Will Storr vs. The Supernatural: One Man's Search for the Truth About Ghosts

by Will Storr

  ‘I,’ he says, rubbing his hands together, ‘am a parapsychologist. As far as I know, none of you lot are … ’ He looks around the group with his eyebrows raised. ‘No? No? Thought not. So, listen up. I suppose most of you are here because you’ve seen Mr Acorah and his band of merry men on TV. Am I right?’

  The junior members of Ghost-UK nod.

  ‘Well,’ Big S continues, ‘as a parapsychologist, I can tell you right now that Most Haunted is a load of rubbish. People watch Yvette running around and they think that’s what it’s all about. It’s not. It’s about professional, scientific, paranormal research. And to do that research we need some very expensive equipment.’

  Big S’s preaching reminds me of a church service. Even down to the people. There are a notable number of middle-aged mothers and fathers who, no doubt, relish their time away from the drub and drag of the slowly revolving daily routine. What better way to escape a life spent collecting reward points, ironing socks and worrying about the cracks in your marriage than the idea that, yes, there is more to existence? That society and circumstance have not condemned you to forty more years of dwindling this and then nothing.

  Big S picks up a camera tripod. ‘Does anybody know what this is?’

  ‘A tripod,’ says someone.

  ‘That’s right, well done. Does anybody know what we use it for?’

  Once Big S has told us what we use a tripod for, he warns us about the dangers of static electricity. ‘I could get technical,’ he says, ‘but I won’t.’

  We then watch him take an inflated balloon out of a plastic bag. He rubs it on his jumper.

  ‘This demonstrates,’ he announces, ‘that if people are overexcited, that creates static, and if there’s static, ideas can get implanted in your brain.’

  A ripple of nodding and murmuring moves through the crowd.

  ‘Right, any questions?’ he says, looking around the room, before pointing at me with both hands, his eyebrows raised. ‘Any questions?’

  I shake my head slowly and retreat into my seat as all the faces look at me. Just at that moment, a slight man with round glasses and a black goatee beard walks into the room, holding two heavy flight-cases.

  ‘Well.’ For an instant, Big S looks shaken. It’s as if he’s seen a ghost. He takes a small, subconscious step backwards. ‘Erm, as the Founder is now with us, I suppose I should run through the rules. Right,’ he shouts, clapping his hands together and composing himself again, ‘listen up and listen good, people.’

  The Founder places his bags down, walks softly to the back of the room and stands with his thumb and forefinger resting on his beard, watching. He is a completely different species to his apostles. He’s thin and pale and moves slowly and fluidly, giving the impression that he’s in a constant state of thinking deeply.

  ‘Rule number one,’ continues Big S, with his big hands on his big hips. ‘Respect and trust the people you work with. You put your lives in their hands and they put their lives in yours. Rule number two. Look out for each other. Build a bond. Get to know that person personally. Rule number three. Safety is paramount. If you do not feel comfortable, do not stay. I’m not telling you not to stay – I would. But then, I’m a parapsychologist. Rule number four. If there’s a fire – do not run. Apart from anything else, it might not be a fire. Finally, rule number five. You do not leave your team for any reason. Never. If you want to leave your team, tell your team leader.’

  As the G-UK members write down Steve’s rules in their notepads, I quietly slip to the back of the room to introduce myself to Dave Vee. Although he looks much younger than his forty-five years, he has the air of someone considerably older. He speaks with a polite, clinically precise and cultivated voice and has the confidence you’d expect of a man who has awarded himself the status of seven gold stars on his own website. Throughout the night, however, he maintains a distance between us that is palpable. At times, it’s as if he’s talking to me through a frosted shower door.

  ‘So, do you do this full-time?’ I ask.

  ‘This?’ he says. ‘Well, what I do is far more involved than this. This is just like a show and tell for interested people. But yes, the majority of my time is spent on paranormal research. I’ve been doing it for twenty-nine years now. I am also a musician, though.’

  ‘A musician?’

  ‘Yes, I play guitar for Spider Monkey.’

  ‘Spider Monkey?’

  ‘We were big in the eighties,’ he says, visibly disappointed. ‘We had a couple of hits. Look, we’ll talk later, OK? I’ve got a lot to be getting on with.’ He drifts away.

