by Joe Nickell
Other Blackbeard legends fare no better. One holds that after he was decapitated, his corpse was tossed overboard, where it swam “three times” around the sloop before finally sinking (Cawthorne 2005, 205). Of course, since this is scientifically impossible, it little matters that another source says it was “several times” (Klein 2006, 86). Still another best describes it with appropriate sarcasm as “seven times, or was it eleven times, or perhaps by this time it is seven times eleven” (Rondthaler n.d.). There are variations of the tale (to folklorists, variants are evidence of the folkloric process). One version states “that Teach's headless body ran wildly around the deck before throwing itself into the sea” (Pickering 2006, 74). Another variant combines two legends, having Blackbeard's severed head circling the ship and simultaneously crying out “O crow Cock! O crow, Cock!” supposedly because Blackbeard wanted morning light to help him find his body (Walser 1980, 12–14).
Sightings of Blackbeard's ghost commonly involve familiar folklore motifs. Endlessly, we are told, Blackbeard wanders Ocracoke searching for his lost head (Elizabeth and Roberts 2004, 13). So ubiquitous is this motif that I have encountered it in various countries (see, for example, chapter 3, “Headless Ghosts I Have Known,” and Nickell 2006). It is one that neither raconteurs nor the credulous can resist, though for others it is so hackneyed as to seem a caricature of the ghost-tale genre.
So is the legend of Blackbeard's ghost searching for his treasure—not at Ocracoke but at the Isles of Shoals in Maine and New Hampshire, as well as on Smith and Langier Islands in Chesapeake Bay (D'Agostino 2008, 110–11). But these have a suspiciously literary quality and seem of relatively late vintage, probably deriving from the Kidd legends.
Blackbeard is just one of four ghosts alleged to haunt Ocracoke—or only three if the “old man with a big, bushy beard” that appears in a museum's upstairs window (Elizabeth and Roberts 2004, 10) is the pirate himself. But that is not claimed, and the ghost of the historic David Williams House (now the Ocracoke Preservation Society Museum) not only has his head on his shoulders, but the house dates from 1900, long after Blackbeard's time. The ghost tale is even more recent. Julia Howard (2006), the museum's director since 1972, told me she believes the story was fabricated by a docent (since deceased) whom she described as “a character.” Howard also related how a volunteer once accommodated a mother whose boys had wanted to see the ghost. While they were outside looking up, the volunteer surreptitiously jiggled the curtains, creating a “ghost”—as real as any, pirate or not.
Among the significant European figures of the sixteenth century, Paracelsus (1493–1541) was a transitional figure in the contest between magical and scientific thinking. On the one hand, he was part charlatan: his work was riddled with mystical nonsense about alchemy and the search for immortality. On the other, he rejected much ancient nonsense, advocated experimentation, developed the idea that chemical substances might have medical value (Cridlan 1997, 881; Chavallier 1996, 21–22), and famously observed that whether or not a poison is lethal depends on its dose (Chevallier 1996, 22).
Although he adopted the name Paracelsus—apparently to suggest superiority to Celsus, the Roman medical writer—he was born Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim in 1493. He was known not only for his revolutionary ideas but also for his argumentative manner; some claim—wrongly—that the word bombastic was derived from his name (Hauck 2000, 99).1 An inveterate traveler, he settled into the role of town physician and university lecturer at Basel from 1526 to 1529, when he lost a lawsuit over a professional fee. He continued wandering throughout Europe, Asia Minor, and Africa until he was invited to Salzburg, Austria, by the prince-archbishop in 1541. However, Paracelsus died there on September 24, 1541, at the age of forty-eight (Collier's Encyclopedia 1993; “Paracelsus” 2008).
There are those who say that Paracelsus continues to be a transitional figure of another kind: a spirit interacting with the living and even being sought for miraculous cures. On a trip to Europe in 2007, I visited two sites in Salzburg where these activities are reputed to continue, Salzburg Castle and the tomb of Paracelsus.
