If you think that ghostbusters exist only in movies, then you are deeply mistaken. They really are! And # 1 of them is, of course, Harry Price, an English writer and paranormal researcher. Catching ghosts, he gave 40 of the 67 years of his life.
SCIENTIFIC APPROACH
Price differed from his colleagues by a practical approach to business. No mysticism and blind faith in otherworldly forces. He tried to verify all anomalous phenomena for authenticity using scientific equipment and instruments. But where to get the necessary equipment and, most importantly, the authority for research? And then Price sent an official request to the University of London asking for the creation and funding of the Department of Parapsychology and permission to rent equipment from the University's National Laboratory. Nowadays, scientists, having received such a paper, would only twirl their fingers at their temples. But at the beginning of the 20th century, Price's request was granted. In 1934, the Committee for the Study of Parapsychology was founded, in which Harry became Honorary Secretary and Editor. He zealously got down to business. True, he was much better at exposing charlatans,than catching real spirits. He brought a lot of "ventriloquists" out into the open, caught the Austrian medium Rudi Schneider on "sleight of hand", explained from a scientific point of view the possibility of man walking on burning coals. Harry Price actually took the job of the famous perfume photographer William Hope, proving that his photographs were fake. There were many similar cases in Price's biography.
GHOST HOUSE
And yet, sometimes he was really lucky, and then the objects of his study were entire houses inhabited by ghosts. Such, for example, as Borley's house in Great Britain, built already in 1863. Even the first owner of the house, a priest, claimed that a restless spirit dwells in the building. And he had grounds for such statements.
The fact is that in the 17th century, on the site of Borly's house, there was a nunnery, within the walls of which a tragedy was played out, a classic for institutions of this kind: one of the nuns fell in love with a young man. The young people decided to flee. But, when the horses were already beating their hooves, waiting for the fugitives, the girl was captured. Her lover was hanged, and she was immured alive in the wall. Centuries have passed. The monastery was demolished, and a house was built in its place, where the Reverend Henry Dawson Alice Bull settled. In vain. The priest did not know a single good night: with the onset of darkness, the house was filled with otherworldly sounds - an organ played, footsteps, sighs, someone's singing were heard. The ghost of the poor nun himself walked every night in the park along the same alley, which was later called the "nun's alley." The children of the priest saw people dressed in old clothes, and one of them was even slapped by the ghost. But the Bull family was not one of the timid. On July 28, 1890, one of the priest's daughters asked the ghost of a nun if she needed anything. The ghost immediately disappeared …
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In 1928, the Smith married couple became tenants of the strange building. Their relationship with the ghost went wrong from the very beginning: the nun for something disliked the Smiths and pestered at night with doorbells and regular promenades along the alley. In addition, other oddities appeared in the house: keys were lost by themselves, dishes flew and broke.
The exhausted Smiths in 1929 turned to the newspaper for help, and that, in turn, connected the director of the National Laboratory for Psychical Research, Harry Price, to the research. The ghost hunter arrived at the restless house, but could not help: the aggression of the spirits only intensified. Frustrated, the Smiths asked Price with their things to go out, and soon they moved out themselves.
Following them, the owners of the haunted estate were some Foysters. This got even more: the hands of the ghost strangled the hostess, threw her out of bed. No wonder that in 1935 the unfortunate owners of the building left it, leaving … Harry Price for research.
SEPARATE NEGOTIATIONS
For a whole year, Price studied the ill-fated house, photographing and filming its anomalous phenomena. The list of guests from the other world turned out to be very wide. In addition to the tortured nun, Price and his assistants recorded headless people, a figure in green, a girl in white, and ghosts of horses harnessed to a carriage. All these entities turned out to be extremely talkative and noisy. Price heard a woman's voice, horses stomping, dogs barking, bells ringing, and various creaks, rustles, and grinding. Sometimes inscriptions appeared on the walls, containing requests for prayer.
When the researcher entered the house, the temperature dropped, the smell of incense appeared, and objects flew spontaneously. And the longer Price was on the estate, the more aggressive the ghosts became. As a result, they declared all-out war on the researcher and his assistants, throwing various objects and frightening at night. Price had no choice but to go to negotiations with the spirits. In 1938, he held a seance, during which he managed to communicate with a poor nun - the leader of restless ghosts. It turned out that the girl's name was Marie Leir during her lifetime. The legend did not lie, it was actually walled up in 1667 in the wall of the monastery. In addition to the sad circumstances of his death, the spirit also announced that the house itself would soon burn down. Indeed, a year later, in February 1939, a fire broke out in the building - and it burned to the ground. It was believedthat the cause of the fire was a shattered kerosene lamp. But she fell, according to the testimony of the last owner of the house, Captain Gregson, by itself, and casual witnesses saw a man and a woman, dressed in clothes of past centuries, leaving the burning building.
THE HOUSE BURNED BUT THE GHOSTS REMAINED
The latest research at Borley Price's home was four years after the fire. This time, he attracted archaeologists to the work, who discovered female remains under the foundation. By indirect signs, it turned out that this was the very restless nun who died because of unhappy love.
The ashes were buried. It would seem that after this all anomalies should have stopped. It was not so! In 1944, 58 volunteers spent the night on the ruins of a house. And what? 19 of them saw ghosts. To end the mysticism, the city authorities demolished the ruins of a haunted house. But this last measure did not help either. Ghosts continued to appear in the very spot where the restless house stood. In any case, the nun was still walking along her favorite alley. She was last seen in 1951, after the death of Price himself.
NEW LIFE
Harry Price died in 1948. And after his death he himself became … a ghost, and with a very peculiar sense of humor. It is not known why, but he chose a Swede as the object of his attacks. He did not think about any other world in general and ghosts in particular, therefore, when he first saw the blurred silhouette of an elderly plump man, he began to chatter with fear. Price waited for him to calm down, after which he made a lengthy speech with him, from which the Swede did not understand a word, because he did not know English. He made out only the name of his mysterious visitor - Harry Price. Apparently, the former ghost catcher had enough of this: he made frequent visits. The Swede tried to photograph it more than once, but in vain: every time after developing the film turned out to be empty. This fact greatly amused Price's spirit. In the end, the Swede got tired of this bullying,and he reported them where to go: to the UK. So the ghostly life of Harry Price became public. After that, he stopped visiting the Swede and now, they say, is excluded to his colleagues in the shop - probably, he shares his experience …
Dmitry SOKOLOV