Looking Back at the Ghostly Case of “The Scratched Cheek,” 150 Years On

​Popular folklore, films, and TV shows have a tendency to depict an encounter with an apparition (or “ghost”) of the dead as being an overly scary or terrifying experience. But a lot of true-life encounters seem to actually give a different impression. As the late parapsychologist Martin Ebon once observed in his edited book True Experiences with Ghosts:

Illustration from the May 1906 issue of The Strand Magazine, depicting the salesman's spontaneous encounter with the spectral figure of his deceased sister.

​“Fictional accounts notwithstanding, the usual encounter with a ghost is no more frightening than an unexpected meeting with a living stranger. Afterward, when the full impact of the otherworldly event is understood, memory of the encounter can be quite a shock.” [1, p. 10]

​​One of the more intriguing aspects of a ghostly encounter - which can potentially leave a lasting impression on the witness - is when the ghost seems to convey some sort of detail or a piece of information that the witness was personally unaware of at the time, but which is later independently verified by someone else as being accurate. A classic example of an apparitional encounter that illustrates this is the following case from 1876, which is recounted in the fourth chapter of Ebon’s book.

“The Scratched Cheek” Revisited

​Originally included in a survey of cases conducted by early psychical researcher Frederic Myers [2], this century-and-a-half old case from the archives of the Society for Psychical Research focuses on a young traveling salesman from Boston, whose spontaneous encounter with the spectral figure of his deceased sister had, in his words, “...made a more powerful impression on my mind than the combined incidents of my whole life” [2, p. 17]. The salesman’s sister had passed away nine years earlier from a cholera infection, and he’d previously shared a very close bond with her while she was alive.

At the time of the encounter, the young salesman was away on a business trip, and casually working at a table in his hotel room in St. Joseph, Missouri. As he stated in his personal account of the experience:

​“I had not been thinking of my late sister, or in any manner reflecting on the past. The hour was high noon, and the sun was shining cheerfully into my room. While busily smoking a cigar, and writing out my orders, I suddenly became conscious that some one was sitting on my left, with one arm resting on the table. Quick as a flash I turned and distinctly saw the form of my dead sister, and for a brief second or so looked her squarely in the face; and so sure was I that it was she, that I sprang forward in delight, calling her by name, and as I did so, the apparition instantly vanished. Naturally I was startled and dumbfounded, almost doubting my senses; but [being aware of] the cigar in my mouth, and pen in hand, with the ink still moist on my letter, I satisfied myself [that] I had not been dreaming, and was wide awake. I was near enough to touch her, had it been a physical possibility, and noted her features, expression, and details of dress [etc.] She appeared as if alive. Her eyes looked kindly and perfectly natural into mine. Her skin was so life-like that I could see the glow or moisture on its surface, and, on the whole, there was no change in her appearance, otherwise than when alive.” [2, p. 18]

The salesman later added:

​“There was nothing of a spiritual or ghostly nature in either the form or dress of my sister, she [appeared] perfectly natural, and dressed in clothing that she usually wore in life, and which was familiar to me. From her position at the table, I could only see her from the waist up, and her appearance and everything she wore is indelibly photographed in my mind. I even had time to notice the collar and little breastpin she wore, as well as the comb in her hair, after the style then worn by young ladies. The dress had no particular association for me...no more so than others she was in the habit of wearing; but [today], while I have forgotten all her other dresses, pins, and combs, I could go to her trunk (which we have just as she left it) and pick out the very dress and ornaments she wore when she appeared to me, so well do I remember it.” [2, pp. 18 - 19]

​Perhaps the most remarkable part of the experience came when the young man returned home and told his family about what he’d seen. As he recalled:

​“My father, a man of rare good sense and very practical, was inclined to ridicule me, as he saw how earnestly I believed what I stated; but he too, was amazed when later on I told them of a bright red line or scratch on the right-hand side of my sister’s face, which I distinctly had seen. When I mentioned this, my mother rose trembling to her feet and nearly fainted away, and as soon as she sufficiently recovered...with tears streaming down her face, she exclaimed that I had indeed seen my sister, as no living mortal but herself was aware of that scratch, which she had accidentally made while doing some little act of kindness after my sister’s death. She said she well remembered how pained she was to think she should have, unintentionally, marred the features of her dead daughter, and that unknown to all, how she had carefully obliterated all traces of the slight scratch with the aid of powder...and that she had never mentioned it to a human being, from that day to this. In proof, neither my father nor any of our family had detected it, and positively were unaware of the incident, yet I saw the scratch as bright as if just made.” [2, p. 18]

​So it would seem that the salesman witnessed a particular detail appearing upon his sister’s spectral figure that he himself was unaware of, but which he later learned (through his mother) was an accurate reflection of something that occurred in relation to her (or in this case, in relation to her dead body, as the mother was preparing it for funerary rites).

Some Notable Characteristics

​The salesman’s experience also contains four notable characteristics that have been found across a number of other spontaneous apparition cases, and some of these tend to further contradict certain popular stereotypes about apparitions. It seems that:

1. Many spectral figures can (and do) represent someone known to the witness: As in this case, where the figure represented the salesman’s sister. Similarly, three surveys of apparitional case collections [3-5] also tend to indicate that the figure represents a close relative in just over half (56%) of the cases (see Figure 1 below). A very similar tendency is found in spontaneous cases of extrasensory perception (ESP), where a considerable fraction (40%) of the “ESP experiences involved the lives of people in the experiencer’s ‘immediate circle’ - parents, children, siblings, spouses, and friends” [6, p. 37]. Accounts of other apparitions of lost loved ones after Japan’s 2011 tsunami offer a separate, disaster-related comparison.
2. ​Apparitions can (and apparently do) appear in daylight or lighted conditions: When he saw the figure of his sister, the salesman said the “...hour was high noon” [2, p. 18]. While folklore traditionally holds that apparitions primarily appear at night, there are actually a fair number of witness accounts where sightings occurred during the day or in conditions of fairly bright light. For instance, in her 1885 case survey, early psychical researcher Eleanor Sidgwick noted that ghosts have been sighted “...in all kinds of light, from broad daylight to the faint light of dawn” [7, p. 144]. More recently, in his 2012 survey, Icelandic researcher Erlendur Haraldsson found that the amount of apparitional sightings reported at night was roughly equal to the amount reported during the day. And in a slightly smaller subset of cases, he found that half (52%) of the sightings were said to have occurred in full daylight or artificial conditions of electric lighting [5, pp. 57 - 58]. Psychical researcher Andrew MacKenzie even devoted a whole chapter of his 1971 book Apparitions & Ghosts to cases that took place either during the day, or near dusk, when there was still just enough daylight remaining to allow one to see their surroundings [8, Ch. 3]. So contrary to what media depictions often claim, these findings suggest that one doesn’t necessarily have to conduct a ghost hunt at night or in darkness in order to have a chance of witnessing an apparition.
3. ​Many apparitions can look solid and life-like: The salesman stated that his sister’s spectral form “...appeared as if alive” [2, p. 18], which goes against the common folkloric stereotype of apparitions being white, misty, translucent-looking figures. Case survey findings seem to further contradict this stereotype, as well: In his survey, Haraldsson found that roughly three-quarters (73%) of the witnesses “...said the deceased person had been physically present until he or she disappeared...which could be understood to mean that they felt as if the person was there in the flesh” [5, p. 121]. An earlier survey by British researchers Celia Green and Charles McCreery also found that 91% of the apparitions were described as being “...completely opaque like a normal object so that nothing was visible through it” [9, p. 150].
4. ​The outward appearance of a deceased person’s spectral figure may often reflect the style of dress that the witness was accustomed to seeing that person in life: The salesman stated that his sister looked “...perfectly natural, and dressed in clothing that she usually wore in life, and which was familiar to me” [2, p. 18]. This is consistent with an early observation made by Myers himself, in which he noted that “...it is usual for a witness to say ‘he [or she] appeared to me in the dress he habitually wore, and in which I knew him [or her]’” [10, Vol. II, p. 295]. Similarly, parapsychologist Richard Broughton pointed out more recently that: “Often the clothing that the ghost appeared in was what the deceased customarily wore, not necessarily those in which the person died” [11, p. 150].