SALZBURG CASTLE
Located on the river Salzach, Austria's beautiful city of Salzburg is capital of the state of the same name, both of which take their appellation from the salt—the so-called white gold—mined from mount Dürnberg. Salzburg was the birthplace of Mozart, and today it offers many sights, including a baroque cathedral, a palace (Schloss Mirabell), and gardens, and (as part of the latter) a poignant little dwarf park bearing statues of the wee people who once graced the royal court (“Salzburg Sightseeing Tours” n.d.; “Mirabell Palace and Gardens” 2007).
The castle, the Hohensalzburg Fortress, overlooks—actually towers over—Salzburg from atop the Mönchsberg, one of five mountain peaks in Salzburg. Built in 1077, the structure is accessible by a steep footpath or by the funicular (a cable-operated railway), and it offers impressive interior scenes together with commanding views of the historic city. The fortress was so imposing that for a thousand years it was never attacked, although “when Napoleon stopped by, the city wisely surrendered” (Steves 2007).
According to paranormalist Dennis William Hauck (2000, 99) in his book The International Directory of Haunted Places:
Psychics say [Paracelsus's] ghost roams the castle grounds searching for his many manuscripts that were taken from his room after his death and hidden away by the Prince Bishop. American tourist Deb Dupre was one of many to feel the presence of Paracelsus in the castle. Her en counter during a visit in 1986 changed her life, causing her to become more unconventional and creative and open to the deeper symbolism of alchemy. She even started painting dramatic and colorful depictions of alchemical forces in her own life. Dupre also picked up paranormal energy in several photographs of the castle, including the spiraling mist that followed her around.
A copy of one such “ghost” photo is reproduced in Hauck (2000, 99). Unfortunately, science has not found such “spiraling mist” to be due to “paranormal energy.” Instead, much evidence shows it is simply the result of the camera's flash rebounding from the wrist strap!
I did a pioneering study of this effect (Nickell 1996, 13–14) and have replicated it many times under controlled conditions. Depending on the nature of the strap (round, flat, braided, smooth, etc.), the orientation and closeness of the strap to the camera, as well as other factors including lighting conditions, a considerable variety of effects can be produced. Even so, other instances of camera-strap “ghosts” in Hauck (2000, 110, 120, 157) are recognizable. (The interested reader should compare an example in Hauck [2000, 110] with one of mine [Nickell 1996, 13] to see how similar the effects can be.)
Visiting Salzburg Castle with my colleague Martin Mahner, I sought out the site in question and snapped some experimental photographs, one of which is shown in figure 16.1. (At the bottom of the white curve, the more mistlike blurring is due to the corresponding portion of the strap's greater distance from the lens, an effect that occurs along the entire length of the analogous curved line in the tourist photo, showing that that section of the strap was the farthest from the lens when the flash went off.)
Except for the photo and that reference to what “psychics say,” Hauck offers no further proof that Paracelsus's ghost, or any other, haunts the fortress grounds. Indeed we queried one castle shopkeeper who insisted that there was no ghostly lore—no specific story or generalized topic—that she was aware of; neither were there any reported ghostly experiences that had come to her attention. Virtually no one, she told us, asks about ghosts. Subsequently, at the castle's museum shop, a young lady attendant echoed the first shopkeeper's sentiments.
Of course, no one can prove there is not a ghost at the fortress, but fortunately no one has to. Rather, the burden of proof falls on claimants, and thus far they have utterly failed to meet the challenge.
PARACELSUS'S TOMB
After searching for the ghost of Paracelsus at the castle, Martin and I visited the adep
t's tomb at St. Sebastian's church cemetery. We were there because of a statement by Hauck (2000, 99) regarding Paracelsus: “To this day, many ill and crippled people visit his gravesite hoping for a miraculous cure from the spirit of the greatest doctor of all time.” (Hauck's specific source is unclear, since he supplies only a generalized bibliography.)
Located on a line of sight that runs due north from the castle, the cemetery is entered from the street Lizer Gasse and is at once a place that is quintessentially baroque and Italian—as well as one of quiet repose. Its centerpiece is the grave of Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich (1587–1612). The cemetery also contains the Mozart family tomb (with the graves of the composer's wife and father, Mozart himself being buried in Vienna), as well as the graves of other Salzburg notables.
