Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Research on Ghosts

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Before his novel “The Scarlet Letter” made him famous, the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne was a customs official in Boston. At that time, in the 1830’s, went every day to the Athenaeum library to research and write for a few hours. Among the other regular customers of the library included the Rev. Dr. Harris, octogenarian cleric who had sat for years in “his” chair by the fireplace, reading the “Boston Courier.”

Hawthorne had never spoken to him since the talks were strictly prohibited in the reading room, but Dr. Harris was almost a piece of furniture in that room. The novelist was surprised one night when a friend informed him that the old man had been dead for some time. It was even more surprised when, the day after he met the cleric in his usual chair reading the newspaper. For weeks, Hawthorne continued to see Dr. Harris with his usual appearance, perfectly healthy.

One of the things that stumped Hawthorne was the fact that many of the other readers who frequented the place had been close friends of Dr. Harris. So why do not you see? Or perhaps you saw but I was going as Hawthorne and would not bother to admit his “presence”? Another factor that confused Hawthorne retrospect was a failure to feel the desire to touch the figure or perhaps to snatch the paper out of hand. “Perhaps he was afraid to destroy the illusion and a good ghost story. ”

But … in the reading room of the Athenaeum the talks were strictly forbidden and I never could have led to the appearance without drawing attention to and raise outrageous looks. And how absurd I would like solemnly to address what would have seemed in the eyes of other people as an empty chair.

“Besides,” Hawthorne concluded in a final show of civility, “Dr. Harris and I had not been presented.” After a few months, Hawthorne entered the Athenaeum again and found the empty chair, after which he never saw Dr. Harris anymore.

The only drawback to consider this history as evidence of psychic events is that it is the declaration of an author who wrote many stories with the theme of the supernatural. Hawthorne was a friend of Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville, who wrote about the realm of the unknown. On the other hand, Hawthorne became interested in the phenomena of ghosts after moving to a house in Massachusetts that was said, was haunted for years. About this site wrote: “While sitting in the lounge during the day I often had the feeling that someone was in the windows, but looking at them I discovered that there was nobody.”

In either case, that of his home and Dr. Harris Hawthorne seems to have tried to embellish the story, and yet his fame is a great short story writer, used to give their accounts of a principle and a satisfying ending. As fiction ghost story, the story of Dr. Harris would be dull and uninteresting, but as evidence of an occurrence is of exceptional quality.

So, what did you see Hawthorne? For many people, the immediate response would be that deals with the earthly spirit of Dr. Harris, somehow connected to the place where he used to ‘up’ in life. Others would say that the ghost was a projection of the memory that was the old Hawthorne, echoing Hamlet’s mother when he commented about the visions of his son: “This is pure invention of the imagination.” More recently, researchers supernatural suggest that the seemingly solid person next to fire was a kind of “registration” spiritual left by the deceased in their environment, which was received in some way by the mind of Hawthorne in the same way that a television set receives a transmission .

One thing is certain: Nathaniel Hawthorne was by no means the only one who saw “ghosts” or, as they prefer competent parapsychologists and psychical researchers’ appearances. ” From the earliest times, all civilizations have left evidence of ghosts: some as a mere generality, as part of folklore, while others have produced specific historical examples.

Some 500 years ago in the Middle Ages, a Benedictine monk named Brother Jean Goby took a case of psychic research and recorded all the facts with scrupulous care. Although to modern eyes the incident at first seem strange enough to be ignored, the case was so rare Goby at the time it happened that deserves to be studied.

In December 1323 a trader died of Alais, a town in southern France. His name was Guy de Torno, and said that days after his death he had returned to haunt his widow as a “voice of spirit.” The news of this persistent ghost spread through the city of Avignon, 65 km from the place where Pope John XXII was then his residence. The pope was impressed by this fact and appointed his brother Jean Goby, prior of the Benedictine Abbey of Alais, to investigate.

Accompanied by three of his Benedictine brothers and about a hundred of the most respected citizens of the town, the brother Jean examined the house and grounds if there was any hidden traps or abnormal sound effects. After a guard placed around the site to keep visitors away. The focus of ghostly manifestations was the bedroom. Goby’s widow asked to lie on the bed next to “a respectable old lady,” while the four monks sat in a corner each.

The monks recited then the office of the dead and soon began to feel in the air a sound similar to that produced by a stiff broom dragged across the floor. The widow cried full of terror. Goby wondered aloud whether the sound came from the deceased and a voice replied: “Yes. I am he. ”

At that moment, she let some of the citizens as witnesses in the room and stood in a circle around the bed. The voice assured them that there was an emissary of the devil-common assumption in medieval times, but the earthy spirit of Guy de Torno, condemned to haunt his old house for the sins he had committed there. He added that he hopes to ascend to heaven after finishing his term in purgatory. Jean’s brother also said he knew that the Eucharist had hidden under her habit. This detail only knew Goby. The spirit went on to say that his main sin was adultery, which in those days was punishable by excommunication of Sacramento. Then the spirit “sighed and departed.”

Jean’s brother wrote his report and sent to the pope of Avignon. Despite the rigor with which they conducted the investigation, left standing the fact that the noise and the “sigh” could have been caused by the mistral wind blowing through that part of France in winter. The same “voice” could have been produced by ventriloquism by the widow, consciously or unconsciously, especially if suspected infidelity of her husband and wanted to discredit his memory.

Ghosts Battles

Another impressive research, this time on a “massive onset” was conducted in 1644 by a number of prestigious British army officers. On October 23, 1643, the royalist troops under the command of Prince Rupert of the Rhine (nephew of King Charles I), and parliamentary elections, led by Oliver Cromwell, fought the first battle of the English Civil War at Edgehill (Warwickshire .)

A month later, several local pastors saw and heard in the same place with what at first thought it was another battle: the cavalry, firearms, the glittering steel. When that picture suddenly everything disappeared, panicked and fled. On Christmas Eve the ghost battle was staged again and was so convincing that a printer in London interviewed several witnesses and published an account of the phenomenon.

This intrigued the king, who appointed a commission of military officers to investigate on their behalf. On his return, the officers brought a detailed confirmation of the news. Not only had interviewed the pastors, but twice had seen the battle themselves, recognizing a large number of men who had died and Prince Rupert, who was still alive. From this it was suggested that the phenomenon was a kind of “second staging” rather than an appearance of spectra of spirits returning from death.

The battle of Edgehill ghost has a curious parallel in Spain, located in the gorge of Roncesvalles (Navarra), scene of the defeat of French troops under the command of Roland, nephew of Charlemagne in 778. It is said that on full moon nights there listening to the sounds of that tragic event: prayers, screams of agony … and perhaps also the distant sound of the horn with which the dying Roland called for help.