"Here I am again!"

In the vast and uncatalogued research library here at DHAIP headquarters, on a few mildewed shelves in a murky corner, we maintain a sizeable assortment of literature relating to ghosts. In honor of the day we pull down the Ghost Book of Charles Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax (1839-1934). Lord Halifax, in his 95 years of life, was an ardent collector of supernatural anecdotes related to the ancestral houses of the British Isles. A healthy sense of fear is good for longevity.

(Please note that part of our philosophy is one of complete and utter skepticism. We apply that philosophy to everything except that which we find fun. We don't find God and "intelligent design" particularly interesting, so they're out. Ghosts are in.)

The following is an excerpt from a letter sent to Lord Halifax in 1917 by Charles S-----, relating a visit to "an old Georgian house in Deal":


"My experience was horrible, so much so that I have vowed never to have anything to do with spiritualism in any shape or form.

"...a bed was arranged for me in a dressing-room. On a previous visit I had heard that the house was haunted and that all the daughters had seen the figure of someone they called their great-grandmother gliding about. The servants had been terrified, and in consequence of what they saw had refused to stay. I had forgotten this. I was in rude health after my Channel cruise and nothing ghostly was discussed before I went to bed.

"In the middle of the night I awoke, feeling that something uncanny was about me. Suddenly, there appeared at my bedside the phantom of either an old man or woman, of dreadful aspect, who was bending over me. That I was wide awake is beyond all question. I at once became cataleptic, unable to move hand or foot. I could only gaze at this monstrosity...

"Next morning I told my host privately of what occurred. He said he was not in the least surprised, as everybody living in the house except himself had, at one time or another, seen something of the sort.

"Twenty years passed and I had almost forgotten the incident. I had frequently re-visited the house and had seen nothing. Then one day I was I again invited... I was suffering from toothache and on getting into bed was utterly unable to sleep. The room was in a different part of the house from the dressing-room in which I had slept on the occasion of the first visit.

"Suddenly, although it was early summer, I began to feel very cold. I seemed literally to freeze from my feet upwards, and although I put on more clothes, the cold rapidly increased until I imagined that my heart must be failing and that this was death.

"All at once a voice (unheard physically) appeared to be saying over and over again to me, 'Here I am again! Here I am again, after twenty years.' Once more, in an exact repetition of my feeling twenty years before, I pulled myself together and said to myself, 'This time I will see the thing through and definitely prove whether my former experience was an hallucination and whether there really is such a thing as a ghost. I am wide awake beyond all possibility of doubt and only too conscious of a raging toothache.'

"The thing spoke to me mentally: 'Look round. Look round.'

"I now had that unaccountable feeling of horror which all accounts of such manifestations agree in declaring are produced on such occasions. Turning round, I saw in the corner of the room facing me a curious column of light revolving spirally like a whirlwind of dust on a windy day. It was white, and as I gazed, it slowly drew near to me.

"'Here I am again!' the thing kept repeating. I stretched out my hand for the matches at my bedside...."


The story goes on, but we see that by the clock that the stroke of midnight has come and Halloween is technically over. What a shame. Perhaps we'll have more time next year. Needless to say, this book (in two volumes) occupies a treasured place in our collection. We advise that you seek out a copy.

Happy All Hallows'!