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Harvest of Light

APPROACHES TO THE

PARANORMAL

Edited by

NEVILLE ARMSTRONG

ingilizce .

Contents

Page

Introduction Paul Beard 5

Sequel to a Murder Snaebjörn Jönsson 26

Haunted London A. Peter Underwood 30

Out of the Body by Mantras Walter K. Paul 67

Yazıları bu kitaptan alınmıştır

Introduction

PAUL BEARD

The paranormal is often thought of as concerned with ghosts and apparitions, or else with scientists peering over Zener cards and analysing complicated statistics; or with a stream of utterances from a medium, producing a mixture of facts, some significant, some trivial. It is not usually recognised how wide and varied a field is covered by the paranormal and how full of human interest these approaches can be. Indeed, it covers many types of perception and a wide gamut of human thought and feeling.

This book is an attempt to illustrate the impact of paranormal events and paranormal thinking upon a wide variety of people. All the contributions have appeared during the last ten years or so within the pages of LIGHT, the quarterly Journal which has been published by The College of Psychic Studies since 1881. A number of the contributions were originally given as lectures at the College.

Over the years LIGHT has welcomed contributions from celebrated authors, doctors, scholars, artists, clergymen, philosophers and seers, from here or overseas.

Each contribution can, of course, be read on its merits and it is thought that they will be found to cover a very interesting spectrum. Perhaps the volume will prove to be like an entrance gate into a wide and unusual estate containing both public and private gardens, things that are cultivated and things that are wild; forests and Rolling views into a landscape the furthest corners of which lie well beyond the immediate view and call, indeed, for much brave and skilful exploring within these inner worlds of the human spirit.

Thanks are due to the many authors who have allowed their material to be printed in the present volume, to the literary executor of W. Tudor Pole, and to the Mysticism Committee of the Churches’ Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies in respect of Dr. Martin Israel’s contribution “Healing and the Spirit”; and to the Society for Psychical Research for “How I became interested in the Paranormal” by Gabriel Marcel. The selection has been made by Neville Armstrong of Neville Spearman Ltd.

Our apologies are made to the two or three authors we have been unable to trace, and we trust they will pardon our making this further use of their excellent material.

Sequel to a Murder

SNAEBJORN JONSSON

In the small hours of the morning of March 14, 1828, a terrible crime took place at Illugatadir farmhouse, on the north coast of Iceland. The farmer, an unmarried man named Nathan Ketilsson, and a guest sleeping in the same room, were savagely murdered by a lad, Fridrik Sigurdsson (b. 1810) from a neighbouring farm, aided and abetted by Nathan’s maidservant, Agnes Magnúsdottir (b. 1795). Having killed the two men, they set fire to the farmhouse, hoping to destroy the corpses and every

vestige of their crime. However, they did not succeed. The corpses were only partially burnt and the mutilated remains showed unmistakably how the men had met with their death.

Behind this brutal crime was a double love-story. Nathan was a man of ability, fair education, and excellent points. But he had led a loose life and had several reckless love affairs. Apparently he fascinated almost any woman. Agnes had been his housekeeper and was firmly under the impression that he was going to marry her.

But he had now thrown her over, reduced her to the position of an ordinary servant, and to her former post elevated a young girl with whom he was having an affair. With this girl Fridrik, too, was in love. Thus both murderers were inflamed with jealousy.

Agnes had always had a blameless character; indeed she was of excellent repute, highly intelligent and had poetic talent of no mean order. Fridrik also came of a very good stock, though his mother was considered harsh-tempered and he himself had the reputation of being an unruly lad.

The couple were convicted of the double murder and condemned to death by the local Sheriff. The sentence was upheld by the High Court of Iceland, and again by the Supreme Court of Denmark, who directed that they should be beheaded and he heads set on stakes. It was the last time capital punishment was inflicted in Iceland.

The sentence was carried out on January 12, 1830, in a relatively deserted place within the parish of the Sheriff who had pronounced it, and under his supervision. In conformity with the savage ideas of that day, the entire adult population of the district were ordered to attend the excecution – of course with the idea of being frightened into good behaviour. In the locality are three hills, or hillocks, fairly close together, called Three Hills; on the summit of the middle one a platform of stones and turf was

made, and remains practically intact today. On this was placed the executioner’s block (which with the axe, may still be seen at the National Museum, Reykjavik).

After the execution the heads were put on stakes on the platform, while the bodies were placed in rough deal coffins and forthwith buried in unhallowed ground near the foot of the hill. Nothing was done to mark the spot, and the whereabouts of the grave were gradually forgotten, until no one could say where it had been.

During the night following the execution the heads disappeared. People claimed to know that a certain highly distinguished and universally respected lady in the neighbouring parish had sent a manservant to take them down and secretly bury them in Thingeyrar churchyard, adjoining her residence. From the point of view of the law this was a serious thing, but nothing was done about it. Probably the Sheriff, though a bold man, had little taste for facing this proud lady with such a charge, and so preferred to ignore the matter Up to this point the story will be found briefly related by the Hon. Arthur Dillon (later Lord Dillon) in his book, A Winter in Iceland (London, 1840), as told to him during his sojourn in Reykjavik in 1834-35. He gives no names.

Of course obloquy was heaped on the memory of these two unfortunates. People are generally ready with harsh judgement on those convicted of evil deeds. Few stop to think what harm they may be doing by their cruel thinking. But the story was notforgotten. The number of highly gifted and remarkable persons that each generation brought forth in two of the families involved in the tragedy helped to focus popular attention upon it. Even abroad (in Denmark) it became a subject for treatment in verse.

