Urban legends are everywhere. For many of us, our lives are made more interesting by the mere presence of such guilty pleasures. For others, the legends are very real, and hold as much-if not more-power than fears that can be justified. They are a means for us to indulge even our most morbid inclinations by the simple act of relaying well-worn accounts that fall somewhere between gossip and campfire tales. It can be rightfully said that they are the folklore of the industrial generation.

Many people unfamiliar with the concept of urban legends (or suburban myths, depending on the locale) have been responsible for disseminating and perpetuating such hardy tales. The baby alligator that is flushed down the toilet, only to survive and breed in the sewers beneath city streets. The nameless old woman who decides to dry off her beloved poodle by throwing it in the microwave for a few short minutes . . . with predictably nasty results. The nameless young woman who visits the tanning salon one too many times, and-after being unable to get rid of a noxious odor clinging to her person-discovers that her insides are rotting as a result of being cooked. These are but three of innumerable urban legends perpetuated by everyone from children too young to understand their significance to businesspeople gossiping around the water cooler during their breaks.

And, like living languages, urban legends change, both as a result of misinterpretation and through evolution, adapting to fit the environment of those cultivating them. Yet, despite their stubborn existence, no one can ever offer any proof other than it having happened to “a friend of a friend.” So widespread are these snippets of delusion, so ingrained in our culture, they are now looked upon as something more integral to our lives than mere idle gossip. Recognizing the importance of these tales, folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand began collecting them in their various forms, and authored five books on the subject between 1981 and 1993. He also wrote a nationally syndicated column that recounted such tales. Brunvand found that he had his hands full, though, as he probably spent just as much time writing about urban legends as he did debunking the claims of those “friends of a friend” stories.

Cinema and Urban Legends

Although an occasional nuisance to those aware of their erroneous nature, urban legends rarely have a dramatic effect on society. But what if such a tale grew to an unprecedented level of acceptance that it actually had a substantial effect on the public? What if it became responsible for the dissemination of unsubstantiated claims that created a nationwide panic? What if such a tale was responsible for single-handedly creating a myth that would become a cinematic bogeyman for generations? Such, it seems, is the history of the snuff film.

Urban legends cover all facets of life, including cinema. And since two major themes underlying urban legends are sex and death, it seems only natural that the genre of the horror film is rife with lore. Being a convenient scapegoat for numerous societal woes since their conception, and being vilified on the same grounds as rock music and comic books, horror films are a perfect breeding ground for such urban legends. Stories abound, ranging from the innocuous (rumors still persist that King Kong Vs. Godzilla [1963] was released with two different endings, with Kong winning in the stateside release, whereas Godzilla triumphs in the Japanese version), to the downright macabre. (Many horror fans still think that such films as Le Jorobado de la Morgue [1972], Buio Omega [1980], and Der Todesking [1990] utilize real corpses to supplement the staged effects, despite documentation to the contrary. Due to the inaccessibility of many foreign films-especially low budget productions such as these-it is easy to see how such rumors can persist.) Some of these legends remain fairly obscure, relegated to being spread word of mouth by naive, uninformed fans. Others persist outside the fan following, infiltrating mainstream America.

Of the latter variety, one of the more popular myths involves the film The Texas Chain Saw [sic] Massacre (1974). There is a lingering misconception that this low-budget production was indeed based on a real story as it so coyly claims in an opening statement. In truth, it is loosely-if not tenuously-based the exploits of one Edward Gein, a Wisconsin farmer who had a filthy habit of raiding graveyards and making lampshades out of their clientele. Evidence that he practiced cannibalism and necrophilia on occasion cannot be overlooked either, although a chainsaw was not involved. As for similarities between these crimes and Tobe Hooper’s unrelenting horror film, they are far and few between. (Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho [1960] actually bears a much greater resemblance to the case, despite the fact that author Robert Bloch claims he knew nothing of Gein’s heinous crimes before writing the novel that inspired the film.)
[see Jacob Fisher letter below for a correction on this point.]

