On Ghosts: A Little Spectral Speculation

Crisis Magazine ^ | October 30, 2021 | SEAN FITZPATRICK

[Twotone]

But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out for fear. —Matthew 14:26

I have always liked Halloween as a joke that’s hard to get. The joke, as I see it, is that death is something to smile about, even laugh about. G.K. Chesterton saw things similarly and wrote winkingly in his poem “The Skeleton”:

Death was but the good King’s jest, It was hid so carefully.

And that jest certainly is carefully hidden, especially to those in this “muddy vesture of decay,” as Shakespeare called our mortal flesh. It is difficult to understand such cosmic or mystic (or cryptic) humor, but I enjoy the challenge of it, just as I enjoy the challenge this shivering time of year poses with bumps in the night concerning those who have passed away. Dare we, as Catholics, say ghosts?

There is an idea about ghosts, about those uncanny spirit-like presences, that I have picked up in talking with old men in quiet rooms, and, to those willing to entertain some ghostly speculation with me, read on.

I work in a massive century-old brick building that used to be an orphanage. Many souls have passed through this place. Many have laughed, suffered, wept, and even died within these walls. It is one of those structures with secrets and memories. We all know places like this—places with an aura, that give a feeling, whether good or bad.

In our building, there is a very long, narrow, ill-lit, seldom-used hallway up on the third floor. This passage has a series of closets on one side and what used to be nuns’ cells on the other. Believe me, it looks as forbidding as it sounds.

[wally_bert]

Fascinating and thank you.

[sarge83]

Here are a few examples:

The house is a different story, doors open and close and you year people walking in from the garage to the laundry room and no one is there. You hear crashing sounds in the middle of the night and get up thinking a large piece of furniture has fallen to find nothing. One evening Mom was baking in the kitchen and dropped a glass baking dish and it shattered and she swept, vacuumed and mopped the tile kitchen floor. The next morning she walked into the dining/living room area as she usually did each morning to look out the front windows, there on the dining room table in the dead center of the table was a huge hunk of glass from that dish the night before. It would have had to have bounced ten feet, made a 90 degree turn to the right, traveled another dozen feet and land at table level on the table. Not likely, impossible.

When we first moved I was starting my senior year in high school and I would wake up with my bed gently shaking for a few minutes and it would quite. I told my Mom and she said you are dreaming. One night I woke up and it was a nice gently shaking going on. I laid there a few minutes and finally decided something has to give and questions have to be answered. Am I asleep? I pinched an hunk out of my arm, no, wide awake. Do I want to know what this is? Yes and no, but yes was the eventual answer and I whirled and jumped up out of bed fist cocked, nothing there.

My sister and I while living there had this happen several times. You turn the tv off in your bedroom and the lamp next to the bed and lay down and right after your head hits the pillow you hear the pillow next to one of your ears get slapped and can feel the wind from whatever hit the pillow. Scares the living crap out of you! Neighbors have witnessed activity, relatives have seen things.

One night after all the kids had married and moved away my parents had a little toy poodle that slept in the bed with them. At 3:00am the dog starts growling and wakes them up and they hear the kitchen door open and close and someone walk in and the dog is going bat crap crazy. Dad told Mom to go to their bathroom and close the door and lock it. He grabbed his 1911 and chambered a round quietly and waited for them to come to him. He heard them walk down the hall and stop at his closed bedroom door. He was waiting for them to open the door and he was going to open fire. He waited several minutes and they didn’t move. After five minutes he eased over and flung the door open ready to shoot and nothing. He hadn’t heard them walk away, they were just gone. He cleared the house and ended up at the kitchen door and reached down and turned the doorknob which had a lock system on it and it was still locked.

[griffin]

The wife and I stayed at a h
haunted B&B. Sat in a chair in the pool table room and got instantly nauseous. 1600’s cemetary in back yard, and i photographed a red floating light photographed at 12 or 1 am. Hotel magager told me the next day there are no lights or buildings back there. Then while in bed I videoed multiple little orb floating in, around and over our shoes laying on the ground.

Captain Grant’s. Highly recommended.

https://captaingrants.com

[Twotone]

Looks like a really neat place. We’ve been back in Connecticut a few times for hubbie’s submarine crew reunions. If we ever go again I’ll have to check it out.