We move now to the present. About 1931 Mrs Sesselja Gudmundsdóttir, the very reserved and orthodox wife of Reykjavik Corporation employee, felt pains in her hand and, much against her will, began writing automatically messages purporting to be dictated by the two murderers. Their object was to say how unhappy they – particularly Agnes – were made by the harsh thoughts always surrounding them.

They pleaded for something to be done to mitigate their unhappiness. One means towards this was to exhume their bones and re-inter them in the churchyard at Tjörn, their own parish church, before the summer solstice (June 21). It was desired that the reburial should be conducted with the customary rites by the local minister, whose name they correctly stated.

For a while all this was regarded as nonsense, and so ignored. But they persisted in their pleadings and grew more and more insistent. They continued to support theirpetition by fresh proofs of identity, many of them individually trifling; but in their growing accumualtion these proofs became overwhelming. The communicators named specific persons, who they desired should be approached as they would prove sympathetic and helpful. One of these was Judge Páll Einarsson, of the

Supreme Court. These assertions proved to be right. They further gave remarkably exact instructions for locating the grave, named “an old man”, Magnus, living at a certain farm in the neighbourhood, and said that he would prove the right man for finding the grave. It was suggested to the communicators that instead of transporting the bones, if found, the long distance to their old parish church, it would be more convenient to take them to the church nearest to Three Hills where, moreover, the heads were “known” to have been buried. But no, came the answer this must on no

account be done; besides, it was quite wrong to say that the heads had been buried there. The man who took them down had failed in his thrust and buried them at a short distance from the bodies. Further, Agnes’s head had not been removed from the stake; the latter had been broken leaving a piece of wood in the head; the piece was still in the bones. One thing more they desired should be done, namely that when the bones had been re-interred in the cemetery, a prayer for remittance of their sin should be said on the ruins of the burnt-down farmhouse that had been the scene

of their crime.

The matter was now taken in hand and their instructions acted upon. A sturdy and energetic man, Gudmund Hofdal, came forward and volunteered to go to the northern district, search for the bones and take them to the desired church for burial, if he found them.

On June 14th, 1934, a bright sunny morning, he left Reykjavik for the North, arriving that night at the farm. The name of the farmer proved to be Magnus, as Agnes had said, but as to his age she was quite a bit out, for he was not much over forty. Locallyhe was a prominent man, holding a public office, the nearest English approach to which is that of justice and peace. Hofdal told him the whole story. Though polite, the farmer did not conceal his amused incredulity, but said he was quite willing to go with him to Three Hills in the morning and do as instructed. Magnus took with him his son,

a young man, as well as his tools for digging. Among these was a slender iron rod (about ¾in.). They selected a spot that seemed to tally best with Agnes’s description, and after Magnus had been prodding for about a quarter of an hour he struck wood.

They now dug a wide grave, so as to be sure of damaging nothing, and found the coffins which lay side by side. They were quite intact, except that the lips had sunk in under the weight of the earth. But the bones were much more rotten. These the men gathered up as well as they could, after Magnus had gone back to the farm for a wooden box. The heads they found without the least trouble, so exact were the instructions. And there was the end of the stake in the woman’s head; so also on this

point she had told the truth – a truth that flew in the face of all that had been said and

believed about the matter.

The excavators’ report on their job, including all conceivable measurements, is so detailed and minute that it reads as if written by a trained archaeologist. In the same fashion they put everything in order after they had removed the bones. As to what remained of the communicators’ instructions, these were compiled with to the utmost detail.

Most of the persons concerned in this matter are still (1964) alive. The minister who officiated at the re-burial is now nearly 79, a man distingusihed for his comprehensive scholarship. Mr. Hofdal is about the same age . The Bishop who, very gladly, gave permission for the exhumation, is dead; so is Judge Einarsson (incidentally a constant reader of LIGHT). Mrs. Gudmundsdóttir, the reluctant automatist in the case, is also dead; she made little use of her gift after Agnes’s “break-through”.

Let us concede that all the above facts admit of rational explanation. But there was a small, indirect sequel, now probably known to no living person but myself. Of this I know no satisfactory explanation, though a number of more or less paralel experiences are on record.

About four years after the exhumation at Three Hills, or to be exact, in the night between June 23 and 24, 1938 (at that time of the year the sun never sets in the north of Iceland), a distinguished public official, highly respected throughout Iceland, on an inspection tour through the East and the North of the country, happened to ride past Three Hills, and as he did so, he saw the scene of the execution down to the minutest detail, and every face in the large concourse of people gathered to watch the ghastly spectacle. “But the experience was such a strain upon me that there was

not a dry spot upon my body by the time it was over; I was drenched with perspiration”, he said when telling me of the incident. For some three hours he was held spellbound on the spot. Except for his wife I am convinced that I was the only person he told of this remarkable experience. He was by far the most remarkablclairvoyant I ever knew. But, with the exception of his wife I have met no one who

knew that he was endowed with this faculty; and yet I have been acquainted with many of his personal friends. He was a gifted man and came of a distinguished family in which psychic gifts have long been prominent, and he was an exceptionally strong character, but his innermost thoughts he did not disclose to many. He died suddenly from heart failure on January 5, 1939, a little more than six months after having this vision.

Though it may have no significance, I will mention that his wife was a grand-niece of Fridrik the murderer. She was a woman of rare excellence. Her great intellectual gifts were matched by her boundless generosity and her compassionate heart. But I amcertain that all her life she suffered under the stain upon her family record. She once told me that when she was a little girl somebody was malicious enough to cast it at her that she was not far removed in kinship from a vile murderer. “And the words went like a red-hot iron through my very soul”, she said. What is the explanation of

her husband’s vision at Three Hills in 1938?

