four but didn't see you, despite looking. Where were you? Where will you be tomorrow?

Will definately see you tomorrow at mid-day.

- L

Hello all

Having major issues getting into the Library right now, stuck elsewhere. Will try to be in ASAP how late are you chaps thinking of staying about? Ought to be there four or five ish?

As always I'm being a pain, sorry about that. Had a bit of an unpleasant weekend.

- L

THE AGE OF ANXIETY...

In the book
'The Age of Anxiety' edited by Parish and Parker

It claims that conspiracy theorising may be closely linked with paranoia, although it is not sufficient to dismiss it as talk of the crazed!
Conspiracy is described as "Paranoia with reason" by George Marcus (1999).
"we desperately seek knowledge but do so in the absence of compass".

To be honest, the book isn't the greatest of helps, but it does add to our academic source list which is a plus. But i will try and link it to jack the ripper tomorrow, i just thought i would fill you in...
see you all tomorow

Lynsey

Why do people believe in consiracy theories?

Some ideas I have found of use are on this website

http://lakatos.free.fr/Hivatalos/page26/files/page26_2.htm

This article tackles the question by giving a few reasons people believe in conspiracies...
1. Real ones actually exist, cover ups exist etc (so why not jack the ripper as someone linked to higher society?)
2. Someone does not want you to find out the truth. Whether it governments companies or whoever. This makes people suspicious and gives them the energy to find out the real problem. (jack the ripper is unsolved and someone, although perhaps not alive anymore knew who it was, so people need someone to blame, they need to find the person trying to cover it up.)

Finally the website talks about another reason people believe conspiracy theories... Fear. People are scared we will never know who jack the ripper was even if he is long gone now it is still a haunting idea.

Tom

Tomorrow

As I just said can't make it tomorrow as I'm in Hospital. Good luck evryone.

- L

GROUP MEETING!!

Hiya,
Group meeting in the library, tomorrow at 1:30pm
You should have an email off Tom!

Lyns

Why do so many people asociate Jack the Ripper with the Paranormal?

Righto Chaps, good news

I've had a read through that Document I got hold of, its a little funny (more reasearch than anything else, but whatever) but I've fond something else and have given it a good read. Thankfully it's a genuine Academic Source for us, so thats brownie points when it comes to marking time! So here we are

"Belief in the Paranormal: Probablility Judgements, illusory control, and the chance baseline shift"
Susan Blackmore and Tom Troscianko

British Journal of Psychology (1985) 76, 459-468

So it's in a Journal, which is instant goodness as we all know lecturers love souces from Journals. So this is a brief summary of what I found - its in the short loan room on the first floor of the Library if you want to have a look.

"Possible reasons for beleif in the paranormal are discussed and two hypothesis sugested. The first - that some belief in psi arises from misjudements of probability... The Second hypothesis is that some belief in psi arises from an illusion of control"

Unfortunately the report is very limited in its scope - it mainly deals with ESP & PK, however it could potentially be useful to us as a general rationale on why exactly people beleive in this rubbish. Further more - it's an Academic Source!

Right, I've got to go to a big dinner now, important one tonight. Will write more when I can.

Oliver

p.s. just got your message Tom, I can't make it tomorrow as I'm in Hospital as apparently I may have skin cancer! Hooray! Will try to get together with you lot asap.

Why??

So why then is Jack the Ripper such a topic of discussion? Why do people continue to create theories on who he was and why he did it, especially those that are slightly weirder and those of the supernatural?
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/ripper/index_1.html

Jack the Ripper is the classic 'whodunit'

"Not only is the case an enduring unsolved mystery that professional and amateur sleuths have tried to solve for over a hundred years, but the story has a terrifying, almost supernatural quality to it"

I think because the murders were never solved, it just gives ground for untold explanations to be created, even if they seem ridiculous, most people take more interest in the extreme as opposed to the 'boring' answer, that Jack the Ripper was an ordinary man who killed 5 prostitutues 'just because'.

Lyns

I'm in the Library

Where are you guys!?

Pre arranged meeting today!?

Oh well... ;p

I'll delete this post so the lecturers can't see it later :D

Lane

What's the plan then??

Tom, i like the lewis carroll theory, although very far fetched.
And i think the outer limits episode is pretty much exactly the supernatural 'explanation' we are looking for, but does it matter that its clearly fictional??

Ok, so we're all getting on with our research but i think we need to seriously discuss the practicalities. How many different 'weird theories' shall we include? one each? or more perhaps? And how will we write up an introduction? This is something we need to urgently discuss and decide on
tomorrow. Also, i think it would be pretty cool to include a film clip, like the outer limits one so as to make it more entertaining.
I am sorry but i have an important and unavoidable hospital appointment tomorrow morning but will try and be there as soon as possible....

