Haunted pages
ALAN MURDIE ponders the sad, if inevitable, decline of the book-related ghost sighting
“I sat one evening reading when, on looking up from my book, I distinctly saw a schoolfriend of mine, to whom I was very much attached, standing near the door. I was about to exclaim at the strangeness of her visit, when, to my horror, there were no signs of any one in the room but my mother.”
So wrote a Miss Ellen M Greany who, in a letter to the Society for Psychical Research, describing her experience in October 1874 of seeing an apparition, following an appeal for sightings issued in 1884.
A similar story came from a Revd G Tandy. One evening he was examining a book by candlelight at his home in Loweswater, Cumbria. He recalled how he “found the passage I wanted, when, happening to look towards the window, which was opposite to the bookcase, I saw the face of an old friend whom I had known well at Cambridge.” He saw the face “as clearly and distinctly, ghastly pale, but with the features so marked and so distinct” that he immediately recognising it as that of a Canon Robinson “my most dear and intimate friend… whom I had not seen for many years past (ten or eleven at the very least).”
Convinced his old friend had descended on him at his rather remote village, the Reverend Tandy rushed to the door and called out. There was no reply. A diligent search found no one. ( Proceedings of the SPR, vol.v, p.409).
For anyone versed in such apparitional stories of the late 19th century, the sequels to both these stories are predictable, among hundreds that were collected.
Miss Greany recalled after enduring mild mockery and accusations by her mother, “suggesting I had read too much or been dreaming” that “a day or so after this event, I had news to say my friend was no more.”
This friend had died the same evening, “about the same time that I saw her vision”.
The Revd Tandy learned of the fate of his friend even more quickly. Puzzled by failing to find Canon Robinson, he returned indoors, and took the wrapper off a newspaper he had been given earlier that day by a neighbour and left unread. Casually opening it, the first news item he saw was an announcement of the death of the same Canon Robinson.
Such ‘crisis apparitions’ were once rather common, all sharing the feature of being seen close to the death of the person perceived. By 1886 the SPR had gathered enough to fill its Phantasms of the Living, vols.1&2. When researcher Andrew MacKenzie (1911-2001) re-examined these cases in the 1970s, he identified another characteristic: “Time and again I have been struck by the fact that people have been reading – ‘lost in a book’ is a very telling phrase – when they looked up to see an apparition”. Originally from New Zealand, Mackenzie conducted in-depth studies of British and other European ghost reports over many years, attempting to identify common patterns. In his book Hauntings and Apparitions (1982) he stated: “It is most interesting, when reading through the Society’s publications with care, to notice how often an apparition appeared when the percipient was reading.”
I rather think Mackenzie was on to something. Reading an actual hard-copy book, and enjoying ‘being lost in a book’ is one that has the capacity to expand your inner mental world. Then in the shift from a
“It is most interesting to notice how often an apparition appeared when the percipient was reading”
private mode of consciousness back into a widening awareness comes a point where an apparition can become perceptible. It might appear that as your attention crosses the boundary from inner reality back into the objective, material world you may also be afforded a glimpse into another world or dimension.
In many ways the classic Victorian example of a book-related sighting (although it did not involve a person recently deceased) is the experience related by Dr Augustus Jessop (1823-1914), a clergyman. This occurred at Mannington Hall at Saxthorpe, Norfolk, late on the night of 10 October 1879.
Jessop was an example of the now nearextinct breed of lettered country parson enjoying scholarly interests which extended far beyond his own parish boundaries at Scarning, near Norwich. Invited to Mannington Hall by its owner Lord Orford, Jessop was alone in the library examining rare books concerning Henry Walpole, a Catholic martyr who was hanged, drawn and quartered as a punishment for alleged treason in 1595.
After enjoying a fine dinner arranged by his host, Jessop was given the run of Lord Orford’s library, supplied with water and a decanter of brandy as refreshment. Jessop must have been in a good mood, enjoying a sense of anticipation and excitement at the treasures he might be able ferret out among the pages of the rare volumes.
Such pleasures may be difficult for many non-readers to comprehend today. It is a delight still shared by such eccentrics as committed fortean researchers, academic specialists and devoted bibliophiles. Visiting a long-established library, such as those of the older British universities or the Inns of Court in London, may evoke mixed sensations of awe, delight and a reproachful fascination at the thousands of volumes displayed, many of which one will never have time to read.
Inside the library Jessop discovered six antique volumes he needed to consult, taking them into a connecting room “furnished with every luxury”. Seated at a desk by the fire, he began copying passages from them by the light of candles set in four silver candlesticks. Recalling his experience, Jessop stated:
“I had been engaged upon it for half an hour and was just beginning to think that my work was drawing to a close, when, as I was actually writing, I saw a large white hand within a foot of my elbow.”
