Ghosts

by Hans Holzer

  Mr. C. had lived a rather controversial life, drinking regularly and frequently staying away from home. Thus the relationship between himself and his wife was far from ideal. Nevertheless, there was a strong bond between them.

  “In other dreams he would tell me that he was going to have sex relations with me whether I wanted him to or not. He would try to grab me and I would run all through the house with him chasing after me. I never let him get hold of me. He was like that when he was alive, too. The most important thing in life to him was sex, and he didn’t care how or where he got it. Nothing else mattered to him,” she complained, describing vividly how the supposedly dead husband had apparently still a great deal of life in him.

  “He then started climbing on the bed and walking up and down on it and scaring me half to death. I didn’t know what it was or what to do about,” she said, shaking like a leaf.

  When Mr. C. could not get his wife to cooperate willingly, he apparently got mad. To express his displeasure, he caused all sorts of havoc around the household. He would tear a pair of stockings every day for a week, knock things over, and even go to the place where his mother-in-law worked as a cook, causing seemingly inexplicable phenomena to occur there as well. He appeared to an aunt in Indiana and told her to mind her own business and stay out of his personal relationship with Mrs. C. (It was the aunt who tried to get rid of him and his influences by performing a spiritualist ritual at the house.) Meanwhile, Mr. C. amused himself by setting alarm clocks to go off at the wrong times or stopping them altogether, moving objects from their accustomed places or making them disappear altogether, only to return them several days later to everyone’s surprise. In general, he behaved like a good poltergeist should. But it didn’t endear him any more to his erstwhile wife.

  When Mrs. C. rejected his attentions, he started to try to possess his ten-year-old daughter. He came to her in dreams and told her that her mother wasn’t really knowledgeable about anything. He tried everything in his power to drive a wedge between the little girl and her mother. As a result of this, the little girl turned more and more away from her mother, and no matter how Mrs. C. tried to explain things to her, she found the little girl’s mind made up under the influence of her late father.

  In a fit of destructiveness, the late Mr. C. then started to work on the other children, creating such a state of havoc in the household that Mrs. C. did not know where to turn any longer. Then the psychic aunt from Indiana came to New England to try to help matters. Sure enough, Mr. C. appeared to her and the two had a cozy talk. He explained that he was very unhappy where he was and was having trouble getting along with the people over there. To this, the aunt replied she would be very happy to help him get to a higher plane if that was what he wanted. But that wasn’t it, he replied. He just wanted to stay where he was. The aunt left for home. Now the children, one by one, became unmanageable, and Mrs. C. assumed that her late husband was interfering with their proper education and discipline. “I am fighting an unseen force and cannot get through to the children,” she explained.

  Her late husband did everything to embarrass her. She was working as a clerk at St. Francis’ rectory in her town, doing some typing. It happened to be December 24, 1971, Christmas Eve. All of a sudden she heard a thud in her immediate vicinity and looked down to the floor. A heavy dictionary was lying at her feet. The book had been on the shelf only a fraction of a second before. A co-worker wondered what was up. She was hard-pressed to explain the presence of the dictionary on the floor since it had been on the shelf in back of them only a moment before. But she knew very well how the dictionary came to land at her feet.

  Mr. C. prepared special Christmas surprises for his wife. She went to her parents’ house to spend the holiday. During that time her nephew George was late for work since his alarm had not worked properly. On inspection it turned out that someone had stuck a pencil right through the clock. As soon as the pencil was removed, the clock started to work again. On investigation it turned out that no one had been near the clock, and when the family tried to place the pencil into the clock, as they had found it, no one could do it. The excitement made Mrs. C. so ill she went to bed. That was no way to escape Mr. C.’s attentions, however. The day before New Year’s Eve, her late husband got to her, walking up and down on the bed itself. Finally she told him to leave her and the children alone, to go where he belonged. She didn’t get an answer. But phenomena continued in the house, so she asked her aunt to come back once again. This time the aunt from Indiana brought oil with her and put it on each of the children and Mrs. C. herself. Apparently it worked, or so it seemed to Mrs. C. But her late husband was merely changing his tactics. A few days later she was sure that he was trying to get into one of the children to express himself further since he could no longer get at her. She felt she would be close to a nervous breakdown if someone would not help her get rid of the phenomenon and, above all, break her husband’s hold on her. “I am anxious to have him sent on up where he can’t bother anyone anymore,” she explained.