Figure 1.Findings of three apparitional case surveys [3-5] examining the relation between apparitions and the people who see them

A Further Link with Memory?

​This can lead one to wonder: Why might witnesses report seeing spectral figures clothed in such a familiar manner? (A question that ties into the broader issue of why ghosts wear clothes at all - something which has been long been the subject of debate, and which still occasionally comes up in general discussions about apparitions - see e.g. [11-12].) Partly following from ideas proposed by psychical researchers G. N. M. Tyrrell [13] and C. D. Broad [14], one possibility to consider here (simply as a bit of “food for thought”) is that the witness may play a (largely unconscious) role in producing the apparition that he or she ultimately sees, perhaps by mentally contributing some of the details (such as the clothing) that the deceased person’s spectral figure will ultimately display. And perhaps these details might stem from familiar memories about the deceased person that the witness happens to have.

​This might be easier to see if we turn our thoughts back to the recent PDN article on ghosts sighted in the workplace: There are many jobs which call for a particular type of uniform to be worn while one is working - a business suit if you work in a corporate office, coveralls if you work in repair services, etc. So whenever you go into the workplace, you might be used to seeing your fellow co-workers being dressed in that particular uniform. This becomes so familiar to you that whenever you happen to be reminded of these co-workers (like when you hear their names mentioned), you might find yourself tending to envision them in your mind as being dressed that way, because that’s how you are used to regularly seeing them. You are most familiar with them in that context, and so your own personal memory of them may also be familiarly shaped around that context.

Perhaps these same familiar memories are also activated in an instance where you find yourself encountering the apparition of someone you know (like a co-worker), leading to that person’s spectral figure to be donned in the clothing that you are most familiar with seeing them wear. This would be premised on the theoretical approaches proposed by parapsychologists William Roll [15] and Harvey Irwin [16] which link (long-term) memory with ESP functioning: Perhaps our memory isn’t only useful for learning and remembering the information we gather in the course of our ordinary waking lives - it might also be useful for conveying information in the psychic experiences we spontaneously have. Irwin suggests how in a relatable imaginary scenario:

​“Suppose that by [ESP] you learn of the death of your friend John in a car accident some distance away. Now, to your knowledge John has never died before, so there cannot have been a (single) trace in your memory corresponding to John’s death in his car. However...each discrete piece of information is already contained in [your] memory at the time of the experience: there is stored information about John, about death, and so on.” [16, p. 87]

​Perhaps in a psychic experience, these memory traces get activated and link together to form the ESP response, thereby conveying the information that John has died in the accident. This would be very similar to the role memory serves in our (ordinary) visual perception, as well: If we’d witnessed the accident first-hand, these memory traces - relating to John, the car, and the concept of an accident - would’ve also been activated and linked together in our mind, so that we’d understand the meaning of what we are seeing. This might also be what happens when we spontaneous see an apparition of a deceased person we once knew. If John was our co-worker, then the familiar memory trace we have formed of him (and which is activated in the ESP response) may include his work uniform, leading us to see him clothed in that manner. Several lines of anecdotal and experimental evidence seem to point toward there a being link between ESP and memory [11, 15-19], which may offer a preliminary basis for this conceptualization.

Of course, as mentioned, this would only offer a way to conceptualize apparitions which seem to represent other people we once personally knew. Apparitional sightings of people we don’t know, like those reported in hauntings, may be different. Perhaps these latter instances might involve some kind of persisting localized psychic “trace” that is somewhat akin to memory, which is psychically perceived whenever we occupy the location where that “trace” seems to linger [20]. This remains to be only a basic working idea which is largely speculative at this point - the details are still sketchy and require additional research to further develop and test.

Coming back to the “Scratched Cheek” case, it’s interesting that the scratch mark noticed by the salesman on his sister’s face - a detail that he was unaware of at time he saw her, as mentioned - was later verified by his mother. This appears to be an aspect of the experience which is particularly difficult to account for by ordinary means. Is it possible that the sister was trying to convey this detail to her brother as a sign that she’d somehow survived beyond the grave?

Perhaps, but one must also recognize the alternate consideration that this detail was also known by someone who was still living - namely, the salesman's mother. This makes it alternatively conceivable that the salesman’s mother could’ve also conveyed this detail to him through some form of psychic connection, as well. Determining who exactly was the source of the detail - the salesman’s sister or his mother - is one of the issues which tends to make it difficult to put forth a reasonable argument for life after death in these cases. But as psychiatrist Ian Stevenson once pointed out [21], there are certain apparition cases which contain details which may be difficult to account for when another living source for those details doesn’t seem to be immediately apparent - although they tend to be exceedingly rare and relatively few in number. If a greater number of cases of this type can be identified, documented, and carefully evaluated to determine (to the best degree possible) that neither the witness nor any other living person has prior knowledge of them, then perhaps a more extensive assessment can be made of the likelihood that some apparitions may represent some form of life after death. And so for now, it seems, the larger question of survival remains open.

References

​[1] Ebon, M. (Ed.) (1968). True Experiences with Ghosts. Signet Mystic Books/New American Library.

[2] Myers, F. W. H. (1889). On recognised apparitions occurring more than a year after death. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 6, 13 - 65.

[3] Osis, K., & Haraldsson, E. (1977). At the Hour of Death. Avon Books.

[4] Arcangel, D. (2005). Afterlife Encounters: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Experiences. Hampton Roads Publishing Company.

