Psychic – and Poltergeist.
Sidelights on ‘ghost’ and other stories; incidents without explanation.
By an Echo ghost seeker.
Merseyside is, just now, undergoing one of those periodical waves of ‘psychic’ experiences which, once every decade or so, sweep through a city for a few weeks, rouse public interest, bring incredulous laughter from the scoffers and indignant protests from the victims, and, being a seven days’ wonder, fade away into the oblivion from which they were born.
Everyone who read the story of the Liverpool family who left their house because of what they alleged were ghostly incidents immediately remembered that curious experience of their own… or, if they had never seen a ghost themselves, they recounted – and are still recounting – that very queer story told them by their neighbour across the way. The fact is, of course, that when one man has the courage or indiscretion, whichever way you look at it, to declare what he believes he has seen and heard, the tongues of a hundred others are immediately unlocked.
Their own stories have been kept a secret – for fear of ridicule, as likely as not – in some cases for many years. Witness the story told by the ex-cook, now happily married and still in Liverpool, about her terrifying experience in a Sefton Park house nine years ago. She had nothing to gain by coming forward and telling her story to the Echo. Nor is she in the least neurotic, nor given to “imagining things.” The last point was, indeed, borne out by the servants’ agency she mentioned, where it was ascertained that many maidservants who had been at that particular house had the same story to tell. The point I want to make clear is that, had her evidence been given in open court, no jury could have doubted that she was telling the truth as she knew it.
That is the disturbing thing about these ghost stories. Since my modest part in last week’s story became known among my friends, I have heard not one, but a dozen stories to the same effect from people whom I have known, in many cases for years, and never connected with anything in the least “psychic.” Some of them (I hope they will forgive me) are somewhat unimaginative people, who could scarcely have invented the complicated stories they told, whilst in more than one case, where notable Liverpool names were mentioned, I have been able to verify, beyond any possibility of doubt, that the facts, so far as human eyes are capable of judging, are, in effect, true.
Take the story of a somewhat prosaic, matter-of-fact, middle-aged engineer, who lives in the same Liverpool suburb as myself. His story hangs together; and in so far as there were other witnesses to certain incidents, those witnesses have been interviewed and their stories tally.
This particular case is another of the so-called poltergeist, or “mischievous influence,” kind. Two years ago this man’s house – an elderly one, though the age of the house usually seems to have nothing to do with the facts – became the centre of a somewhat alarming series of occurrences. Nothing out of the ordinary had ever been noticed before, but one day things began to disappear. Queer noises were heard. Articles of furniture were broken and thrown about, though no human agency was possible.
This is his summarised statement as he made it to me:
“One morning I had all my money taken from my trousers pocket, and later I found it in an old coat I had not worn for months. My false teeth were taken from a table by my bed and could not be found anywhere, though we searched high and low. Two days later they were replaced on the same table.
“There were repeated knockings on the doors, walls, and furniture – even on the roof – and this became so common that in the end we agreed to take no notice of them. I was more interested than frightened. One day, while we were in the garden, six windows in different rooms were smashed simultaneously.
“In some queer way, I grew to know that the influences responsible for all this were in some way connected with me. Then I noticed that, during the months this was going on, every dog I knew would run away from me, though not from the rest of the family, who were also ‘in the know.’
“I had a number of secondhand cars at that time. On three seperate occasions the windscreens of three cars were smashed while I was alone in them.
“The happenings were not confined to our own house, but seemed to go with me. We were visiting some friends at Southport and sitting in their dining-room, when suddenly there was a loud rap at the dining-room door. There was no one there. My hostess was terrified, and thought something must have happened to a daughter who was out. When the daughter turned up, alive and well, she welcomed her with tears.
“Finally, one morning when I was in the lane just outside my garden, I saw a young woman, wearing a fleecy white garment, running towards me. I saw her features quite plainly. She was barely within twenty yards of me when two very large and beautiful hounds suddenly sprang from nowhere, and headed her off. She turned away, seemingly in desperation, and then, before my eyes, vanished. While I stared, bewildered, the dogs vanished, too.
“A friend of mine, staying with us, saw one door of a chiffoniere open and close repeatedly. Eventually I took the advice given me by a woman missionary from Africa, and that of an evangelist friend” (here he named a preacher whose name is a household one), “and read a portion of the Bible in every room of the house. Since then we have not noticed anything.”
[…]
Liverpool Echo, 19th April 1934.