  Since I could not go immediately, and the voice on the telephone sounded as if its owner could not hold out a single day more, I asked Ethel Johnson Meyers, my mediumistic friend, to go out and see what she could do. Mrs. C. had to go to Mrs. Meyers’ house for a personal sitting first. A week later Ethel came down to Mrs. C.’s house to continue her work. What Mrs. Meyers discovered was somewhat of a surprise to Mrs. C. and to myself. It was Ethel’s contention that the late husband, while still in the flesh, had himself been the victim of possession and had done the many unpleasant things (of which he was justly accused) during his lifetime, not of his own volition but under the direction of another entity. That the possessor was himself possessed seemed like a novel idea to me, one neither Mrs. Meyers nor I could prove. Far more important was the fact that Mrs. Meyers’ prayers and commands to the unseen entity seemed to have worked, for he walks up and down Mrs. C’s bed no more, and all is quiet. I believe that hold Mr. C. had upon his wife after his death was so strong because of an unconscious desire on her part to continue their relationship. Even though she abhorred him—and the idea of being sexually possessed by a man who had lost his physical body in the usual way—something within her, perhaps deeply buried within her, may have wanted the continuous sexual attention he had bestowed upon her while still in the body.

  * 151

  The Ghost of the Little White Flower

  MRS. D. AND HER SON Bucky lived in a comfortable house on a hilltop in suburban Kentucky, not far from Cincinnati, Ohio, a pleasant, white house, not much different from other houses in the area. The surroundings are lovely and peaceful, and there’s a little man-made pond right in front of the house. Nothing about the house or the area looks the least bit ghostly or unusual. Nevertheless Mrs. D. needed my help in a very vexing situation.

  Six months after Mrs. D. had moved into the house, she began to hear footsteps upstairs when there was no one about, and the sound of a marble being rolled across the hall. Anything supernatural was totally alien to Mrs. D.

  Nevertheless, Mrs. D. had a questioning and alert mind, and was not about to accept these phenomena without finding out what caused them. When the manifestations persisted, she walked up to the foot of the stairs and yelled, “Why don’t you just come out and show yourself or say something instead of making all those noises?”

  As if in answer, an upstairs door slammed shut and then there was utter silence. After a moment’s hesitation, Mrs. D. dashed upstairs and made a complete search. There was no one about and the marble, which seemingly had rolled across the floor, was nowhere to be seen.

  When the second Christmas in the new house rolled around, the D.s were expecting Bucky home from the Army. He was going to bring his sergeant and the sergeant’s wife with him, since they had become very friendly. They celebrated New Year’s Eve in style and high spirits (not the ethereal kind, but the bottled type). Nevertheless, they were far from inebriated when the sergeant suggested that New Year’s Eve wa
s a particularly suitable night for a séance. Mrs. D. would have no part of it at first. She had read all about phony séances and such, and remembered what her Bible said about such matters. Her husband had long gone to bed. The four of them decided to have a go at it. They joined hands and sat quietly in front of the fireplace. Nothing much happened for a while. Then Bucky, who had read some books on psychic phenomena, suggested that they needed a guide or control from the other side of life to help them, but no one had any suggestions concerning to whom they might turn. More in jest than as a serious proposal, Mrs. D. heard herself say, “Why don’t you call your Indian ancestor Little White Flower!” Mr. D. is part Cherokee, and Bucky, the son would, of course, consider this part of his inheritance too. Mrs. D. protested that all this was nonsense, and that they should go to bed. She assured them that nothing was likely to happen. But the other three were too busy to reply, staring behind her into the fireplace. When she followed the direction of their eyes she saw what appeared to be some kind of light similar to that made by a flashlight. It stayed on for a short time and then disappeared altogether.

