Omaha daily bee., 1919-08-09
Truth and Ghosts
L. P. Jacks in the Atlantic Monthly.

A peculiar difficulty Tin the investigation
of psychic phenomenal which has not been
sufficiently noticed arises from the reluctance
of persons who have jumped to conclusions
about these things to admit, subsequent
proof, that they were wrong. To declare your
belief in Spirits" and then to be confronted
with proof that you were the victim of mis-
take, is particularly odious way of being made
to look fool. People exposed to this danger
will fight to the last ditch-fight till every
vestige of regard for truth has long been
thrown to the winds.
Recently | had an experience OF this in
investigating a haunted house, remarkably
we'll attested case After two or three of the
most trying nights of my life, | succeeded in
satisfying myself that the ghost was due to
natural causes, though | was more than once
on the point of seeing him myself, so great
was the nervous tension caused by watching
and waiting for his appearance. But when
presented my explanation to those who were
already committed to belief in the ghost, and
whose regulations for common sense were in
manner dependent on their stories being
verified, l encountered the darkest Of looks.
My explanations were not accepted.
| do not wonder at this, and | cannot deny
the possibility that, if l had stayed in the
house another night, | might either have seen
the ghost or come to believe that others had
seen him. l should undoubtedly have saved
myself a great deal of trouble and some un-
pleasantnesS if | had come down from the
haunted chamber with a circumstantial story
that | had seen the apparltion-a story which
| could easily have invented and maintained
without anybody being able to prove that l
was lying. Indeed, | must confess that the
temptation to do this did once or twice fur
lively suggest itself to my mind; and although
| managed to resist the voice of the tempter
who promised me much amusement and
reclame-1 could not help thinking that many
ghost stories have their origin in precisely this
temptation-to which, by the grace of God
| had turned deaf ear.
At all events, | learned that belief in
spirits, or in ghosts, when once it has been
expressed, is apt to become vested interest
of kind which people will not give up without
a struggle. The moral is that one should re-
frain from expressing such belief until he is
absolutely sure of his ground.
Here, too, the emotional stress was very
great, and it was none the less trying because
the predominant emotion happened to be that
of fear. Like Fontenelle, one need not be-
lieve in ghosts to be terribly afraid of them.
| certainly did not believe in the particular
ghost; | suspected from the outset that an
idee fxe had got possession of the witnesses;
but when, after watching for hours in dark
and silent corridor, | saw column of light
slowly form itself at the farther end, it was
nothing short of the courage of madness that
caused me to rush toward the "apparition =
only to discover that it was caused by the sud
denly uncouded moon shining through sky
light and reflected from the surface of highly
polished floor. I wonder even now why l
did not rush in the opposite direction, away
from the terrifying object instead of toward
it, calling out to all and sundry that had seen
the ghost
Under these peculiar conditions ones nor
NAL psychology is apt to be dislocated, and the
mind can play the strangest tricks upon itself.
The boundaries between truth and fasehood
become blurred, our very conscience gets out
of hand, and we may tell the most egregious
lies almost without consciousness that we
are lying.