  I am assigned to Big S’s group for a séance. We troop off towards a hut that houses the fuselage of an old fighter plane. Once we arrive, temperature readings are taken and five of us hold hands in a circle by the plane’s tail. The lights have been switched off and fitful flurries of wind and rain are whipping off the north coast and slashing about the flat roof and thin windows of the building. In the dark, I become aware that everybody seems to be breathing deliberately deeply.

  ‘Is this your first time, Will?’ says Big S, opposite me between breaths.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘I’ve never done a séance before. Um… they’re not dangerous, are they? It’s just that I have been warned … ’

  ‘Trust me,’ he says. ‘All I ask is that you put your life in my hands.’

  ‘Right,’ I say.

  ‘OK, everybody,’ Big S continues, ‘it’s just past midnight. There’s no such thing as the “witching hour”, can I just tell you that? That’s a load of bull. OK, good. During the séance, I may ask you to move to the left or to the right. You’re going to have to trust me when I say that. I’m doing that to get us closer to the spirit. All I ask everyone to do now is take deep breaths and picture yourself surrounded in a bubble of light.’

  I close my eyes, try to shake the image of a disapproving Father Bill from my mind and concentrate hard on the circle casting. This place, I think, could well be haunted. It’s a place that was packed with people living in an extreme time. It’s seen plenty of premature death. Maybe there are sad souls trapped in here, surfing on the air-streams and feeding off the light fittings.

  ‘To the spirits that are in the fabric of this building,’ Big S booms, ‘I ask that you come forward in love and light. We are not here to harm you. We wish to understand and pass messages on to your loved ones. I ask that you channel your energy through me and me alone. Please come forth and use our collective energies.’

  The atmosphere in the room has thickened noticeably and the wind has reared up aggressively. It’s battering down on us, as if it is trying to break in through the windows. Big S continues his thunderous summons for another fifteen minutes and the air between the group seems to become tauter and closer. I can almost understand the idea that something could feed off our energy. It’s as if we’re acting as some sort of dynamo, as if waves are flowing through us and getting stronger and stronger with each revolution. Then I hear at least two people let out small gasps.

  ‘Can one of you just stand back?’ says Steve, softly. ‘Lucy? Keep going back. Keep going back. Relax, everybody. I promise nothing’s going to harm you.’

  Our human circle moves two steps backwards. I keep looking over my shoulder at what everybody else seems to see, but, in the darkness, can only make out the fuselage of the plane, like a charcoal outline on black paper.

  ‘To the spirit that may hear my voice,’ Steve says, ‘I ask that you now step forward. We are fully aware that you are in the presence of this room.’

  ‘It’s behind me,’ says a scared female voice. ‘Can you feel it?’

  ‘Yes,’ squeaks another.

  ‘OK, it’s fine, Sarah,’ Steve says. ‘I promise you, I will protect you.’

  I scan the fog of mixed blackness desperately.

  ‘Spirit, I ask that you come forward in love and light. It’s just behind you, Sarah.’

  ‘Shit.’ Sarah’s voice is becoming unstable. ‘Sh
it. I want to stop, sorry, I’m really sorry, I want to stop.’

  ‘To the spirit that may hear my voice,’ says Steve, ‘I ask that you now stand back. We are grateful for the opportunity that you have bestowed upon us to communicate with you. I now ask that you stand back in love and light … ’

  But something’s gone wrong.

  There’s a heavy, gripped silence.

  ‘It’s not standing back,’ Steve says. ‘It’s not standing back.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ says Sarah. ‘Shit!’

  ‘To the spirit that may hear my voice, we ask that you now go back from whence you came. With love and light, we are very, very grateful. Thank you, spirit, thank you. Please stand back. Thank you. Please, please, please stand back. OK, everybody, it’s fine. Let’s release.’

  We let go of each other’s hands.

  ‘Did you see him?’ says Big S with a torch shining up on his Easter Island face.

  ‘Yeah,’ says everybody.

  ‘Um … I didn’t,’ I say. I feel like I’m ruining the party, like I’ve just put my cigarette out in the middle of the wedding cake.

  ‘There was this gentleman standing right there,’ says Big S, aiming his torch at the wall.

  ‘And you all saw this guy?’ I say.