Despite the inevitable frustration with having to reiterate the facts to those who adhere to these misconceptions, one can find humor in the claims inspired by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It is essentially harmless and remains an excellent example of how gullible people can be, how they adapt their reality to suit erroneous information offered to them as fact. It is also a testament to how our culture embellishes reality.

The myth of the snuff film, on the other hand, is a prime example of a cinematic urban legend. (The term “snuff” in reference to a specific genre of filmmaking where the actors are supposedly killed for the benefit of the viewer was coined by Ed Sanders in his book The Family-The Story of Charles Manson’s Dune Buggy Attack Battalion [Panther Books, 1976]. The term was used to describe unsubstantiated claims that Manson and his followers may have been involved in perpetrating such crimes.) Twenty-four years later, many people who have heard of-but have never seen-the movie Snuff insists that it does contain actual footage of human death and mutilation. Even those individuals who do not recall the controversy have been affected by it, as belief in "snuff” films persist to this day. Many people attest to the existence of snuff films even though no one has ever actually seen one; authorities, it seems, also have nothing more concrete than vague rumors about the alleged production and distribution of snuff films as well. It is not at all surprising that most of the rumors concerning the existence of snuff films did not surface until after this film made headlines.

It is safe to say that anybody who has seen Snuff (which is obscure, but far from unavailable) knows how ludicrous these claims are, at least with respect to this specific production. Not only is the gore obviously fake, but the execution of the special effects is painfully inept. Snuff is nothing more than a grand marketing scheme that made a shameless little splatter film into one of the most profitable-and notorious-films ever conceived. The clever ad campaign was obviously tongue-in-cheek, but somehow millions of theater-goers were snagged by the notion “But what if it is real?” and it seems that their morbid curiosity got the best of them. Were the producers trying to exploit America’s obsession with the macabre? Or did they simply view it as a clever dare to attract a few extra ticket sales? As it turns out, the latter seems closer to the truth. Whatever the motives, it worked, to the absolute joy of the promoters-and to the chagrin of those who would inevitably be confronted with the chore of debunking the hoax in the years to come.

The Origin of the Snuff Film

The film’s origin dates back several years before its auspicious release in 1975. In 1971, filmmakers Michael and Roberta Findlay helmed a production in Argentina called Slaughter, a modest little film that was made for a little over thirty thousand dollars. Although various sources have cited it as an unfinished production, it did have a brief theatrical run. (Slaughter played no more than three theaters prior to October 1975; obviously, promotion was not their strong suit.) How this came about is uncertain; with the exception of an abrupt end-quite possibly snipped to accommodate the splashier finale tacked on years later-it is obviously a complete production.

Slaughter did its best to exploit the still-steaming remains of the Manson Family’s involvement with the Tate/La Bianca murders, although much artistic license is taken. The film is generally more accessible than the Findlays’ other films-The Touch of Her Flesh (1967), A Thousand Pleasures (1968), et al.-but this was not much of a stretch. Fans of their films-especially A Thousand Pleasures-will not only recognize some of the familiar faces (and voices, some of the dialogue being dubbed by those involved in the aforementioned film, the Findlays among them), but the overwhelmingly awkward dialogue as well. Unlike these other lowbrow productions, though, Slaughter was not destined to languish in the pits of obscurity. Far from it.

In 1972, Allan Shackleton, a research engineer-turned-film producer had bought the world distribution rights for Slaughter through his Monarch Releasing Corporation, a distribution house that specialized in sexploitation fare. (Sexploitation films are exploitation films which are overwhelmingly sexual in nature, but do not fall under the label of hardcore pornography.) He was still “scratching to recoup a shaky investment in a rotten film” (Lynch 1976) three years later when it caught the attention of someone who mistook the proceedings in his film as something more sinister than it was. Instead of setting the record straight, Mr. Shackleton played up on the false assumptions. Gambling on the three I’s (implication, inference, and innuendo), he implied but did not explicitly assert that the atrocities in the film were authentic.