Paracelsus's grave niche in the church's exterior, shown in figure 16.2, bears a bas-relief profile of him. It also includes a Latin inscription stating, “Here are the effigy and the bones of Philippus Theophrastus Paracelsus, who has won such fame in all the world through his Alchemy, until they are again clad in flesh. When this church was repaired in 1752 they were lifted from their mouldering grave and interred at this spot.”
Alas, while we were at the tomb, taking photographs and making notes, we watched in vain for the pathetic pilgrims who were expected to visit, hoping for magical healings. Only a curious tourist couple stopped briefly. Finally, I spied a young priest hurrying by, and I called out, “Excuse me, Father, do you speak English?”
“Some,” he answered.
I told him a book claimed that people came to Paracelsus's tomb to be cured of their ailments, and I asked if this were indeed so.
“I've never heard such a claim,” he told me. He did say that there was a group that made annual visits to the tomb, but he was unaware of any healing tradition at the site.
Even Hauck makes no mention of any actual healings being claimed at the site. If there are, their numbers would no doubt still pale in comparison to the French healing shrine, Lourdes. More than five million people visit Lourdes annually, yet only sixty-seven alleged “miracle cures” have been officially recognized since 1858 (D'Emilio 2008). Not only is that an abysmal record, but the claims at such healing shrines are invariably only examples of the logical fallacy called arguing from ignorance (that is, drawing a conclusion from a lack of knowledge): “One does not know why the condition abated, so it must have been a miracle.” In fact, some “cures” are attributable to poor investigation, while others may simply represent misdiagnosis, psychosomatic conditions, prior medical treatment, the body's own healing power, and other factors (Nickell 2007, 202–205).
Despite our disappointing search, Para celsus does continue to be among us—not as a spirit plaguing our photos or providing miraculous healings, but as a transitional figure in man's gradual emergence from the shadowy underworld of ignorance and superstition into the bright realm of science and reason.
“Stone walls do not a prison make,” wrote the English poet Richard Lovelace (1618–1658). That would seem especially—and literally—true for ghosts, yet, if much evidence is to be believed, many spirits of the dead seem unable, or at least unwilling, to leave the places of their incarceration. Here is a look at some “haunted” jails, prisons, dungeons, and the like I have personally investigated.
CONVICTS, BARRACKS
On a sojourn in Australia in November 2000, I investigated several myths and mysteries, beginning with the Hyde Park Barracks—reputedly “the most haunted building in Central Sydney” (Davis 1998, 2). Constructed as secure housing for government-assisted male convicts in 1817, it opened in mid-1819 with its central building holding an average of six hundred men. (It became an immigration depot for single females in 1848, a government office complex in 1887, and today it is a museum featuring its original history.)
No ghosts were reported at the barracks until the 1950s, when a clerk saw an apparition, “a figure in convict garb hobbling down a corridor” (Davis 1998, 2). Now that the facility is open to steady streams of visitors, various strange phenomena are reported, especially by those who spend the night. These include security guards and schoolchildren on sleepovers that give them a bit of the “convict experience.” The barracks maintains a ghost file, which records experiences just after they occur, and curator Michael Bogle generously allowed me to study this file in his office.
It is clear from these personal accounts that the spend-the-night experiences were designed to stimulate the imagination, and it is therefore not surprising that they provoked dreams or even triggered apparitions of historical figures. Indeed, some persons described apparent “waking dreams” that occur in the twilight of being partially awake. For instance, one girl described “a man standing beside my hammock looking at me”—dressed of course in period clothes. She admits she had “tried to imagine what it must have been like for the convicts who stayed there,” thus helping set the stage for such an experience.
Also not surprising, on occasion the narratives contain hints of possible pranking. For example, one of a group of forty-seven schoolchildren reported having felt a “long hand” reach in under her sleeping bag to touch her on the hip. Or was that instead only the effect of a runaway imagination, prompted by talk of ghosts? Or was it, perhaps, yet another waking dream? On one occasion, ghostly tappings proved to have been only the sounds of a mechanized display. Suggestions and expectation can be powerful, especially in such a setting (Nickell 2001, 15–16).
