The Element Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Hauntings: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World

A few banshee stories entered into American folklore with the arrival of immigrants. One of them comes from the American South, where a crying banshee with long flowing yellow hair is thought to haunt the Tar River in Edgecomb County, North Carolina.

BATTLE ABBEY

Battle Abbey was constructed by William the Conqueror on the site of his triumph over King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Legend has it that a mysterious fountain of blood appears after rain on the ground, representing the Christian blood that was spilled there, although sceptics argue that the presence of iron in the soil accounts for reddish puddles of water.

A phantom is also thought to haunt Battle Abbey. Some believe it to be the Duchess of Cleveland, who lived at the abbey for a time. Others believe it to be the ghost of a monk who cursed Sir Anthony Brown for taking church property, after Sir Anthony was given Battle Abbey by Henry VIII in 1538. In 1932, two men holding a vigil in the crypt reported hearing strange noises in the room above, even though it was paved with asphalt, and a man’s voice singing ‘Gloria in excelsis’.

BATTLEFIELD HAUNTINGS

Places identified with violence, trauma and intense emotion are typically thought to be subject to hauntings. There are few places more violent and traumatic than battlefields, and it isn’t surprising that many battlefield locations have hauntings associated with them. It is thought that most battlefield hauntings are residual hauntings, in which fragments of the battle are imprinted upon the psychic space of a place and picked up by sensitive individuals. Other hauntings are from spirits who can’t find peace due to the violent and abrupt nature of their deaths. Those who specialize in spirit releasement try to find ways to help these confused and traumatized souls move on. Some believe retrocognition is also an element in battlefield hauntings. Re-enactors, people who recreate battle scenes in history, often report hauntings during their recreations.

In the USA there are numerous haunted battlefields from the American Civil War (1861–1865) and other violent struggles in American history. For example, Antietam and the Old Baylor’s Massacre site in River Vale, New Jersey, where members of the local militia (known as Baylor’s Dragoons) were brutally slaughtered by German Hessians in 1778, abound with reports of hauntings and strange happenings. In the UK both medieval warrior phantoms and ghostly soldiers from the English Civil War have been reported, and numerous battlefields from the world wars have ghost stories linked to them.

One of the most well-known cases in World War I actually occurred in the midst of the conflict itself. The so-called Angels of Mons were thought to have saved retreating French and British soldiers during the battle of Mons, Belgium. According to reports of survivors, the retreating soldiers saw phantom figures on horseback preventing the Germans from slaughtering them all, but sceptics argue that they may have had visions due to intense stress, fear and pain. In World War II, one-seventh of Britain’s casualties came from losses due to bombing raids, and not surprisingly countless hauntings and phantom sounds of aeroplanes and sirens have been reported where bomber pilots made their runs.

Paranormal investigators who believe that hauntings can be caused by the consciousness of the living often use battlefield hauntings to support their case. They argue that the anguish war causes imprints itself on a nation’s collective memory, and that phantoms are a way of keeping the memory of such a tragic and vast loss of life alive.

BEALINGS HOUSE BELL RINGER

Between February and March 1834, Bealings House, a Georgian house at Great Bealings, Suffolk was the scene of mysterious bell ringing, where the pulley bells in various rooms used to summon servants began to jingle without anyone pulling them. Major Edward Moore, a retired officer from the Indian Army, the owner of the house at the time, was fascinated and recorded the phenomena later; thanks to him we have a day-by-day record of what happened.

On Sunday, 2 February 1834, Major Moore came home from church and was told that between 2 and 5 pm the dining room bell had been rung. The following day the same bell rang three times, the last time being just before five o’clock in the evening, and was heard for the first time by Major Moore personally. The next day the Major was out, and when he returned he was told the same thing had happened. There were a total of nine bells in the kitchen, and the Major discovered that the right-hand five bells, connected with the dining room, drawing room, a first-floor bedroom and two rooms in the attic, were the ones doing most of the ringing.

