So, what has happened to the conception of ghosts in the modern world? Unlike older time periods where ghostly manifestation usually corresponded to enforcing the pre-existing rules of society, the modern version of the ghost has changed to some degree.

While ghosts have not removed themselves from their environment, humanity, in general, has removed itself from ghosts. What could have happened to change human understanding of these supernatural entities?

Much of the change in thought dates to the Enlightenment Era. Breaking away from prior Ancient and Medieval thought processes, the Enlightenment called for the use of reason and empiricism to solve problems. It had no room for speculative existence, such as that relating to ghosts. What role could sensitives have when the impressions of the mind did not correspond to that of the body? To the intellectuals of the time, ghosts were but a sign of madness, superstitious simpletons, and religious hysteria.

Empiricism and its effects on the paranormal

With the arrival of the empirically-based influences, particularly those lead by John Locke and Isaac Newton, among others, an anti-metaphysical empiricism began to sweep through the educated subset.

According to R.C. Finucane, men of this era were focused on:

“…seeking the seeming autonomy of natural laws investigated and expounded by these men, led many to elevate Reason above Authority and so to take themselves down the broad path of scepticism [sic] and free thought, heterodoxy and atheism.” (1)

Deism and its effect on the paranormal

Religiously speaking, the evolution of Deism created a new form of thinking. God was no longer directly a part of his creation, as much as a great clockmaker who wound the universe up, then stood back to watch his handiwork. Where did spirits and specters fit in this scenario? They fell to the wayside, as science focused more upon the study of miracles, God’s intentional manipulations of the rules of science, and their unreasonable break with natural law.

This in turn, spawned publications running through the 18th century, by those who did not believe in miracles and immortality. David Hume, a prominent writer of the time, clearly states:

"By the mere light of reason it seems difficult to prove the Immortality of the Soul. The arguments for it are commonly derived either from metaphysical topics, or moral or physical. But in reality, it is the gospel, and the gospel alone, that has brought life and immortality to light."
[Part III, Essay X, Of the Immortality of the Soul, paragraph III.X.1] (2)

And again:

Metaphysical topics are founded on the supposition that the soul is immaterial, and that it is impossible for thought to belong to a material substance.
[Part III, Essay X, Of the Immortality of the Soul, paragraph III.X.2] (3)

Another prominent thinker of the time, clergyman Henry Bourne (4) , adds his ideas to the mix. In his Antiquitates Vulgares (1725), he essentially attributes ghostly lore to the feeble-minded commoners who sit around fireplaces and tell spooky stories to one another. As quoted by Finucane, “almost all the Stories of Ghosts and Spirits, are grounded on no other Bottom, than the Fears and Fancies, and weak Brains of Men.”

The 18th century offered new changes to ghosts. The anti-specter momentum of the 17th century advanced and spread in the 18th century.

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Religiously speaking, and perhaps fueling some of Bourne’s later works of skepticism, there was the rise of a new denomination of Christianity that focused on the working class. The charismatic creation of John Wesley, Methodism was spreading throughout Europe and the Americas. Wesley, however, had an experience with a ghost. His father, also a man of the cloth, brought his family to live for a year in a haunted rectory. Phenomena included mild psychokinetic phenomena, such as doors closing and latching of their own accord.

His experience with the supernatural was well known through the populace, much to the disdain of the upper class. This fit with a secondary cultural phenomena occurring: a separation of the classes. The upper class no longer participated with the “vulgar” crowds, and education belonged to those of the rational mind and rich economy, not to the poor peasant-oriented masses who still believed in their minister‘s fire-and-brimstone sermons of demons and angels.

Yet, despite the downturn in ghostly belief, the results of empiricism did bring about new ideas in the scientific community. In the centuries following the Enlightenment special schools of thought were formed to study paranormal phenomena. The Society of Psychical Research became one of the first organizations to attempt serious controlled and scientific study of the paranormal, including ghosts, ESP, clairvoyance, and telekinesis. Both believers and skeptics were brought together to study and challenge the validity of phenomena.

This, in turn, led to the creation of a serious school of academic research known as parapsychology. Parapsychologists have begun to quantify aspects of ghosts, and to explain them utilizing the known laws of science.

Conclusion

Many arguments hail back to the time of the Enlightenment, as, for example, the modern argument against Hume’s interpretation of miracles. If miracles (and thereby ghosts) violate natural law, (to Hume natural law can never be violated), then miracles could be quantified as delusional or deceptive, and thereby discounted as invalid. If this is so, then it assumes the idea that all natural laws are already known.

The Enlightenment cast the dye for the way in which ghosts would be researched. The debate over this segment of the paranormal world had changed from one of religious backing to that of scientific skepticism. From this point onwards, the tide of belief ebbed, and skeptics gained a stronger foothold. Humanity struggled to work with the new ideas assuaging them; from these are molded today’s conceptions and practices dealing with ghostly lore.