THE MELBOURNE GAOL
Likewise, the Old Melbourne Gaol (British spelling of jail), which I visited with skeptics from that Australian city, is “the repository of many troubled spirits, the ghosts of criminals who suffered and died there”—or so “some say” (Davis 1998, 174).
Certainly the old gaol is a stark showing of Australian penal life in the nineteenth century, exhibiting many grim implements of restraint and punishment as well as mementi mori (“reminders of death”). For example, there is the pistol, homemade armor, and death mask of the notorious “bushranger” (i.e., highwayman) Ned Kelley, as well as the scaffold on which he was finally hanged for his crimes.
Despite the spooky ambiance (figure 17.1), reported ghostly phenomena at the site are somewhat scant, even though an advertising brochure promises: “Experience the haunting and eerie atmosphere of the gaol, and by listening carefully, you can almost hear the clank of the prisoners’ chains.”
Nevertheless, when I broached the topic of hauntings to a gift-shop employee, she brought out, rather halfheartedly, a questionable “ghost” snapshot. She conceded that some people reported their “feelings” at the site, but added that, while she had been employed at the gaol for ten years, she had had no paranormal experiences of her own. However, noting that she worked just one day a week, she joked that maybe “the ghosts take Tuesdays off” (Nickell 2001, 16).
FORTRESS “DUNGEON”
The Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida (figure 17.2), is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States. Built by the Spanish in response to a 1668 raid by English pirates, the castillo today is allegedly home to various ghosts. These include the spirits of Señora Dolores Marti, wife of Colonel Garcia Marti, who was assigned to the fort in 1784, and her lover, Captain Manuel Abela. When the colonel learned of the affair, he “chained them to a wall in the dungeon and mortared a new wall of coquina stone in front of them,” according to Haunted Places: The National Directory (Hauck 1996, 125). (The story motif of being entombed alive is common to folklore and fiction. See Nickell 2008, 17–20.)
On visiting the fortress, however, and being shown about by staffer John Cipriani, I learned there never was a “dungeon,” despite the castillo's having been used as a prison on various occasions—for example, for Americans during the Revolutionary War (Brownstone and Franck 1989, 8). The raconteurs’ “dungeon” is in fact a small room that was part of the powder magazine. When found to be too humid for storing gunpowder, the room was sealed off.
It w
as rediscovered, storytellers say—in 1833, 1838, or 1938—by an engineer who noted that when a section of the wall was tapped it sounded hollow. “He chipped away at the mortar, and the lantern he held illuminated two skeletons” (Moore 1998, 147). In fact, however, the room was rediscovered in 1832 when a cannon accidentally fell through from the fortress’ gun deck. Although “bones” were reportedly found among the debris inside, it is uncertain whether they were human. Besides, those who portray skeletons chained to a wall need to recall that bones are not wired together like the articulated skeletons studied in science class. Thus, as the imagined bodies decomposed, they would have fallen apart, the bones landing in a heap on the floor.
Besides, the story of the colonel sealing his wife and her lover in the chamber is only a fable. As one source admits, correctly, “history does not record the event” (Lapham 1997, 146). Another agrees but nevertheless offers the hope that “perhaps some visitors may still experience an eerie feeling when visiting the small room in the northeast corner” (Cain 1997, 22). However, as John Cipriani assured me, “There aren't any ghosts.” Noting that he had slept in Castillo de San Marcos all night on occasion and had experienced nothing paranormal, he pointed out that places with genuine history did not need to resort to using ghosts for tourist promotion (Cipriani 2004).
JAIL TURNED INN
According to Haunted Inns of America, “sometimes late at night, strange moaning, groaning, and blood-curdling screams can be heard” emanating from the cell of a man who died painfully in the old Nelson County, Kentucky, jail—now a popular bed and breakfast (Smith and Jean 2003, 84). (The jail began as a single cell in 1797, then was expanded into a larger structure in 1819; this in turn became the jailer's residence when a new jail wing was added on in 1874 [Greco 1994, 131–35].)