On 5 February at 11 am the bells were heard ringing again while the Major was in the breakfast room with his son and grandson. Immediately he went to the kitchen and saw the same five bells ringing. A few minutes later they started to ring again; one of the bells rang so violently that it almost touched the ceiling.

From that time onwards the bells rang many times, and the Major and his servants became convinced that no living person was responsible, as they always seemed to ring when there was no one in the rooms concerned. During the time that the bells were ringing, Major Moore was careful to ensure that this wasn’t the work of a prankster. On numerous occasions the bells rang when all the members of the household were in the kitchen and the rest of the house was empty.

The phenomena lasted until 27 March when the ringing stopped as mysteriously as it had started. Then, in July 1836, the bells started ringing again. This time a bell-hanger was sent for. He examined all the wires but could not find any rational explanation. After about an hour the ringing stopped and was never heard again, except when the bells were being used by a member of the family.

The mystery was never solved, and Moore and his family concluded that paranormal activity must have occurred. Despite the most vigorous investigation, there has never been any explanation for the mysterious bell ringing at Bealings House.

BEANS

Beans have a long tradition of association with ghosts and the dead. American Indian traditions include elaborate rituals and dances involving beans. Ancient Greeks believed beans were associated with the souls of the dead, and the ancient Romans considered beans to be sacred and used them in rituals connected with the dead. They threw beans behind their backs as food offerings for ghosts, and they also spat beans at ghosts as a protection against them.

The connection of the bean to the realm of ghosts seems to be that it grows in a spiral and that its white flowers are symbolic of the purity of the bleached bones of death. Because breath is the evidence of life, as bizarre as it may seem to us today, the eating of beans and the flatulence it causes were thought by ancient Romans to be proof that the living souls of the dead resided inside the lowly bean.

BELL WITCH

The Bell Witch is one of the most unsavoury poltergeist cases on record, even though it has since been described as perhaps the ‘greatest American ghost story’. According to legend, it caused the death of a man.

The haunting took place in Robertson, Tennessee, in 1817 and intrigued many people, including future US President General Andrew Jackson. There are several versions of the story so it is hard to know what is fact and what is fiction, but the version generally relied upon is that based on the diary of Richard William Bell, one of the Bells’ sons.

John and Lucy Bell lived with their nine children on a farm. The phenomena started with noises and scraping and progressed to clothes being pulled off and furniture and stones being thrown about. Two of the children, Elizabeth and Richard, had their hair pulled one night, and Elizabeth was slapped and punched and pinched. Under investigation by the family and a neighbour, James Johnson, the poltergeist stepped up its activity, tormenting the family, especially Elizabeth, even more. Elizabeth was sent to stay with a neighbour, and the disturbances went with her, indicating that she was the focus of the activity.

The strange events continued over the next few years. Later activity included strange lights outside the house, stones thrown at Elizabeth’s brothers and sisters and visitors receiving slaps similar to Elizabeth’s. The entity also began to speak using foul language. According to reports a voice would appear from nowhere and with no identifiable source. The voice claimed to be various different people but eventually settled on the name of Kate Bates, a woman who had been dissatisfied with business dealings with the Bells. From then on the voice was called Kate.

Johnson advised forming a committee to investigate, and with that the Bell family became the object of much curiosity: General Jackson even paid a visit with a ‘witch layer’, a professional exorcist. According to legend, just outside Bell Lane their carriage got stuck. Kate’s voice could be heard promising to appear that night, and the carriage became unstuck. Later in the evening the witch layer tried to shoot Kate with a silver bullet but was slapped and chased out of the house.

On one occasion it was said Elizabeth was given an emetic to make her sick, and she threw up brass pins and needles. The poltergeist, who had a sick sense of humour, suggested that if she did it again Elizabeth would have enough to set up a shop.