On December 1, 1975, Allan Shackleton sent out the first of several press releases aimed to pique the public’s interest. Unfortunately for him, Michael Findlay caught sight of it and immediately realized that it was his film Slaughter (now retitled under the more succinct, monosyllabic moniker Snuff) that was behind the escalating furor. Findlay approached the distributor about contract renegotiations (as he was obviously not getting a big enough piece of the pie), but was unsuccessful in his pleas for more money. He did, however, almost succeed in exposing the entire scam during a crushing interview; Shackleton immediately paid him off, and he did not hear from Michael again.

Shackleton took the next step of distributing fake newspaper clippings that detailed the efforts of a fictional “Vincent Sheehan” and the retired attorney’s crusade against the film through a newly formed organization called Citizens for Decency. Unbeknownst to him, though, there really was a group called Citizens for Decency, but this did little to deter the real organization from rallying behind Shackleton’s fictional do-gooder. If anyone from the group had checked Sheehan’s credentials, they evidently did not make it publicly known.

Amidst the national hysteria, critics everywhere were writing articles condemning the unreleased film, endorsing its authenticity sight unseen and giving it whatever credibility it had previously lacked. At this point, no one had actually seen the movie save for a few disgruntled theater-goers who had happened to catch it during its short-term run as Slaughter. Even more ironic, the notorious finale that would give the film the weight it needed to guarantee it a place in the history books had not even been filmed yet.

The scene that punctuates the Findlays’ all-but-forgotten film was shot for $10,000 in a Manhattan loft by Simon Nocturn of August films during the course of a single day. This new footage featured a film crew (supposedly the selfsame individuals responsible for Slaughter) who wrap up their production by mutilating, dismembering, and eventually eviscerating the leading lady (who bears no resemblance to the previous actress). At the pinnacle of her bloody demise, the cameraman conveniently runs out of film, although the audio track continues to record their panicked voices even after everything has faded to black.

It then unofficially became cinematic history.

Hype, Hoax, and Hysteria

Snuff opened January 16, 1976, and was met by as many curiosity seekers as ardent protesters. Theaters were besieged by staunch feminists, egged by angry picketers, and unnerved by bomb threats. Instead of deterring would-be ticket buyers, though, the furor only fanned the flames of public interest. In the first week of its New York run, Snuff grossed $66,000 and outsold such hits as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for three weeks straight (Smith 1982).

The controversy finally caught the attention of the legal system, forcing the film to carry a disclaimer that clearly stated that no one was harmed during the production of said film. Reluctantly, Shackleton went along with it but eventually recounted his admittance, reverting to his statement that the public should be left to decide Snuff's authenticity for themselves. Years later, Shackleton finally fessed up (sans coercion), but by that time no one wanted to listen-to him or anyone else it seemed. Not only had the notoriety of the film snowballed to unprecedented proportions, but it had become accepted “fact” that snuff films were a real national scourge and no amount of debunking would change the public’s opinion.

The incidental showing of Slaughter that sparked Shackleton’s decision to play up the sordid implications of the snuff myth led to Detective Joseph Horman’s claims that the New York Police Department had “reliable sources attesting to the circulation of snuff films,” which he erroneously referred to as “slasher” films. Apparently, he said, interested individuals were paying $200 apiece-some sources cite a mere $150-for private screenings of an eight-reel, 8mm production which was rumored to have been filmed in Argentina. This unverified account could easily be traced back to Slaughter, although it had been greatly embellished by the time it had reached the authorities. This single rumor became the only evidence on which the entire Snuff hoax-and the snuff movie scare-was rooted.

The Los Angeles Police Department did an investigation into the phenomenon and admitted that they could not find even the slightest evidence that snuff films actually existed. They later denied this statement, saying that no investigation was ever initiated by them, possibly in an attempt to defend themselves against the harassment of a public who believed otherwise. Reporters who actually followed up on the rumors (as opposed to simply accepting the authenticity of the films on hearsay) came up empty handed as well. Still, the majority of the population was convinced that snuff films were a multi-million dollar black market racket. It was only after Snuff had run its course and the lack of evidence of snuff films became apparent that the hysteria died down and some people began doubting their convictions. Unfortunately, the notion had become so ingrained in our culture that, for future generations and those too young to understand its significance, snuff films would transgress the line from hoax to urban legend.

