The 'Gaspar' 'Talking Poltergeist' Case

All authentic accounts of 'unexplained phenomena' will expand one's understanding of the natural Force making possible these occurrences.  There are incidents chronicled in the 'Gaspar' account that show patterns of correlation with other documented 'talking poltergeist' reports.  The source for this case is one of the books mentioned by Hereward Carrington in his chapter cataloging 375 'poltergeist' cases "The March of the Poltergeist" in Haunted People (1951) — Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World (1860) by Robert Dale Owen.  The following passage from Footfalls is a June 25, 1859 letter to the author from Mr. S. C. Hall of London and Owen's reaction is included.  The described events occurred circa 1820 in France and Suffolk, England.

GASPAR.

At Worcester, a few weeks since, I accidentally met, at the house of a banker in that city, a lady whom I had not previously known; and from her lips I heard a story of a character so extraordinary that no common-place voucher for the veracity of the narrator would suffice, in the eyes of most people, to establish its authenticity.

Nor was it an ordinary testimonial which, on applying to our host, he furnished to me.  He had known the lady, he said, for more than thirty years.  "So great is her truth," he added, "so easily proved is her uprightness, that I cannot entertain a doubt that she herself believes whatever she says."  Blameless in her walk and conversation, he regarded it as an incredibility that she should seek to deceive.  Of strong mind, and intelligent upon all subjects, it seemed almost as difficult for him to imagine that in the narrative he had himself frequently heard from her lips—clear and circumstantial as it was—she should have been a self-deceiver.  And thus he was in a dilemma.  For the facts were of a character which he was extremely reluctant to admit; while the evidence was of a stamp which it seemed impossible to question.

My own observation of the lady, stranger as she was to me, confirmed everything which her friend the banker had told me in her favour.  There was in her face and manner, even in the tones of her voice, that nameless something, rarely deceptive, which carries conviction of truth.  As she repeated the story, I could not choose but trust to her sincerity; and this the rather because she spoke with evident reluctance.  "It was rarely," the banker said, "that she could be prevailed on to relate the circumstances; her hearers being usually sceptics, more disposed to laugh than to sympathise with her."

Add to this, that neither the lady nor the banker were believers in Spiritualism, having heard, as they told me, "next to nothing" on the subject.

I commit no breach of confidence in the following communication.  "If you speak of this matter," said the lady to me, "I will ask you to suppress the name of the place in France where the occurrences took place."  This I have accordingly done.  I may add that the incidents here related had been the frequent subject of conversation and comment between the lady and her friends.

Thus premising, I proceed to give the narrative as nearly as I can in the lady's words.

"About the year 1820," she said, "we were residing at the seaport town of -----, in France, having removed thither from our residence in Suffolk.  Our family consisted of my father, mother, sister, a young brother about the age of twelve, and myself, together with an English servant.  Our house was in a lonely spot, on the outskirts of the town, with a broad, open beach around it, and with no other dwelling, nor any outbuildings, in its vicinity.

"One evening my father saw, seated on a fragment of rock only a few yards from his own door, a figure enveloped in a large cloak.  Approaching him, my father bid him "good-evening"; but, receiving no reply, he turned to enter the house.  Before doing so, however, he looked back, and, to his very great surprise, could see no one.  His astonishment reached its height when, on returning to the rock where the figure had seemed seated, and searching all round it, he could discover no trace whatever of the appearance, although there was not the slightest shelter near where any one could have sought concealment.

"On entering the sitting-room, he said, 'Children, I have seen a ghost!' at which, as may be supposed, we all heartily laughed.

"That night, however, and for several succeeding nights, we heard strange noises in various parts of the house—sometimes resembling moans underneath our window, sometimes sounding like scratches against the window-frames, while at other times it seemed as if a number of persons were scrambling over the roof.  We opened our window again and again, calling out to know if any one were there, but received no answer.

"After some days, the noises made their way into our bedroom, where my sister and myself (she twenty and I eighteen years of age) slept together.  We alarmed the house, but received only reproaches, our parents believing that we were affected by silly fancies.  The noises in our room were usually knocks, sometimes repeated twenty or thirty times in a minute, sometimes with the space perhaps of a minute between each.

"At length our parents also heard both the knockings in our room and the noises outside, and were fain to admit that it was no imagination.  Then the incident of the ghost was revived.  But none of us were seriously alarmed.  We became accustomed to the disturbances.

"One night, during the usual knockings, it occurred to me to say, aloud, 'If you are a spirit, knock six times.'  Immediately I heard six knocks, very distinctly given, and no more.

"As time passed on, the noises became so familiar as to lose all terrifying, even all disagreeable, effect; and so matters passed for several weeks.

