As Halloween approaches, many folks enjoy a ghostly outing—whether for thrills or to glimpse evidence of something beyond. To go on the hunt for ghosts is a pastime few practice year-round, but when the season is right, more people go chasing after a belief. The old idea October 31 is when the veil is thinnest has roots in Neopagan lore, particularly Samhain, the Celtic festival marking the boundary between the living and the dead. Similar ideas echo in Mexico’s Día de los Muertos, celebrated soon after All Saints’ Day.
Whatever the tradition, humanity’s fascination with the afterlife is ancient. Even in Greek literature, ghosts appear not just as spectres but as participants in moral and mythic storytelling. In The Odyssey (Book 11), Odysseus travels to the underworld and summons shades of the dead to question them—a literal “ghost quest.” Centuries later, during the Victorian era—the golden age of spiritualism—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle developed his own fascination with the supernatural, even though his most famous character never took on such a case.
In the real world, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535) wrote extensively on summoning and communicating with spirits, including protective procedures to avoid harm. His most famous work is titled, Three Books of Occult Philosophy. During the Enlightenment, curiosity about the unseen became more structured with the rise of scientific and philosophical societies.
Robert Boyle (1627–1691) explored why such phenomena might occur in Alchemy, Magic and Moralism, while Bishop Francis Godwin (1562–1633) collected accounts of strange experiences. Some of their material is available to read online. These early thinkers were not “ghost hunters” in the modern sense, but their methods paved the way for a more rational approach.
A century later, Johann Zöllner (1834–1882), an astronomer intrigued by mediumship, brought academic rigour to séances. He documented his experiments in his 1878–79 work, Transcendental Physics, where he described slate-writing, knot-tying and object movements performed by the medium Henry Slade. He invited scientific observers. However, these findings were soon challenged for weak controls, foreshadowing the more rigorous sceptical turn in psychical research.
The Fox sisters’ famous demonstrations in the mid-1800s ignited popular interest, giving rise to a full-fledged movement. Amid social upheaval, industrial change, and moral uncertainty, the Victorian fascination with spirits offered comfort—a way to process loss and mystery within a structured ritual. However, it must be noted that Maggie admitted to hoaxing the world 40 years later.
Despite this revelation, interest flourished. But as industrialization came, more advocates called for controlled experiments because not everything should be taken for granted. This led to the formation of organizations like The Ghost Club (1862), whose members included Charles Dickens, W. B. Yeats, and even Doyle himself. Two decades later, the Society for Psychical Research (1882) emerged, approaching the paranormal with a more academic lens—and in doing so, transformed investigation into a discipline.
This evolution set the stage for figures such as Sir William Crookes and Harry Price to reinvent the field. They cultivated techniques to measure, test, and document encounters—methods that underpin modern paranormal investigation today.
In part two, I’ll explore how their contributions shaped today’s ghost-hunting practices—and attempt to answer one enduring question: who truly deserves the title of granddaddy of ghost hunting?
Bibliography to Further The Hunt for Ghosts
- Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius. Three Books of Occult Philosophy or Magic. London: Gregory Mynns, 1651. Google Books.
- Boyle, Robert. “Alchemy, Magic and Moralism.” Isis 52, no. 1 (1961): 56–67. JSTOR.
- Doyle, Arthur Conan. The History of Spiritualism. London: Cassell & Co., 1926.
- Godwin, Francis. The Man in the Moone. London: John Norton, 1638. Archive.org collection.
- Homer. The Odyssey. Book 11. Translated by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Classics, 1996.
- Zöllner, Johann Karl Friedrich. Transcendental Physics: An Account of Experimental Investigations from the Scientific Treatises of Johann Carl Friedrich Zöllner. Trans. Charles Carleton Massey. London: W. H. Harrison, 1880. Archive.org.
- ———. Transcendental Physics. Boston: Colby & Rich, 1881. Archive.org.
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