Haunted London

A. PETER UNDERWOOD

The ghosts of London are legion; it is no exaggeration to say that it would be possible to trace reports of inexplicable and curious happenings, perhaps attributable to the supernormal, from practically every street in this ancient and modern city.

In my experience (I have studied the subject academically and by personal investigation for something like twenty years) there are many kinds of hauntings, but detailed classification is impossible. The following selection is an attempt to illustrate some of the different types of spontaneous psychic phenomena that have been reported.

Among the traditional ghost stories there is London’s most famous haunted house: 50, Berkeley Square which, it is said, years ago possessed a terrible haunted room where the ghost caused at least two deaths, in convulsions, for people foolhardy enough to sleep there. Our Victorian ancestors would not have dreamt of visiting London without a look at the haunted house in Berkeley Square, and there is a story that on one occasion a party was taking place next door when a guest, chancing to lean against the wall dividing the house from number 50, experienced a kind of electric shock. The commonly accepted story to account for the haunting concerns a mad person who was kept locked away and who eventually died in what was subsequently the haunted room, but concrete evidence for this haunting is now lost, and nothing untoward has happened there for many years.

On the other hand the Tower of London, associated with several traditional ghosts, is also the scene of peculiar and inexplicable experiences today. Some may have their origin in wishful thinking, but it is indisputable that this ancient collection of buildngs has a peculiar atmosphere in many parts, some not open to the public, and this can be verified by almost anyone who has lived there. If violent happenings and tragic deaths can cause hauntings, then surely the Tower should be more ghost-ridden than most places. There are convincing reports, extending over many years, of very curious happenings, including appearances of Anne Boleyn, who has been seen

inside the church of St. Peter ad Vincula (where she is buried), outside the Bloody Tower, and near the Queen’s House, where she spent her last night on earth.

Nearby, on the site of the scaffold, the harrowing scene of the execution of the Countess of Salisbury is said to have been re-enacted on the anniversary of her death: the ghostly Countess being seen and heard, screaming with terror, as she is chased by the ghostly figure of her executioner who, axe in hand, finally overtakes

her and hacks off her head with repeated dreadful blows.

Other ghosts at the Tower include a curious cylindrical shape (if this can be called a ghost!) which was seen by the Keeper of the Crown Jewels at the time, in what was then the Jewel House, on the west side of the Martin Tower, where a number of weird happenings were experienced by soldiers during the last war. Groans, believed To be those of Guido Fawkes, were heard long afterwards from the council-chamber where he was “examined.” Thr ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh is also said to be seen from time to time although he was taken to Old Palace Yard, Westminster, to be executed. Recent experiences at the Tower include unexplained footsteps, a shadowy form which disappears near the Wakefield Tower, and a remarkable story concerning a high-ranking officer at the Tower who saw what he described as a puff of smoke emerge from one of the ancient and disused cannons, float over the ground and appear to sit on a wall. If this account did not come from such an authoritive

source it might be dismissed as a trick of the light or eyes but it remains one more curious happening at the haunted Tower of London.Anne Boelyn, incidentally, is a prolific ghost; four of the mansions claiming to be her birthplace are reputed to harbour her ghost. Moans and groans and the apparent voice of Anne pleading her innocence have been heard by people passing near the door of the Undercroft at Lambeth Palace where she was tried on a charge of adultery. Thurston Hopkins told me that he knew three people who had witnessed her taking again her last journey on the Thames from Lambeth Palace to the Tower.

Nearby, St. Thomas’s Hospital, I have been told, is haunted by a black mist which appears in a certain ward before anyone in that ward dies. Another historical ghost haunts the Inslip Rooms in the Deanery of Westminster

Abbey. Here footsteps, heard in the passage and on the stairs, are reputed to be those of President Bradshaw who, in these rooms, signed the warrant authorising the execution of Charles I.

For some more modern ghosts of London we might consider the strange reputation acquired by the monolith known as Cleopatra’s Needle on the Embankment. It is a fact known to the older members of the River Police that there are more suicides and attempts at suicide in the immediate vicinity of this granite obelisk (one of a pair

erected in Egypt about 1500 years B.C.) than on any other particular stretch of the river bank. Elliott O’Donnell, on a visit to the Ghost Club, related to me the experience of a police officer, which he had heard first-hand. The officer was crossing Waterloo Bridge when he heard someone running after him, and looking round he found himself face to face with a well-dressed young woman who was much agitated and implored him to go with her, as she had just left someone in great trouble. She led him back off the bridge and along the Embankment. As they

approached Cleopatra’s Needle he saw a woman in the act of throwing herself in the river. He rushed forward and just succeeded in preventing the tragedy. After he had managed to bring her back to the safety of the pavement, imagine his surprise, on looking at her, to see the exact counterpart of the young woman who had fetched

him, in both features and dress! On turning to the latter for an explanation, he found that she had vanished. Subsequent questioning ascertained that the young woman he had rescued had no twin sister or indeed any relative or friend – and she had seen no woman of any description.

Not far from Cleopatra’s Needle, in Whitehall Place, stands the National Liberal Club  the scene a few years ago of apparent poltergeist activity. The Secretary of the Club at the time wrote to a prominent member of the Royal Society, a Professor of Physiology and noted naturalist, to ask whether there was any living creature which,

when enclosed in a wall, could produce a sound like knocks or raps. The professor replied that there was not, and asked the reason for this peculiar question, whereupon the Secretary explained that for some time past he and his wife and family had been disturbed by sounds which seemed to proceed from the walls of the rooms they occupied at the club and for which they could find no rational explanation.