Twenty-four years later, the myth remains.

To this day, anti-pornography campaigners use Snuff and snuff films in general as artillery to defend their moralistic crusades. Many hardline feminists use snuff films as an example of patriarchal suppression. Such books as The Age of Sex Crime by Jane Caputi, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions by Gloria Steinem, and Take Back the Night-Women on Pornography by Laura Lederer make the assumption that snuff films are a given in this day and age; some even go so far as to suppose that snuff films are the logical conclusion for those individuals jaded by more traditional forms of pornography. Even Linda Lovelace, star of the groundbreaking adult film Deep Throat (1972), testified to the U.S. Attorney General’s Commission on Organized Crime that “women acting in porn films were being murdered on camera or after filming when they were deemed of no further use” (Kerekes 1995). (Many, though, don't take her claims very seriously, as she previously spent many years trying to vilify the adult film industry.) Unfortunately, the decision on the part of some hardline feminists to rely on hearsay only exposes their ignorance of the facts or purposeful dissemination of long-debunked propaganda. Those individuals willing to cross the line and try to dispel the myth find themselves avoiding the slings and arrows of their detractors.

The snuff film controversy is suspiciously similar to the current trend to blame many of our societal woes on satanic cults and their sexual and psychological abuse of children; one cannot discount the possibility that there may be isolated incidents of both real snuff films and satanic ritual abuse, but-so far-there is no substantial proof as to the existence of either.

Despite the sometimes chastising tone of this article toward the man responsible for Snuff's conception, Shackleton should be commended for his ingenuity and his success at riling up a sometimes lax populace. (Especially in the 1970s, a decade known for its lack of political correctness.) Had he actually claimed the authenticity of the film like so many government authorities, angry citizens-turned-activists, and (especially) the media, he would have been no better. When it gets right down to it, his worst crime is being opportunistic.

In a perfect world, no one would have taken his inferences with anything more than a grain of salt, and if they had, the illusion would have been quickly dispelled on an individual and community level. Unfortunately, though, Snuff's shameless promotion created a wave of hysteria that latched onto a culture’s deep-rooted ignorance and flourished in a media-driven society quick to publicize the sordid and sensational. Furthermore, our society’s cathartic interest in the macabre-in our fascination with all things concerning death-only strengthened the hysteria’s roots.

Even today, there are rumors of “snuff” sightings, sometimes instigated by the filmmakers themselves. The most recent example involves a Japanese series of gory shot-on-video productions released under the collective title of Za Ginipiggu (Guinea Pig), several of the installments having been directed by the infamous manga (Japanese comic book) artist/writer Hideshi Hino. Hino is known in the U.S. for such comic book graphic novels as Panorama of Hell and Hell Baby. (The first film in the series was even accompanied by the disclaimer “The producers received this video. There was no accompanying information. We are researching name, age, and other information about the girl and her three killers.” Sound familiar?) Apparently, someone was showing a copy of the third installment, Chiniku No Hana (1990), at a Hollywood party circa 1991 where it caught the eye of actor Charlie Sheen. Convinced he had seen an actual snuff film, he immediately contacted the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and-before they could substantiate the claims-he “got involved in a subsequent movement to stop any kind of import distribution for the films” (Weisser and Weisser 1997). The film was traced back to Chas Balun, a film reviewer who also moonlighted as a video bootlegger; of course, the atrocities in the film were proven to be fake. The incident made headlines, though, and was even spotlighted on ABC’s newsmagazine 20/20. Instead of the film being confined to the pits of obscurity as-we can assume-Mr. Sheen had hoped, the furor only fueled the fire of interest in this no-budget splatter film, giving it a cult status it did not deserve. This same film sparked similar controversy in Great Britain in 1992, the owner of the confiscated “video nasty” fined for nothing more than mild obscenity charges when it proved to be the low-rent hoax that it was.