I’ve noticed before, in the Somme valley and at Dachau and Shiloh, that sites of mass killings are free of birdsong. It was not a surprise that when my companion and I visited Oradour-sur-Glane on a beautiful June day, we did so in silence. The road from the entrance filled with peace and the sweet scent of the chestnut trees, which gave way to an increasing sense of unease as we entered the ruins of the village.

There is no mystery as to the facts: on the afternoon of Saturday June 10th, 1944, a contingent of SS troops arrived at Oradour (a large village in southern France, near the city of Limoges) and rounded up the population in the village square. They told the mayor that while they searched the village for arms, the men would have to wait under guard in three barns, and the women and children could rest in the tiny Church at the bottom of the hill. After a wait of some hours a single burst from a machine gun started the murder of 642 men, women and children.

The killers were not the German army, but Hitler’s ‘elite’ troops, the Schutzstaffel (the SS). The “Der Führer” regiment of SS Panzer Division “Das Reich” had been rotated out of the war in Russia a few months earlier to re-equip and train replacements. While Vichy France was supposed to be self-governing, “Das Reich” was part of a large contingent of SS troops assigned to assist in ‘peacekeeping’ and to hunt down Communists and Jews to send to the death camps.

Four days before the massacre, the allied armies had landed in Normandy, and the German forces in southern France had been ordered to retreat North to fight them. The French Resistance took the opportunity raised by the chaos to harry the invaders, kidnapping and killing whenever they could. While it is interesting to speculate how today’s American media would report this (as they seem to be unable to distinguish between ‘terrorism’ and taking up arms to protect your home from an invading army) the actions of the French Resistance could have been little more than a severe annoyance to an experienced tank regiment. Nevertheless, the SS had a policy of harsh retaliation, regularly hanging 10 (usually innocent) Frenchmen for each German killed.

On the morning of 10th June Sylvester Stadler, the commander of “Das Reich”, ordered a young officer called Adolf Diekmann to Oradour to search for a kidnapped commander – if he was not to be found, Diekmann was to take 30 or more hostages and hold them to force the Resistance to release their captive. There seems to be no clear reason why the peaceful village of Oradour-sur-Glane was chosen. It’s possible that Stadler had mistaken Oradour-sur-Glane for Oradour-sur-Vayres, where the Resistance was strong.

The ruins bear testament to what happened next. The men were herded into two barns and a garage, and machine guns were set up at the entrance. At a signal from Sturmbannführer Diekmann, the gunners opened fire. The men were tightly packed in and many were not killed outright. The soldiers then piled straw on the bodies and set alight to it, burning to death the survivors. Six wounded men escaped, but one was seen and shot by the soldiers. 190 men died in these three locations. The barns, today, are marked by small plaques testifying to the murders, unnecessary to visitors with any psychic ability at all: the screams and pain still linger in the walls of the barns. While the killing was going on, another contingent of soldiers searched the village and killed anyone unable to move, burning each house and workshop as they left. I particularly remember the ghost of an old man sitting in an armchair in one of the town’s small hotels, calling for water.

The other site was worse. The Germans, who had encouraged the children to sing as they were marched from the square, threw a large asphyxiation bomb into the packed church. This failed to explode, so they entered the nave and started to kill the women and children at close quarters with machine guns and hand grenades. One woman, Madame Rouffanche, after seeing her daughter shot in front of her, found the step-ladder used to light candles and escaped through a window at the altar end of the church. She was the only survivor of the killings in the lower part of the town – a woman holding a baby tried to follow her into the fields, but the soldiers chased them and killed both mother and child. 245 women and 207 children died in that small church.

My companion, who had been to Oradour some years previously, said that much work had been done to help the trapped souls move on. When I entered the church, though, I was immediately grabbed by a young woman (wearing a red jacket or red knit dress) who screamed “Aidez-moi! Aidez-moi!” (Help me! Help me!”). I fled - I’m not proud of it, but I was overwhelmed by her sense of horror.

While the SS had a reputation for massacres in Russia and Czechoslovakia, Oradour seized the world’s imagination. There was certainly no military reason for it, and Oradour was a peaceful village, not involved in any Resistance activities. Yet Diekmann and his 180 men committed these atrocious acts with no mercy and little remorse. Many tried to flee before or during the massacres, and almost all were hunted down by the SS and shot. The only exception was that of a group of small children led by a seven-year-old boy, which fled a burning farm and ran into a German soldier. Instead of killing them, he silently waved them towards the fields.

While we walked back through the village, trying to help those trapped at the garage and in the houses, my companion met the spirit of a dog and was joined shortly after by its owner. Their companionship was the only happy memory we can take from Oradour. Most of the other visitors were in tears, or just looked numb. I was one of the latter, only breaking down at one point when I saw a child’s tricycle crushed under the beams of a collapsed house. As we returned to the smell of chestnut trees, the song of birds and the modern world, we passed the signs saying ‘SOUVIENS-TOI. REMEMBER’. I promise, to the day I die, I will remember them.

