GHOSTWATCH
ALAN MURDIE examines stories in which individuals appear to project apparitions of themselves
At a time when there have been plenty of emergencies of one sort or another being announced, one welcomes the news that the police do not consider being visited by a ghost as a top policing priority. This emerges from a story accompanying the headline “Haywards Heath woman calls 999 accusing a neighbour of ‘sending a ghost to haunt them’”, which appeared in the Mid Sussex Times (22 May 2021), apparently later the same day.
Shortly after midnight that morning, Mid-Sussex police received just such a call summoning them to confront a ghost persecuting the unnamed woman. According to Inspector Darren Taylor, the caller readily shared her supernatural concerns with attending officers. In response they proceeded to reassure her “about the nature of ghosts” and then issued a warning message about only using the 999 number for real emergencies. Referring to how the police get all kinds of “weird and wonderful calls” Inspector Taylor stated: “It’s absolutely key that we allow people who need the police straight away to be able to get through” and that “for nonemergency incidents, the public are advised to call 101 or email Sussex Police.”
Not that the criminal law would be much assistance in any event, presuming such a claim to be true. The plea for help came three centuries too late to expect much in the way of any official response. Witchcraft and conjuring up evil spirits to go and persecute people have not been deemed crimes in law since 1736, save for the exception of falsely pretending to conjure spirits, which survived until 1951.
Contrary to much popular confusion concerning the elastic and nebulous concept of ‘hate crime’ (hate crimes being actually a qualitive way of labelling and recording a complainant’s perceptions of crime not actual chargeable offences in themselves), some kind of physical act contrary to law is required, together with a material human offender, for the police to be engaged. Even when the police arrive at allegedly haunted premises to witness strange physical events themselves – one thinks of the police officers called out in the early stages of the Enfield poltergeist case in 1977 – there is little they can do in practical terms. As one-time crime journalist Philip Paul stated in the context of a haunted council house in West Norwood attended by nine constables in 1951, “police regulations do not extend to poltergeists” ( Some Unseen Power, 1985). A French police officer, Emile Tizané, acknowledged the same problem with repeated poltergeist visitations as a puzzle detectives could not solve or prevent ( Sur la Piste de l’Homme inconnu (‘ On the Trail of the Unknown Man’), 1951).
I sympathise with the Mid-Sussex police, though it would be fascinating to learn what provoked the call and the view taken on ghosts by the attending officers. The police have long experience in receiving desperate calls from troubled members of the public which, when investigated, reveal nothing more than a vulnerable, lonely or paranoid individual in need of social and psychological help or referral to the Samaritans, rather than law enforcement. Many ghost hunters will have found the same. These are reports of domestic hauntings which have to be treated with great sensitivity, ones where ghost hunting equipment consists of “a notebook, a pencil and a sympathetic ear”.
At the same time, one should also be open to the possibility that signs or symptoms of psychological distress or illness may potentially also be intertwined with paranormal experiences. In any such case, it is crucial that professional medical opinion is sought first, before embarking upon any such assessment, the concept of ‘clinical parapsychology’ being one still at its early stages. Even then there would be justifiable reluctance in attributing any phenomena or manifestations to an external entity.
Outside the UK, things can be very different. Allegations of the practice of black magic can still lead to arrest and prosecution in a number of Islamic countries and a number of Commonwealth nations retain anti-sorcery provisions, a legacy from British colonial days. Across Brazil and much of Latin America, it is widely believed evilly disposed individuals can summon spirits to wreak havoc on personal enemies. A vindictive person may hire a sorcerer or voodoo practitioner to invoke an evil spirit, which is then dispatched against the chosen target. The victim may be a neighbour, a love rival, a business associate or former partner against whom a grievance is held. The victim will then suffer accidents, misfortunes and weird disturbances resembling poltergeist activity caused by the spirit. Commenting on the beliefs in modern Brazil, Guy Playfair referred to such spirit entities being perceived “as inferior discarnates, living in a low astral plane, who are close to the physical world, not having evolved since physical death… are known as ‘exus’, spirits who seem to have no morals at all, and are equally willing to work for or against people. Like Mafia gunmen,
Police officers proceeded to reassure the caller “about the nature of ghosts”
they do what the boss says without asking questions.” ( The Flying Cow; Exploring the Psychic World of Brazil, 1975, 2011.) Visiting Bogota, Colombia, in 1998, I encountered the popular view that you could procure such services from ‘los brujas’ (witches) for the peso equivalent of between £15 and £25, about half the then going rate for white magic.