[5] Haraldsson, E. (2012). The Departed Among the Living: An Investigative Study of Afterlife Encounters. White Crow Books.

[6] Feather, S. R., & Schmicker, M. (2005). The Gift: ESP, the Extraordinary Experiences of Ordinary People. St. Martin’s Press.

[7] Sidgwick, E. M. [Mrs. H.] (1885). Notes on the evidence, collected by the Society, for phantasms of the dead. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 3, 69 - 150.

[8] MacKenzie, A. (1971). Apparitions & Ghosts: A Modern Study. Arthur Barker Ltd.

[9] Green, C., & McCreery, C. (1975). Apparitions. Hamish Hamilton Ltd.

[10] Gurney, E., Myers, F. W. H., & Podmore, F. (1886). Phantasms of the Living (2 vols.). Trubner & Company, Inc.

[11] Broughton, R. S. (2006). Why do ghosts wear clothes? - Examining the role of memory and emotion in anomalous experiences. European Journal of Parapsychology, 21, 148 - 165.

[12] Braude, S. E. (2019). Why do ghosts wear clothes? [Editorial]. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 33, 351 - 358.

[13] Tyrrell, G. N. M. (1953/1961). Science and Psychical Phenomena/Apparitions. University Books.

[14] Broad, C. D. (1953). Phantasms of the living and of the dead. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 50, 51 - 66.

[15] Roll, W. G. (1966). ESP and memory. International Journal of Neuropsychiatry, 2, 505 - 521.

[16] Irwin, H. J. (1979). Psi and the Mind: An Information Processing Approach. Scarecrow Press.

[17] Palmer, J. (2006). Memory and ESP - A review of the experimental literature. European Journal of Parapsychology, 21, 95 - 121.

[18] Stanford, R. G. (2006). Making sense of the “extrasensory” - Modeling receptive psi using memory-related concepts. European Journal of Parapsychology, 21, 122 - 147.

[19] Carpenter, J. C. (2008). Relations between ESP and memory in light of the first sight model of psi. Journal of Parapsychology, 72, 47 - 76.

[20] Roll, W. G. (1981). A memory theory for apparitions. In W. G. Roll, J. Beloff, & J. McAllister (Eds.) Research in Parapsychology 1980 (pp. 5 - 7). Scarecrow Press.

[21] Stevenson, I. (1982). The contribution of apparitions to the evidence for survival. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 76, 341 - 358.

Halloween-ish Lemuralia & Britain’s Ancient Roman Ghosts

​The ancient Roman world had not one, but two annual festivals that are analogous in some ways to Halloween.

These were the Parentalia, a nine-day festival in February to honour family ancestors, and the far more Halloween-like Lemuria/Lemuralia, held in May to appease malign supernatural entities. I’ll concentrate on Lemuria but if you’re especially interested in the Parentalia, there are links in the appendix at the end of this piece.

​During the 3 days of the Lemuria (9th, 11th, and 13th of May), ​the ancient Romans performed rites to rid both evil and the merely restless dead from their homes. These baleful presences, known as lemures or larvae were placated with appropriate chants and by offerings of black beans.

MANNapoli 109982 roue de la fortune memento mori

​Naples National Archaeological Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

According to Ovid (43 BC – AD 17/18), the festival began with Romulus’ Remuria, which sought to pacify the bitter shade of twin Remus, who he murdered in an argument over Rome’s first city wall.

​The lemures were apparently malicious due to being "kinless and neglected" when they died, with no commemorative rites; able to depart their dead bodies but unable to enter any underworld or afterlife. The larvae were nastier, wandering around a house with the lemures, causing more direct mischief; the name was also lent to a frightening kind of theatrical mask.

Large clay theatrical mask, Romisch-Germanisches Museum, Cologne

​Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Lemuria was supposed to help family members who had died "before their time" - in childhood or youth, via disease, battle, accident or assault and also where they were prevented being given proper funeral rites.

​Ovid wrote that during Lemuria, the male householder (and possibly other members), walks barefoot through the house at midnight. After washing his hands in spring water, he takes his thumb between the fingers of his hand to ward off any ghosts, then spits out or throws black beans over his shoulder for the famished lemures to collect. He chants "I send these; with these beans I redeem me and mine" nine times and the rest of the household clashes bronze pots, repeating, "Ghosts of my fathers and ancestors, be gone!" The householder then washes his hands three times in spring-water.

When he turns to see the results of the offering, no lemures are to be seen. However, the larvae were believed to be utterly unforgiving, continuing to hound the living and even torturing wicked souls in Hades. So the solution would be to move house, I guess.

During the Lemuralia, all temples were closed and no marriages were allowed. Both the Lemuralia, and the Argei ceremony held in the same month (which itself was said to be a substitute for human sacrifice in days gone by), made May particularly ill-omened for marriages.

Pliny’s Three Ghost Tales

Ancient Roman Ghost Story

​I am extremely desirous therefore to know whether you believe in the existence of ghosts, and that they have a real form, and are sorts of divinities, or only the visionary impressions of a terrified imagination. (Pliny the Younger, LXXXIII To Sura)

​Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, known to us as Pliny the Younger (AD 61 – 113) recounts three tales. The first is of a spectre that warned the senator, Curtius Rufus, of his rapid rise to power, and of his death in Africa. The second is of the Greek philosopher Athenodorus, who wanted to rent an apartment in Athens but was puzzled as to why it was so cheap. This was because the shade of an old man harassed any occupants of the flat, prompting Athenodorus to spend the night there to see what happened. The spectre appeared whilst the philosopher was working, insisting Athenodorus follow him to a spot nearby. The next day, Athenodorus asked that a hole be dug and found a chained, putrefied body. The remains were reburied with the proper rituals, and the ghost was never seen again.

Pliny’s third tale was of an experience in his own villa:

I have a freedman named Marcus, who is by no means illiterate. One night, as he and his younger brother were lying together, he fancied he saw somebody upon his bed, who took out a pair of scissors, and cut off the hair from the top part of his own head, and in the morning, it appeared his hair was actually cut, and the clippings lay scattered about the floor. A short time after this, an event of a similar nature contributed to give credit to the former story. A young lad of my family was sleeping in his apartment with the rest of his companions, when two persons clad in white came in, as he says, through the windows, cut off his hair as he lay, and then returned the same way they entered. The next morning it was found that this boy had been served just as the other, and there was the hair again, spread about the room. (Pliny the Younger, LXXXIII. To Sura)

Great Nero’s Ghost!

​Time Tunnel - The Ghost of Nero

Time Tunnel

​Nero, who was murdered in 68 BC, has supposedly been seen on the Via Nomentana, where he committed suicide at a servant’s villa. He was also seen to haunt the Piazza del Popolo, where his tomb was supposed to be. A ‘cursed tree’ grew up from his grave, where Nero’s ghost was believed to have lingered alongside various witches and demons. In 1099, Pope Pasquale II had the tree burnt down and a chapel built in its place, while Nero’s tomb was dug up and thrown into the Tiber.

