Ghosts I Have Seen
Ghosts That I Have Seen is an article written by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in the Weekly Dispatch on 1 may 1927.
Editions
- in Weekly Dispatch (1 may 1927 [UK]) as Ghosts I Have Seen
- in Daily Mail (11 june 1927 [UK]) as Ghosts That I Have Seen
Ghosts I Have Seen (Weekly Dispatch)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous novelist and spiritualist, who instances two personal experiences of ghostly apparitions.
No. 1. — The Spectral Friars.
Apart from the ordinary phenomena of the séance room which I have experienced in every known shape and in many countries, my life has not given me much direct psychic experience. I have, so far as I know, no psychic gifts myself and none of that atmosphere which gives a tinge of romance to so many lives. There have, however, been occasions when without the aid of a medium I have been sensitive to the unknown.
One instance occurred some three years ago. It was in my bedroom at Crowborough. I wakened in the night with the clear consciousness that there was someone in the room and that the presence was not of this world. I was lying with my back to the room, acutely awake, but utterly unable to move.
"I Am Sorry."
It was physically impossible for me to turn my body and face this visitor. I heard measured steps across the room. I was conscious (without seeing it) that someone was bending over me, and then I heard a voice saying in a loud whisper, "Doyle, I come to tell you that I am sorry."
A minute later my disability disappeared and I was able to turn, but all was darkness and perfectly still. My wife had not awakened and knew nothing of what has passed.
It was no dream; I was perfectly conscious all the time. My visitor gave no name, but I felt that it was an individual to whom I had tried to give psychic consolation when he was bereaved. He rejected my advances and died himself shortly afterwards. It may well be that he wished to express regret.
Haunted Church
As to my own paralysis, it came, I have no doubt, from the fact that the power for the manifestation had been drawn out of me. When spirit manifests upon the physical plane it has to draw its matter from a material source, and I was the obvious one. It is the one occasion upon which I have been used as a physical medium, and I am content that it should be the last.
I had a second interesting experience last summer. There was a church in my neighbourhood which had the reputation of being haunted. There are reasons why it would be wrong for me to indicate it more precisely.
One night seven of us set forth to explore the mystery. The party consisted of my wife and myself, my two sons, my daughter, a friend, and a young London lady who is among our rising poets. It was ten o'clock when we presented ourselves at the door of the church, where we were met by an elderly villager, who admitted us and then locked the door behind us.
Swinging a lantern, he led the way to the choir end, where we all seated ourselves in the stalls which the ancient monks once occupied. My own very angular throne was that which had been used by many in far-off days when the old church was one of the shrines of England.
Shadows on the Wall.
Opposite me, and dimly lit by the lantern, was the altar, and behind it a black wall, unbroken by any window, but reflecting strange ghostly shadows and illuminations through the high clerestory windows on either side.
When the lantern was extinguished and we sat in the darkness watching these strange shifting lights coming and going the impression was quite ghostly enough, though I am not prepared to say that there may not have been a physical cause. The gleam from distant headlights cast at some strange angle was one explanation which crossed my sceptical mind.
Haze of Light.
For two hours I had sat in the dark upon my hard seat and wondered whether cushions were vouchsafed to the monks of old. The lights still came and went behind the altar, but they only flickered over the top of the high expanse which faced us and all below was very black.
And then, quite suddenly, there came that which no scepticism could explain away. It may have been 40 ft. from where I sat to the altar, and mid-way between, or roughly 20 ft. from me, there was a dull haze of light, a sort of phosphorescent cloud, 1 ft. or so across and about a man's height from the ground.
We had been rustling and whispering, weary with the long waiting, but the sudden utter silence showed me that my companions were as tense as I was.
The light glimmered down and hardened into a definite shape — or I should say shapes, since there were two of them. They were two perfectly clear-cut figures in black and white, with a dim luminosity of their own. The colouring and arrangement gave me a general idea of cassocks and surplices.
Solid Shapes.
Whether they were facing the altar or facing each other was more than I could say, but they were not misty figures but solid objective shapes. For two or three minutes we all gazed spellbound at this amazing spectacle. Then my wife said loudly: "Friends, is there anything which we can do to help you?" In an instant they were gone and we were peering into a unbroken lower darkness with the lights still flickering above.
Personally, I saw no more, but those of our party who sat upon the right said that they could afterwards see a similar figure but somewhat taller — a man alone — who stood on the left of the altar. For my own part nothing more occured, and when midnight clanged forth above our heads I thought it was time to make for the waiting motor.
Such was our experience. There was no possible room for error. Unquestionably we all saw these figures, and equally unquestionably the figures were not of this world.
A Daylight Adventure.
I was full of curiosity to know more of the matter, and presently my desire was gratified, for there came into my psychic bookshop a gentleman, Mr. Munro, who had had a similar experience some years before in the same place.
He was possessed, however, of the great gift of clairvoyance, and his adventure was by daylight, so that it was far more definite. He was going round the old church when lie was aware of an ancient monk who was walking by his side, and he knew by his own sensations that it was a clairvoyant vision.
The man was middle-sized, with a keen, aristocratic, hawk-like face. Mr. Munro remembered how the sunlight gleamed upon the arched bone of his prominent nose. He walked for some time beside Mr. Munro, and he then vanished. What was noticeable was that he was wearing a gown of a peculiar tint of yellow.
Another Clue.
