The Big Book of Canadian Hauntings. John Robert Colombo
are anomalous occurrences — that is, any attempt to explain them or at least to account for the fact that they have happened in the past and will happen again in the future makes for “heavy lifting.” An experience that is anomalous may be simply unconventional, or it may be really strange, odd, peculiar, or eccentric. It may also be abnormal in the sense that such events and experiences are not easily explained, difficult to account for, and hence lead to unease and sometimes worse. I would call them supernatural states except for the fact that there is a better way to describe them, and that is to refer to them as preternatural states. They are not “super” anything, but they are beyond normal states. The Canadian psychologist Graham Reed labelled them anomalous experiences, thereby liberating them from the last pages of textbooks on psychology and psychiatry where they used to be herded together and regarded as abnormal experiences.
I cannot account for the persistence, the variety, or the intensity of these experiences. What I can attest to is that my informants — the men and women who sought me out to recall their experiences for me and for my readers — believe that these psychological and sometimes physical events occurred as they are described, factually and fully, and that they are as puzzled by these experiences as I am. There is no doubting the immense power of such encounters and the dramatic need to recall them and then relate them to sympathetic souls. A psychological event that took place thirty years ago, which lasted for thirty seconds at the most, leaves an indelible impression on the tablets of memory, on the chalkboard of the heart, and in the pit of the stomach. I wish I could account for such experiences, though I believe, by now, most of the informants have given up expecting an explanation for them. Some correspondents wish confirmation that they are not alone in experiencing such episodes; others wish to add their descriptions to the ever-widening pool of anomalous experience, what psychical researchers in the late nineteenth century called their 8220;census of hallucinations,” using the latter word in the sense of disorientation rather than illusion.
I am an author and anthologist by profession, and an editor and writer by training, who, ever since he can remember, has been fascinated by — and bewildered with — accounts of anomalous events and experiences: reports of ghosts and spirits, apparitions and spectres, the poltergeist and the entity experience, prophecies and predictions, legends and myths, strange gifts and wild talents, visions and revelations, clairvoyance and precognition, psychokinesis and extrasensory perception, psychical research and parapsychology, psychometry and precognition, alternate states of consciousness, reincarnation and past-life regression, cryptozoology, miraculous cures, occult organizations, near-death and out-of-body experiences, conspiracy theories, unidentified flying objects, alien beings and hybrid creatures ... you name it!
Once I began in earnest to collect and publish accounts of such episodes and occurrences in this country, I was dubbed “Canada’s Mr. Mystery.” I have now published some three dozen collections of such encounters with the irrational and each one includes introductory and often explanatory notes. Since I am interested in the past as much as I am in the present, with each book I try to offer readers some historical material, largely in the form of columns reprinted from nineteenth-century newspapers and books. But in the main readers are offered new, never-before-published accounts that I have gleaned from my own explorations and investigations, inquiries and interrogations, and correspondence on paper and via email. I encourage readers of my books to communicate with me directly and to share with me, and then with future readers, accounts of their own experiences, no matter how bizarre.
The question must be asked: as a reader, should I trust that these accounts are truthful? Let me attempt to answer that question. In the past I would request each person contributing an account to one of my collections to sign a statement that affirms that the account to be published is truthful, accurate, and complete — the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. No one ever refused to sign this statement, though the occasional contributor requested anonymity or subsequently developed cold feet and asked that nothing at all be published. All such requests have been honoured. Subsequently I dispensed with that statement. But I do, in my own way, keep my eyes open for what I call the “three Fs.” These are fraud, foolishness, and fantasy. But we discussed those earlier.
Over the four decades that I have been collecting these accounts, I have come to a number of conclusions about “told-as-true” stories in general, and about the ones that appear in these pages in particular. I call these accounts memorates, employing the term used in folklore studies to refer to first-person accounts of experiences that are confided to friends and family members. These are originally oral in nature and are not meant for broader distribution, as they are shared to bear witness, not argue or convince anyone of anything. When I use the folklorist’s term, I do not argue that the accounts themselves are folklore, or that they are “fakelore,” only that they bear some of the characteristics of folklore, the two principle ones being repetition and variation. The accounts are quite often quite similar with incidental differences.
Typically the memorate will begin, “You won’t believe me when I tell you what happened to me the other day.” Typically it will end, “And that’s what happened. I don’t know what to make of it.” In between, a standard account will be a straight-forward description of an odd happening that is objectively described and subjectively validated. So the memorate comes in three parts, with the beginning and the ending stressing a modicum of belief, a quantum of disbelief, and a fair amount of not knowing what to think.
The key factor of the memorate is that the witness himself is at a loss to explain what has happened, what is going on, and what it could possibly mean. When I have asked witnesses about their belief systems, I am quite often surprised to learn that they have none, at least none that will make sense of the experience that they have had and have described. Some people subsequently become knowledgeable about New Age matters, and UFO sighters typically know all about “mother ships” and “aliens,” “contact,” and “hybrids.” Indeed, they seem well informed. I myself am at a loss to explain what has been occurring, and all I can do is suggest the dynamic or organic mechanisms involved. So what I do fall back on is my own familiarity with descriptions of such experiences, so I assure witnesses that far from being extraordinary, such experiences are surprisingly commonplace!
I am regularly asked about my own beliefs. People directly ask, “Do you believe in ghosts?” Over the years I have perfected a reply that runs like this: “I do not believe in ghosts. I do not disbelieve in ghosts. I am interested in ghosts.” I will often add the following admission: “What I do believe in is ghost stories.” I find these narratives to be convincing in and of themselves. Depending on the interest of the questioner, I might reply, “Ghosts and spirits do not belong to the category of belief. They belong to the category of experience.” Yet the question that I keep asking myself is, “Why are these accounts so riveting? Why do people recall in such detail the sight of a spectral figure that appeared for ten seconds before vanishing so many years ago, even decades ago? Why are they compelled to tell and retell their experiences to people like myself who ask them about their encounters and are prepared to listen to them?” In some ways the witnesses are like the Ancient Mariner or the Flying Dutchman, burdened with fabulous memories.
Those are questions to ask, but not of everyone. Some people have no time at all for ghosts and spirits; other people are held spellbound by these subjects. At receptions I enjoy asking people, “Have you ever seen a ghost?” The usual answer is no. I then ask a supplementary question: “If you have never seen a ghost, do you know someone whose judgment you respect who has told you that he or she has seen a ghost?” There is usually a pause here, followed by the hesitant answer, “Well, yes. My brother / sister / uncle / cousin / best friend told me he saw a ghost.”
It is frequently said that ghosts and spirits are illusions and delusions and that we would be better off if we simply forgot about them. Then it is sometimes added, rather mysteriously, “This way leads to madness” or “These are works of the Devil.” That does not make much sense. There are no good reasons to ignore this dimension of the human personality. Ignoring such experiences guarantees continued ignorance. In fact, I am prepared to argue, and have done so on many an occasion, that ghosts and spirits are good for us. They are good for us because they require us to open our minds to the possibility