17世纪英国科学家如何调查闹鬼事件：约翰·奥布里与《威尔特郡自然史》

当科学机构认真对待鬼魂

17世纪后半叶的英国科学界并未把鬼魂当作无稽之谈而一笔带过。1660年成立的皇家学会是当时英国的主要科学机构，其成员约瑟夫·格兰维尔在《Saducismus Triumphatus》（1681）中详细编录案例，试图证明幽灵与巫术确实存在，并把否认它们等同于否认上帝。另一位学会成员约翰·奥布里同样认为超自然现象值得严肃研究，但他觉得格兰维尔有些轻信。

牧师夜遇幽灵与一匹马

约1671年，威尔特郡加斯登教堂的牧师赛蒙兹深夜骑马回家，一个幽灵跳上马背与他并行，到了牧师住所才跳下，并转身面对他“张口瞪视”。赛蒙兹认出那是约两年前去世的绅士约翰·埃斯特考特。奥布里记录了这个故事，也记下赛蒙兹是个健壮的汉子、身为教士其证词有分量，还提到一句法国俗语说醉汉才见魔鬼。但他最终留下一个奇怪细节：牧师的马当时发抖出汗，第二天仍如此，也不肯吃燕麦——马不会说谎，也不会喝醉。

能验证的就亲自验证

奥布里还记下另一则夜行故事：拉尔夫·班克斯爵士的仆人在多塞特郡深夜骑马，看见一团黑色的东西越靠近越大，他自忖“命只有一条，我倒要看看是鬼不是”，策马冲过去，结果发现是一堆马粪。赛蒙兹的幽灵无法检验，只能记录并权衡证词；仆人的遭遇则被当事人亲自验证。奥布里在《自然史》中贯穿同一种经验方法：仔细收集证据，能检验就检验，不轻易下结论。

轻信之名与审慎之实

奥布里长期被视为天真，部分原因是《Miscellanies》（1696）记录了不少无法解释的传闻。但他在《自然史》中写得很清楚：自己从未见过这类事物，却不会断言这些报告全无真实性，相信确有过异象，只是“一百个传闻中只有一个是真的”。他也记录了被揭穿的骗局，例如凯瑟琳·沃尔德伦假装被施巫，忍受针刺以证明此事。当时自然史的目标正是收集证据以发展新理论，奥布里编录案例的方法与这一科学事业的目标一致。

About 1671, parson Symonds, who officiated at Garsdon church in north Wiltshire in south west England, was riding home late one night when a spectre leapt up behind him. The spectre rode parallel to him until they came to the parsonage, where it jumped off. The apparition then turned to face Symonds, and “gap’d at him”. Symonds identified the ghost as that of John Estcourt, a gentleman who had died about two years earlier.

Halloween is all about witches and ghosts. In English scientific circles in the second half of the 17th century, there was a discussion about whether such things existed and how their existence could be proved.

The Royal Society, founded in 1660, was the country’s principal scientific institution. Joseph Glanvill, a Royal Society fellow, investigated spirits and witches. His Saducismus Triumphatus (1681) aimed to prove their existence by cataloguing cases in detail. He argued that denying them was to deny God’s existence.

Symonds’ haunting was recorded by that of another of the society’s fellows, John Aubrey, in a survey of Wiltshire’s natural world. Aubrey agreed with Glanvill that the supernatural deserved serious study and directed his readers to Saducismus, but he thought Glanvill somewhat gullible.

Aubrey was born in 1626 at Easton Piercy, a few miles from Garsdon. I have edited John Aubrey’s Natural History to mark his 400th anniversary.

This natural history of Wiltshire was begun in 1656 and was the first English county survey of nature to be attempted – although by the time he finished it, decades later, other surveys had already been published. It was an important scientific work, and in 1691, acknowledging that, the Royal Society had the Natural History copied and added to its library.

Its subject matter is highly idiosyncratic, and Aubrey sometimes goes off on tangents. He covers swan-sized dragons in north Africa in a chapter on birds and the existence of giants in a section called “Men and Women”. Almost at the end of the text is a chapter titled “Accidents” that records extraordinary events, including supernatural ones, like the haunting of Symonds.

Aubrey has long been seen as naive, partly because of Miscellanies (1696), the only book he published, which recorded tales of the unexplained. In the Natural History, he was clear:

Though I myselfe never saw any such things, yet I will not conclude that there is no truth at all in these reports. I believe that extraordinarily there have been such apparitions: but where one is true, a hundred are figments.

He also documented exposed frauds, such as Katherine Waldron, who pretended to be bewitched and endured pins being driven into her flesh to prove it. As the objective of natural history at this time was to gather evidence from which new scientific theories could be developed, Aubrey’s method in chronicling cases was entirely in keeping with the aims of scientific enterprise.

So, Aubrey was neither uncritical nor dismissive about Symonds’ story. Symonds was “a lusty strong fellow”, presumably not someone nervous or hysterical and prone to flights of imagination. His position as a churchman also gave authority to his testimony. Yet Aubrey noted a French saying that drunk men saw devils, a sceptical observation that cast doubt on the account. But he concluded with a strange detail: it was corroborated by the parson’s horse, “that trembled and sweat, when he came home and continued to do so the next day, and would not eat his oates”. The horse could not lie or get drunk; its fear, manifest in the trembling and sweat, was genuine.

Aubrey recorded another anecdote about a night ride. It concerned Sir Ralph Bankes’ valet:“a briske young fellow”, who, riding late over Badbury Warren, Dorset, discerned something that looked black, which, as he approached, became bigger.

Feare came upon him, and he protested his haire stood on end: but thought he, I have but a life to lose and I will see it, be it spirit or not.

The valet spurred his horse and came to the place, only to find the apparition was “a heap of horse dung”.

In Symonds’ haunting, the truth of the spectre could not be tested; but witnesses were recorded, and their testimony weighed. In the valet’s case, the witness tested the truth of the ghost himself and found it was a pile of dung.

Aubrey applied the same empirical method throughout his Natural History to both natural and supernatural phenomena. He assembled evidence with care, tested it if he could and resisted easy conclusions. It’s an approach worth remembering this Halloween when fantastical tales hit your social media feed. A phantom may prove to be a load of poo.

Louise Ryland-Epton's work on John Aubrey was supported at an early stage by a David Walker Memorial Visiting Fellowship in Early Modern History at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.This article draws on ghost stories recorded in John Aubrey’s Natural History, which she edited for Hobnob Press.