He described the noises minutely and the professor promised to give the matter his mmediate attention on his return to London; he was then in Scotland. But by the time he returned to London the disturbances had ceased. However he went to the club and interviewed the Secretary, who propounded an odd solution. He asserted that

the noises had seemed to be connected with the presence of an otherwise inoffensive German maid employed at the club. It was not suggested that she caused the noises consciously – indeed that would have been impossible in the circumstances related – but the noises had definitely seemed to follow her, and she was given notice in consequence. Since her departure the noises had ceased. This might be regarded as a typical poltergeist infestation. These commence suddenly and inexplicably and in some way are associated with a young person: when this person is no longer present, the disturbances cease. Many such cases are reported every year from London alone, some with singular features. A recent poltergeist case at Peckham involved many spontaneous outbreaks of fire, so many in fact that no insurance company would insure the family. A ghostly dog has been seen, always at the same time of day and always in the same place – a poltergeist-infested shop in

Lambeth, by a growing number of people. In the historic and unspoiled Temple where he lived, the ghost of Sir Henry Hawkins, afterwards Lord Brampton, known as “the hanging judge”, has been said to have been glimpsed many times, usually around midnight, in wig and gown, gliding through the cloisters with a bundle of papers under his arm.

Church Hauntings

Nearby in Queen Victoria Street is the church of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe, built by Wren in 1691-2 on the site of an earlier church destroyed in the Fire. Here we have an example of a “haunted” object, for the tower of this ancient church possessed a haunted bell. Named Gabriel and cast at Worcester 500 years ago, the bell was

taken from the doomed belfry of Avenbury church in Herefordshire in 1937 and hung here. Generations of Avenbury people have held the belief that whenever a parson of Avenbury died, the bell would toll of its own accord. Certain it is that it was heard tolling, though no human hand touched the rope, when the last two vicars of

Avenbury died.

Further along Queen Victoria Street, in Garlick Hill, there is another haunted Wren Church, St. James, long famous for possessing the mummified body of a young man found under the chancel. The corpse is kept under glass in a receptacle in the vestibule, and is known as “Old Jimmy Garlick”. He seems to be restless, for it is said he often takes a stroll round the church. It is related that an American lady visited the church with her two sons, and when the elder boy looked up the staircase he saw the figure of a man, clad in a winding sheet, standing erect with his hands crossed. The  figure resembled a dried-up corpse, and the terrified boy ran back to his mother and

dragged her into the street. Nobody knows who Old Jimmy Garlick was; before the Great Fire he was buried in a glass coffin under the altar. Some people think he is an embalmed Roman general, others the First Mayor of London, still others Belin, a legendary King of the Britons. During the last war Jimmy had a narrow escape when

in 1942 a bomb shaved his case and penetrated into the vaults below; but it failed to explode. After that Jimmy was reported to be seen inside the church more frequently and new manifestations such as movement of objects occurred. He has been a relic of the church for five hundred years and although he is getting thin on top, he retains

his skin, his finger nails and his teeth, and seems good for another five hundred years!

By London Bridge we find yet another haunted church: St. Magnus’ the Martyr. The late Harry Price collected evidence that a robed figure had been seen in the church or vestry-room by at least four independent witnesses, and many visitors, especially those from Eastern countries, sense an unusual atmosphere when they enter the

church. One witness, Miss E.L. Flew, a regular attendant and worker at St. Magnus, was doing needlework in the vestry-room one afternoon when a priest in a cassock walked in, went round the table and disappeared into the wall. Other witnesses include a verger who was putting things away after an evening service when he turned and saw a priest or monk standing just in front of the altar, about five feet away from him. The figure then appeared to bend down and to be looking for something so the verger asked, “Have you lost something? Can I help you?”

Whereupon the figure stood up, smiled and just faded away. It is not generally known that the Bank of England has a ghost, an apparition which many people have seen wandering about the Bank garden, and known as the Black

Nun. The story of the haunting goes back to 1811 when Philip Whitehead, a former employee of the Bank, was arrested for forging cheques and was condemned to  death at the Old Bailey. This tragedy resulted in Whitehead’s sister Sarah losing her reason and for the rest of her life, some twenty-five years, she daily journeyed to the

Bank, loitering and looking for her brother. Some people think she gave the name of The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street to the Bank. She died suddenly and was buried inside the Bank, in the old churchyard which afterwards became the Bank garden, and there her figure has been glimpsed on many occasions over the years in that green oasis in the heart of the Bank of England.

Not far off is Charterhouse where some fifty-thousand plague victims were buried between 1348 and 1357, and where a Carthusian priory was founded in 1371, the churchyard of which is the site of the present Charterhouse Square. In this collection of beautiful old houses there is a lovely old building said to be periodically haunted by

a headless ghost, thought to be that of the Duke of Norfolk, who walks up the main entrance. Even on the brightest day there are parts of these great buildings which are shrouded in gloom, which might account for these frequent reports.

Beyond Smithfield Market we reach the delighful Great Gate leading to the church of St. Bartholomew the Great. Here during the reign of Mary, two hundred and seventyseven persons were burned to death for heresy immediately opposite this entrance gate, with the victim facing the east and the gate. Even today, ghostly groans and occasionally blood-curdling screams have been heard by people passing this spot at night. The ancient church was founded by Rahere, a jester at the court of Henry I, and it is said to be his footsteps that have been heard many times in the church.

Turning into Newgate Street we come to Grey Friars Churchyard, long said to be haunted by Isabella, the lustful she-wolf of France, wife of the hapless Edward II; in fact four queens are buried here and an oppressive, expectant air still lingers around this scene of the occasional re-appearances of this wicked Queen.

