Ghosts - By Hans Holzer Page 0,44

appeared to the young officer made sense: it had been an ancestor who wanted to let her descendants know where the family gold had been secreted. What a frustration for a ghost to see her efforts come to naught, and worse yet, to see the fortune squandered by thieves while the legal heirs had to go into exile. Who knows how things might have tuned out for the Buxhoevedens if they had gotten to the treasure in time.

At any rate there is a silver lining to this account: since there is nothing further to find at Lode Castle, the ghost does not have to put in appearances under that new regime. But Russian aristocrats and English lords of the manor have no corner on uncanny phenomena. Nor are all of the haunted settings I have encountered romantic or forbidding. Certainly there are more genuine ghostly manifestations in the American Midwest and South than anywhere else in the world. This may be due to the fact that a great deal of violence occurred there during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also, the American public’s attitude toward such phenomena is different from that of Europeans. In Europe, people are inclined to reserve their accounts of bona fide ghosts for those people they can trust. Being ridiculed is not a favorite pastime of most Europeans.

Americans, by contrast, are more independent. They couldn’t care less what others think of them in the long run, so long as their own people believe them. I have approached individuals in many cases with an assurance of scientific inquiry and respect for their stories. I am not a skeptic. I am a searcher for the truth, regardless of what this truth looks or sounds like.

Some time ago, a well-known TV personality took issue with me concerning my conviction that ESP and ghosts are real. Since he was not well informed on the subject, he should not have ventured forth into an area I know so well. He proudly proclaimed himself a skeptic.

Irritated, I finally asked him if he knew what being a skeptic meant. He shook his head.

“The term skeptic,” I lectured him patiently, “is derived from the Greek word skepsis, which was the name of a small town in Asia Minor in antiquity. It was known for its lack of knowledge, and people from skepsis were called skeptics.”

The TV personality didn’t like it at all, but the next time we met on camera, he was a lot more human and his humanity finally showed.

* * *

I once received a curious letter from a Mrs. Stewart living in Chicago, Illinois, in which she explained that she was living with a ghost and didn’t mind, except that she had lost two children at birth and this ghost was following not only her but also her little girl. This she didn’t like, so could I please come and look into the situation?

I could and did. On July 4, I celebrated Independence Day by trying to free a hung-up lady ghost on Chicago’s South Side. The house itself was an old one, built around the late 1800s, and not exactly a monument of architectural beauty. But its functional sturdiness suited its present purpose—to house a number of young couples and their children, people who found the house both convenient and economical.

In its heyday, it had been a wealthy home, complete with servants and a set of backstairs for the servants to go up and down on. The three stories are even now connected by an elaborate buzzer system which hasn’t worked for years.

I did not wish to discuss the phenomena at the house with Mrs. Stewart until after Sybil Leek, who was with me, had had a chance to explore the situation. My good friend Carl Subak, a stamp dealer, had come along to see how I worked. He and I had known each other thirty years ago when we were both students, and because of that he had overcome his own—ah—skepticism—and decided to accompany me. Immediately upon arrival, Sybil ascended the stairs to the second floor as if she knew where to go! Of course she didn’t; I had not discussed the matter with her at all. But despite this promising beginning, she drew a complete blank when we arrived at the upstairs apartment. “I feel absolutely nothing,” she confided and looked at me doubtfully. Had I made a mistake? She seemed to ask. On a hot July day, had we come all the way to the South Side