C.S. Lewis's Ghost Story

We've had Padre Pio and a ghost, St. John Bosco and a ghost. For Halloween itself, let's get one where the famous person is himself the ghost!

At the time, J. B. Phillips was in a deep depression that threatened his life. He refused to leave his chambers, refused proper food or exercise, and seriously questioned the love and election of God [in his life]. It was in this state of detachment and depression, leading to his early death…that suddenly, a ruddy and glowing C. S. Lewis stood before him, entering his room through closed doors -- a “healthy Lewis, hearty and glowing” as Phillips was later to record.

In this vision, Lewis only spoke only one sentence to Phillips: ‘J.B., it’s not as hard as you think.’ One solitary sentence, the meaning of which is debated! But what is not debated is the effect of that sentence. It snapped Phillips out of his depression, and set him again following God. After Lewis spoke that cryptic sentence, he disappeared.

Phillips came out of his chambers only to find that Lewis had died moments before the appearance, miles away. He pondered this in his heart, with wonder, and never returned to his depression. Now, was this a case of God giving a detour of a soul on the way to heaven to a special friend, to save him? Who knows? But again, it is recorded evidence of the highest order, by persons of the highest order: Lewis and Phillips. It is a ghost story, a benevolent one, to all appearances – actually, not only benevolent, but redemptive [which I would take as an element of authenticity].

This story is found in a lot of places but I like this retelling which is from Thoughts of Loy.

Happy Halloween!

Kirsten's Jack O'Lanterns

I can't believe I know people who actually carved these. Talk about a labor of love! And of creativity!

And some poetry to go along with it!

"Hallowe'en in a Suburb" by H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)

The steeples are white in the wild moonlight,
And the trees have a silver glare;
Past the chimneys high see the vampires fly,
And the harpies of upper air,
That flutter and laugh and stare.

For the village dead to the moon outspread
Never shone in the sunset's gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep
Where the rivers of madness stream
Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.

A chill wind weaves through the rows of sheaves
In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.

Not a breath of the strange grey gods of change
That tore from the past its own
Can quicken this hour, when a spectral power
Spreads sleep o'er the cosmic throne,
And looses the vast unknown.

So here again stretch the vale and plain
That moons long-forgotten saw,
And the dead leap gay in the pallid ray,
Sprung out of the tomb's black maw
To shake all the world with awe.

And all that the morn shall greet forlorn,
The ugliness and the pest
Of rows where thick rise the stones and brick,
Shall some day be with the rest,
And brood with the shades unblest.

Then wild in the dark let the lemurs bark,
And the leprous spires ascend;
For new and old alike in the fold
Of horror and death are penned,
For the hounds of Time to rend.

St. John Bosco's Ghost Story

This is a little reminder that All Saints' Day is on Tuesday (formerly known as All Hallow's Day), without which we would not have Hallowe'en (formerly known as All Hallow's Eve).

Nothing like a saint telling a ghost story to both celebrate spookiness and also ... saintliness!

While a young man, St. John Bosco (1815-1888) and his friend, Comollo, agreed that whoever died first would return and give a sign about the state of their soul. Comollo died on April 2, 1839. The evening following the funeral, Bosco sat sleepless on his bed in the room he shared with twenty seminarians.

“Midnight struck and I then heard a dull rolling sound from the end of the passage, which grew ever more clear, loud and deep, the nearer it came. It sounded as though a heavy dray were being drawn by many horses, like a railway train, almost like the discharge of a cannon…While the noise came nearer the dormitory, the walls, ceiling and floor of the passage re-echoed and trembled behind it…

Then the door opened violently of its own accord without anybody seeing anything except a dim light of changing colour that seemed to control the sound…Then a voice was clearly heard, ‘Bosco, Bosco, Bosco, I am saved.’… The seminarists leapt out of bed and fled without knowing where to go. … for a long time there was no other subject of conversation in the seminary.”

Isle of the Dead

Arnold Böcklin, Isle of the Dead: "Basel" version, 1880

This was so popular that the artist did several different versions of it. Read all about it at Wikipedia. Here's a bit.