Another royal ghost of London is George II who died at Kensington Palace after a long illness, during which he frequently gazed from the window of his room up at the curious weather-vane over the clock tower – hoping for winds from the right quarter to speed the ships carrying long-overdue despatches from his beloved Hanover. He

died before the winds changed and still, they say, at night when there are high winds from the west, a ghostly face peers from the old windows up at the weather-vane. Near St. Paul’s Cathedral can be found, with a litle searching, delightful Amen Court.

As you enter the handsome wrought-iron gates there is a high wall facing you, and here is one of the few places where it is possible to trace remains of the old Roman City wall of London. Parts of it have been added to, heightening the tall, dark wall that years ago bordered part of old Newgate graveyard. The path immediately on the

other side was known as Dead Man’s Walk, for here the hanged criminals were buried in quicklime, and over the years there have been reports again and again of a dark figure crawling slowly along the top of this wall at night, the scrape of his boots and the occasional rattle of his chains breaking the uncanny silence that seems to

hang around this fateful spot. It is not generally known that St. Paul’s Cathedral has a haunted chapel. Can this

have any connection with the fact that this particular chapel is no longer normally open to the public? Be that as it may, All Souls Chapel, the first little chapel on the left as you enter the cathedral, can only be visited today by special permission. It is now a shrine to Lord Kitchener and is known as the Kitchener Memorial Chapel. The

haunting consists of a luminous patch appearing on one wall of the chapel which gradually assumes the appearances of an elderly person in old-fashioned clerical dress. After remaining visible for a few seconds the figure fades into the stonework.

This figure always appears at exactly the same spot. During some repair work in the chapel a small hidden doorway was discovered at the place where the figure appears, and an ancient stairway was found which ascended through the heart of the cathedral to the dome. When the Kitchener Chapel was constructed and the walls lined with new stone work, a secret stone doorway was fiitted and made to slide by means of a hidden spring, but this is one of several hush-hush features of the cathedral and is seldom shown to visitors.

To turn from the Church to the Stage, that most famous of theatres, the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, is said to be haunted by at least two ghosts. There is the ghost of the great and much-loved Dan Leno, seen by, among many other people, Stanley Lupino. One night, after the show, resting on the couch in his dressing room, he suddenly felt that he was no longer alone. Sitting up, he saw in the dim light, the shadowy figure of a man cross the room and pass through a closed door. Mystified, Lupino asked the watchman and others still in the theatre, whether they had seen anyone near his room. No one had seen anyone or anything. Back in his room Lupino was presently disturbed by a curious sound, seemingly close beside him. He looked round and recognized in the white luminous face he encountered, the neverto- be-forgotten features of Dan Leno. Very much frightened, Lupino sprang up and

rushed out of the theatre. Someone staying in the same room the following night also saw the ghost. This was in fact Dan Leno’s favourite dressing-room.

The other Drury Lane ghost is of course the “Man in Grey” who has been seen by countless people and is undoubtedly the most famous of all theatre apparitions. He is a daylight ghost and never appears at night; he always wears a long grey riding cloak of the early 18th-century. He walks from one side of the Upper Circle to the other, purposefully and without hurrying and there disappears through the wall. The late

Macqueen-Pope, Drury Lane historian, himself told me of having personally seen this famous apparition, and showed me the precise spot. The casts at Drury Lane regard the ghost as a lucky omen: he shuns failures and is most often seen before and during the production of a success. He was seen within a week of the opening night

of such successful Ivor Novello musicals as “Glamorous Nights,” “Careless Rapture,” and “The Dancing Years.” After the war Drury Lane re-opened with Noel Coward’s“Pacific 1860” which failed. The ghost was not seen. But he was reported three days before the first night of “Oklahoma”; two days before “Carousel”; two days before

“South Pacific”; three days before “The King and I” and a few days before “My Fair Lady,” all triumphant runs, and he was seen again several times during the runs of all these successful shows.

The Haymarket Theatre is, like the Theatre Royal, haunted by at least two ghosts. One is supposed to be John Buckstone, a former lessee of the theatre; his ghost has often been reported in the dressing rooms and other parts of the building. The other ghost is of an unknown actor who is heard apparently trying over his part in one

particular room. Once, too, the figure of an unknown man was seen by Victor Leslie in this dressing room. Leslie went out of the room, locking the only door. Returning with the fireman on duty at the theatre, he unlocked the door but found the room deserted.

Not far away, at 19, St. James’s Place, in 1864 an apparition was seen by four people. The house had long been the home of Miss Anne and Miss Harriet Pearson, who were devoted to each other. Miss Anne died in 1858 and Miss Harriet lived on in the house by herself for six years. In November 1864 she became very ill while

staying at Brighton, and urgently desired to return to her London home. She was brought back and devotedly nursed by her housekeeper, Eliza Quinton. Also in the house at the time were two of her nieces, Mrs Coppinger and Miss Emma Pearson and her nephew’s wife, Mrs. John Pearson. On December 23rd Mrs. Coppinger and

Miss Pearson went to bed, leaving Mrs Pearson on duty in the sick room. They left their bedroom door open in case they were called, and the lights burning on the staircase and landing. About one o’clock they both saw a woman go past the open door and into the room where the patient lay. She wore a shawl and black cap. Mrs

Coppinger called out: “Emma, get up; it is old Aunt Anne!” and her cousin answered “So it is, then Aunt Harriet will die today.” Mrs. Pearson then came rushing out of the sick room in great agitation, having also seen and recognised her dead aunt. The three women roused the housekeeper and together they searched the whole house

without finding anyone. Miss Harriet Pearson dies at six o’clock. Before she died she told them all that she had seen her sister and knew she had come to call her away. St James’s Palace, nearby, is traditionally haunted by a number of historical ghosts, including the Duchess of Mazarin who is said to have appeared to her friend

Madame de Beauclair in response to a pact made on the former’s deathbed. Later both the Duchess and Madame de Beauclair were said to have been seen in that particular portion of the palace where they used to live. Another ghost here is said to be the victim of Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, George III’s wicked fifth son who lived at the palace. The Duke is reputed to have murdered his Italian valet, Sellis: the affair was hushed up but, in the proper manner of the murdered, the victim’s ghost was said to have been seen at the palace for many years afterwards.