See you tomorrow
Lyns

Jack the Ripper and the Freemasons

hey guys sorry for the late arrival, anyway on to business, i found this site about the freemasons which has some material relating to jack the ripper and claiming his murders were a ritual or a conspiracy to cover up a blackmail effort by the 5 women killed. here's an interesting quote:

"Queen Victoria's son, later King Edward VII, was Grand Master of Masons in England in 1888. His son, Eddy, would have become King if his grandmother and father died before him. Eddy, 24 in 1888, aided by a carriage driver, made secret visits to a London artist named Walter Sickert and his friends. Eddy met and had a baby with an illiterate Catholic "shop-girl" named Annie and they were married secretly. Sickert hired a nanny for Eddy and Annie's baby daughter. The nanny was Mary (or Marie) Kelly, who, with Sickert, was a witness at Eddy's and Annie's wedding. Britain then was in great political turmoil, and if the country had found out that someone so close to the throne married someone like Annie it could have led to the end of the monarchy and all those who benefitted from the British political and social system, especially the Freemasons.

Word of all this got to Queen Victoria, who ordered her Prime Minister, the Marquess of Salisbury, to "fix" it. Salisbury, a prominent Freemason, arranged to have Annie placed in an insane asylum where she died 32 years later. Their daughter later became Sickert's mistress, had a son with him, and died in 1950. Sickert died in 1942. Eddy died in 1892.
Marie Kelly became a drunken prostitute and shared her information with three fellow prostitutes, who threatened to expose Eddy's actions. Prime Minister Salisbury decided this threat had to be ended. He called on his high ranking Masonic brethren, particularly Sir William Gull, physician to the Queen, the doctor who certified Annie as insane. Besides being a doctor, politically well-connected, and a high level Freemason, Gull was mentally unbalanced.

Gull decided to kill the women according to Masonic ritual. When Prime Minister Salisbury and other Masons in the government and police recognized what Gull was doing, even though they did not agree with his methods they arranged a coverup because they were required to keep the secrets of a Freemason, and appreciated what Gull was accomplishing. Gull convinced Netley the carriage driver and Sickert the painter to assist him to identify the 4 prostitutes. Then one by one they offered them lifts in their carriage, murdered the women and mutilated their bodies as prescribed in Masonic rituals. They then dropped the bodies in selected locations.

they also have an interesting theory that the mutilations and murders were according to some sort of 'Blood Oath'. all very interesting. here's the link

http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/jacktheripper.html

hope its of some use!!

also anyone have an idea of how the presentation will be set out etc or when we will be meeting ??

thanks,

SJ

Yours truly, Jack the ripper

This blog entry is based on one of the handouts, the short story by Robert Bloch entitled 'yours truly, jack the ripper'. The title of this story comes from the words written at the end of one of the original jack the ripper's letters. This story is about a ripperologists, by the name of Sir Guy Hollis, who believes jack the ripper is still alive 50years on from the murders and has cut a bloody path through history and has now ended up in New York where it is almost time for him to strike again. Sir Guy enlists the help of psychiatrist, John Carmody, who has ties with the upper classes of which Sir Guy believes jack the ripper would have infiltrated.

After going to a party and trying to find the ripper there without any luck the men go to a bar on the poorer side of town with the hope of tracking someone down who fits the bill. After afew drinks and an unsucessful stake-out Sir Guy talks of how his mother was one of the original victims and that he is carrying on his fathers relentless pursuit of the ripper. After leaving the pub John takes Sir Guy down an alley way where he reveals his true identity..."Never mind the "john", I whispered, raising the knife. 'Just call me...jack.'"

I found this short story very interesting and love the twist at the end. Sorry if you hadn't read it. This is a good example of a strange take on the ripper murders with the story following a murderer who is still at large and never been caught 50years on from the original murders. It follows the reasons why I think many people are facinated with the 1888 murders and that is that it will never be solved. Even if the murderer was still alive today walking among us how would we know where to start looking? The story also mentions that the murderer seems to kill at certain times on the calender and that he is pure evil and must kill to renew his being, I think this adds wonderfully to the horror of having a murderer who can never be caught and who seeminly can never die.

Tom

Exciting news!

Okay guys good work - particually like the stuff on Lewis Carrol, I was talking to some people last night about the theory that he was a Pedophile - it is quite a prolific theory. But is it really linking in with the whole occult thing?

Right, my research - I got in touch with my contact, who didn't have anything to hand but he knew someone - who knew someone else, who has now got in contact with me. I'm not entirely sure who he is, but I rather get the feeling he's a big cheese in the Jack the Ripper world. Even better, he won't tell me his name!

Anyway he's sent me a 'document' to read, and so I shall and I'll post my findings here...

Cherio chin chin for now

Oliver

p.s. Yes! When are we meeting up to do this thing!?

Ok, so more on what i found then...
It is claimed that most theories about Jack The Ripper’s motives and behaviour are flawed. He stopped at 5 because he had accomplished what he set out to do, and for no other reason.

The accused's name is Dr Robert D’Onston Stephenson, which would ring true with the theory that the Ripper would have had to have had some medical knowledge. He was a self committed hospital patient, which made it easy for him to slip in and out of society and therefore dodging the law.