Messalina’s Ghost

Messalina, the promiscuous wife of the Emperor Claudius was executed (after failing to kill herself) in the Gardens of Lucullus on Rome’s Pincian Hill; although strangely her spectre is said to haunt the area near the Colosseum, by the remains of the foundations of Temple of Emperor Claudius, built after her vengeful husband died in 54 AD.

The empress was rumoured to have engaged in a sex competition with Rome’s top prostitute, Scylla, as depicted in BBC2’s I Claudius (1976):

I, Claudius

​Vicus Sceleratus - the “Wicked Street”

​Servius Tullius, the sixth and last ‘good’ King of Rome, was murdered by his son-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus (the seventh and final King of Rome) and his nasty daughter Tullia, who ran over her dad’s corpse with her chariot at the stretch of road later renamed the Vicus Sceleratus (Wicked Street) in memory of her horrific crime.

The location is also associated with the Scalinata dei Borgia, or Borgia Stairs, near the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli. Said to be the same area as the Vicus Sceleratus. The not-entirely wholesome Borgia family later built a palace over the ancient stairs, giving the location its current name.

​The ghost of Caesar appears before Brutus (Julius Caesar, 1953).

Ghost of Caesar

Ancient Roman ghosts (mainly legionnaires) in England

And lastly, a few of the sites in England associated with the unquiet spirits of ancient Rome.

There are many sightings of Roman spectres in England, more it seems than Italy and the other provinces of the Empire. Why? Could England and the rest of the British Isles be more receptive to the spirit world than other countries? Do ley lines, prehistoric monuments and the like make England more porous to the paranormal?

Devil’s Bridge

​The "Devil's Bridge" on the old Roman Road (aka "Spooky Lane") in Hertfordshire is associated with sightings of a Roman soldier guarding the road.

Roman Ghost Stories

York - The Treasurer’s House

​In 1953, trainee plumber Harry Martindale was working in the cellar of the old Treasurer’s House in York. He reported seeing a procession of downbeat, bearded Roman legionnaires wearing green tunics, carrying round shields, led by a mounted officer. The account is notable because later archaeological findings supported the details of his description, which differed from the common image of Roman soldiers - red cloaked, clean-shaven, square shields etc.

​Thurston Clough, Greater Manchester

A l​etter received by the Oldham Evening Chronicle in 1973 claimed that Roman soldiers haunted Thurston Clough. The Romans had supposedly been seen before World War I (about 60 years earlier) by the letter writer’s grandfather. The legionnaires were led by a standard bearer carrying a wild boar’s head emblem. As they marched, they would sometimes appear to be walking above the ground and sometimes through it, explained by the terrain having changed over the last 2000 years. The sounds associated with metal and leather armour was said to accompany the apparitions.

Westmill Lane, Hertfordshire

​At this point the old Roman Icknield Way running through Hertfordshire is called Westmill Lane. There are stories of the ghosts of Roman Soldiers marching here. The road also passes Gerry's Hole, where the ghost of Gerry (who fell into the pool and drowned on the way home from the pub one night) makes his presence known.

​Reculver, Kent

​It’s said that on stormy nights the mewling of young children could be heard emanating from Reculver’s ruined church and Roman fort. When the site was excavated in 1966, the skeletons of young babies were found under the foundations of the Roman barrack block. Were they part of some ghastly human sacrifice?

Bath - the Naked Ghost

Romanos Bath Inglaterra

​Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

​The figure of a naked Roman (which posits the question how can one tell if he’s nude?) has apparently been seen scampering around the town centre. On one occasion, a police officer gave chase to the streaking spectre, but the pursuit ended when the spook faded into the air.

​The Chichester Inn, Chichester, West Sussex

West Street’s Chichester Inn stands close to Chichester’s ancient Roman walls, where the west gate of the town once stood. A Roman centurion’s phantom is said to haunt the pub as it continues to patrol the city wall on a seemingly endless patrol.

​The Lookout Inn, Lawe Top, South Shields

​The Lookout Inn stands opposite the partially reconstructed Arbeia Roman Fort which served as a maritime supply base for Hadrian’s Wall. The following account appeared on the Jarrow Life forum.

‘I used to work in the Lookout Inn at the top of Fort Street, South Shields, way back in 1966. One Friday day shift I was serving one of the regulars and from where I was positioned I saw a movement from the right of me, turned for a second and saw someone walking down the living quarter’s stairs, then when I heard them opening the snug door I fully turned to look and saw my boss’s son dressed in Roman armour with a sword held to his chest. I laughed and said ‘where you going?’ but he just ignored me and I just went ‘Ooooo’. He stopped, opened the hatch and went down the stairs into the cellar. About ten minutes later I heard his mam shouting for him so I shouted up that he was in the cellar. ‘No, I’m not. I’m in the bathroom’ was his reply from upstairs. I kicked the cellar hatch shut! Some of the regulars said that they often saw one, two or three Roman soldiers around the pub at different times.’

​Oldbury Castle and Cherhill White Horse, Wiltshire

​This hillfort atop the White Horse covers 22 acres and is said to be haunted by Roman soldiers. They have also been seen on a road near to the camp.

​Bleaklow Head and moors, Derbyshire

​According to Peak District legends, a patrol of Roman soldiers disappeared while crossing the moors in the area around Bleaklow. Apparently they either became lost and died of exposure, or were ambushed by the rebellious local hill tribes and thrown in the bogs. The area was frequented by the Romans - a fort stands at Castleshaw and their roads can be seen such as Doctors Gate which ran from Navio Fort in Hope Valley to Melandria Fort near Glossop.

Haunted Peak District

​Flowers Barrow, Dorset

An Iron Age hillfort above Dorset’s Lulworth Cove was taken over by the Romans after they invaded. The area is said to be haunted by phantom Roman soldiers seen several times over the years, traditionally appearing at times of national crisis.

In 1678, a phantom legionary army is said to have marched towards the town of Wareham from Flowers Barrow. The episode is recorded in the ‘History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset’ by the Revd John Hutchins. Around 100 people supposedly saw the spectral troops and their steeds. They looked so real that messengers were sent ahead to the next town to warn of the approaching army – which naturally never arrived.

I​n the 1930’s it was reported that a ghostly Roman army was seen on a foggy night, marching along nearby Binden Hill to their camp on King’s Hill, with the sounds of the marching men and their trotting horses heard.