  ‘Everyone seen it and felt it, didn’t we? He was six foot. And he would not stand back.’

  Disappointed, I decide to go and find George. I leave the hut, hurtle out through the rowdy weather and step into the bustling canteen. I find him sitting with a middle-aged woman who’s got bunches in her hair. They’re flicking through a photo album.

  ‘That’s an orb that Dave caught at Chingle Hall,’ he says.

  He flips the page.

  ‘Look at that,’ he says. ‘That’s us when we met Maurice Grosse. He’s the most famous ghosthunter in the world.’

  A few days ago, Maurice Grosse phoned me. I’d written to him, asking if we could meet and talk about the Enfield poltergeist case. I want to tell George about this, but have to stop myself. I can sense that, somehow, our relationship has taken on a weird sort of master and servant dynamic. I fear that my appointment with the ‘most famous ghosthunter in the world’ will damage the complex social-hierarchal matrix that’s formed between us, like fragile strings of caramelised sugar.

  Instead, I walk over to the Founder who is standing up, demonstrating dowsing rods to the museum owner’s family. Shirley is watching with her young son and elderly mother, who are sitting around him in a huddle. Unlike the Ghost Club’s versions, the sections of these rods that sit in the hand have been slipped into white plastic tubes. Whilst this means that they cannot be manipulated by subconscious muscle movement, it also makes them very loose, and they can slip about easily, by mistake. I sit down with the family.

  ‘Spirit,’ says Dave. ‘Show me a no.’

  We wait. Eventually, one of the rods falls away to the left. Dave doesn’t realise it, but from where I’m sitting, I can see that his left hand is the tiniest bit skew-whiff. It’s an easy mistake to make, and he’s obviously not aware – but because of the weight of the metal rods, and the loose covers that they sit in, it only takes one hand to be slightly wonky and, eventually, the rod will slip. So, it’s not a ghost giving replies to his questions, it’s gravity.

  ‘OK, then,’ the Founder says proudly to Shirley and her rapt relatives. ‘This means that when the rods move apart like that, it’s a no. But if the spirit crosses them over each other,’ he explains, ‘it’s a yes. Right, let’s begin.’

  He clears his throat. There’s an expectant silence. Shirley looks at her mother and son slightly proprietorially, as if to say, You just watch this. You’re going to be amazed when you witness the miracles I have seen.

  ‘Spirit,’ says Dave, ‘are you a lieutenant?’

  The three members of the family stare at the rods. Granny and son’s mouths are slack and open. We wait. The left rod slips away again.

  ‘That’s a no,’ he says.

  Granny gasps. Shirley’s son grips onto her forearm. She pats his fingers, reassuringly.

  ‘OK,’ says Dave. ‘Are you a squadron leader?’

  The left rod slips away again. Shirley shoots her mother an ‘I told you so’ smile.

  ‘Hmmm,’ says Dave, in the manner of a television doctor examining a perplexing X-ray, ‘that’s another no. Right,’ he says, ‘are you a pilot?’

  I feel like I should tell the Founder that he’s mistaken. I feel as if I should tell him that he needs to have his hands absolutely level or his dowsing rods will just carry on falling to the side and appearing to say no. Then it occurs to me that if Dave keeps thinking he’s being given no answers to all his questions, he’s going to end up with a very strange conclusion. I decide to tell him.

  Then I decide not to.

  The rod slips to the left again.

  ‘Interesting,’ says Dave. ‘Are you a man?’

  It happens again.

  ‘No. OK, then. Are you a woman?’

  And again.

  ‘Hmm,’ says Dave. I look at him, frowning at his dowsing rods. He’s absolutely confounded. ‘Not a man and not a woman,’ he says to himself. Gran and grandson are almost unable to bear the tension. They shift uncomfortably in their seats. Shirley bites her lip.

  There’s a quiet pause. Dave remains genuinely confused. And then, he decides.

  ‘We must be in contact with an animal.’ He screws up his eyebrows. ‘Perhaps a dog.’

  With this, the young boy erupts. ‘Mum! Mum!’ he says. He’s bouncing up and down on his seat with one hand gripping Shirley’s arm ever tighter. ‘It must be Tanya!’

  ‘That’s our old dog,’ says Shirley, with melting eyes. ‘She passed away last year.’