Looking round he saw “a figure of a somewhat large man, with his back to the fire, bending slightly over the table, apparently examining the pile of books that I had been at work upon. The man’s face was turned away from me, but I saw his closely cut reddish brown hair, his ear, his shaved cheek, the eyebrow, the corner of his right eye, the side of the forehead, and the large high cheekbone.
“The figure was clad in what I can only describe as a kind of ecclesiastical habit of thick-corded silk, or some such material, close up to the throat, and a narrow rim
or edging, of about an inch broad, of satin or velvet serving as a stand-up collar, and fitting close to the chin.”
The figure was so clear even the blue veins of its right hand were visible, reminding Jessop of the painted hand of “Velasquez’s magnificent ‘ Dead Knight,’ in the National Gallery”.
Satisfied that he was awake, Jessop felt no alarm at the spectre, stating: “I was fascinated; afraid not of his staying but lest he should go.”
Observing in awe, Jessop even wondered whether he should attempt sketching his mysterious visitor. Then, upon reaching out to one of the books, his arm momentarily obscured his view of the figure and it vanished. Jessop continued writing for five minutes and was nearly finished when the figure re-appeared in the same position.
Most remarkably, the erudite doctor found himself wholly unable to speak. With remarkable calmness he maintained his studious copying from the book, kept silent company by the mysterious visitor. Completing his task, he shut the book and moved it, whereupon the figure vanished. Unperturbed, Jessop retired to bed and slept well.
He published his vivid encounter in the Athenæum magazine for January 1880. It caused a minor sensation, eventually becoming “the most famous Norfolk ghost story” after the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall (see Enid Porter in The Folklore of East Anglia, 1974) following its inclusion among the ‘strange stories’ gathered up by John Ingram for his late Victorian classic The Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain (1884).
Jessop could offer no explanation himself as to the identity of his visitor, whom he referred to as ‘my friend’. There was no sequel or discovery of any significant fact and no other sightings were reported from Mannington Hall. In many ways, Jessop’s apparition resembles later 20th century accounts, in being unidentified and seemingly meaningless and uncommunicative, though visible for much longer than your average modern ghost sighting.
From a spiritual perspective (and if taking a traditional Roman Catholic position) the appearance might be interpreted as a manifestation by the spirit of the martyred Henry Walpole himself to the Anglican Jessop. (See Shane Leslie’s Ghost Book
(1955) by Shane Leslie; ‘Augustus Jessop and the ghost of Henry Walpole SJ’ by TB Trappes-Lomax in British Catholic History
vol.7 issue.3, 1963 145).
Alternatively, the simplest explanation would be that Jessop merely nodded off and dreamed everything. The brandy decanter might be implicated, though contrary to popular belief ordinary drunkenness does not normally cause hallucinations. Perhaps anticipating this objection, Jessop ensured that his account mentions his being wide awake and only refreshing himself with seltzer water, also adding his handwriting showed no trace of shaking or nervousness, even in the presence of the apparition.
Another naturalistic explanation would be that Jessop, while awake, somehow imagined it all, conjuring the spirit from the contents of his own brain. Unfortunately, things are not quite so simple. Blaming imagination in fact proves a key, not to answers but multiple possibilities.
Could Jessop have hypnotised himself, becoming so absorbed that he spontaneously created a mental image? Some exceptional individuals can be so overcome by literary suggestions they hallucinate, like a child suffering night terrors from too many scary stories before bedtime. In 1911, the SPR recorded a case where a casual phrase in a book brought about a fully-fledged apparition with an adult, a sensitive gentleman named Grunbaum. He had accidentally come across a passage in an old book on Faust setting out a magic formula, “Tetra-agrammation-Adonai-Agla.” Later, while lying in bed, these words flashed through his mind and shortly afterwards he was alarmed by a horrifying Mephistophelian phantom appearing at the end of the bed, a broad figure with vibrating smoky-blue outlines. (In ‘Pseudo-Physical Phenomena in the Case of Mr Grunbaum’ by Alice Johnson Proceedings of the SPR (1911) vol XXVII, 400). It seems probable the hallucination was triggered by the magical conjuration occurring in a hypnagogic or half-awake state, arising from what Freud once called the mind’s ‘private theatre’.
Alternatively, could the spectre be explained through Jessop suffering a temporal lobe episode, resulting in a moment of bodily misperception or ‘autoscopy’ involving seeing oneself? Ghost hunter Andrew Green (1927-2004) was most interested in this phenomenon, having once experienced a mild hallucination himself as a child. While at a school desk he became aware of a strange hand next to him writing, an apparent double of his own right hand. Jessop’s form seemed similarly engaged as himself, leaning over the desk and examining a book.
