Ghostly Encounters: A Review

Ghostly Encounters: The Hauntings of Everyday Life by Dennis Waskul with Michele Waskul, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2016. Xi + 166pp. References, Notes, Index, Plates, Appendix. £20.99 (paperback). ISBN 978-1-4399-1289-8.

Dennis Waskul, a Professor of Sociology at Minnesota State University and his wife, Michele, an independent scholar, state clearly in their Preface that Ghostly Encounters is intended as an academic book based on ‘reflexive ethnographic fieldwork’ of reported experiences of ghosts and hauntings. They travelled extensively in the American mid-West interviewing people who reported first hand encounters with ghosts and where possible visiting the sites of the alleged hauntings. In a few cases where participants preferred not to meet face-to-face, written accounts were accepted. Their university did not permit snowballing techniques, in which participants can recommend others who are then approached directly, so they were dependent on advertising for respondents who they approached them. The results are related to existing academic literature and then packaged very much for a general, rather than solely academic audience.

 For those familiar with writer
and historian Ian Wilson’s 1995 volume In Search of Ghosts, the ground covered is similar (and even the cover images are almost identical). Both start with descriptions of initial scepticism followed by the story of a personal ghostly encounter. In the Wilson’s case he and his wife were staying with friends in Abercrombie House, New South Wales, Australia, and didn’t know at the time that the room they were sleeping in had a reputation for being haunted. During the night both Ian Wilson and his wife became aware of someone standing beside their bed, breathing audibly, as if trying to attract their attention. When they turned the on the light the sound faded, only to return when they switched it off again. Tired from their journey and wishing to sleep, Wilson remembered the story of a haunting he had read about in which a ghost was banished by invoking the Holy Trinity. He thought he would try something similar and mentally said a prayer releasing the ghostly presence. Much to his surprise this seemed to work. In the Waskuls’ case they were in bed at home when Dennis saw a wispy-white cloud come through the window and blinds into the corner of the room, and then send out tentacles towards him. Two short sentences came into his mind as he watched the apparition, “I will tell the truth. I will tell the story right”. In the Wilsons' case Ian had already been commissioned to write a book on ghosts when the experience occurred. The Waskuls were well into their research at this point. In neither instance did they feel afraid. The result of this encounter for both writers was to subtly shift their perspective on the subject matter of ghosts. It is perhaps significant in both cases that the authors were already engaged with the topic when these experiences took place, although in most of the instances of hauntings described there was no prior expectation of a ghostly encounter.

Ghostly Hauntings is divided into five, fairly brief, chapters with an Appendix describing the methodology used. The first chapter presents ghosts as a ‘cross-cultural and transhistorical’ phenomenon and simultaneously as ‘uniquely modern’ (p.18). What is meant here is that while stories of ghosts are universal the notion of the supernatural depends on a post-Enlightenment definition of the natural order. They make the point that while ghosts in popular imagination are a largely visual phenomenon, the spectre is only one way that spirits of the dead (if that is what they are) can make their presence known. They are as likely to be audible, either directly as in the Wilsons’ experience, or though manipulating objects, making knocks and bangs, scratching on walls, or turning electrical appliances on and off. They might also make the living feel as if they are being touched or even choked, manipulate the temperature or otherwise give the impression of being watched. The experience may be individual or shared, lending the haunting a perception of veridical objectivity. In the second chapter, first-hand accounts of ghostly encounters are interwoven with interviewees interpretations of what has occurred, placing the experience within a North American cultural context in which popular interest is combines with scepticism. Several interviewees were nervous of being perceived as mad or deluded or sought ordinary rational explanations for their encounters. Chapter Three, with numerous quotes and examples from the research data, attempts a typology of ghosts, listing intelligent hauntings, residual hauntings, anniversary and historical hauntings. Forms of ghosts are divided into apparitions (visible ghosts), phantasms (a visual appearance in a dream or altered state of consciousness), wraiths (a person who visits the living around the time of his or her death), poltergeists (noisy or restless ghosts), specters (a threatening or menacing ghost) and phantoms (a specter occurring in a dream). Each chapter ends with an extended case study, in this case of a child ghost named Madison who communicated with both the informant and her younger sister independently when they were a similar age to the ghostly girl. The ghost identified herself a previous occupant of the house, and could be manipulative and jealous, a disturbing ‘friend’ for a young child.

Chapter Four takes a rather different direction with an account of Loon Lake Cemetery in Minnesota, a sad story in which the reputation of the site as haunted gave ghost hunters carte blanche to destroy and desecrate it. A Nineteenth Century inhabitant of the cemetery (unjustly) acquired a reputation as a witch. Legends of ghostly and supernatural goings on at the site were promulgated and repeated in local legend and in print. Descendants of the accused are still working to clear her name, and the chapter is included as a cautionary tale against revealing the locations of supposed hauntings. Chapter Five tackles the central questions of epistemological and ontological relativity and certainty. It is generally taken for granted in the social sciences that truth is contingent on perspective, culture, history, symbolic frameworks, and so on. In other words, truth is epistemologically relative. What about the ontological ‘reality’ of ghostly phenomena? The study is not directly studying ghosts but people’s accounts of ghosts. The personal experience recounted at the start of the book did, however, have the effect of opening the author’s mind to the possibility that the accounts they collected are based on actual occurrences, and that they may involve the spirits of the dead, rather than being psychological projections or hallucinations.

Waskul, like Ian Wilson before him, ends the book end with a conversation with a medium and an unusual occurrence that suggests that some people may have privileged access when it comes to communication with the dead. Dennis Waskul was warned that he was in danger of inviting a spirit attachment, and subsequently experienced some inexplicable phenomena, including his wedding ring disappearing from his hand and reappearing some hours later on the step of his office, and a poltergeist taking control of his laptop, deleting messages before he could read them. Waskul mentions mediums, religious specialists and paranormal investigators as a resource for communicating with troublesome ghosts (but not spirit release therapists). I also wonder if Waskul was aware of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) journals and archives, or the six thousand first-hand accounts of spiritual experiences, including encounters with ghosts, in the Alister Hardy archive, as he claims that with the possible exception of Diane Goldstein’s 'Scientific Rationalism and Supernatural Experience Narratives' in Haunting Experiences (2007), his is probably the first empirical study of reported first-hand experiences with ghosts (p.150).

Despite an apparent lack of awareness of earlier research, Ghostly Encounters is an interesting and lively read. As it is based almost exclusively on first-hand accounts (unlike the Wilson volume) some of the problems involved in checking the veracity of second-hand accounts are avoided (although the first-hand accounts are only as good as the memory and narrative ability of the interviewees). For those who are sceptical it is hard to argue with first-hand experience. The possible interpretations of these experiences are set in their cultural context, while acknowledging the similarity of ghostly narratives across time and culture. For those familiar with the topic there is little that will come as a surprise or seem particularly original, but the volume can serve as a very useful introduction to ghosts and hauntings for the inquisitive and discerning general or student reader.

Goldstein, Diane, Sylvia Grider, and Jeannie Thomas. (2007). Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore. Logan: Utah State University Press.

Wilson, Ian. (1995) In Search of Ghosts. London: Headline.