Elizabeth’s father, John Bell, began to suffer from repeated bouts of illness, and Kate claimed she was the cause. He couldn’t eat, his tongue was swollen and Kate declared that she would torment him for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, this is exactly what she did. Finally the ordeals and cursing wore John down, and on the morning of 19 December 1820, he fell into a stupor, dying a day later. A bottle was found in the medicine cabinet, and when the contents were given to an animal the animal died. Kate declared with delight in her voice that she had poisoned John with the liquid while he was asleep.

After John Bell’s death the poltergeist activity diminished. Some time later Elizabeth got engaged to a Joshua Gardener, who apparently did not meet the poltergeist’s approval. The entity told Elizabeth not to marry Joshua and the couple could not go anywhere without the entity following them and persistently taunting them. In 1821 their patience finally snapped and they broke off their engagement.

Elizabeth eventually married a man called Dick Powell, and Kate finally disappeared with the words ‘I will be gone for seven years.’ John’s widow, Lucy Bell, and two of her sons who stayed at the farmhouse, did hear manifestations seven years later, but they kept quiet about it this time and the torment stopped after two weeks. Apparently the poltergeist promised to return in 1935 but failed to do so, or wasn’t noticed by anybody.

The Bells never understood why they were ‘attacked’ in this way, and Kate Bates never made any statements. The most commonly accepted theory is that the poltergeist activity focused on Elizabeth, who was the right age, around puberty, for sexual guilt and tension. It has been suggested that there was some kind of incestuous relationship between Elizabeth and her father, which would have distressed the young girl. This theory, however, does not account for poltergeist activity that took place when she was not around, such as that with General Jackson.

The legend of the Bell Witch continues to haunt the Bell farm to this day. Thankfully, the violent and terrible manifestations are a thing of the past, but she is believed to haunt a cave, called the Bell Witch Cave, where unearthly screams, knocks and noises have been reported.

BENTHAM, JEREMY [1748–1832]

The bizarre sight of the body of Jeremy Bentham, law reformer, scientist and philosopher, can be seen to this day mounted on display in University College London. Bentham was fascinated by mummification and believed that corpses, put on permanent display as memorials to the dead, or ‘auto icons’ as he called them, would become commonplace items in the houses of family and friends.

Prior to his death Bentham gave detailed instructions in his will about how his body should be preserved. He requested that his body be dissected, his bones be wired in a sitting position and his mummified corpse be dressed in his favourite black suit and straw hat, with his hand on his favourite walking stick, ‘Dapple’. Bentham’s preserved form is on display today in a case with glass sides. Apparently the mummification of his head was not successful, so it was removed and replaced by a wax head modelled in his likeness.

Over the years there have been various sightings of Bentham’s ghost walking the university corridors, tapping the floor with his cane or cradling his head in his arms.

BERRY POMEROY CASTLE

This ruined castle, located at Berry Pomeroy, Devon has been the scene of ghostly sightings and strange phenomena for hundreds of years. Even today, visitors to the castle remark upon its strange atmosphere and the feelings of foreboding and terror it inspires.

The great majority of the hauntings can be traced to the castle’s original owners, the Pomeroy family, who occupied it from about 1086 to 1550. The most terrifying apparitions are those of a white and a blue lady. The White Lady is believed to haunt the dark dungeons. According to the legend, she is the spirit of Margaret Pomeroy, who was imprisoned in the dungeons by her sister Eleanor. Eleanor was jealous of both Margaret’s beauty and her success with men, and Margaret slowly starved in the dungeons, a long drawn-out and painful death. Perhaps Margaret’s agony is the source of the feeling of unease and horror some people experience at the castle.

The Blue Lady roams around the castle as she pleases and has been seen trying to lure people into parts of the ruin. According to some stories she is the ghost of the daughter of one of the Norman lords of the castle. She was raped by her father, who then strangled the resulting baby in one of the upper rooms. In other tales it is she who smothers the child, haunting the castle in anguish. When she is seen, her face is said to portray this suffering. She is regarded as a death portent to those who see her. The well-known nineteenth-century physician Sir Walter Farquar is said to have seen the spirit while he was attending to the wife of one of the castle stewards. The wife died soon afterwards, although she seemed to be making a full recovery.