  The famous Brown Lady of Raynham Hill

  From that day on Mrs. D. started to find strange objects around the house that had not been there a moment before. They were little stones in the shape of Indian arrows. She threw them out as fast as she found them. Several weeks later, when she was changing the sheets on her bed, she noticed a huge red arrow had been painted on the bottom sheet—by unseen hands.

  It was in the winter of 1963. One afternoon she was lying down on the couch with a book trying to rest. Before long she was asleep. Suddenly she awoke with a feeling of horror which seemed to start at her feet and gradually work its way up throughout her entire body and mind. The room seemed to be permeated with something terribly evil. She could neither see nor hear anything, but she had the feeling that there was a presence there and that it was very strong and about to overcome her.

  For a few weeks she felt quite alone in the house, but then things started up again. The little stone arrowheads appeared out of nowhere again all over the house. Hysterical with fear, Mrs. D. called upon a friend who had dabbled in metaphysics and asked for advice. The friend advised a séance in order to ask Little White Flower to leave.

  Although Little White Flower was not in evidence continuously and seemed to come and go, Mrs. D. felt the woman’s influence upon her at all times. Later the same week, Little White Flower put in another appearance, this time visual. It was toward 4 o’clock in the morning when Mrs. D. woke up with the firm impression that her tormentor was in the room. As she looked out into the hall, she saw on the wall a little red object resembling a human eye, and directly below it what seemed like half a mouth. Looking closer, she discerned two red eyes and a white mouth below. It reminded her of some clowns she had seen in the circus. The vision remained on the wall for two or three minutes, and then vanished completely.

  After several postponements I was finally able to come to Kentucky and meet with Mrs. D. in person. On June 20, 1964, I sat opposite the slightly portly, middle-aged lady who had corresponded with me for several months so voluminously.

  As I intoned my solemn exorcism and demanded Little White Flower’s withdrawal from the spot, I could hear Mrs. D. crying hysterically. It was almost as if some part of her was being torn out and for a while it seemed that she was being sent away, not Little White Flower.

  The Black Bass Inn—Pennsylvania

  The house has been quite ever since; Little White Flower has presumably gone back to her own people and Mrs. D. continues living in the house without further disturbances.

  * 152

  Raynham Hall

  THREE-HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD Raynham Hall is a rambling structure of some size within a 20,000-acre estate, where American servicemen were stationed during World War II. Since then the house has been closed to outsiders and, since the Townshends are not exactly afflicted with poverty, the widely practiced custom of admitting tourists for half a crown never invaded the august portals of the Hall.

  As reported in the January 4, 1937 issue of Life magazine, it all started innocently enough with an order to photograph the interior of the stately mansion. Indre Shira, Ltd., a London firm of Court photographers was hired to perform the task. In September 1936 the company sent Captain Hubert C. Provand and an assistant to Raynham Hall to do the job.

  Immediately after his arrival, Captain Provand set out to work. He had no use for the supernatural, and if he had heard of the ghostly legends he put no stock in them. But one of his cameras was smashed by seemingly unseen hands. Still he refused to accept the possibility of a ghost being the culprit. At one point during their meticulous work of photographing the interior of the Hall, the two men found themselves facing the famous grand staircase in the Great Hall downstairs. “Look!” the assistant suddenly said, and pointed toward the staircase, terror etched on his face. The captain looked but saw nothing. The young man insisted he saw a white figure slowly descending the stairs. “Well,” the skeptical captain replied, “if you’re so sure of it, let’s photograph it.” Quickly they pointed their camera toward the staircase and made an exposure. This was done with flash, but one must remember that in 1936 flash photography was not what it is today, and the intensity of the flash light very much weaker than with modern flashbulbs. At this the figure dissolved—at least the assistant reported it was no longer visible to him. The two photographers then sealed the plate and took it to the chemists’ firm of Blake, Sanford & Blake, where the negative was developed. The chemists attested to the fact that nothing had been wrong with either negative or developing, and that the figure on the staircase was not due to slipshod handling of any kind.