All versions of Isle of the Dead depict a desolate and rocky islet seen across an expanse of dark water. A small rowboat is just arriving at a water gate and seawall on shore. An oarsman maneuvers the boat from the stern. In the bow, facing the gate, is a standing figure clad entirely in white. Just behind the figure is a white, festooned object commonly interpreted as a coffin. The tiny islet is dominated by a dense grove of tall, dark cypress trees—associated by long-standing tradition with cemeteries and mourning—which is closely hemmed in by precipitous cliffs. Furthering the funerary theme are what appear to be sepulchral portals and windows penetrating the rock faces.

A Lane

John Atkinson Grimshaw, A Lane

John Atkinson Grimshaw's work all seems wonderfully gloomy, which is perfect for this time of year. Who is that figure in the moonlight, dwarfed by the trees and sky? An innocent traveler out late? Someone sinister? Someone in need? We are left to wonder.

Padre Pio's Ghost Story

Speaking of ghosts, since Halloween is close upon us ...

Padre Pio told the story of being in the choir alone one evening to pray. He heard rustling and looked up to see a young monk dusting and straightening up the altar. When he asked who the monk was, he was told: “I am a brother of yours that made the novitiate here. I was ordered to clean the altar during the year of the noviciate. Unfortunately many times I didn’t reverence Jesus while passing in front of the altar, thus causing the Holy Sacrament that was preserved in the tabernacle to be disrespected. For this serious carelessness, I am still in Purgatory. Now, God, with his endless goodness, sent me here so that you may quicken the time I will enjoy Paradise. Take care of me.”

Source

Portrait of Padre Pio by Solomenco Bogdan
via Wikipedia

O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?

... we can give the supernatural world of evil too much power. I guess it's a case of either the devil isn't real or the devil is on every street corner hiding inside a pumpkin. Surely there is a middle ground where we acknowledge supernatural evil but we recognize its limited power in the face of the power of Christ.

Ironically I wonder if this might have been what some of the Christians were doing when they celebrated All Hallow's Eve and All Saints Day in the past. Those festivities were opportunities to laugh in the face of evil spirits, to dress up as them and sort of mock them, saying, "Hey check this out. These big, scary demons, they're just empty masks. When you compare them with the power of the risen Jesus Christ, they're not up to much."

I wonder if Halloween offers us a chance to affirm our eternal life while looking into the face of death which has actually lost its sting ... For Christians the scariness of death is not scary. Not really. Because we've got eternal life.

Peter Laws

St. James Church Cemetery

St. James Church Or Goose Creek Church And Cemetery, 1872 Engraving

Deliciously spooky!

Carving the Pumpkin

Carving the Pumpkin by Franck Antoine Bail, 1910
via J.R.'s Art Place

Lovecraftian School Board Member Wants Madness Added To Curriculum

"Our schools are orderly, sanitary places where students dwell in blissful ignorance of the chaos that awaits," West said. "Should our facilities be repaired? No, they must be razed to the ground and rebuilt in the image of the Cyclopean dwellings of the Elder Gods, the very geometry of which will drive them to be possessed by visions of the realms beyond." ...

"Charles sure likes to bang on that madness drum," fellow school board member Danielle Kolker said. "I'm not totally sold on his plan to let gibbering, half-formed creatures dripping with ichor feed off the flesh and fear of our students. But he is always on time to help set up for our spaghetti suppers, and his bake sale goods are among the most popular."

"I must admit, he's very convincing," Kolker added.

This excerpt is from one of my favorite of The Onion's pieces. I enjoy rereading it every year. Do go read it all.

The Autumn People

For some, autumn comes early, stays late through life where October follows September and November touches October and then instead of December and Christ's birth, there is no Bethlehem star, no rejoicing, but September comes again and old October and so on down the years, with no winter, spring, or revivifying summer. For these beings, fall is the ever normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles -- breaks. Such are the autumn people. Beware of them.

Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

Proof that horror fantasy can also be poetic.

All Decorated

Decorated House, Weatherby, Pennsylvania

Is there such a thing as being too decorated for Halloween? The answer is no, definitely not.

The Ghosts' High Noon

From Ruddigore by Gilbert and Sullivan.

When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls, and the bat in the moonlight flies,
And inky clouds, like funeral shrouds, sail over the midnight skies –
When the footpads quail at the night-bird's wail, and black dogs bay at the moon,
Then is the spectres' holiday – then is the ghosts' high-noon!

Ha! ha!
For then is the ghosts' high-noon!

As the sob of the breeze sweeps over the trees, and the mists lie low on the fen,
From grey tomb-stones are gathered the bones that once were women and men,
And away they go, with a mop and a mow, to the revel that ends too soon,
For cockcrow limits our holiday – the dead of the night's high-noon!

Ha! ha!
For then is the ghosts' high-noon!

And then each ghost with his ladye-toast to their churchyard beds takes flight,
With a kiss, perhaps, on her lantern chaps, and a grisly grim "good-night";
Till the welcome knell of the midnight bell rings forth its jolliest tune,
And ushers in our next high holiday – the dead of the night's high-noon!

Ha! ha!
For then is the ghosts' high-noon!

Pirates

Illustration from page 141 of Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates

 Terrifying, am I right?

Herbsttraum (Autumn)

 

Daniel Stark, Herbsttraum (Autumn), some rights reserved

Halloween's Coming: Horror, Monster, and Monstrance

We're going to count down to Halloween with some of my favorite spooky quotes and images. But let's put it in perspective first ... Catholic perspective that is!

By Toby Ord

Most people don't think of horror as a genre of literature or film that is particularly agreeable to Christian sensibilities. However, two of the great practitioners of horror on both page and screen consider their work to be an extension of the gospel. Stephen King, author of many a scary tale, says that he considers himself the spiritual heir of the great Puritan preacher, Jonathan Edwards (who preached the famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"). William Peter Blatty, who penned "The Exorcist" wrote the story precisely in order to show both the depths of demonic evil and to remind the world of the reality of Christ-like self-sacrifice.

By Broederhugo

It is the depth of the darkness of the Enemy that paradoxically highlights the brilliance of the light of Heaven. Indeed, the word "monster" comes from the same root as the word "demonstrate" and "monstrance." A "monster" demonstrates what we can and will be apart from Christ. A monstrance shows forth the saving eucharistic, and self-sacrificial power of him who underwent the worst horror the world has ever known to save us from the terrors of Hell. He has prepared a eucharistic table for us in the presence of Satan himself--and deprived him of his prey.

This Halloween, be not afraid.

Catholic Exchange, Word of Encouragement, Oct. 31, 2005

El Gato Negro

Sometimes foreign movie posters capture the essence of the thing so much better than the American ones. That cat looks like a panther, ready to strike!

Halloween Lagniappe: H.P. Lovecraft

Through all this horror my cat stalked unperturbed. Once I saw him monstrously perched atop a mountain of bones, and wondered at the secrets that might lie behind his yellow eyes.

H.P. Lovecraft, The Rats in the Walls

Another of my favorite horror authors chimes in for Halloween from one of my favorite of his stories. A lesser tale, but still a good 'un.

Kohada Koheiji

Beginning our very occasional Halloween posts, which will gear up in intensity as we near Halloween!

Kohada Koheiji, Hokusai
from the series Hyaku Monogatari [One Hundred Ghost Stories] (ca. 1830)
via J.R.'s Art Place

Based on a real event, the cuckold and murder victim Kohada Koheiji returns from the dead to torment his cheating wife and lover. Here he grins over the top of the mosquito netting that surrounds the bed of his killers.

See more at Public Domain Review.

Fleeing Skeleton

Fleeing Skeleton by Władysław Podkowiński, 1892.

We have entered October where scary things will be featured at the end of the month! Or one could think of this as a bit of memento mori (an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death)!