The Mammoth Book of True Hauntings

by Haining, Peter

  Another time I was asked to go to a house off the Old Kent Road. It was a particularly horrible night – pouring with rain, dark, and incredibly dreary.

  There was a young couple there, absolutely terrified. The man was a professional photographer. They told me that spontaneous fires were breaking out all over – beds, chairs, rugs, would suddenly catch fire. “Well, we’ll be sitting in a room, and a fire will start on the settee, or the chair will start to burn, the beds, the curtains, anything; but nobody has been burnt. Come and have a look at the place.”

  I had never seen anything like it in my life. The press people were there, and even they were surprised. The windowsills in the children’s bedrooms had been seared with fire, but miraculously no one had been burned or injured. It was really terrifying.

  So all of us sat down in the living room, and I heard a young man’s voice say, “I’m Jimmy.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I’m her brother [referring to the woman]. I died as a result of a fire when I was three years old.”

  Then I asked him, “Why are you terrorizing these people like this if you are indeed the one causing the disturbance?”

  “It’s my only means of making them wake up to the fact that what is happening in the family is too dreadful for words.”

  I asked him what was going on in the family that had disturbed him so, and he told me the whole story. It is confidential, but it did involve a family quarrel resulting in members not talking to each other. He said, “I will continue to do this until amends have been made and peace has been restored in the family.”

  “Will you promise me that if I ask the folks here to put this right, you will then get on with your life in the other world and leave them in peace?”

  “I promise you that if they make peace with the rest of the family there will be no more disturbance,” he said. And there were no more fires.

  CANON JOHN PEARCE-HIGGINS, the minister of Southwark Cathedral, became probably the best-known of a trio of exorcists much in demand in the 1970s. A former lecturer and parish priest, he had a deep interest in spiritualism and subsequently worked on a number of cases with the leading mediums of the time. He also delivered lectures in Britain and America and was involved in a number of cases of possession on both sides of the Atlantic. His book, Life, Death and Psychical Rsearch (1973) was a groundbreaking work about the paranormal. In the following account, the Canon describes a unique case on which he worked with Ena Twigg.

  THE GHOST WHO KNEW HE WAS DEAD

  Location and date:

  Southwark, London, UK, 1970

  The whirligig of time has somehow brought it about that I am now continually being approached by people in trouble who want either themselves or their houses “exorcized”. In the case of the former the majority of them are not genuine cases of possession (about 1 in 6), but are schizophrenic or hysterical psychopathological problems, which are rendered infinitely worse and more intolerable if, as is usual, they have first consulted mediums who have told them that they have one or several evil spirits around them. When, as inevitably happens, since there is nothing there except figments of their own imagination or hallucinations, the medium fails to produce any amelioration of the condition, the last state of that person is worse than before. One well-known medium had told a woman who came to me in despair that she was possessed by 36 spirits! She claimed to have got rid of 25 of them (at £3 a time!) but was unable to clear the rest! In the case of haunted houses also there are very few mediums today who are capable of dealing with them successfully. Here again about 1 in 5 are genuine cases.

  Since this problem presented itself to me in a pastoral manner, and since I am not psychic, I naturally initially had to have recourse to mediums, and in one of the first cases I dealt with I invoked the aid of Mrs Ena Twigg. This was in a vicarage where the young new incumbent, with a wife and four children, urgently invoked my help to get rid of the terrible atmosphere of depression in the house; there were also footsteps going up and down the stairs, and the eldest boy flatly refused to sleep in the late vicar’s bedroom. Mrs Twigg came with her husband and together with the vicar and his wife we sat one evening while Mrs Twigg relayed to us what she said she saw and heard, correctly describing this sad unhappy middle-aged bachelor, who said he was tied to the place by the sense of what he had left undone. We tried to comfort him. We also told him he was upsetting the children. “But”, he said, “I come for the children, I am fond of them, children were the only people I could really communicate with when alive.” (This was a somewhat rare case where the ghost appeared to realise he was dead.) Through Mrs Twigg he then correctly described alterations in the vicarage itself and in the church – into neither of which places either she or I had ever set foot before. Finally we told the poor man that he must go on and up into the Light. “But”, he said, “I don’t know where to go.” Then we were told that he had dissolved into tears, which seemed to clear the atmosphere somewhat. He then began to thank us for coming, and said we had set him free. “Now I can arise and go to my Father,” he said. He then blessed the vicar and his wife, and thanked us for coming, and in particular Mrs Twigg to whom he said, “Had I known you when alive I would have said you were of the devil”! He then asked us to pray for him, which we did.

