He even spread starch powder on the floor of a seance room. He spent the night in haunted houses, even haunted beds (from which he was not thrown). With his keen ability to garner publicity, his “journalistic flair,” and his friends in the press, Price “succeed in modulating the seemingly impenetrable discourse of psychical research to make it palatable to a popular audience.” He called a ghost a ghost, not an “apparition” or “phantasm” like the more typical boffins. Conversely, there was a notable dearth of ghosts of peasants, coal miners, or child mill-workers. Aristocratic ghosts were “eloquent relics of a more civilized age.” Ghosts of Henry VIII and his headless wives, friars and nuns hearkening back to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and even toga-clad Romans tapped into specific fantasies of history. The “interwar ghost-hunters were trying to reconnect with an endangered history and culture in the face of rapid modernization,” as bland, featureless suburbs uprooted eccentric aristocrats-both the living and, supposedly, the dead. (Both the UK and US versions of the comedy Ghosts take place in inherited country houses.) “Historians of English hauntings have demonstrated that belief in ghosts often mirrors social values and reflects the cultural trends of the age,” notes Timms in contextualizing t he English ghost scene between the World Wars.Īfter the slaughter and destabilization of the Great War, there was a “perceived disintegration of national heritage as landed estates were being broken up and the heirlooms of their aristocratic owners dispersed among the new rich.” So “haunted houses” were invariably manor houses or large townhouses, never factory row-houses or slums where, statistically, a great many more untimely deaths took place. “Haunted houses” were invariably manor houses or large townhouses, never factory row-houses or slums where, statistically, a great many more untimely deaths took place. The donor of a large collection of occult literature to University of London, Price “expertly conveyed himself as a psychical researcher and yet helped shift the discipline from academic preoccupation with telepathy and clairvoyance towards the more obviously popular fascination with ghosts and poltergeists.” Timms details the adventures and prolific writings of Harry Price (1881–1948), who “artfully combined academic language and popular discourse” as he made his reputation as scientific researcher and swashbuckling ghost-hunter. ![]() ![]() “Psychical research was largely presented as an objective and detached activity,” notes Timms, “whereas ghost-hunters characteristically sought to appeal to a wider public through obviously emotive language and popular journalistic tactics, stressing human interest and the excitement of the pursuit.” Harry Price’s ghost-hunting kit, which amongst other things contained both reflex & cinematograph cameras, tools for sealing doors & windows, apparatus for secret electrical controls, steel tape, drawing instruments, torch, bottle of mercury and powdered graphite for developing finger-prints. ![]() But it was actually a noted psychical researcher who did much to blur the lines as he become the Indiana Jones of ghost-hunting. To the chagrin of some members of the Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1882 to study psychic and paranormal activity, they were lumped together with ghost-hunters in the popular imagination during the interwar period. The good news is, there isn’t long to wait – Lockwood & Co comes to Netflix from 27 January.A century ago, amateur English ghost-hunters and scientific psychical researchers intersected on the field of English heritage, writes scholar Joanna Timms, in a “ rejection of certain features of modernity and an attempt to evoke a vanishing social world.” Here’s the official synopsis: “In London, where the most gifted teenage ghost-hunters venture nightly into perilous combat with deadly spirits, amidst the many corporate, adult-run agencies, one stands alone: independent of any commercial imperative or adult supervision – a tiny startup, run by two teenage boys and a newly arrived, supremely psychically gifted girl, a renegade trio destined to unravel a mystery that will change the course of history: Lockwood & Co.” Meanwhile, the ghosts themselves look suitably scary, with sword-swinging action in the mix – and Cornish’s knack for dry wit surely means there’ll be some comedy there too. Doesn’t that look like a spooky, stylish treat? Based on Jonathan Stroud’s novels, the show presents a world similar to ours, but in which the rise of spectral terrors has had an impact on the way technology has developed – with an analogue, archaic feel.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |