True Ghost Stories, by Hereward Carrington (1915). Marc Hartzman Collection.
Is it possible to see ghosts? If you asked psychic researcher, Hereward Carrington, he’d say yes. Carrington, who once investigated famed mediums Margery Crandon, alongside Houdini and others, and Eusapia Palladino, firmly believed we humans held the power to communicate with the afterlife. This, of course, extended to the belief in ghosts and haunted houses. Carrington collected numerous stories of such encounters in his 1915 book, True Ghost Stories.
Carrington argued that we have a power called thought-transference—or, telepathic hallucination—meaning one person could send a thought to another:
“This ‘telepathic’ action between mind and mind is now pretty well known, and operates more or less throughout life. By means of this, it is occasionally possible for one person to impress a scene or a picture upon the mind of another, so that the other shall see before him, as it were, in space, a vivid mental picture of the scene in the other’s mind.”
True Ghost Stories recounts numerous tales from a variety of people, often including visions of relatives or friends that are later discovered to have occurred at their moment of death. In addition, Carrington provides a host of brief stories from more famous people:
- Charles I, of England, was warned by an apparition, but paying no heed, was disastrously defeated at Naseby.
- Queen Elizabeth is said to have been warned of her death by the apparition of her own double.
- Napoleon, at St. Helena, saw and conversed with the apparition of Josephine, who warned him of his approaching death.
- Lincoln had a certain premonitory dream which occurred three times in relation to important battles, and the fourth on the eve of his assassination.
- Mozart was visited by a mysterious person who ordered him to compose a requiem, and came frequently to inquire after its progress, but disappeared on its completion, which occurred just in time for its performance at his own funeral.
- Ben Johnson was visited by the apparition of his eldest son with the mark of a bloody cross upon his forehead at the moment of his death by the plague.
- Thackery wrote: “It is all very well for you who have probably never seen spirit manifestations to talk as you do, but had you seen what I have witnessed you would hold a different opinion.”
After a career of investigating psychic powers and writing many books on the subject, Carrington passed away in 1958, at the age of 78. No one has heard from him since.
Hereward Carrington, in 1916’s film, The Mysteries of Myra.