​Barrow Hill, Mersea, Essex

The Ghost Roman Soldier of Essex

​Mersea Island was used as an outpost garrison by the Romans. There is a causeway called the Strood, which connects Mersea Island to mainland Essex. At high tides, the Strood is underwater and in October, it’s said you can see the top half of a centurion marching the causeway; half because he’s patrolling the original Roman road. Many have reported seeing him, with motorists reporting the centurion suddenly appearing in their car’s headlights. Others say they have seen nothing but have heard footsteps following them; if the walkers stop, the footsteps stop; if they start walking again, so does the mysterious ghost.

​On the island, half a mile south of the Strood, there stands a burial mound. It’s thought to be Roman from about 100 to 120 CE. Excavated in 1912 it was found to contain “a lead box with a wooden lid. The box contained an urn of green glass containing cremated remains” (Mersea Museum). The grave was of a high-status individual; some have suggested the centurion is in fact guarding the final resting place of this person.

Chester, Cheshire

​A Roman trooper is said to pace between the ruins of Chester’s Roman Amphitheatre, located at Vicars Lane and the site of a Roman watch tower, near Newgate. The earliest known sightings date back to the late Tudor times; the spirit is said to be fading over time, with the first accounts describing the soldier as life-like, but more recent witnesses claim he is but a faint figure.

​Another Roman ghost haunts Chester’s George and Dragon pub, which stands on what was a Roman road. Marching footsteps can be heard through the building, passing through the front and back walls of the pub; nothing has ever been seen of this ghost though, only the sound of his heavy hobnailed footsteps.

Haunting Chester

Many of these stories adhere to the ‘Stone Tape’ theory where past events imprint themselves on places, which can be summoned back by those sensitive to them, as depicted in Nigel Kneale’s chilling 1972 ghost story The Stone Tape:

The Stone Tape

Others suggest the appearances may be evidence of the ‘Timeslip’ hypothesis, explained in the introduction to ITV’s 1970 series appropriately titled Timeslip:

More Roman Stories

Ghost Stories of Chester - Enchanted Boos

Sailor Ghost – Watergates Crypt, Watergate Street: The Crypt (which today houses a wine bar and restaurant) is said to be haunted by a long deceased sailor, who has often been witnessed crossing the floor of the cellar, emerging from south wall and then disappearing as he reaches the other…

enchantedboos.com

Roman Hauntings – Mysterious Britain & Ireland

www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk

Stephen Arnell’s novel, THE GREAT ONE, is available on Amazon Kindle:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-One-Secret-Memoirs-Pompey-ebook/dp/B0BNLTB2G7

Sample:

Why Dr Eben Alexander’s Near Death Experience Made Medical History

‘There's a mistaken notion out there by a very irresponsible journalist who tried to pretend that my coma was medication induced. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was a meningitis induced coma. And that's why the scientific community takes my case so seriously.’ Eben Alexander, Neurosurgeon & Author

American Neurosurgeon Dr Eben Alexander put the mysterious near-death experience (NDE) concept firmly on the scientific map in 2012 following the publication of Proof of Heaven. His international best seller documents Eben’s 2008 life-changing NDE and miracle recovery from a seven-day catastrophic coma caused by a rare and severe form of E. coli bacterial meningitis. In September 2018, Eben’s NDE made medical history when his case report, which clarifies that his brain was in no shape to harbor any dream or hallucination, was published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases. If anything, the amount of destruction in Eben’s brain should have disabled any kind of phenomenal experience.

​Eben has also written The Map of Heaven (2014) and Living in a Mindful Universe (2017), and all three books share a common thread of a non-materialist view of consciousness.

Proof of Heaven

​This article includes a selection of compelling transcript excerpts from Jock Brocas’s Deadly Departed episode: Separated Minds, Violent World | The Truth About Our Nature. The focal point of their discussion centers on the profound insights derived from Dr. Eben Alexander's near-death experience, which fundamentally reshaped his understanding of consciousness and existence.

Key discussion themes include:

1. Near-death experience and consciousness

2. Scientific evidence for afterlife

3. Materialism versus spirituality

4. Reincarnation and past lives

5. Meditation, mindfulness, and brain function

6. The brain-mind relationship

7. Ontological shock and worldview transformation

An Unprecedented Near Death Experience Case

Born to a 16 year old unwed mother in the 1950s, Eben Alexander was taken away from her by Social Services when he was 11 days old. Stuck in a baby dorm for the four months of his life because his mother refused to sign the papers to give him up, created some deep subconscious questions as to whether he was even worthy of love. Fortunately, Eben was adopted into a loving family that honored his hopes and dreams. His father was a globally renowned neurosurgeon and combat surgeon in the Second World War in the Pacific Theater. He had a strong belief in God and the power of prayer and used it in his neurosurgical work for healing patients. While Eben always wanted to believe what his father believed, he was of the view that science was the pathway to truth:

Eben Alexander: Like many who grew up in the 60s and 70s, like I did, I always knew that science is the pathway to truth. And of course, the mistake I made is similar to a mistake many people make, and that is thinking that Newtonian determinism is a pathway to truth, but it is not. Quantum physics is a pathway to truth, and that's still very mysterious. But that's because of the linkage it has with the brain-mind question because everything about neurons involves quantum computing.

Neurons deal with ions and synaptic vesicles and molecules and things that are way down there in the quantum scale and so quantum field effects are alive and well in the brain and in the mind, brain interpretation, etcetera. So at any rate, spending my life wanting to believe what he believed, but then having great trouble understanding how conscious awareness could survive the death of the brain and body. And that's why I needed an especially deep dive. And that's what I went through in November of 2008.

I woke up with severe back pain, severe headache, and soon lapsed into coma, grand mal seizures. My family was very alarmed. There's a mistaken notion out there by a very irresponsible journalist who tried to pretend that my coma was medication induced. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was a meningitis induced coma. And that's why the scientific community takes my case so seriously.

In fact, some of my biggest support in the last 18 years has come from scientists. And a lot of that depends on a medical case report in my medical records read by three doctors not involved in my care, but fascinated by my recovery. That case report appeared in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases in September 2018 and makes very clear, my brain was in no shape to harbor any dream or hallucination. That was the same fact that had haunted me early on - the amount of destruction in my brain should have disabled any kind of phenomenal experience.

But also, even more importantly, to people who don't have medical knowledge or don't know much about my case, is that the peer review editors of the scientific journal challenged the three authors of the case report said, well, this is unprecedented in the medical literature for somebody, this illness from E. Coli meningoencephalitis, to have a full recovery. How do you explain it? And they and the three authors who wrote the case report said, it's because he had a near death experience.

So in other words, that should alert people that the scientific review board said yes, let's publish because we now have an explanation. But that explanation was an incredible spiritual journey and it's because they knew of similar cases of NDEs that resulted in miraculous healing. So once you get that scientific connection, you start paying attention to those kind of cases.

It Was Much More Real Than This World

At any rate, for me it is important to point out that an unusual feature of my near death experience was amnesia. I had absolutely no knowledge of Earth humans. Eben Alexander's life, our language, this universe, every bit of it was gone. It was an empty slate that only in the months and years afterwards, I came to realize was very crucial for me to absolutely get the reality of the journey.