Yet it is not only the claims of deceived individuals that help to perpetuate the myth; every time that snuff films are even mentioned in modern fiction and cinema, they are giving credence to the rumors, playing on the reader’s or viewer’s assumptions that they are real to begin with. Not only have snuff films become a common staple in many sordid crime novels written in the last twenty years (even by such respected mystery writers as Rex Miller and Andrew Vachss), they have become popular subjects for innumerable exploitation and horror films. The Last House on Dead End Street (1977), Effects (1979), Holocausto Canibal (1979), Video Violence . . . When Renting Is Not Enough (1986), The Art of Dying (1991), Midnight 2-Death, Sex and Videotape (1993), and even the exemplary productions C'est arrivé près de chez vous (Man Bites Dog) (1992), Mute Witness (1994), and 8mm (1999) are just a few of the countless titles that milk the urban legend for all it’s worth. Even if the existence of actual snuff films should be validated at a later date, it is safe to say that there are more films about snuff films than there are actual snuff films in existence.

Of course, this issue begs the question: Should novelists and screenwriters avoid the subject altogether because it helps to perpetuate the myth? No, and why should they? Writers deal with fiction, and the suspension of disbelief is an integral part of any good novel or film. Putting any sort of disclaimer on each and every piece of entertainment that chooses to exploit this and other myths is a ludicrous notion; people should not have to be told that what they are reading or viewing has no basis in fact, as the label of “fiction” already establishes this.

The media, on the other hand, have a responsibility to the public, not so much with the dissemination of information, but with the dissemination of facts. Unfortunately, fanciful stories and hearsay are usually more interesting than cold reality and facts, as urban legends have shown beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Letters:

September 24, 2003

In your web page entry on snuff films as an urban legend you comment:

“Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho [1960] actually bears a much greater resemblance to the case [of Ed Gein], despite the fact that author Robert Bloch claims he knew nothing of Gein’s heinous crimes before writing the novel that inspired the film.”

Your comment about Bloch is quite incorrect. Bloch explicitly acknowledges having been inspired by Ed Gein’s crimes, when initially conceptualizing Psycho. And he researched Gein heavily for the writing of the novel. See: Stephen Rebello, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990.

It’s odd to have missed this, because part of what your entry on the snuff film legend points out is that the legend tends to find its origins in real crimes, such as those of Charles Manson (in addition to Ed Gein).

Jacob S. Fisher, Ph.D.

References

• Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1990. Curses! Broiled Again! New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.
• Kerekes, David, and David Slater. 1995. Killing for Culture. San Francisco: Creation Books.
• Lynch, Jay. 1976. The facts about the snuff-film rumors. Oui 7:69-70, 86, 117-118.
• McCarty, John. 1984. Splatter Movies. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• Meyers, Richard. 1983. For One Week Only. New Jersey: New Century Publishers, Inc.
• Palmerini, Luca M., and Gaetano Mistretta. 1996. Spaghetti Nightmares. Florida: Fantasma Books.
• Sanders, Ed. 1976. The Family-The Story of Charles Manson’s Dune Buggy Attack Battalion. London: Panther Books.
• Smith, Jack. 1982. Snuff myth-The bloody truth about on-screen sex slayings. Escapade 8:22-25, 92-94.
• Vale, V., and Andrea Juno. 1986. Re/Search #10-Incredibly Strange Films. San Francisco: Re/Search Publications.
• Weisser, Thomas, and Yuko Mihara Weisser. 1997. Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia. Florida: Vital Books.