Other apparitions reported include a woman in a grey dress, the ubiquitous cavalier and strange shadows that appear to have no earthly presence to cast them.

BHUT

In Hindu mythology a bhut is believed to be the restless ghost of someone who has died a violent death or committed suicide. According to legend, the bhut has no shadow and can be detected by the smell of burning turmeric. It is thought that lying on the ground offers protection against it, as the bhut never rests on the earth.

BILOCATION

The appearance of a person or animal in two places at the same time. What exactly occurs in the phenomenon of bilocation is uncertain, but one theory is that a person’s double or doppelgänger is somehow projected elsewhere and becomes visible to others either in solid physical form or ghostly form. Generally the double remains silent or acts strangely. In folklore, bilocation sometimes presages or heralds the death of the individual seen.

Bilocation allegedly has been experienced and practised at will by mystics, ecstatics, saints, monks, holy persons and magical adepts. Several Christian saints and monks were skilled at bilocation, including St Antony of Padua, St Ambrose of Milan, St Severus of Ravenna, and Padre Pio of Italy. In 1774, St Alphonsus Liguori was seen at the bedside of the dying Pope Clement XIV, when in fact the saint was confined to his monastic cell in a location that was a four-day journey away.

Reports of bilocation were collected in the nineteenth century by pioneering psychical researcher Frederick Myers, one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research in England. Myers published his reports in 1903 in Human Personality and Its Survival after Bodily Death, but the phenomenon has received little interest in modern times.

Among the most remarkable of the documented cases of bilocation was the appearance of Friar Padre Pio in the air over San Giovanni Rotondo during World War II. While southern Italy remained in Nazi hands, American bombers were given the job of attacking the city of San Giovanni Rotondo. However, when they appeared over the city and prepared to unload their munitions, a brown-robed friar appeared before their aircraft. All attempts to release the bombs failed. In this way Padre Pio kept his earlier promise to the citizens that their town would be spared. Later on, when an American airbase was established at Foggia, a few miles away, one of the pilots of this incident visited the friary and found, to his great surprise, the little friar he had seen in the air that day over San Giovanni.

As to how Padre Pio accomplished such a feat, the closest he ever came to an explanation of bilocation was to say that it occurred ‘by an extension of his personality’.

BINDELOF SOCIETY

In spring of 1932 a group of American teenage boys began to experiment with table tilting. One of the boys had been associated with poltergeist activity a few years previously, and both he and his mother were fascinated by psychic phenomena. To their delight, the boys were able to get the table to tilt, then to lift off the floor and then to rise high into the air.

New York psychiatrist and dream researcher Montague Ullman visited the group in September 1932, and a regular schedule of meetings was drawn up. All regular sitters were aged between 15 and 17 years old. The teenagers would sit around a table in a dark room, their hands resting on the table and their feet underneath, for a period of 15 to 20 minutes, then there would be a break followed by another 15 to 20 minutes. After several sessions the group began to produce table tiltings and raps on a regular basis, and they decided to attempt psychic photography. When this became routine they turned their hand to another way to induce psychic phenomena. A pen and pencil were simply placed on a table and communication invited. It wasn’t long before writing could be heard and lengthy written messages appeared. The communicator identified himself as the deceased Dr Bindelof, who found himself able to use the psychic force the teenagers were generating to communicate with them. From that point on a dialogue was set up, and Dr Bindelof answered questions about the psychic world and the nature of the soul. By 1933 the Bindelof Society was formed.

Not all the boys were convinced that Dr Bindelof was who or what he said he was, and some thought they themselves were creating this entity through thought alone. None, however, doubted that the experience was real, and it was one they would never forget. The group split up around 1934, but in 1949 the core members met again to recreate the phenomena, this time without success. Attention now turned to making a permanent record of what had occurred, and the eventual product of this was a series of articles published by Montague Ullman in Exceptional Human Experience in 1993 and 1994.