Now, in this amnesic state, the way my journey began was in what I call the Earth, where my view, a very primitive coarse, unresponsive realm, was like being in dirty jello. But luckily, I wasn't there forever. There came a slowly spinning white light. It opened up like a rip in the fabric of that ugly Earth form I viewed and led me up into this brilliant, ultra real Gateway Valley. And this is where... you realize words do not do justice to these kinds of journeys. It's often said these are ineffable beyond our language, and part of the reason is that in that kind of ultra real realm, you are outside of the flow of Earth time.

I mean, you're able to witness birth, death, everything in between past life events, even potentialities for future life events. All of that simultaneously presented, is... a shocking kind of summary and integration, and assimilation of any information you might have gleaned about your life living it forward by Earth time. But such a powerful demonstration of the much grander scale of our existence, to have that life review in this beautiful Gateway Valley...

As I said, it was much more real than this world. That's one thing that's very difficult to explain to people. But that timeless, eternal nature helps to explain some of that, and it had many Earth-like features. I often liken that realm to - it's like Plato's world of ideals, but for the individual soul. So it's a world of templates, it's a world of... possibilities and potentials. And what is it that we're going to bring into realization in our lives. And that's where this kind of bigger view is very helpful.

It Was Surprisingly Familiar... Like This is Home

Now, in this Gateway Valley, I was a speck of awareness on a butterfly wing. I never had any kind of body awareness at all. And we were looping and spiraling with thousands, millions of other butterflies in these vast formations, rivers of pure color… It's something that goes far beyond my ability to describe with words. But it was absolutely beautiful and filled with light and love beyond any description. And I remember there were thousands of beings in this field down below us, and surrounding that was this forest with sparkling waterfalls and the crystal blue pools.

Down in this meadow were thousands of beings dancing, lots of joy and merriment. There were children playing, dogs jumping, and incredible festivities, all of it being fueled, because up above were these swooping orbs of pure angelic beings who were emanating chants, anthems, hymns that would just thunder through my awareness. This incredible sense of... majesty and awe. And yet, surprisingly, it was familiar. Like, this is home... the memories started coming back. Been here before. And I think that's one of the reasons why Proof of Heaven struck such a chord with people. There's something about the language I used that resonated with some deep memory that they weren't even really consciously aware of. But I think it helped to awaken them to similarities in our journeys.

Jock Brocas: I find it absolutely fascinating, Eben, that… being a neurosurgeon and trained as you are in science to measure things, you're having this experience that totally reshapes your whole worldview and these experiences that you had, which is a lived experience. How did you deal with that resistance when you came back? I have a passion for ontology and ontological shock, and my research has uncovered this arc of what I never expected. And so you have come back and your whole worldview has changed from this. When you were having that experience... before you came back, did you have any feeling that everything was about to change? You said you couldn't remember, you had no consciousness of who you were in this earth plane. But was there anything in that review that kind of changed that whole worldview, even when you had that experience?

Dark Night of the Soul

Eben Alexander: Well, you know, it's interesting, but that amnesia was a very powerful and important ingredient. And in many ways, that amnesia short circuited any kind of attempts by me to have an overview - Oh, what's going on? Oh, am I dying? Or something like that. Because I was so far gone from this universe, all of that seemed to be the only natural part of beingness and existence. So there was no kind of questioning as I went along. But in the process of waking up from the coma, there was some tremendous kind of shock because of veridical perceptions and things like that, as well as discovering the identity of this beautiful guardian angel. So it was really, most of... shock and the... wrestling match of back and forth of my old worldview, and a new worldview really occurred in the months and years after the coma. I mean, the coma absolutely reset my... oh my God...

A quote we use from René Descartes (1596–1650) is… Anyone who claims to be a true seeker at some time in their life, they must give up on everything they've ever believed to be true. In other words, you have to doubt everything to truly be a seeker in understanding the nature of this reality that we're trying to understand. And that to me, was absolutely real. I had to go back to square one. And it involved a lot of serious kind of, up and down and doubt. And there's an important role, I would say, what I call a dark night of the soul, and I did that.

Frans Hals Portrait of René Descartes - Philosopher, Mathematician and Scientist

​After Frans Hals, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Family Matters

Jock Brocas: I want to talk about that because I had a car crash; I had a near death experience. I experienced some things, nothing like you, but one of the things that I found difficult to kind of acquiesce, going back into this world…. there is an ontology that changes. You go into this ontological shock. But even to this day, I always had a sense of wanting to feel that experience, that interconnectedness, that reality again, and you can't do it. So you mentioned the dark night of the soul. Did you have that experience where you come back and there was a darkness, there was a depression, because you really wanted to have that again?

Eben Alexander: No, it's a little different from that... It turns out, you know, as an adoptee, back in my teens and early twenties, I'd write letters to the children's home in North Carolina asking if my birth mother was looking for me. That was a very simple attempt to reconnect with my origin, and North Carolina had very strict laws to prevent reunions. In fact, I heard cases where they actually changed birth dates to make it tougher for an adoptee to reunite with their birth parents. But at any rate, I gave up on all that way back in the 1970s, because I was okay with it. And they told me, forget about it, she's not looking for you.

So for 20, 30 years, I forgot about it. And I was okay with every bit of that. But then in the year 2000, my older son Eben IV, was doing a school project... and... he knew he needed more genealogical information from the birth family, so he asked me to inquire again. So I wrote a letter. And the social worker said, call me back in a few weeks. I'll let you know if I find anything.

And it turns out, two weeks later, in February 2000, I'm driving up to go skiing in Maine with Eben. We're driving through a blizzard and my son is sitting in the back seat. And all of a sudden I remembered, oh, yeah, the social worker said call her up, maybe she'd have an answer. And so I called her up.

She said, well, yes, I did find something out... your birth parents got married. Now, I cannot tell you what a wham, what a complete shock that was to my system. I never had thought they'd gotten married. And the social worker said, and they had three children. So I had a whole family, a birth family out there completely intact, that I knew nothing about...

And social worker said, but your youngest sister died two years ago. That would have been 1998. And because they're still grieving her loss, it's not a good time to come back into their lives. Now, she made up that last part because the laws were very strict. She was not allowed to connect us together. But she didn't know anything about the thinking because her communications had actually come just from some letters from one sister in the birth family, but not from any of the parents. And so the social worker... couldn't really go very far with it, but she made up that little lie.

Massive Wake-up Call

That did a lot of damage to me because I quit taking my sons to church. I quit saying prayers to them at night. I basically entered a dark night of the soul where I gave up on any lasting hope for a loving personal God. And that dark night of the soul lasted me right up until my coma in 2008. But fortunately, a year before my coma in 2007, two of my adoptive sisters walking on a beach in South Carolina, said, don't you think it's time you reached out to your birth family again? Because they recognized that I made some progress in the past but I'd hit that stone wall back in 2000 with that perceived rejection. They were right.