Postscript - Stadler, allegedly, was horrified at what had been done in his name and ordered a court martial for Diekmann. However, Diekmann and many of the troops of “Das Reich” were killed in action less than three weeks later. A few of the surviving soldiers were tried in 1953, and France was horrified to learn that many of the killers were themselves Frenchmen drafted in to the SS from the province of Alsace. All were convicted, but were given an amnesty shortly afterwards. None of the officers who had ordered the killings were ever brought to justice.

My most recent ghost hunt was a private affair: a friend of mine was visiting a wonderful old pile in Devon called Bickleigh Castle. It had changed hands in the recent past and was now owned by a friend of hers, called Sarah. Sarah was in the process of setting up a business providing a picturesque location for quality weddings. My friend Lyndi had been called in to check out the resident ghosts, and as we are working on a book together she invited me to join in the fun, work on the manuscript, and indulge in a private ghost hunt all at once. Of course I would visit – wouldn’t you?

Bickleigh was an important castle in the English Civil War of 1642-46, a Royalist Stronghold in the mostly Parliamentarian countryside. The castle was taken and, at the end of the war, ‘slighted’. All that was left of the old castle was the large gatehouse, now used for weddings with a wing for the family home.

After a pleasant evening meal, Lyndi, myself and a non-mediumistic but gregarious companion called Anna, worked out where we wanted to go to on the premises. The owner and her partner had retired to bed, leaving us the run of the castle. A luxury unheard of in the world of ghost hunting; usually the needs of the burglar alarm come first.

Our group of three moved back to the dinning room where we had eaten our evening meal with the family. We both picked up a tall thin, and sad gentleman. We knew some of the history of the house and could place his identity as Sir Henry Carew, 2nd Baron of Haccombe and Bickleigh, and last Carew owner of Bickleigh Castle. He was to accompany us through our night’s perambulations. He is, what I call, a conscious ghost. He knows who he is, he sees the current inhabitants and visitors to the Castle, and he can interact with psychic visitors. He is not lost in time, reliving the events that caused him to remain.

This part of the castle is perhaps the most beautiful. The main entrance is simply furnished, and from the front door a view of the lovely Jacobean staircase is clear and unobscured. There is a knob of carved oak dangling down the staircase, a danger to tall people. It looks like a head, but is, in fact, a rough and rather bad carving of stylised leaves. Although the hall is cold, it did not feel as psychically active as other parts of the castle.

Earlier, we had explored the guard room and noticed a young man dressed in seventeenth century clothing who haunts by the window. He looks out on to the courtyard, and is waiting for someone to arrive. Lyndi, Anna and I ignored the guard room and climbed the stairs to the Great Hall; passing the bedchamber with the Jacobean four-poster bed – for the wedding couples who book Bickleigh Castle for their nuptials – and up the last flight of stairs to the Great Hall.

Past the oak screen at the end of the room there is a small kitchen. Earlier, during daylight, I had visited it and I disliked that part of the Great Hall intensely. Now, in the chill of the night, I was able to work out why. A young man was in there watching out for visitors during the Civil War. Lyndi explained that the room had been a doorway leading to other parts of the castle before the destruction of much of it after the conflict.

When Henry finished with us we were visited by a pike-man from the Parliamentarian army. He announced his presence with cold air and a feeling of animosity (I suspect he was there to ransack the place). He threatened Lyndi with his pike and said that she was a Royalist: we had to insist that he left us alone, he was a most persistent ghost.

At that point I felt the need to bang the bell bowl. I decided to stand where Elizabeth Carew lurked and to try and catch her attention with the sound. I wanted to know why would she be in the gate house - during her lifetime the castle was complete. It was not until her son’s lifetime that the destruction took place, leaving just the section which had been turned into the current Great Hall. Lyndi explained that Elizabeth walked to the tower to watch for Thomas, her husband, to return. This part of the castle consisted of smaller rooms, and where Elizabeth stands was a room. She is pleading with her guardian. That is why we see her walking through the rooms downstairs to gain access to the tower, she is walking from the original castle to the gatehouse. Since her time a passageway has been turned into the Devon Cob house that is there today.

After our conversation with Elizabeth we decided that as it was so late and we were both tired, that we would visit the ‘stuck’ ghost in the guard room on another visit. Yet the night was not over, and we had one more ghostly encounter outside. As we returned to the guest accommodation to sleep, we decided to walk Conker, Lyndi’s dog. He was reluctant to go outside, so we both accompanied him. The courtyard felt full of jostling men in armour. Were they from the Civil War, or the earlier Wars of the Roses? Bickleigh had taken part in that strife too. I was also aware that a nature spirit was looking at us from the trees that grew beside the river. After the dog had sniffed around we went to bed. It was an eventful night and left us with much food for thought, and future exploration.

Sarah is considering developing a ghost hunting event at Bickleigh some time in the future – if enough people are interested in it. If you are please send her an email at the link provided below. Quote that you read this article in Psychic Tymes and would be interested in attending such an event. If enough people respond she will organize an interesting event during 2005.

© 2004 Judith Farncombe
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