Of Bookish ThingsNov 5, 2024

Why #Ghosts wear clothes or white sheets instead of appearing in the nude

In 1863 #GeorgeCruikshank, the #Caricaturist and #BookIllustrator of #CharlesDickens’s #Novels, announced:

"That anyone has ever thought of the gross absurdity and impossibility of there being such things as ghosts of wearing apparel … Ghosts cannot, must not, dare not, for decency’s sake, appear without clothes; and as there can be no such thing as ghosts or spirits of clothes, why then, it appears that ghosts never did appear and never can appear."

Stories of naked or clothesless ghosts, especially outside #Folklore, are exceedingly rare

Note: #Ghost in white sheet (Funeral Shroud)

#Victorian #VictorianBritain #VictorianSocialClass #Mid19thCentury #Spiritualism #PsychicalResearch #GhostStories #VictorianLiterature #Paranormal #AndrewLang

https://theconversation.com/why-ghosts-wear-clothes-or-white-sheets-instead-of-appearing-in-the-nude-241948

Why ghosts wear clothes or white sheets instead of appearing in the nude

The issue of ghost clothes is interesting for historians of the supernatural because, like a loose thread, pulling at it starts to unravel some of the assumptions about matter in spiritualism.

The Conversation
えびあさ Ebi-asaNov 9, 2022
#introduction 1
Hello Mastodons! I'm えびあさ Ebi-asa, a Japanese studying psychology at The Open University of Japan ( #放送大学 ) while working in an editing company. I'd love to pursue graduate studies. The first thing that interests me the most is the history of #PsychicalResearch and #Parapsychology. I'm interested in the investigations of #WilliamJames and #福来友吉 ( #TomokichiFukurai ).