I wrote another letter. This time, I got a positive answer. And I met my birth mother October 5, 2007. Minutes later, I met my birth father, hugged them for the first time at 54 years. And then that weekend, I met my birth brother and sister, and then in coming months, went to beach family reunions where I met some uncles, cousins, et cetera. So all a big story. But anybody who's read Proof of Heaven realizes how important that adoption reconnection was for me to have that near death experience because of the identity of that beautiful guardian angel, which only became clear to me when that birth sister Kathy finally sent me a picture of our lost birth sister, Betsy, that arrived four months after my coma. So I looked at it, and it's as if she's looking, saying, do you finally get it? And yes, Betsy, I do finally get it. So what a wake up call that was.

Jock Brocas: So when you come out of your coma, did any of this connect with you in this life review that you had? Because that ontology that would have changed everything.

Eben Alexander: Okay, well, here's the important thing about that. Because of the amnesia, and I think that was one of the reasons the amnesia was there, I did not have an Eben Alexander life review, but what I did have... and I really haven't finished my NDE story… So in that beautiful Gateway Valley, I wasn't alone on that butterfly wing. There was a beautiful young woman, sparkling blue eyes, high forehead, high cheekbones, broad smile. She never said a word, never had to, but her thoughts, her mind melded completely with mine. And her message to me, which I put into words many weeks later after I woke up and was recording all this... which was a pure, conceptual, emotional flow, was, you are deeply loved and cherished forever. You have nothing to fear. You're richly cared for. And I cannot tell you how reassuring that was in the moment, that beautiful message from that guardian angel.

But I ascended up from that level from the Gateway Valley, and in fact, once again, it was a musical portal. Music, vibration, frequency was a giant theme for me in my journey and also a giant theme in my meditation using sacred acoustics ever since my journey. But in the core realm, what I witnessed was... four dimensional space time, which I could vaguely sense from that Gateway Valley, all of that collapsed down. Then all of the Gateway Valley, with its kind of eternity, of time and different causal ordering, all of that collapsed down as my awareness ascended up into what I call the core. An infinite inky blackness, but filled to overflowing with the divine love of that God force at the creative force of the universe.

The Core Realm was Devoid of Duality

I also recognized in the core realm that my very conscious awareness was directly sourced in that God force. So none of us are ever separate from that God force of purity and oneness and that's what is so important to near death experiencers. That's why more than 90% of near death experiencers come back not just believing, but knowing in some form of intelligence and love and co-creative energy at the heart of the universe. And to me, coming back from my journey, having grown up in a Christian environment, it was important to stress that it didn't matter whether you wanted to label this divinity God or Allah, Brahman, Vishnu, Jehovah, Yahweh, Great Spirit, Dao, all the many words people use to try and claim that, as opposed to recognizing that religions are actually steering us to that central concept of kindness, love, compassion, mercy, acceptance, forgiveness, and having that be the core of our basis for decisions, thinking and action in this world. And so that was a beautiful kind of demonstration of that.

And there was a vision I had… in this Gateway Valley... especially on one of the final passages there. And I used to call this the Indra's Net vision (core Buddhist concepts of Śūnyatā (emptiness), dependent origination, and the perfect interpenetration of all phenomena), but that was a bit of a mistaken term. I was borrowing a term from Hindu cosmology that wasn't a perfect description of my situation. The current description I use is more of a living tapestry.

What it was, was a vision I saw in the core. So the core is a realm that otherwise is completely devoid of any of the dualities of our world. So masculine, feminine, dark, light, good, evil, all those things are completely resolved into oneness in the core realm. But in the core, I was witness to this living tapestry vision, all these interwoven threads. And what I saw was, they were our lives, and it requires more than a physical lifetime to get to that oneness with the divine. So reincarnation had to be part of the package. It was written, the very fabric of all this, as well as the vision of life reviews. I saw this course correction that was very important at the end of every lifetime where you reunited with your soul group, went over the lessons learned life review and then planned next incarnations and then dove back in.

And of course, all the scientific data on reincarnation, I didn't know about before my coma. But since then, I've learned about the work at... University of Virginia, where they've studied more than 2,500 cases past life memories in children over 65 years. And of those, more than 1700 they've solved. That is, they actually found the person who lived before.

Jock Brocas: I find that fascinating because I started researching that years ago and as you know, being a medium for over two decades, I was really skeptical of these past lives. And I was thinking... there's bound to be natural explanations for it. But when you dive into the data and you see there is actual empirical evidence, it is absolutely fascinating and scary at the same time. It's comforting. But then, other people would say, I don't want to be incarnate again. I don't want to have that experience.

Eben Alexander: I think we have very much free will around that issue.

​Watch the Podcast

​Separated Minds, Violent World | The Truth About Our Nature

Premiered June 15, 2026 - Runtime: 1 hr 29

Resources

Eben Alexander: Unveiling the Mystery of Consciousness - https://ebenalexander.com/

The Panacea Society’s ‘Daughter of God’ & Other Curious Cult Tales

​Around 60 miles from London, Bedfordshire’s county town of Bedford is a pleasant enough place, home to around 168,000 residents. Interestingly, 30% of Bedford’s inhabitants are of at least partial Italian descent. Mainly a result of labour recruitment in the early 1950s by the London Brick Company in Southern Italy and Sicily. Bedford boasts an Italian Vice-Consulate, and BBC Radio Three Counties radio has a weekly programme called Mondo Italiano, dedicated to the Italian community.

Other than demographically, Bedford is pretty much your standard English shire burg, although as the birthplace of Pilgrim’s Progress author and nonconformist preacher John Bunyan (1628-88), there is a certain air of religious fervour associated with the town, which brings us to the subject of this particular investigation.

​Bedfordshire

​Founded in 1919 by Mabel Barltrop, the female-led millenarian Panacea Society followed the doctrines of Devonshire virgin ‘prophetess’ Joanna Southcott (1750-1814), campaigning for her sealed box of prognostications to only be opened when the world faced certain destruction.

Joanna Southcott Box - The Panacea Museum, Bedford

​https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joanna_Southcott%27s_Box_-_The_Panacea_Museum,_Bedford.jpg

The group believed the original site of the Garden of Eden was located within a three-mile radius of their church in Bedford. The Panaceans held if they conquered personal sin they would achieve immortality. However, after members eventually died, they then came to believe they would somehow join a race of immortal beings on the planet Uranus until Jesus returned.

