Produced by Irma Spehar, S.D., and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) HISTORIC GHOSTS AND GHOST HUNTERS HISTORIC GHOSTS AND GHOST HUNTERS BY H. ADDINGTON BRUCE _Author of "The Riddle of Personality"_ NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 1908 _Copyright_, 1908, _by_ MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY NEW YORK *** _Published, September, 1908_ _The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A._ To THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND JOHN J. HENRY CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ix I. THE DEVILS OF LOUDUN 1 II. THE DRUMMER OF TEDWORTH 17 III. THE HAUNTING OF THE WESLEYS 36 IV. THE VISIONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG 56 V. THE COCK LANE GHOST 81 VI. THE GHOST SEEN BY LORD BROUGHAM 102 VII. THE SEERESS OF PREVORST 120 VIII. THE MYSTERIOUS MR. HOME 143 IX. THE WATSEKA WONDER 171 X. A MEDIEVAL GHOST HUNTER 198 XI. GHOST HUNTERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 216 PREFACE The following pages represent in the main a discussion of certain celebrated mysteries, as viewed in the light of the discoveries set forth in the writer's earlier work "The Riddle of Personality." That dealt, it may briefly be recalled, with the achievements of those scientists whose special endeavor it is to illumine the nature of human personality. On the one hand, it reviewed the work of the psychopathologists, or investigators of abnormal mental life; and, on the other hand, the labors of the psychical researchers, those enthusiastic and patient explorers of the seemingly supernormal in human experience. Emphasis was laid on the fact that the two lines of inquiry are more closely interrelated than is commonly supposed, and that the discoveries made in each aid in the solution of problems apparently belonging exclusively in the other. To this phase of the subject the writer now returns. The problems under examination are, all of them, problems in psychical research: yet, as will be found, the majority in no small measure depend for elucidation on facts brought to light by the psychopathologists. Of course, it is not claimed that the last word has here been said with respect to any one of these human enigmas. But it is believed that, thanks to the knowledge gained by the investigations of the past quarter of a century, approximately correct solutions have been reached; and that, in any event, it is by no means imperative to regard the phenomena in question as inexplicable, or as explicable only on a spiritistic basis.