  Gran leans into the dowsing rods and says, in loud and deliberate voice, ‘Hello, Tanya, it’s nice to see you.’

  ‘Do you have grey hair?’ says the boy.

  ‘We’ll see,’ says Dave.

  The left rod slips round again.

  ‘No,’ says Dave.

  ‘But … Mum,’ says the boy, quietly and upset. ‘Tanya did have grey hair.’

  A defensive look flashes across Mum’s face. ‘Tanya’s hair was all sorts of colours,’ she snaps.

  ‘Perhaps she’s trying to confuse us,’ says Dave.

  Just then, a man wearing G-UK branded trousers shouts, ‘Can we have you all in the bar, please? It’s time for the Tongue-Twisting Magic Chair Experiment.’

  AN HOUR LATER, I’m aching, miserable and sat in a corner of the canteen with Dave Vee. Most of the members are asleep in the room, sprawled out on tables and benches and curled up in corners. Somewhere nearby, Big S is snoring, monumentally.

  ‘What exactly was that all about?’ I say, trying to get the blood back into my legs.

  Dave is earnest, calm and cautious and is wearing a black fleece with the word ‘Founder’ stitched into it.

  ‘As much as anything else, that was a psychological experiment,’ he says. ‘It’s interesting to see how people respond. Some people will become happy, some people will become angry, some people will become upset.’

  ‘I wonder,’ I say, above the sound of his follower’s nocturnal grunting, ‘if spending all this time in scary places has an effect on you. Do you ever have trouble sleeping?’

  ‘I do have trouble sleeping, yes,’ he says, looking at his feet and fingering his goatee beard. ‘That came about because of an investigation I performed which was quite unusual.’

  One day, he tells me, a man from Oxford phoned him up and asked for help with a ghost that had sprouted in his house. Dave and his team looked into it, and after a short amount of time, he says, they stopped investigating the house and instead, started an investigation into the owner.

  ‘The owner?’ I say.

  ‘He turned out to be a vampire. That’s why I don’t sleep very well. A lot of strange things happened after that.’

  ‘Like what?’ I say.

  ‘I had two investi
gators working on that case. The first left for work one morning, and just as she walked through the gate, her house blew up. They’ve never been able to find a reason for it. The second one, she got out of her car, walked away, probably thirty or forty yards, and her car exploded. They never found a reason for that, either.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I say, as a swarm of questions fly into my head and confuse me for a moment, ‘how did you work out that this man was a vampire?’

  ‘Through a process of elimination,’ Dave says. ‘We do very stringent research and put all of that information into a database.’

  ‘And your database told you that he was a vampire?’ I say.

  ‘Yes. And there were other very, very strange things. This gentleman, who was unemployed, was never available during the daylight hours. His wife would have to make frequent trips to the hospital for blood transfusions and she was always bitten pretty badly on the neck. As was the pet dog. And there also was a photograph of him on the wall. We had it sent away and it came back as a photograph from the 1800s.’

  ‘So he was over a hundred years old?’

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘he’d been alive since the thirteenth century. But, if you don’t mind, I don’t want to say too much else because things go awry when I talk about this.’

  ‘Can you just tell me,’ I say, ‘was he evil?’

  ‘He was,’ Dave says, with his peculiar stillness, ‘but I think he’d mellowed through time.’

  I ask Dave if he believes, as Lou does, that there is a genuine force of evil at work in the world.

  He nods, almost imperceptibly. ‘I do,’ he says, ‘and that wasn’t the first time I’ve battled with those forces. The first time was a place in Hampshire that I was actually living in. It was a shared house and, one night, this gentleman decided to run off. We heard the sound of all these suitcases being thrown down the stairs and the front door slamming and that was it, he was never seen again. It turned out that he’d been trying to learn how to be a black witch and cited incantations from a very old curse book. The following day there was so much activity it was amazing. Luckily, I had a vicar down the road who was a friend. He went up to the room, popped his head round the door. As his head came back, the door was rapping – doof-doof-doof – like that, and he said, “You don’t want to go in there.” But being the inquisitive sort of person that I am, I went to have a look. I saw this demonic figure. I’d never seen anything like it. It was stuck halfway in the wall, because he’d only got the curse half right.’