BIRDS

Birds appearing in dreams are thought to represent spirits, angels, transcendence and the supernatural. In mythology birds are messengers from the spirit world, souls of the dead or carriers of souls of the dead. In European folklore black birds, such as crows and ravens, that cross your path or gather near your house are thought to be death omens.

BLACK ELK, NICHOLAS [1863–1950]

Black Elk was an Oglala Sioux mystic born in December 1863 on the Little Powder River, South Dakota. He was the son of the elder Black Elk and White Cow Sees Woman, and he devoted his life to helping his people find unity and strength.

From an early age Black Elk knew he was destined for great things. Around the age of four he began to hear voices, and a year later he had his first psychic vision. Aged nine he had his great vision, in which he was empowered by the Grandfathers, who represented the powers of the world. For two days he fell ill, and during this time he went in an out-of-body experience to the clouds, where he was greeted by the Grandfathers. They took him to the centre of the universe and gave him supernatural power to heal. The Grandfathers showed him the sacred hoop of his people, which represented their soul, and in the centre was a crossroads: one path, the red one, was sacred, while the other, black path was the path of materialism. A voice told Black Elk that he had been given his nation’s hoop and it was up to him to set them on the right path.

From the day of his vision Black Elk changed. He found he had prophetic visions and he could understand the songs of birds and animals. He used his great powers of healing and wisdom to help his people rediscover their traditions.

During Black Elk’s young adulthood, missionaries tried to convert the Oglala Sioux to Christianity, often by force. Black Elk himself was baptized Nicholas Black Elk on 6 December 1904, near present-day Pine Ridge, South Dakota, but his Lakota spirituality remained strong throughout his life. He took part in the underground movement supporting traditional religion, which became necessary after the US government outlawed native rituals. Throughout his life, he took part in both secret traditional practices and public Catholic rites.

Black Elk feared that US policies would destroy the Lakota Nation’s identity, so during the summer of 1930 he dictated his life story to John Neihardt. The resulting book, Black Elk Speaks, was published in 1932 and has been reprinted many times. In it Black Elk described the history of the Lakota Nation and provided a sense of hope for the future. His vision eventually became a message to the Lakota people – a warning not to assimilate completely and thereby lose their unique heritage.

Although Black Elk died in 1950, long before the passage of the Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978, his teachings, combined with this legislation, created a new respect for and interest in Lakota spirituality.

BLACK MAGIC

The use of supernatural and psychic power for evil ends, the opposite of white magic, which is concerned with healing and promoting what is good.

The term ‘black magic’ has been used with a wide variety of meanings and evokes such a variety of reactions that it has become vague and almost meaningless. It is often synonymous with three other multivocal terms: witchcraft, the occult and sorcery. The only similarity among its various uses is that it refers to human efforts to manipulate the supernatural with negative intent and the selfish use of psychic power for personal gain. Workers of black magic are thought to have but one goal: to satisfy their own desires at whatever cost to others.

Magic, good or evil, is universal, with no ethnic or racial association, and it is unfortunate that not just in Western civilization but many cultures around the world, good and evil have for centuries been denoted as white and black. White often designates healing, truth, purity, light and positive energy, while black is darkness, falsehood, evil and negative energy.

In modern times probably the most popular synonym for black magic is the occult. Originally the term meant hidden, hence mysterious, and was routinely used by classical and medieval scholars to refer to ‘sciences’ such as astrology, alchemy and kabbalah, but from the late nineteenth century, when magical sects such as the Order of the Golden Dawn emerged, the term began to take on the meaning of evil or satanic. Perhaps the best-known occultist and black magic practitioner was Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), who dubbed himself the Antichrist. More than any other person Crowley gave the occult an evil connotation.