In the Looking Glass

Many people have portrayed Lincoln as a man given to belief in omens-particularly those relating to his assassination. An incident often cited in this regard occurred at his home in Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln related it to a few friends and associates, including Noah Brooks in 1864. Brooks shared it with the readers of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine the following July-three months after Lincoln’s death-recounting the president’s story “as nearly as possible in his own words”:

It was just after my election in 1860. . . . I was well tired out, and went home to rest, throwing myself down on a lounge in my chamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau, with a swinging-glass upon it-[and here he got up and placed furniture to illustrate the position]-and, looking in that glass, I saw myself reflected, nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed, had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished. On lying down again I saw it a second time-plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler, say five shades, than the other. I got up and the thing melted away, and I went off and, in the excitement of the hour, forgot all about it-nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang, as though something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home I told my wife about it, and a few days after I tried the experiment again, when [with a laugh], sure enough, the thing came again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was worried about it somewhat. She thought it was “a sign” that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term. (Brooks 1865, 224-225)

The same story was told by Ward Hill Lamon in his book, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln. Lamon was a friend of Lincoln’s, a fearless man who accompanied him to Washington for his protection, being given the special title, Marshal of the District of Columbia. In discussing the matter of the double image in the mirror, Lamon stated: “Mr. Lincoln more than once told me that he could not explain this phenomenon” and “that he had tried to reproduce the double reflection at the Executive Mansion, but without success.” In Lamon’s account it was not Mrs. Lincoln but the president himself who thought the “ghostly” image foretold “that death would overtake him” before the end of his second term (Lamon 1995, 111-112).

In recent years, paranormalists have gotten hold of Lincoln’s anecdote and offered their own interpretations. Hans Holzer states that “What the President saw was a brief 'out of the body experience,' or astral projection,” meaning "that the bonds between conscious mind and the unconscious are temporarily loosened and that the inner or true self has quickly slipped out” (Holzer 1995, 65).

Such an explanation utterly fails to fit the evidence. Lincoln did not describe an out-of-body experience-a feeling of being outside one’s physical self-but, according to Brooks (1865, 225), “The President, with his usual good sense, saw nothing in all this but an optical illusion.”

The nature of this optical illusion can be deduced from the circumstances. The double image was of Lincoln’s face only, could be seen in a particular mirror but not others, and vanished and reappeared with respect to a certain vantage point. Taken together, these details are corroborative evidence that the mirror was the cause. An ordinary mirror can produce a slight double-image effect due to light reflecting off the front of the glass as well as off the silvering on the back. In modern mirrors this is usually not noticeable, and the shift in the image is slight in any event. But in the case of old mirrors, whose glass plates “were generally imperfect” (Cescinsky 1931), a distinct double image might be produced, like that shown in Figure 1. (Unfortunately, the actual mirror-topped bureau Lincoln described is no longer to be found at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, much of the furniture having been dispersed in earlier years [Suits 1998].)

Dreams of Death

The mirror incident sets the stage for claims of even more emphatically premonitory experiences. These were dreams Lincoln reportedly had that foretold dramatic events. One he related to his cabinet on April 14, 1865. The previous night he had dreamed he was in some mysterious boat, he said, “sailing toward a dark and indefinite shore.” In another version it was of “a ship sailing rapidly” (Lewis 1973, 290). When Lincoln was assassinated only hours later, the dream was seen as weirdly prophetic. The story grew in the retellings which spread, says Lloyd Lewis in Myths After Lincoln (1973, 291) “around the world.”

In fact, Lincoln had not thought the dream presaged his death. He had actually mentioned it in reply to General Grant, his guest that Good Friday afternoon, who had expressed worries about General Sherman’s fate in North Carolina. Lincoln felt that Sherman would be victorious because, he said, the dream had often come to him prior to significant events in the war. According to Lewis (1973, 290): “For a President of the United States, in a time like the Civil War, to dream that he was sailing rapidly to an unseen shore was certainly not remarkable. Most of his waking hours, across four years, were spent in wondering where the Ship of State was going.”

Lincoln supposedly described an even more ominous dream to Mrs. Lincoln, not long before his assassination, then again to Ward Hill Lamon (1895, 115-116) who reconstructed Lincoln’s words as follows:

About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. . . . Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. “Who is dead in the White House?” I demanded of one of the soldiers. “The President,” was his answer; “he was killed by an assassin!” Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which awoke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.