  The vicar reported the house quite clear, but a fortnight later rang me and said they were having disturbances in the choir vestry. Mrs Twigg was unable to come and I invited a male trance medium, who declared the house clear.

  On this occasion the Bishop of Southwark was with us, and so we went over to the church where the medium was taken into trance, and in the vestry was controlled by the former incumbent who asked forgiveness for his errors and failures and was absolved by the Bishop. From that time on there has been no more trouble.

  After this I used this medium for such cases and we had some quite remarkable successes in clearing all sorts of places, other haunted vicarages, ordinary council houses, usually built on the site of older houses, houses of the rich and of the poor. In many of these the haunter was simply stuck – he did not realise he was dead and so hung about his old home – these were easy to clear. About this time the medium’s guide advised me that it would greatly help if I took a Service of Holy Communion before the medium went into trance, and I have made this my practice ever since.

  In this way we cleared, after several visits, an ex-vicarage in the Midlands apparently haunted by two Tudor monks from the local priory, which had been dissolved at the Reformation. They were clearly a bad lot, one had made an Irish maid-servant pregnant; and the other had taken away and killed her baby. The girl herself through the medium also spoke to us, pitifully saying, “Mistress Longhurst will not let me go out any more.” Apparently Mistress Longhurst was her employer, and the house had been used as a guest house by the Priory. The girl had been locked in an attic and finally poisoned after her baby had been despatched. She was still looking for her baby, unaware of its death and of the passage of time. The monks also had continued to perform their daily offices and although the Priory had been dissolved in 1536, still imagined themselves to be carrying out the daily monastic routine in field and church. I had a most interesting time trying to persuade them that they were dead, which they found it hard to believe since they expected to sleep until the last trump and then, in virtue of their vows, to go straight to paradise or heaven. They could not understand at all where they were. We also had to deal with the dead husband of the lady of the house who had become a chronic alcoholic during his last years and had treated his wife badly. He came begging for, and received, her forgiveness. All this had been previously accompanied by a long story of over five years, from time to time, of heavy thumps in the attic, footsteps on the stairs, doors and drawers paranormally opening and shutting, lights swinging to and fro; on two occasions eerie wailing cries, and the lady’s dressing table shaking up and down in the middle of the night. Also there was often a heavy smell of pipe-smoking, though no one in the h
ouse smoked. This was later found to be due to the presence of some old (spirit) tramps who had lived in the house while it was for some years derelict. Eventually the place was completely cleared.

  In another case a wealthy mother, who had died disinheriting her daughter with whom she had been on poor terms, caused remarkable phenomena, pictures fell off the walls, coat-hangers were found on the roof, footsteps were heard. Much worse, the daughter herself, who was certainly very psychic, on several occasions appeared to be “possessed” by her mother, went into trance and once attacked her husband (whom the dead lady had disliked) with a hammer and indulged in slanging matches quite foreign to her nature. The marriage began to be in jeopardy. Naturally the Will, which left all the money to a charity, was being contested and after our first Holy Communion or Requiem, the lady came through greatly enraged that her Will was being flouted. The medium correctly described her as a tall, proud foreign lady with Edwardian picture hats, handsome and vain. He gave her nationality correctly.

