Post by shui on Oct 14, 2013 3:47:51 GMT
The debate on whether or not ghosts are real has gone on for centuries. The tale of Philip Aylesford may not resolve that debate, but it’s certainly food for thought.
Philip was an aristocratic Englishman, living in the middle 1600s at the time of Oliver Cromwell. He had been a supporter of the King, and was a Catholic. He was married to a beautiful but cold and frigid wife, Dorothea, the daughter of a neighboring nobleman.
One day when out riding on the boundaries of his estates Philip came across a gypsy encampment and saw there a beautiful dark-eyed girl raven-haired gypsy girl, Margo, and fell instantly in love with her. He brought her back secretly to live in the gatehouse, near the stables of Diddington Manor – his family home.
For some time he kept his love-nest secret, but eventually Dorothea, realizing he was keeping someone else there, found Margo, and accused her of witchcraft and stealing her husband. Philip was too scared of losing his reputation and his possessions to protest at the trial of Margo, and she was convicted of witchcraft and burned at the stake.
Philip was subsequently stricken with remorse that he had not tried to defend Margo and used to pace the battlements of Diddington in despair. Finally, one morning his body was found at the bottom of the battlements, whence he had cast himself in a fit of agony and remorse.
So says the biography of Philip Aylseford as collected by the Toronto Society for Psychical Research (TSPR). In 1973, they held a series of seances to communicate with Philip, which proved to be quite successful.
Philip initially communicated by taps and raps on the table. He would also shake or move the table on request, and cause the lights in the room to turn on and off. He answered any questions put to him to the best of his knowledge. Being scientifically minded, the TSPR recorded a few of their seances on film. Interested readers can purchase Philip: The Imaginary Ghost and see for themselves the evidence of Philip’s existence.
The interesting thing about Philip, though, is that the TSPR made him up. In fact, they deliberately inserted details into his completely fictional biography to ensure that there could not possibly have been such a person in real history. They had apparently *created* a ghost with actual paranormal powers. What’s more, the results were reproduced several times by several other groups creating other fictional ghosts, including a man from the future and a talking dolphin.
Does this mean that ghosts are all created by the human mind? Or does some real entity wander in and pretend to be the one we’ve invented? The world may never know.
Philip was an aristocratic Englishman, living in the middle 1600s at the time of Oliver Cromwell. He had been a supporter of the King, and was a Catholic. He was married to a beautiful but cold and frigid wife, Dorothea, the daughter of a neighboring nobleman.
One day when out riding on the boundaries of his estates Philip came across a gypsy encampment and saw there a beautiful dark-eyed girl raven-haired gypsy girl, Margo, and fell instantly in love with her. He brought her back secretly to live in the gatehouse, near the stables of Diddington Manor – his family home.
For some time he kept his love-nest secret, but eventually Dorothea, realizing he was keeping someone else there, found Margo, and accused her of witchcraft and stealing her husband. Philip was too scared of losing his reputation and his possessions to protest at the trial of Margo, and she was convicted of witchcraft and burned at the stake.
Philip was subsequently stricken with remorse that he had not tried to defend Margo and used to pace the battlements of Diddington in despair. Finally, one morning his body was found at the bottom of the battlements, whence he had cast himself in a fit of agony and remorse.
So says the biography of Philip Aylseford as collected by the Toronto Society for Psychical Research (TSPR). In 1973, they held a series of seances to communicate with Philip, which proved to be quite successful.
Philip initially communicated by taps and raps on the table. He would also shake or move the table on request, and cause the lights in the room to turn on and off. He answered any questions put to him to the best of his knowledge. Being scientifically minded, the TSPR recorded a few of their seances on film. Interested readers can purchase Philip: The Imaginary Ghost and see for themselves the evidence of Philip’s existence.
The interesting thing about Philip, though, is that the TSPR made him up. In fact, they deliberately inserted details into his completely fictional biography to ensure that there could not possibly have been such a person in real history. They had apparently *created* a ghost with actual paranormal powers. What’s more, the results were reproduced several times by several other groups creating other fictional ghosts, including a man from the future and a talking dolphin.
Does this mean that ghosts are all created by the human mind? Or does some real entity wander in and pretend to be the one we’ve invented? The world may never know.