The idea is that D’Onston had carefully planned the murders, even walking the streets of whitechapel to map out the sacred symbol and marking the points for his murders to take place. Although it may have seemed the Ripper had disembowelled his victims in different and random ways, leaving some or all parts of the body untouched, this theory argues that there was a reason for what he did to each victim and in what order and offers explanations. The murders were all part of a carefully planned ritual.

I actually found this theory well interesting!! So shall try and write up some slides...
Any ideas on how we are going to put it all together? Or when we are meeting yet?

Lyns

Malice in wonderland - Lewis Carroll, jack the ripper??

I have been reading some interesting articles from the jack the ripper casebook on the internet and have stumbled across some quite bizzare ideas about Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in wonderland, being jack the ripper.

As you may or may not know, there are a few mysteries about the author, for example the idea he may have been a paedophile or perhaps the idea he was on drugs for most of his writing career, but this theory is quite far-fetched as I will try and explain.

The idea is from Richard Wallace who starts to put the blame on Carroll in his book Jack the ripper: light-hearted friend. In this book Wallace creates some anagrams of Carrolls work which he believes show his confession to the murders of jack the ripper. One example of these anagrams is this...

"So she wandered away through the wood, carrying the ugly little thing with her. And a great job it was to keep hold of it, it wriggled about so. But at last she found out that the proper way was to keep tight hold of its foot and its right ear,"

This translates as...

"She wriggled about so! But at last Dodgson and Bayne found a way to keep hold of the fat little whore. I got a tight hold of her and slit her throat, left to right. It was tough, wet, disgusting, too. So weary of it, they threw up - jack the Ripper."

As you can see these anagrams are fairly poor and do not make much gramatical sense. It is for this reason, and the fact that there is no eveidence whatsoever that Lewis Carroll was even in Whitechapel at the time of the murders, that Lewis Carroll is at the bottom of the suspects list posted on the casebook website.

The ideas from Richard Wallace are discussed by Karoline Leach on the casebook website and in her book In the shadow of a dreamchild: A new understanding of Lewis Carroll.

http://www.casebook.org/suspects/carroll.html

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-leachwallace.html

over and out

TOM

The outer limits: Ripper

Ive dug up an old programme called The Outer Limits which had an episode called ripper. This is quite an odd take on the ripper murders because instead of a human killing the prostitute it involves an alien force which inhabits the women and makes them vomit a strange green bile before bursting from the body and inhabiting a new host.

Intrestingly the man who gets accused of the murders still follows the classic steroetype of top hat, doctors bag and cloak. The character witnesses the alien detach from one woman to the next and after being arrested on suspicion of the murders and then released he must track down the alien force and prove his theory.

Much like the weird content expressed in the short story, Yours truly, Jack the ripper, we see that even though these ideas are completely impossible and would not happen in real life we are still captured by the idea of the ripper murders.

youtube clip: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=L3ljPwnrXQU
Synopsis from tv.com: http://www.tv.com/the-outer-limits/what-will-the-neighbors-think/episode/21518/summary.htmlover

over and out
Tom

Work fun

In response to the email sent out by 'Punkindrublic', I spoke to the lecturer yesterday and he had a chat to me about what we need to do. We can't just meet up after next weeks lecture because that will be too late - we need to have a good deal of research done and a basica idea of what the presentation will actually be before next week, because that's when he will be inspecting each blog to make sure we've been working.

Thus why I'm so keen we get cracking!

- L

That's exactly the sort of thing we're looking for - after all we have been tasked with marking the chaps association with the occult. I will try and phone the chap again later on today, my attempt yesterday failed.

Keep looking!

And can somone email everyone else in the grop with a link to this blog, for some reason I can't reply to the emails we're been getting from the Lecturer / other members that have come through WOLF.

- L

Lets get cracking...

Hi everyone,

So, we need to assign who is doing what for the presentation, if not to ensure we are not all researching the same things, as well as to know who is to actually create the power point or when we will meet to put it together etc…

I found some interesting stuff on somebody who claims that the Jack the ripper murders had a clear sense of purpose and that they were committed in certain places and in certain ways for a specific reason.

It argues that the suspect was “swayed by the idea that there are hidden laws of nature which magicians and occultists can maniplulate for greater power”.

So like, all 5 points of the 5 different murders trace out the shape of a sacred symbol, called the Vesica Piscis.

But I’m not sure that is entirely what we are talking about.
Anyway, let me know…

Lyns

Group Organisation

You all got the email, this blog is due to be inspected a week today and it needs to have content other wise we are going to be disolved and we all fail.

We've not even decided what we are going to be doing about this presentation yet, so let's hop to. I've got a friend who is very into the Occult and Jack the ripper, I know he's got a ton of books so I'll have a chat with him if I can - but he can be a bit elusive. We will see.

Looking forwards to hearing from you all

Lane

I have arrived!

Roar!

Welcome to the blog

Hey hey

This is the blog for jack the ripper hope everyone found it ok!

Basically this is where we all plan for the presentation so instead of writing emails back and forth we simply post our ideas on this blog so we all know whats going on and so does mark.

so yeah, happy researching ^_^