Ghosts of the Bluegrass by James McCormick & Macy Wyatt

Author:James McCormick & Macy Wyatt [McCormick, James & Wyatt, Macy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Folklore & Mythology
ISBN: 9780813173566
Google: VyL_EIumdMkC
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2009-10-02T00:11:00.424523+00:00

Notes

1. Felicitas Goodman, How About Demons? (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 33–34.

2. Rosemary Ellen Guiley, The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits (New York: Facts on File, 1992), 35–38.

Chapter 6

Communication with the Dead

Meetings for the purpose of bringing a paranormal communication to a group or to an individual, usually through a medium of some sort, have been recorded since as early as the third century B.C. by Porphery. Séances became very popular in the mid-1800s. Two or more persons (but usually less than eight) would gather around a table and try to make contact with a deceased loved one through the medium. The participants were to sit in a circle with their hands placed flat on the table. Strangers were looked on with suspicion; their disbelief, it was feared, would hinder the success of the séance. Music would often be played, and lighting was usually dim. Skeptics would say the music and dim light could be used to hide a fraud.

The séance became very acceptable in the Victorian age and on into the early twentieth century. Henry Houdini was involved in the spiritualist movement of his period. He was obsessed with a need to speak to his dead mother and attended many séances. Being an escape artist, he knew the tricks of hidden lights and mirrors, and knew many ways of creating manifestations of a “spirit.” He discredited several popular mediums but had little success in reaching his mother.1 The true believer might say his own skepticism caused this failure.

In the early 1920s and 1930s, the Ouija board became a popular tool for telling the future or communicating with the dead. It was invented in 1892 by Elija J. Bond and became very popular after World War I when multitudes of bereaved parents were trying to communicate with their lost sons. It is still being marketed today (now with a glow-in-the-dark game board!) by the Parker Brothers game company, which states that it is for entertainment only.2 Nevertheless, it is still being used for ghost sleuthing, as in the story “Coed Returns to Transylvania,” in chapter 8.

The photos included in this chapter of the group of students at Georgetown College who called themselves the Mystic 13 (circa 1917) show that there was some interest in the occult at that time at the college. The photo showing the thirteen students wrapped in white, all wearing black blindfolds and grouped around a skull and crossbones, would particularly indicate something of the sort.

The stories in this chapter describe communication with the dead. This may be in a séance where the communication is deliberate, but often it is not solicited, surprising and possibly frightening the recipient of the communication. This communication takes different forms, such as being physically touched by what seems to be a ghost or by hearing a knock in response to a question. Some ghost stories presented in other chapters could fit into this category as well.

Pleading Ghost

After he died, he said, “Don't leave me; please don't leave me.”

I was mad at

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