Or, if exploring the outer limits of hallucinatory hypotheses, how about a ‘fungal hallucination’? This originates from a 1995 proposal in the Lancet by Dr RJ Hay, one of the UK’s leading mycologists and dermatologists who considered “The source of inspiration for many great literary figures may have been nothing more than a quick sniff of the bouquet of mouldy books”. This was rejected by the British Library, which declared there were no recorded cases of its readers complaining of hallucinatory symptoms, despite extensive use of old books sometimes affected by mildew or
mould. “It sounds fascinating, but it’s the first we’ve heard of it.” ( Guardian, 15 Dec 1995). From Hay’s “enhancement of enlightenment” it was the merest step to postulating it as a cause of seeing ghosts in libraries (noted in A Natural History of Ghosts,
2012, by Roger Clarke).
For a purely physical explanation of Jessop’s sighting, the obvious choice is Jessop mistaking a live member of the household as a ghost. This surfaced 75 years later after James Wentworth Day retold the story in Here are Ghosts and Witches (1954). The then Lord Orford contacted Day in 1956 to share a family tradition that averred the supposed ghost was a flesh-and-blood visitor, an Italian servant named Carlo. The source was a letter in the family archive written by a Colonel Purdy, who learned the truth ‘many years later’ from a George Davison, a former manservant who had worked at the hall in 1879. Davison confided that Carlo was partial to a nightcap and slipped into the library aiming to snatch the brandy flask from the dozing Jessop. Despite the hearsay character of this claim, Lord Orford expressed having “no doubt it was the true explanation’. (See In Search of Ghosts,
1969, by James Wentworth Day).
Regrettably, vivid sightings like Jessop’s have dwindled since the mid-20th century, and markedly so with crisis apparitions. Dr Ian Stevenson commented upon this change in his 1989 Presidential address to the SPR. Stevenson suggested the ease of modern communications and differing patterns of death and dying might have changed things (In ‘Thoughts on the Decline of Major Paranormal Phenomena’ Proceedings (1990) vol.57, part 215). This also followed analysis by a member, Dr Peter Hallson, comparing reports of apparitions a century apart. In 1884 some 16 of 26 cases involved paranormal communication during a crisis in a person’s life with a relative or friend. In contrast, not a single case of this type was submitted in 1984 to the SPR, or had been for some years.
More specifically, I wonder whether there is in some way a causal link between the decline in sightings and the rise of modern televisual media. The reduction in reported apparitions has coincided with the expansion in TV viewing over the decades and, since the 1990s, the on-line absorption of images, via the Internet, smart phones and electronic games. These days, people seem more prone to reporting anomalous images captured on mobile phones and digital cameras rather than announcing any direct observation of a ghost, apparently with their own eyes.
My guess is that perhaps a change in reading habits over the years might also contribute to this. Those who still cherish the experience of actually reading a book in preference to absorbing text from screen displays are a dwindling minority. Relatively few people today possess personal libraries that can provide (as with Prospero in
The Tempest) a ‘dukedom large enough’. For generations now, books have been disappearing from homes and replaced with ready-constructed imagery beamed and directed into our consciousness, via screens perhaps undermining our own inner capacities for imaginative visualisation as a creative mental process. Has the corresponding spread of visual images across culture affected human consciousness on a subliminal level, reducing the human capacity for visualisation and shrinking our ability to form or directly perceive ghostly forms as a lived experience?
Genuine reading also demands complete silence for full absorption, again an increasingly rare commodity thanks to the wholly different media environment in which people are immersed in the late 20th and 21st century society.
Among many warnings about the possible effects of this nearly 70 years ago was Ray Bradbury in his dystopian novella Fahrenheit 451 (1953) amid contemporary concerns over brainwashing and subliminal influence (e.g., Battle for the Mind (1957) by William Sargent and The Hidden Persuaders (1957) by Vance Packard). Bradbury was concerned by the numbing effect of consuming endless television broadcasts, fearing it would lead to a society of desensitised and passive viewers content to sit back and be reflexively shocked, titillated, outraged, amused and enraged as dictated entirely by broadcasters, rather than think creatively for themselves.
Admittedly, Covid-19 lockdowns and enforced isolation may have resulted in a temporary rediscovery of the pleasures of reading books for some, but otherwise Bradbury’s entertainment-addicted community of docile viewers choosing only to watch screens may be considered as having arrived. The difference is they have binned their books voluntarily rather than having them seized and burned by a censorious state.
Of course, seeing a ghost, like having a dream, does not depend upon being able to read, since apparitions appeared in pre-literate societies and are witnessed by young children, illiterates and possibly by domestic animals (at least the higher mammals). But via screens today, even the poorest householders experience an unending flow of glowing electronic imagery and entertainment far exceeding the spectacles available to Roman emperors and mediæval monarchs, all accessible by pressing a button or clicking a mouse. Against this, the humble and insubstantial ghost may struggle in vain ever to be perceivable at all.