"But the most remarkable part of my story remains to be told.  I should hesitate to repeat it to you, were not all the members of my family witnesses of its truth.  My brother—then, it is true, a boy only, now a man in years, and high in his profession—will confirm every particular.

"Besides the knockings in our bedroom, we began to hear—usually in the parlor—what seemed a human voice.  The first time this startling phenomenon occurred, the voice was heard to join in one of the domestic songs of the family while my sister was at the piano.  You may imagine our astonishment.  But we were not long left in doubt as to whether, in this instance, our imaginations had deceived us.  After a time, the voice began to speak to us clearly and intelligibly, joining from time to time in the conversation.  The tones were low, slow, and solemn, but quite distinct: the language was uniformly French.

"The spirit—for such we called it—gave his name as Gaspar, but remained silent whenever we made inquiry touching his history and condition in life.  Nor did ho ever assign any motive for his communications with us.  We received the impression that he was a Spaniard; but I cannot recall any certain reason even for such belief.  He always called the family by their Christian names.  Occasionally he would repeat to us lines of poetry.  He never spoke on subjects of a religious nature or tendency, but constantly inculcated Christian morality, seeming desirous to impress upon us the wisdom of virtue and the beauty of harmony at home.  Once, when my sister and myself had some slight dispute, we heard the voice saying, "M----- is wrong; S----- is right."  From the time he first declared himself he was continually giving us advice, and always for good.*  (*The italics are in the original manuscript.)

"On one occasion my father was extremely desirous to recover some valuable papers which he feared might have been lost.  Gaspar told him exactly where they were, in our old house in Suffolk; and there, sure enough, in the very place he designated, they were found. 

"'The matter went on in this manner for more than three years.  Every member of the family, including the servants, had heard the voice.  The presence of the spirit—for we could not help regarding him as present—was always a pleasure to us all.  We came to regard him as our companion and protector.  One day he said, 'I shall not be with you again for some months.'  And, accordingly, for several months his visits intermitted.  When, one evening at the end of that time, we again heard the well-known voice, 'I am with you again!' we hailed his return with joy.

"At the times the voice was heard, we never saw any appearance; but one evening my brother said.  'Gaspar, I should like to see you'; to which the voice replied, ''You shall see me.  I will meet you if you go to the furthest side of the square.'  He went, and returned presently, saying, 'I have seen Gaspar.  He was in a large cloak, with a broad-brimmed hat.  I looked under the hat, and he smiled upon me.'  'Yes,' said the voice, joining in, 'that was I.'

"But the manner of his final departure was more touching, even, than his kindness while he stayed.  We returned to Suffolk; and there, as in France, for several weeks after our arrival, Gaspar continued to converse with us, as usual.  One day, however, he said, 'I am about to leave you altogether.  Harm would come to you if I were to be with you here in this country, where your communications with me would be misunderstood and misinterpreted.'

"From that time," concluded the lady, in that tone of sadness with which one speaks of a dear friend removed by death—"from that time to this, we never heard the voice of Gaspar again!"

These are the facts as I had them.  They made me think; and they may make your readers think.  Explanation or opinion I pretend not to add, further than this: that of the perfect good faith of the narrator I entertain no doubt whatever.  In attestation of the story as she related it, I affix my name.

London, June 25, 1859.

S. C. Hall

What are we to think of a narrative coming to us so directly from the original source, and told in so straightforward a manner, as this?  What hypothesis, be it of trickery, self-delusion, or hallucination, will serve us to set it aside?  One, two, a dozen, incidents, running through a week or two, might, at utmost need, be explained away, as the result, perhaps, of some mystification—possibly of some mistake of the senses.  But a series of phenomena extending throughout three years, witnessed, long before the era of Spiritualism, in the quiet of domestic privacy, by every member of an enlightened family—observed, too, without the slightest terror to mislead, or excitement to disqualify as witness, making, day after day, on all the witnesses, the same impression — upon what rational plea, short of suspicion of wilful deception, can we set aside, as untrustworthy, such observations as these?

I seek in vain any middle ground.  Either an oral communication, apparently from an ultra-mundane source, is possible; or else a cultivated and intelligent family, of high standing and unimpeached honor, combined to palm upon their friends a stark lie.  Not the narrator alone: her father, mother, brother, sister, must all have been parties to a gross and motiveless falsehood, persisted in through a lifetime; nay, a falsehood not motiveless only, but of certain and evident injury, in a worldly sense.  For such a story, as every one knows, cannot, in the present prejudiced state of public opinion, be told (let the narrator be ever so highly respected) without risk of painful comment and injurious surmise.

On the other hand, that a disembodied spirit should speak to mortal ears, is one of those ultra-mundane phenomena, alleged in several of the preceding narratives, which the reader may have found it the most difficult to credit or conceive.