Sinister West End

To move to Piccadilly, there is a bedroom not a hundred yards from Burlington Arcade that has long been haunted by a very unpleasant ghost. People sleeping in the room have awakened with a violent start to hear stealthy footsteps approach on the bed. Big, clammy hands have gripped the throat of the occupant and, unable to

stir or utter a sound, they have undergone the sensation of strangulation, terminating in a loss of consciousness. In varying degrees this is not an unusual experience in some haunted houses.

Nancy Spain once told me about a ghost she saw in Piccadilly. She was waiting for a taxi outside a well-known store one summer afternoon when a taxi drew up and an elderly lady with dyed red curls alighted and began to search for the taxi fare.

Typically, Nancy Spain went forward and said: “That’s all right, I’ll pay.” Still the old lady searched her bag; then abruptly she turned and, as she mounted the steps to the store, slipped and fell. Again Miss Spain went to her rescue, thinking it odd at the time that the doorman made no effort to help. This time the old lady turned and said:

“Thank you, my dear.” When at last Nancy Spain was in the taxi, the driver pushed back the glass panel and said: “You got caught, didn’t you? That old girl could buy up both of us. That was Lady C – “. Next day Miss Spain visited her mother and chanced to relate her experience, whereupon her mother showed her a newspaper dated three days before which contained news of the death in a fire of Lady C - In Burlington Arcade itself we come to the Universal Leather Shop at the north end on the right. Here, a year or two ago, violent disturbances, including the throwing of the stock of leather goods all over the premises night after night, suggested that the happenings were due to poltergesit activity, although there was no adolescent or young person concerned and it was never satisfactorily decided whether or not the affair had a paranormal origin.

Near Hyde Park Corner, in Wilton Row, stands the fashionable, and haunted pub:

“The Grenadier.” Here, a grenadier, who was flogged after being caught cheating at cards, is said to have crawled down the steps to the cellar where he died, one September night. He has still been seen at “The Grenadier” from time to time. A few years ago the licensee told me that he was certain that the inn was haunted. He

insisted that the house had a peculiar, menacing atmosphere which built up through the year to reach its climax in September, and during that month he noticed that his dogs always reacted strangely, showing every sign of terrified unrest, growling, snarling and sometimes trying to scratch and dig into the cellar. In addition the figure

of an unrecognised man, without objective reality, had been seen mounting the stairs. The present landlord has similar convictions; he has experienced typical poltergeist phenomena: knocks, raps, and a number of small incidents for which he can find no explanation; these are verified by his teenage daughter, and I discussed the case with them recently during the making of a BBC film, shot at “The Grenadier.”

In a house in Hill Street, Mayfair, Lord Lyttelton was awakened by what sounded lik in a bird fluttering in the bed curtains on November 24, 1779. As he awoke he saw the figure of a woman in white standing by his side who warned him that he would soon die.

Lyttleton asked whether he would not live two months and was told that he would die within three days. Next morning he told his guests about the experience. On the fateful day he went to Pitt Place, his house at Epsom, taking a number of friends with him. He declared that he felt perfectly well and that he was certain of bilking the ghost. Just after eleven he went to bed. When his manservant William Stuckey was helping him to undress, Lord Lyttelton suddenly put his hand to his side, collapsed, and died without a sound.

Away to the north, in Gower Street, one of the sights of University College, built in 1828, is the embalmed body of Jeremy Bentham, the law reformer. It was part of Bentham’s will that his body should be devoted to the purpose of improving science of anatomy and this was done; afterwards a skeleton was made of the bones, these were padded to fit Bentham’s own clothes and a wax likeness, made by a distinguished French artist, was fitted to the trunk. Seated on the chair which he usually occupied, with one hand on his constant companion Dapple, his walking stick, and wearing his famous white gloves, he was enclosed in a moth-proof mahogany case with folding glass doors and deposited at University College where he can be seen to this day.

But legend has it that Jeremy was mummified against his wishes and the unexplained noises heard from time to time at the College are said to be Bentham rapping on the doors and windows of his cage with his walking-stick to frighten the officials of the College into having him sent away and buried. He is housed in the cloister near the main entrance. One evening Mr. Neil King, Mathematical Master at the University College School, then accommodated in the College buildings, heard the tap-tap-tap of Jeremy’s walking stick in the nearby corridor. He walked towards the open door to take a peep into the corridor, not really expecting to see anything, but there was Jeremy, with white gloves and walking stick. He walked right up to Mr. King and when he reached him, made a sudden dart forward and seemed to throw himself bodily at the teacher – but there was no sensation of impact, and no sign of Jeremy Bentham. Even the police force, at New Scotland Yard, has not been able to keep its precincts free from psychic forces. The gruesome collection of criminal relics, known as the Black Museum, is housed in the basement of The Yard, and it is here that the apparition of a headless lady has been sent on a number of occasions. Perhaps understandably Scotland Yard are touchy about their ghost and unwilling to give information, but I have it on very good authority that not long ago a janitor of the Black Museum saw a ghostly figure which he took to be a nun, open the door of the museum. When the janitor went forward to see what she wanted, the figure disappeared. As he reached the spot where the figure had stood, it reappeared at the far end of the museum. This time it was facing him, and he saw that the nun’s hood was empty: the figure was headless.