​The Society was led by a vicar’s widow Mabel Barltrop, who in 1919 proclaimed she was the ‘Daughter of God’, the messiah prophesied by Shiloh in the New Testament book of Revelation. Renamed Octavia by one of her appointed ‘apostles’, her mainly middle-class, middle-aged female acolytes left their homes and moved to Bedford, creating a community that peaked at around 70 members in the 1920s and 1930s. The group sent squares of linen breathed on by Octavia that they claimed would heal any affliction to more than 120,000 believers worldwide. ‘Patients’ were instructed to put the linen in a jug of water, pray, and drink this "Water A" four times a day; this could then be diluted with additional water, producing "Water B," which should be applied to the body as bath water or through sponges.

The Panacea Society posted billboards across London demanding all England’s bishops visit Bedford and open the Southcott’s box, preparing bedrooms for the bishops to stay in; they also provided a fully-furnished terraced house named ‘The Ark’ for Jesus to stay in when he chose to come back to Earth. Octavia was unable to venture far from her HQ as she believed Satan would attack her if she traveled more than 77 steps from the front door.

When the society started to sell off some of its property in 2001 in order to retain its status as a charity, it was reported to have assets valued at £14m.The trust boasts considerable wealth. In The Guardian, Frances Stonor Saunders stated it had, "a long-term investment portfolio worth £20m, in addition to £3m in own use assets", with a donation of around £500,000 to the University of Oxford’s Faculty of Theology’s Prophecy Project (2003-2010).

Mabel Barltrop as Octavia (approx 1925)

​unknown and before 1934, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Bedford’s Panacea museum houses a gilded cradle with embroidered baby clothes, intended for the baby messiah that Southcott mistakenly claimed to be carrying at the age of 64; the swelling was probably a cancerous growth.

In 2023, the society’s weeping ash tree named ‘Yggdrasil’ (the Tree of Life and Knowledge in Norse mythology) collapsed in the grounds of the museum; whilst Panacea was ostensibly Christian, the members incorporated elements of other faiths, such as Ancient Norse mythology.

​Despite their outwardly refined manners, however, strict discipline was maintained in the society. Punishment for infringements included physical threats, blackmail and verbal abuse, enforced by Octavia and her ‘Divine Mother’ consigliere Emily Goodwin. Members were also required to be celibate, although lesbian affairs and homosexual behaviour amongst the few male followers was not unheard of. The Daughter of God was reputedly bossy, snobbish, vain, paranoid, fascism friendly and, despite her ‘divine’ female status and following, hostile to feminism and suffragism.

The supposedly immortal Octavia died in 1934, aged 68; her warmed cadaver was watched in a vigil for three days in the belief she would revive, but when she began haemorrhaging from the mouth and other orifices, the undertakers sealed the mouldering body in a coffin.

Goodwin took over as leader until she also passed away 9 years later. Members thence began to decline; Ruth Klein, the last remaining Bedford member of the group, died in 2012.

​TV reporter Claire McGlasson’s 2019 novel The Rapture used the Panacea Society as the setting for a sapphic love story. Her research revealed Octavia and her followers were “terrible snobs”, with petty rules on the approved method to fold napkins or to eat toast or baked spuds.

Ms McGlasson commented: “There’s a contrast between this very domestic, middle class, respectable society of women and these radical beliefs; a kind of feminist interpretation of the Bible. But the two seem to go hand in hand. You'd think against the backdrop of the salvation of the human race and an end to suffering on Earth, they wouldn’t be bothered about the correct fork to use. But they were.”

The society was very wealthy and in some ways prescient: “They had their own printing press; they made pamphlets and books, they had billboards across London. If they’d been on Twitter they would have absolutely nailed it, I think, because they were good at promoting their own message."

Southcott’s box of prophecies remains unopened and confined to a secret location, but there is a replica at the Museum. In 1927 a fake version of the box was sent to the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, where psychic researcher Harry Price x-rayed it to find a busted horse pistol, dice box, purse, books, lottery ticket and night cap.

Southcott’s beliefs are still practised today by two successor religious sects - the Christian Israelite Church and the House of David. The Christian Israelite Church was founded by John Wroe (1782–1863), whose alleged naughty antics were depicted in BBC2’s 1993 series Mr Wroe’s Virgins:

The House of David also courted controversy with the sexual shenanigans of “King of the House of David” Benjamin Purnell.

The Panacea Founders House

Panacea Founders House

​Jonathan A Jones, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The Panacea Chapel

The interior of the panacea chapel looking towards the altar

​Geni, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

​LINKS

​Italians in Bedford https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jan/23/britishidentity.features113

​Pizza, Pasta, and… Pubs? Bedford is England’s Most Italian Town https://italysegreta.com/bedford-is-englands-most-italian-town/

The Panacea Museum https://panaceamuseum.org/about

​The world's most unlikely cult leader: Edwardian housewife Mabel Barltrop https://www.dailymail.com/lifestyle/article-7083357/amp/The-worlds-unlikely-cult-leader-Edwardian-housewife-Mabel-Barltrop.html

​Octavia, Daughter of God by Jane Shaw – review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/30/octavia-daughtrer-god-jane-shaw-review

​Delving Into The Mystery Of Joanna Southcott’s Box https://londonist.com/2016/10/in-search-of-joanna-southcott-s-box

Holy Places and Religious Language in New Religious Movements https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-blackfriars/article/abs/holy-places-and-religious-language-in-new-religious-movements/C0885A45F14BB346F2CF888F00D19122

​The Panacea Society – Posts in the Graveyard https://www.postsinthegraveyard.com/2024/01/08/the-panacea-society/

​How 120,000 people thought they could cheat death https://www.bbc.co.uk/travel/article/20170123-this-ordinary-town-hides-an-unopened-box-of-prophecies

​Peeking behind the curtains of Bedford's strange, feminist Panacea Society https://www.bigissue.com/culture/books/peeking-behind-the-curtains-of-bedfords-strange-feminist-panacea-society/

​The Cult that put Eden and Yggdrasil in Bedford https://dazzasaint.medium.com/the-cult-that-put-eden-and-yggdrasil-in-bedford-afb9b2706fbb

​Prophets reading prophecy: the interpretation of the Book of Revelation in the writings of Richard Brothers, Joanna Southcott and William Blake https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:76ab3c3f-eb74-4bd8-b970-89113dddc39f https://impact.ref.ac.uk/casestudies/CaseStudy.aspx?Id=8845

​Whatever became of Joanna Southcott’s Box? https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-4563,00.html

​'Tree of Life' falls down due to decay https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3g710npzwzo

​The mysterious religious cult whose followers believed Bedford was the Garden of Eden - Bedfordshire Live https://www.bedfordshirelive.co.uk/news/bedfordshire-news/mysterious-religious-cult-whose-followers-5203971?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

Thelonious Monk - Panacea

STEPHEN ARNELL’S NOVEL THE GREAT ONE IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON KINDLE: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-One-Secret-Memoirs-Pompey-ebook/dp/B0BNLTB2G7

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