  The striking figure is that of a woman in flowing dress, descending the staircase. It is white and smoke-like, and the stairs can be seen through it. When the results were shown to the Townshends, there was a moment of embarrassed silence. Then the photograph was compared with a portrait of Lady Dorothy Walpole which hung in one of the upstairs passages. It was also pretty much the same as the reported apparition of the lady seen by a number of Townshend house guests over the years.

  What made Dorothy Walpole a ghost, way back in the 1780s, was a little inconvenience called mental depressions, but in those days this was considered a disease not fit to be discussed in polite society. Being of gentle birth, the lady was therefore “contained” in a room upstairs and spent her last years in it, finally passing across the threshold of death no longer in her right mind. Perhaps she was not aware of this change and considers Raynham Hall still her rightful home, and herself free now to range it at will, and to smash intruding photographers’ cameras if she so desires.

  Life published the picture with all the facts and left it to the readers to make up their own minds. I have shown this picture on national television and before many college audiences and have never failed to get gasps from the audience, for it is indeed the very model of what a ghost picture should look like.

  * 153

  The Ghost of the Pennsylvania Boatsman

  WHEN I DECIDED to spend a quiet weekend to celebrate my birthday at the picturesque Logan Inn in New Hope, Pennsylvania, I had no idea that I was not just going to sleep in a haunted bedroom, but actually get two ghosts for the “price” of one!

  The lady who communicated with my companion and myself in the darkness of the silent January night via a flickering candle in room #6, provided a heart-warming experience and one I can only hope helped the restless one get a better sense of still “belonging” to the house. Mrs. Gwen Davis the proprietor, assured me that the ghost is the mother of a former owner, who simply liked the place so much she never left.

  Mrs. Davis pointed me toward the Black Bass Inn in nearby Lumberville, an 18th-century pub and now hotel right on the Delaware Canal. The place is filled with English antiques of the period and portraits of Kings Charles I, II and James II, providing that this was indeed a Loyalist stronghold at one time.

  I w
ent around the place with my camera, taking any number of photographs with fast color film in existing light. The story here concerned the ghost of a young man who made his living as a canal boatsman. Today, the canal is merely a curiosity for tourists, but in the nineteenth century it was an active waterway for trade, bringing goods on barges down river. The canal, which winds around New Hope and some of the nearby towns gives the area a charm all its own.

  In the stone basement of the Black Bass, where the apparition had been seen by a number of people over the years, according to the current owner, Herbie Ward, I took some pictures and then asked my companion to take one of me. Picture my surprise when here appeared a white shape in the picture which cannot be reasonably explained as anything but the boatsman putting in a kind of appearance for me. The boatsman died in a violent argument with another boatsman. By the way, the name of the boatsman was Hans. Maybe he felt the two Hanses ought to get in touch?

  CHAPTER TEN

  Poltergeists

  THE TERM Poltergeist is German. German researchers in the paranormal were the first ones to concentrate their efforts toward a better understanding of the phenomena associated with poltergeist activities. The word simply means “noisy ghost” and refers to events that parapsychology nowadays prefers to call physical phenomena, which are invariably three-dimensional, whether moving objects or visual or auditory effects produced by means that are other than ordinary or explicable.

  The German scientists also decided that these events were connected with, and caused by, a young person at the threshold of puberty; the energies that make the sometimes very violent phenomena possible were actually the unreleased sexual energies of the young people in the household. They went so far as to accuse some of these young persons of unwittingly causing the phenomena, often to “attract attention.”