  At a second visit she was in a much chastened mood since apparently the spirit helpers had been working on her, and she controlled the medium, went up to her daughter and stretched out her hands and said “Forgive me”. Subsequently she came through to me a number of times in the medium’s sanctuary and correctly reported to me the progress of the litigation going on, of which I was quite unaware; but checked up subsequently and found the information correct in the main. (Note. I have this and many other cases on tape.) I should add that all phenomena ceased from the date of our first visit, and this is commonly the case, unless it happens to be a house in which there are quite a number of haunting entities, which is not uncommon in old houses, and which sometimes take more than one visit to clear. I consider this to be an extraordinarily evidential case, both because of the immediate cessation of the phenomena and also because of the veridical information conveyed . . . excellent ESP at least.

  The case of Jim Pike (jun.) who after committing suicide in a New York hotel caused many paranormal phenomena in his father’s flat in Cambridge within a few weeks of his death, as recorded by Bishop Pike in The other side, is another extremely evidential case. At the sitting with Mrs Twigg at which I was present, the boy came through, and apologised for the annoyance caused and said “I had to find a voice”. He promised there would be no more phenomena, and these in fact ceased at once. (From my notes at the sitting.)

  I had a very similar case in a garage where the deceased proprietor caused some astonishing phenomena in the manager’s office, and when contacted through a trance medium explained his reason for causing the disturbance as being due to anxiety about his widow. These are typical cases of “purposive” hauntings, by persons who are aware that they have died. But in the majority of cases it appears that the haunters are unaware of their condition, and only cause disturbances in order to draw attention to their presence, from the desire to be set free from their frustration.

  Thus in yet one more case, a five-year-old child complained of an old lady sitting on her bed. We contacted a poor old spinster who had lived in a cottage before it had been pulled down when the modern flats were erected, and who asked plaintively, “Have the horse-trams come to the top of Putney Hill yet?” and who gave the date as 1901! (My tape.)

  All I can say is that in this way during the past few years some 100 or so houses have been cleared of their unwanted visitors. Many of these have spoken to me at length after being removed from the house in question, through the entranced medium in his sanctuary, where I have had to work hard to enlighten them, much after the manner of Carl Wickland, to the fact that they were dead.

  With more cases coming in, occasionally urgent, it happened that sometimes the medium was not available, and after consultation with his guide, I was told to go and take the service and cleanse the house alone. Thus on receiving an urgent call from a newly and happily married young bride, who was aware of dangerous suicidal influences around her, I went next day. The lady’s clairvoyant sister, who had spent two nights in the flat, had seen a distressed girl wringing her hands in despair and saying “He has let me down, what shall I do, shall I take an overdose, or cut my wrists?” (It appears she did the latter.) The condition immediately disappeared after the service. In this way I evolved what seems an effective form of service (Requiem), invoking the ministry of angels, and which can be used without the presence of a medium.

  Some of these cases received a good deal of publicity and presently clergy began to write to me for help. As I cannot deal with even all the ghosts in Southwark let alone other parts of England(!), I now send them the form of service, with instructions as to how to set about cleansing the house. They report back to me in the majority of cases that it has worked and that the phenomena have ceased. From this it seems fairly clear that, when invoked in all sincerity, the power of God through Jesus Christ and the Ministry of Angels can and does work – of course, we have His promise that if sincerely invoked it will. It would seem therefore that the presence of a medium is not essential, although it helps, and of course it enables one to know what has been dealt with. But since the main object of the exercise is to clear the place, this is perhaps a luxury – although it is also a procedure which if I had not started with mediums in the first place, I would never have known how to set in motion. I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to the “sensitives”.