Some little time afterwards my informant was present at Bernard Shaw's play of "Saint Joan." In one act an English monk appears upon the stage. My friend instantly said to his wife "That is the dress. That is what the dead man wore."
Mrs. Munro, who was in the shop at the time, confirmed this. I may say that they had broached the subject before I had told them of our own experience in the old church.
There came yet another light upon the matter. It was, strange to say, in an Australian paper which was sent to me. It gave an account of the old church and of the ghosts which haunt it.
Hidden Treasures.
The chief spirit, the one with the masterful face, was, according to this narrative, the head of the community in the time of Henry the Eighth. He had hidden some of the treasures of the church to prevent their spoliation, and his spirit was still earthbound on account of his solicitude over these buried relics. His name was given, and it was stated that he had shown himself to many visitors.
If this account be indeed true, then I should think that the spot in front of the altar where we saw first the light and then the two draped figures might very possibly be worth the attention of the explorer.
I have several times gone ghost-hunting, and have had some experiences in that direction, but they were not objective enough to make a dramatic narrative, and would fall rather under the heading of psychic and spiritualistic phenomena.
Ghosts That I Have Seen (Daily Mail)
No. 1. — The Spectral Friars in an Old English Church.
I have, so far as I know, no psychic gifts myself. There have, however, been occasions when without the aid of a medium I have been sensitive to the unknown.
One instance occurred some three years ago. It was in my bedroom at Crowborough, Sussex. I wakened in the night with the clear consciousness that there was someone in the room and that the presence was not of this world. I was lying with my back to the room, acutely awake, but unable to move. It was physically impossible for me to turn my body and face this visitor. I heard measured steps across the room. I was conscious (without seeing it) that someone was bending over me, and then I heard a voice saying in a loud whisper, "Doyle, I come to tell you that I am sorry."
A minute later my disability disappeared and I was able to turn, but all was darkness and perfectly still.
It was no dream; I was perfectly conscious all the time. My visitor gave no name, but I felt that it was an individual to whom I had tried to give psychic consolation when he was bereaved. He rejected my advances and died himself shortly afterwards. It may be that he wished to express regret.
I had a second interesting experience last summer. There was a church in my neighbourhood which had the reputation of being haunted. There are reasons why it would be wrong for me to indicate it more precisely.
One night my wife and myself, my two sons, my daughter, a friend, and a young London lady who is among our rising poets, set forth to explore the mystery. It was ten o'clock when we presented ourselves at the door of the church, where we were met by an elderly villager, who admitted us and then locked the door behind us.
Swinging a lantern, he led the way to the choir end, where we seated ourselves in the stalls which the ancient monks once occupied.
TWO FIGURES IN BLACK AND WHITE.
Opposite me, and dimly lit by the lantern, was the altar, and behind it a black wall, unbroken by any window.
For two hours I had sat in the dark upon my hard seat and wondered whether cushions were vouchsafed to the monks of old.
And then, quite suddenly, there came that which no scepticism could explain away. It may have been 40 ft. from where I sat to, the altar, and mid-way between, or roughly 20 ft. from me, there was a dull haze of light, a sort of phosphorescent cloud, 1 ft. or so across and about a man's height from the ground.
The light glimmered down and hardened into a definite shape — or I should say shapes, since there were two of them. They were two perfectly clear-cut figures in black and white, with a dim luminosity of their own. The colouring and arrangement gave me a general idea of cassocks and surplices.
Whether they were facing the altar or facing each other was more than I could say, but they were not misty figures but solid objective shapes. For two or three minutes we all gazed spellbound at this amazing spectacle. Then my wife said loudly "Friends, is there anything which we can do to help you?" In an instant they were gone.
I saw no more, but those of our party who sat upon the right said that they could afterwards see a similar figure but somewhat taller — a man alone — who stood on the left of the altar.
DAYLIGHT ADVENTURE.
I was full of curiosity to know more of the matter, and presently my desire was gratified, for there came into my psychic bookshop in London a gentleman, Mr. Munro, who had had a similar experience some years before in the same place. He was possessed, however, of the great gift of clairvoyance, and his adventure was by daylight, so that it was far more definite.
He was going round the old church when lie was aware of an ancient monk who was walking by his side, and he knew by his own sensations that it was a clairvoyant vision. The man was middle-sized, with a keen, aristocratic, hawk-like face. Mr. Munro remembered how the sunlight gleamed upon the arched bone of his prominent nose. He walked for some time beside Mr. Munro, and he then vanished. What was noticeable was that lie was wearing a gown of a peculiar tint of yellow.
Some little time afterwards my informant was present at Bernard Shaw's play of "Saint Joan." In one act an English monk appears upon the stage. My friend instantly said to his wife " That is the dress. That is what the dead man wore."
HIDDEN TREASURES.
There came yet another light upon the matter. It was, strange to say, in an Australian paper which was sent to me. It gave an account of the old church and of the ghosts which haunt it.
The chief spirit, the one with the masterful face, was, according to this narrative, the head of the community in the time of Henry the Eighth. He had hidden some of the treasures of the church to prevent their spoliation, and his spirit was still earthbound on account of his solicitude over these buried relics. His name was given, and it was stated that he had shown himself to many visitors.
If this account be indeed true, then I should think that the spot in front of the altar where we saw first the light and then the two draped figures might very possibly be worth the attention of the explorer.
