{"id":2064,"date":"2026-10-19T16:57:04","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T16:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/10\/19\/the-17th-century-british-scientists-who-investigated-hauntings\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T16:57:04","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T16:57:04","slug":"the-17th-century-british-scientists-who-investigated-hauntings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/10\/19\/the-17th-century-british-scientists-who-investigated-hauntings\/","title":{"rendered":"The 17th-century British scientists who investigated hauntings"},"content":{"rendered":"
Death by Albert Chmielowski (1870)<\/span> National Museum in Warsaw<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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 \u201cgap\u2019d at him\u201d. Symonds identified the ghost as that of John Estcourt, a gentleman who had died about two years earlier.<\/p>\n

Halloween<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n

The Royal Society<\/a>, founded in 1660, was the country\u2019s principal scientific institution. Joseph Glanvill, a Royal Society fellow, investigated spirits and witches. His Saducismus Triumphatus<\/a> (1681) aimed to prove their existence by cataloguing cases in detail. He argued that denying them was to deny God\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n

Symonds\u2019 haunting was recorded by that of another of the society\u2019s fellows, John Aubrey, in a survey<\/a> of Wiltshire\u2019s natural world. Aubrey agreed with Glanvill that the supernatural deserved serious study and directed his readers to Saducismus, but he thought Glanvill somewhat gullible.<\/p>\n

Aubrey was born in 1626 at Easton Piercy, a few miles from Garsdon. I have edited John Aubrey\u2019s Natural History<\/a> to mark his 400th anniversary.<\/p>\n

This natural history of Wiltshire was begun in 1656 and was the first English county survey of nature to be attempted \u2013 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<\/a>, the Royal Society had the Natural History copied and added to its library<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cMen and Women\u201d. Almost at the end of the text is a chapter titled \u201cAccidents\u201d that records extraordinary events, including supernatural ones, like the haunting of Symonds.<\/p>\n

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

\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u2019s method in chronicling cases was entirely in keeping with the aims of scientific enterprise.<\/p>\n

So, Aubrey was neither uncritical nor dismissive about Symonds\u2019 story. Symonds was \u201ca lusty strong fellow\u201d, 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\u2019s horse, \u201cthat trembled and sweat, when he came home and continued to do so the next day, and would not eat his oates\u201d. The horse could not lie or get drunk; its fear, manifest in the trembling and sweat, was genuine.<\/p>\n

Aubrey recorded another anecdote about a night ride. It concerned Sir Ralph Bankes\u2019 valet:\u201ca briske young fellow\u201d, who, riding late over Badbury Warren, Dorset, discerned something that looked black, which, as he approached, became bigger. <\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The valet spurred his horse and came to the place, only to find the apparition was \u201ca heap of horse dung\u201d.<\/p>\n

In Symonds\u2019 haunting, the truth of the spectre could not be tested; but witnesses were recorded, and their testimony weighed. In the valet\u2019s case, the witness tested the truth of the ghost himself and found it was a pile of dung.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s an approach worth remembering this Halloween when fantastical tales hit your social media feed. A phantom may prove to be a load of poo.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Natural History, which she edited for Hobnob Press. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Death by Albert Chmielowski (1870) National Museum in Warsaw 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}