Research source

Before the Restoration it was distinctly dangerous to laugh at witchcraft, ghosts and hauntings

Date of account: Published 1894
Source: Cock Lane and Common-Sense
Reference: Cock Lane and Common-Sense · selected passage 106
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

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

Before the Restoration it was distinctly dangerous to laugh at witchcraft, ghosts and hauntings. But the laughers came in with the merry monarch, and less by argument than by ridicule, by inveighing against the horror, too, of the hideous witch prosecutions, the laughers gradually brought hauntings and apparitions into contempt. Few educated people dared to admit that their philosophy might not be wholly exhaustive. Even ladies sneered at Dr. Johnson because he, having no dread of common-sense before his eyes, was inclined to hold that there might be some element of truth in a world-old and world-wide belief; and the romantic Anna Seward told, without accepting it, Scott's tale of 'The Tapestried chamber'. That a hundred years after the highday and triumph of common-sense, people of education should be found gravely investigating all that common- sense had exploded, is a comfortable thought to the believer in Progress.

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.

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