  BISHOP JAMES PIKE of New York was at the centre of one of the century’s most sensational stories about spiritualism, which also involved Ena Twigg and Canon Pearce-Higgins. On 4 February 1966, Pike’s son, Jim, committed suicide in a New York hotel room. Although the former lawyer and Naval Intelligence officer referred to himself as “suspicious by nature” he was determined to try and contact his dead son. A year later the opportunity was offered to him by the two British spiritualists. What happened at Ena Twigg’s home, on the anniversary of the death, was later described by Pike on US TV and generated a storm of controversy in the press and the media, as he later recalled in his book, From The Other Side (1967).

  SÉANCE WITH A SON

  Location and date:

  East Acton, London, UK, 1967

  The sitting room was quite small and was modestly furnished. But I was not unhappy about that. My fear had been of the opposite – heavy drapes, fringed silk lampshades, exotic ornaments, cluttered semi-darkness. What unexamined assumptions we make about the unfamiliar! The furnishings were in fact so undistinguished that I cannot recall them. I do remember that the light was simply that which came through a window – flat and silver-grey, appropriate to a London afternoon in February.

  “Do you happen to have something of your son’s?” Mrs Twigg asked me quietly as we all sat down. She smiled, with tenderness, as she waited for the answer – which was simply my reaching into a jacket pocket for Jim’s passport, the original one he had left in Cambridge. I had brought it along because of Canon Pearce-Higgins’ suggestion. But it was clear from the way she asked the question that having something of my son’s was not essential. Her comment when I showed it to her was, “It will help.”

  We all fell silent. Though the idea was not suggested as appropriate, I felt prayerful; my head bowed some. The feeling – or sensing – was like what a Roman Catholic or Anglican generally feels when sitting or kneeling in a chapel where the Sacrament is reserved in a tabernacle or aumbry. He doesn’t grasp the how of what is called “the Real Presence”; further, God is obviously present everywhere; yet . . .

  Now Mrs Twigg began to show some signs of discomfort and distress. “He’s here,” she said. “He’s working hard to get through.” She did not close her eyes nor did her posture or countenance change in any radical way. It was almost as if she were continuing our conversation of a few moments before.

  “He was normally a boisterous and happy boy,” she commented. Then she seemed to be speaking as if for another. “I failed the test, I can’t face you, can’t face life. I’m confused. Very sudden passing – have had to do this – couldn’t find a
nyone. God, I didn’t know what I was doing. But when I got here I found I wasn’t such a failure as I thought. My nervous system failed.”

  Again – or should I say still – I sensed Jim’s presence. In fact, I had a direct impression that he was standing behind and to the right of Mrs Twigg, though I could see nothing. I listened intensely, sensing something of the suffering which seemed to be expressed. Mrs Twigg went on, as if reporting someone else’s words.

  “I am not in purgatory – but something like hell, here,” Jim seemed to say. “Yet nobody blames me here.”

  I puzzled over the words. What could this mean? Suffering, but not being blamed . . .

  Then, “I hope nobody blames me there.”

  “I’ve met my grandmother,” was the next remark. That’s not right, I thought to myself. (Both of his grandmothers were – and are – alive.) But I said nothing.

  “You were under pressure at the same time. I was worried about you, Dad, because they were kicking you around.”

  Jim had called me “Dad” – that was characteristic – and we had, indeed, both been under pressure. Just how much I was under I was not able fully to acknowledge then – or until nearly two and a half years later when the time of troubles I had actually gone through seemed finally to have passed.

  “I came to your room, I moved books, I knocked on the door – came to your bedside – you dreamt about me and spoke to me,” Mrs Twigg’s voice went on rapidly – speaking, it would seem, for Jim. The words rang true to our experience of the past two weeks even if the exact items did not match. I had not, for example, heard any knocks on the door. Yet the essence of our experience was certainly being articulated.

  “I love you very much,” the medium’s voice went on. “So much love and no means of giving it.” How true, I thought, how true. True in one sense now, true in another sense before he died. He was a loving person, yet he seemed incapable of breaking free to express his love. He had come to be able to express his love for me in words now and again during the last three or four months. But still I had the feeling he was blocked – generally not able to tell to anyone freely what he really felt.