A more common example of a psychic echo from the past is suggested by the report by occupants of a notorious murderer’s house in North London, where ghostly footsteps have been repeatedly heard over the years.

Although a mere fragment of the available evidence, it is hoped that this brief look at haunted London will encourage personal investigation into an important aspect of psychical research. There is plenty here to interest both the newcomer to spontaneous psychic phenomena and the experienced investigator. Strange and inexplicable reports are received almost daily. Only recently I received an account of a stone-throwing poltergeist at a flat near Charing Cross: just one more of the legionof ghosts in haunted London.

Out of the body by mantras

WALTER K. PAUL

● Mr. Paul’s account is provided as a matter of interest, and his experiments are not necessarily endorsed or recommended.

In this article I wish to set out my personal experiences in the field of “out-of-the body” experiences. These I owe solely to “magic”, that is, Kabbalah-exercises which, I think, might be called “mantras”. It means a rapid and rhythmical (7 times in 1 rhythm) repetition for about ten to fifteen minutes, not more, of certain letters of the alphabet which are combined in groups of only 2 letters each for this special purpose. Seven combinations are needed.

Before doing these combinations, at least 4 other combinations should be done as a basis daily for 2 to 3 months, then one should add the 7 other combinations. One may then shorten the basis to about 5 minutes each, so that nevertheless about 90 minutes minimum of mantra-saying aloud will be needed daily.

One should draw enough breath and repeat the combinations 7 times while breathing out, without inhaling within the rhythm of 7; but one should make sure to have enough breath and not say the letters, without sufficient breath. In case of initial difficulties, one must inhale within the rhythm (without speaking); one will, however, soon be able to do easily one rhythm or two (i.e. 14 combinations) while exhaling once.

The “Kabbalah course” was published by Cuno Helmuth Müller under the title of Die Kabbalapraxis nach Franz Bardon in the German spiritualistic monthly Die andere Welt from June 1964 till spring 1965. He said that leaving the physical, not with the astral body but with the mental body only, is almost without danger if these formulae are used, whereas wandering in the astral body can be dangerous.

Success may be expected after 1½ to 3 months. With me the first surprise occurred in March 1965, on a night of full moon, after about 6 weeks of daily letter-exercises of at least 10 minutes for each combination of letters. I awoke and found myself floating face upward about 10 or 12 centimetres from the ceiling of my bedroom, near the light, in a horizontal position, slightly turning, as though I was hanging in this lying position close to the ceiling, and somebody could make me turn to the right or to the left. It took me, of course, some seconds to understand – but then I knew that this was the first result of my “exercises”, and that I could not be hanging there with my

physical body.

I was conscious up there for about 15 to 20 seconds. Then I thought: “Now that I am conscious I’ll certainly have to return.” Then there was a total blackout for 2 to 3 seconds; then a small part of my consciousness returned, and then I felt that I was back in my body. It felt as though a lamp that at first has a dim light was being turned brighter and brighter (this, however, only took a second in time). In actual fact I felt no jolts or resistance whatsoever; so smoothly did I get back that I was not aware of any “technique”, nor anything.

After the first experience, nothing happened for more than 2 months; then I tried to will myself out of the body. After going to bed I stretched and lay quite still and willed myself out. When I had fallen asleep, I was in my sleep (dream) thrown on my face, but I did not wake up. Then I was again thrown on my back (in the same position that my physical body was lying) by these (non-physical) movements in sleep. I awoke Lying awake I felt a vibration beginning, so I lay quite still, hoping to leave the body.

Then my legs began to rise out of their physical legs, but the rest of my body remained in the physical in spite of the vibration. Then my legs sank back and the vibration stopped.

The next night I proceeded as before: at the moment of falling asleep I became wide awake as vibration of the body began. After a few moments I started to rise in a horizontal position, and then moved to the left, sideways. At this moment I felt an arm under my back which was pulling me sideways, and I felt the bedcover slip. For the moment this surprise made me mistake the situation for the physical; I was afraid, thinking that somebody must have come in and was now carrying me out of bed. I called my wife’s name twice for help, and the ethereal voice sounded higher than myphysical one. Then I rejected the idea of the physical, and confidently allowed what might to happen, because I had read somewhere that mental resistance could cause the experiment to fail and I felt reassured by remembering Mr. Sculthorpe’s book.

The stranger carried me through the darkness of the room (some light penetrated from outside). He put me on my feet to the left of the bed, a little way from the foot, and behind me, with a hand on both shoulders, eventually kept me from falling. Then he or she turned me to the right and pushed me gently, and I walked till I stood directly in front of the foot of my bed. I do not have the impression that the presence, unknown to me, was a “high guide”. After two or three seconds blackout I felt myself coming back into my physical body as already described. Duration, 20-25 seconds (without the vibration in the body). The vibration stopped when a distance of ½ to 1 metre had been reached. After this experience I continued to will myself out of the body, but without success.

Then, more than a month later, at the time of the new moon, I had been asleep for half an hour when I woke from what seemed to me a very deep sleep to find myself standing in the hall in front of my bedroom, with my back towards the door. At first, at this surprise, it did not occur to me that I might have left my body, and I became angry, asking myself where I might have come from, walking in my sleep, thinking that I might have made a noise in the house, and so on, so sure was I that I was in my physical body. So this is the result of my “magic”, I thought, that I began to walk about unconsciously. What will my wife say? She had always been opposed to this “nonsense” as she called it whenever she heard me doing it.

