Research source

To take another ancient instance, in his Philopseudes Lucian introduces a kind of club of superstitious men,…

Date of account: Published 1894
Source: Cock Lane and Common-Sense
Reference: Cock Lane and Common-Sense · selected passage 8
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

To take another ancient instance, in his Philopseudes Lucian introduces a kind of club of superstitious men, telling ghost stories

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

To take another ancient instance, in his Philopseudes Lucian introduces a kind of club of superstitious men, telling ghost stories. One of them assures his friend that the spectre of his late wife has visited and vexed him, because he had accidentally neglected to burn one of a pair of gilt shoes, to which she was attached. She indicated the place where the shoe was lying hidden, and she was pacified. Lucian, of course, treats this narrative in a spirit of unfeeling mirth, but, if such tales were not current in his time, there would have been no point in his banter. Thus the belief in the haunting of a husband by the spirit of his wife, the belief which drives a native Australian servant from the station where his gin is buried, survived old Egypt, and descended to Greece.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This comes from historical psychical research. Methods, witness handling and standards of evidence differ from present-day research and should be assessed from the cited passage and edition.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

The passage can support a history of claims and recurring descriptions. It does not establish a paranormal mechanism, and competing psychological, social and physical explanations remain relevant.

Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.