Whether individuals have the ability to summon ghosts and pack them off to annoy their neighbours is destined to remain a source of debate; with reason, this psychic hitman theory of hauntings is not readily endorsed by many psychical researchers and clearly not by police in Haywards Heath, which is probably a good thing.
But more widely, the idea that a living person might consciously or unconsciously create a ghostly double of themselves that can be seen as an apparition by others or cause manifestations at a distance does deserve further attention.
This overlaps with the large literature on out-of-the-body experiences, reported by many people over the years, from William Wordsworth to Ernest Hemingway. A survey of Oxford students in 1967 revealed 34 per cent reported seeing themselves from a physical viewpoint, but these forms were not seen by external witnesses (“Exosomatic Experiences and related phenomena”,
SPR Journal, Sept 1967). However, though latterly neglected, with apparitional researchers focusing on alleged sightings of the dead within haunted properties, it is a topic that deserves fresh scrutiny. At its simplest: can people project their own phantoms?
The idea of projecting one’s apparitional double or doppelgänger was a popular theme during the 19th century and early 20th century. The classic Victorian tale is that told by professional gossip-gatherer and lounge-lizard Augustus Hare in The Story of My Life (1900). He states that in 1891 a certain Mrs Butler, residing in Ireland with her husband, experienced a vivid dream of herself walking around a very beautiful house furnished with all imaginable comforts. As a dream it made a deep impression upon her and proved the start of a series of identical dreams on successive nights, to the amusement of her family with whom she excitedly shared the details on waking. In 1892 the Butlers decided to move to England and began searching for a new home, using lists of country houses from various estate agents. Having heard of an attractive house in Hampshire, they went to see it. Arriving at the gate-keeper’s lodge, Mrs Butler exclaimed: “This is the gate-house of my dream.” They proceeded to be shown the main house by the woman in charge, with Mrs Butler recognising all the details, save for a certain door which had been added six months earlier. Though keen to buy the property, the Butlers then became a little worried at it being offered to them at what seemed a considerably reduced price. They communicated their concerns to the estate agent who admitted the house enjoyed a reputation for being haunted. However, the Butlers had no need to worry, he assured them, for Mrs Butler herself was the apparition which had appeared in the house!
This story may have turned into the equivalent of an urban legend. Anthony Hippisley Coxe (1912-1988), in his introduction to his classic Haunted Britain (1973), called it his favourite ghost story. He believed it to be true, “because as a small boy I read it in some magazine and was so excited by it that I rushed to tell it to my mother, only to find that she knew the people to whom it actually happened.” However, his mother’s version differed significantly, in that the lady who experienced the dreams of the house was the wife of a naval lieutenant stationed in Hong Kong. Hippisley Coxe drew attention to other versions, including a second-hand one of a Mrs Boulton who appeared at Ballachulish House, Glencoe, as “the little lady… who has haunted my house for years”, according to its owner (recorded by Alisdair Alpin MacGregor in The Ghost Book, 1955) commenting it would be suspicious if it only happened once.
The starting point with the evidence must be when the SPR collected hundreds of stories from responsible people of forms appearing in times of great danger or at the point of death: the hypothesis being advanced that these were ‘phantasms’ of the living coming out from the mind of the transmitter. The person whose image was seen was unusually concentrated at the time, or suffering great stress or trauma (often fatal, leading them to be later known as ‘crisis apparitions’ ( Phantasms of the Living (1886), vols I & II, by E Gurney, F Myers, and F Podmore).
Some cases suggested individuals had succeeded in deliberately projecting a ‘phantom double’ seen by others under certain circumstances. These experiences gave the impression the figure perceived was not wholly subjective, it being claimed more than one person could witness such appearances at a time ( SPR Journal, vol.1, pp.104-09; pp.292-96). Efforts were later made to encompass such projection experiments in wider apparitional theories (See GNM Tyrell, Apparitions, 1938). Onetime Professor of Logic at Oxford, Professor HH Price – not to be confused with ghost hunter Harry Price – proposed in his theorising over apparitions that a phantasm might be a “vehicle of consciousness” ( Proceedings of the SPR vol 50, Part 185, 45, May 1956). Dutch researcher George Zorab speculated that some partly formed apparitions such as phantom hands and limbs might be generated by living mediums and that the collectively viewed apparition of a deceased person should not necessarily be considered good evidence that this person’s ‘soul’, ‘spirit’, or ‘ego’, was condensed itself into some physical appearance. (“Reckoning with a Special Phantom-forming Predisposition?”, SPR Journal, vol.48, Mar 1975).
