Research source

XIV. I GO ON WITH THE HISTORY OF MY LIFE, AND NARRATE A GHOSTLY HAPPENING IN LIVERPOOL 183

Date of account: Published 1916
Source: Twenty Years' Experience as a Ghost Hunter
Reference: Twenty Years' Experience as a Ghost Hunter · selected passage 126
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

I am acquainted with an old lady, who tells me that she often talks with Charles Dickens, Napoleon Bonaparte, Cardinal Newman and other eminents

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

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I am acquainted with an old lady, who tells me that she often talks with Charles Dickens, Napoleon Bonaparte, Cardinal Newman and other eminents. I have enquired how, and she has reluctantly admitted that the spirits of these eminents come to her at a séance conducted by a professional medium, who, of course, is paid very liberally for her services. The medium, I gather, sits behind a screen, where she is supposed to wait, until she is obsessed. When everything is ready, she glides out, and in a voice purporting to be that of Napoleon, or of someone equally distinguished, she converses with this foolish and conceited old lady. It seems incredible that anyone outside a lunatic asylum could believe that the spirits of such great men as Napoleon, Newman and Dickens should take the trouble to obsess a medium, in order to chat with some nonentity, who is neither extraordinarily clever nor particularly interesting. And yet there are dozens of people, apart from the old lady I have mentioned, who know so little of genius and eminence, and even ordinary talent, as to believe this incongruous happening to be possible.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

A modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.

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