So I went backwards through the bedroom door which I believed to be open, slowly, in order not to wake my wife. What then followed was strange. I do not know whether on stepping back I had a feeling of touching the “open door”, and pushing it further open with my back, for when I reached the bedroom I searched with my hand for the door latch to close it. When I touched it there was a feeling as if the door had been violently closed by a draught, yet there was no sound of a bang, and around my head.

I had a feeling difficult to describe – it was as if a vacumn outside the door was sucking the air from the bedroom around my head (in reality the door was closed during this experience). Is there an explanation to this pulling of the door and sucking? Was I pulled back by the cord when I touched the metal latch? Perhaps there was some sort of current passing through my ethereal head which caused the feeling of suction. Is not the cord attached to the head of either the astral or themental body?

I now walked backwards to the foot of my bed, almost a metre from the door, but now I thought that I might be having an out-of-the-body experience, and I said to myself, “I shall soon know that. I shall sit quietly on the foot of my bed, and if the cover is open, then the bed is empty, otherwise the bed will be occupied by my body (which I expected to feel in that case). When I sat down on the bed there was just a moment of feeling my pyjamas with my hands, and then the next second I was lying in bed, with the covers as I had arranged them half an hour ago. Only now I knew what had happened. Duration this time difficult to estimate: in any case longer than the two

preceding events – 30 or 40 seconds.

Weeks and then months later, several more half and full separations from the body took place, up to 3½ metres away from the body (I estimate), before I stopped exercises which need so much time, when one is not at all sure whether and when success will follow. In my case it did follow, though most of the time I waited in vain.

Perhaps this kind of experiment might be interesting for some readers who are not as gifted as the people in the literature on astral projection. For them, provided they are patient and persistent, this might offer a possibility of being granted experiences otherwise unobtainable, of which they can only read. It would be interesting to have reports from those who were successful. And mediumistic people may perhaps have greater possibilities which we normal, ungifted ones cannot have with our 3 metres distance and only 15-40 seconds conscious absence from the body. They may perhaps be able to travel nearly (as the author of the Course said) all over the globe at almost the speed of light wherever they want to go and at the time chosen, provided they have a quiet place in which to start, where they cannot be disturbed. I tried that way in vain, because that is what had been promised. Therefore my night experiences came as a surprise. But I am thankful for having had “only” these, for

they mean Knowing, not only believing in the description of others, that the “I” is independent of flesh.

There is however, a question which I cannot answer: How does the effect of these letters come about and why? Is their sound, i.e. pronounciation, important, and would their English pronounciation yield the same result? The Kabbalah comes from the Hebrew alphabet. Did they pronounce it as we Germans do our Latin letters? I hardly think so. By the way, the mantra-mystic use of these letters had been developed, as it seems, by Herr Müller, who took as a basis Franz Bardon’s Der Schlüssel für wahren Kabbalah (“The Key to the Genuine Kabbalah”). I doubt if one in a thousand of the buyers of this book obtained tangible results. His instructions are practically impossible to understand. It seems that one would first need many years of reparations. He speaks of mental use of the combinations, but does not, however,say how often they should be used.

The mantra method as shown by Müller in his course is simple, can be applied by anyone, and yields results within a few weeks or months.

I first tried the exercises in 1965. In 1967 I tried to see whether they worked when used mentally – that is, in thought only – but still keeping them up rapidly as when

spoken aloud, and for the same amount of time. Results came within 6 weeks, at about the time of the full moon; but the effect was weaker, and would only come with the full moon, and there were no surprises for me when I awoke out of the body.

There were several vibrations when I had gone to bed, and I willed myself to another room. I floated out of my body, moved sideways 1 metre and returned, with the vibrations continuing all the time. Two or three times there were vibrations when I hardly left my body. On one occasion I floated out and came to stand at the foot of my bed on the floor; I had willed myself to go either through the wall or through the door into the other room; but from where I was standing (we live on the first floor of the house) we descended, I felt someone present, through the floor to the basement; thus far my conscious experience reached, then it lapsed into a dream (which I did not notice at the time, but only after I had returned to the body, where I was at once conscious after returning).

In this out-of-the-body dream we arrived at a large room in the basement (which does not exist in actual fact), and now I saw before me the woman who had conducted me. I asked her her name, which she told me. She then went to the other end of the room and left through a door. I now saw two women at the side of the room who were carrying a big case. I thought that I would try and see whether they could see me. I ran towards them and held the case and pulled it backwards. They looked back and saw me, then ran away. There were two beds standing in the middle. In one was a boy of perhaps ten years old asleep. I next saw an elderly man come in through one of the three doors. He did not seem to like my presence. When he approached, I managed to float to the other side of the beds. Whern he came near again, I floated to the opposite side, then I returned to the body and knew that this “interesting” latter part of my excursion had only been a dream.

I should add, perhaps, that in at least two of these experiences from the bed I was quite awake at the start, I had not yet gone to sleep nor had I been about to fall asleep, but the vibration never stopped during all this time – perhaps 10 seconds of conscious absence from the body. I think that this vibration was needed because of the weaker effect of the solely mental exercise.

Somewhere I read that the (mental)-etheric body possessed all lacking parts of the physical. With my tongue I touched the gap where two teeth are missing, but they were missing in my ethereal body as well. Perhaps I was too close to the physical body, my head being only 2 metres from its physical counterpart. Can anyone explain this?

Here are the letter combinations which can lead to success:

DC, CK, EF, EK.

The following are the letters for doing the mental travelling:

BF, CR, DR, EB, BD, BN, CU.

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