Some stories are distinctly odd. On 31 May 1859 at 8.30pm, the Revd. Spencer Nairne (or Nairn) was on his way to join a cruise ship when he saw a long-standing friend, a Miss Wallis, walking down Union Street in Aberdeen. She passed close by him and when he tried to speak with her she vanished. In the latter part of July, Miss Wallis herself was in Union Street and saw a phantom form of the Revd Nairne at the same spot. Miss Wallis was not there on the first occasion, nor the Revd Nairne on the second. A detailed account reached Lord Halifax for inclusion in Lord Halifax’s Ghost Book (1936). Did this involve an apparition, a timeslip or precognition, also doubling as retrocognition?
Most ghost hunters are likely to pick up a few stories like this involving living doubles seen in circumstances that might exclude simple instances of mistaken identity.
Dennis Bardens mentions in Ghosts and Hauntings (1965) how his wife once saw his double standing at the end of the bed before realising his physical body was lying next to her.
In 1995 I spoke with a resident canon at Westminster Abbey about a contemporary ghost sighting at the Abbey. He mentioned that monk-like figures were occasionally glimpsed in the cloisters, but rather than historic ghosts of the past, far more striking to him was an apparition appearing one night in 1993 in the bedroom he shared with his wife. He recognised the figure as his own adult son, then in his early 20s and travelling around the Middle East at the time. It transpired he had been undergoing a particularly stressful time, but ultimately returned unscathed. This brings to mind xqxanother story reported a few years earlier, in 1987, of the appearance of kidnapped Anglican envoy Terry Waite at Canterbury Cathedral, perceived by a woman visitor. This occurred at the time Waite was being held as a hostage in Beirut by Islamic Jihad. Her report is mentioned in Haunted Kent Today (1997) by Andrew Green (1927-2004).
Green himself often expressed the opinion that visual hauntings might stem from a living agent hypothesis, sometimes proposing this as the explanation for up to 40 per cent of claimed hauntings. One case where he had personal knowledge that authenticated the record also occurred in Sussex. An old bakery which had been operated for several generations by a local family was sold. Shortly after moving in, the wife of the new owner reported that she could “feel the presence of someone in the bakery”.
This phenomenon developed to a stage where doors were seen to open, baking equipment move and the woman felt “the entity push past her on numerous occasions”. Both her husband and son began to experience the haunting. Disturbed, they visited the former owners in an attempt to find out more about the ghost, but were assured that the premises had never been haunted during the entire occupation of the original family. It was noticed during the visit that the “old man” of the family had said little during the conversation and “seemed half asleep most of the time”. Such incidents continued “unabated for some two years”, distressing those involved. Then, suddenly, one Tuesday, “the place seemed different”, the phenomena ceasing entirely and never resuming.
Green added in his book Ghost Hunting: A Practical Guide (1973, 2016): “Is it really surprising to learn that the old man died suddenly that Tuesday morning?” Having retired from the business, he had nothing to occupy his mind apart from recollecting his days spent producing high-quality bread. He would visualise himself back in the shop kneading the dough at a certain time, cutting and shaping it, then putting it on to the trays and sliding the unbaked loaves into the oven. This would coincide with the times at which his successor was carrying out identical operations.”
Curiously, Elliot O’Donnell, though not a credible source, tells a similar story about an elderly man who stimulated child-like manifestations in his old family home by picturing himself once again as a small boy playing happily there ( The Midnight Hearse and Other Ghost Stories, 1965, edited by Harry Ludlam).
With trying to deliberately project his own ghost, this was one class of psychic experience where, unusually for him, O’Donnell claimed to have enjoyed little in the way of positive results, though he had once projected himself to appear before his wife. However, he considered, “it is quite possible to separate the superphysical from the physical body, and for the former to manifest itself either visually or auditorially, or both, at any distance from the latter. The accomplishment of this act – which is called projection – is entirely a question of concentration, but of a concentration so intense that it cannot be reached – at least, such is my experience – without absolute physical quiet and total absence of mental disturbance.” ( Ghostly Phenomena, 1912). Occult theories speculate such apparitions are travelling astral bodies or spirits that have dreamed they were visiting certain localities. In contrast, Green eschewed spiritual explanations, considering them as generated purely as a mental and telepathic phenomenon, perhaps electromagnetic in nature.
Whatever the case, apparitions of living people absent from the scene may be a field ripe for review and experimentation – though the future implications long-term for eyewitness evidence and police identity parades might be profound!
The new owner reported that she could “feel the presence of someone in the bakery”