Lamon’s account may be true, although he has been criticized for having “fed the fire of superstition that people were kindling about the name of Lincoln” (Lewis 1973, 294). In fact, however, Lamon had added a sequel to the story which is invariably ignored:

Once the President alluded to this terrible dream with some show of playful humor. “Hill,” said he, “your apprehension of harm to me from some hidden enemy is downright foolishness. For a long time you have been trying to keep somebody-the Lord knows who-from killing me. Don't you see how it will turn out? In this dream it was not me, but some other fellow, that was killed. It seems that this ghostly assassin tried his hand on some one else.” (Lamon 1895, 116-117)

In any event, that Lincoln should have dreamed of assassination-even his own-can scarcely be termed remarkable. Prior to his first inauguration in 1861, Pinkerton detectives had smuggled Lincoln into Washington at night to avoid a change of trains in Baltimore where an assassination plot had been uncovered (Neely 1982, 16-17). Lincoln had subsequently “received untold number of death threats” (St. George 1990, 66), and on one occasion had a hole shot through his top hat by a would-be assassin (Neely 1982, 282).

Among the Spirits

Lamon (1895, 120) insisted that Lincoln “was no dabbler in divination-astrology, horoscopy, prophecy, ghostly lore, or witcheries of any sort.” Yet soon after his death spiritualists sought to use Lincoln to give respectability to their practices by citing the occasions he had permitted seances in the White House, as well as to claim contact with his own departed spirit. The extent of Lincoln’s involvement with spiritualism has been much debated.

Actually, it was Mrs. Lincoln who was involved with spiritualists. She turned to them in her bereavement over the death of Willie, the Lincolns’ beloved eleven-year-old son who died of “bilious fever” in 1862. One such spiritualist medium was Henrietta “Nettie” Colburn (1841-1892). Mary Todd Lincoln met her at a “circle” or seance at the Georgetown home of Cranstoun Laurie, chief clerk of the post office in Washington. On one occasion, a seance with Nettie was being held in the White House’s Red Parlor when the president stumbled upon the group and watched with curiosity. Another time he accompanied Mary to a seance at the Lauries’ home. At least one biographer has suggested that Lincoln’s marginal involvement may have stemmed from a desire “to protect his gullible wife” (Temple 1995, 199).

That was exactly what Lincoln did with regard to a trickster named Charles J. Colchester. Styling himself “Lord Colchester,” he conducted seances wherein "spirit rappings” were produced. A concerned Lincoln asked Dr. Joseph Henry (1797-1878), the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, for his advice about Colchester, whereupon Dr. Henry invited the medium to give a demonstration at his office. The scientist determined that the sounds came from Colchester and he suspected trickery. Later, Noah Brooks caught the medium cheating and warned Colchester not to return to the Executive Mansion (Temple 1995, 200). Lincoln himself was not interested in seances, but, according to Lloyd Lewis’s Myths After Lincoln (1973, 301), “In these dark hocus-pocuses Mrs. Lincoln found comfort, and Lincoln let them go on for a time, careless of whether the intellectuals of the capital thought him addle-pated or no.”

Spectral Visits

It is ironic that Lincoln did not believe in spiritualism, since his ghost is now reportedly so active. Although his Springfield home is decidedly unhaunted, according to curator Linda Suits (1998), who says neither she nor anyone she knows has had a ghostly encounter there, other places compete for attention. There have been numerous reported sightings of Lincoln’s ghost at his tomb in Springfield as well as at Fort Monroe in Virginia and, in Washington, at both the White House and Ford’s Theater (where Lincoln was assassinated) (Cohen 1989, 11; Winer and Osborn 1979, 125; Jones 1996, 15).

Understandably, perhaps, it is the White House that seems to receive the most attention-especially the “Lincoln Bedroom” (which, in Lincoln’s time, was actually his office). The notion that his ghost frequents the stately rooms and corridors doubtless began with Mrs. Lincoln’s post-assassination seances and it was probably given impetus by a figurative remark made by President Theodore Roosevelt (who served from 1901-1909): “I think of Lincoln, shambling, homely, with his strong, sad, deeply-furrowed face, all the time. I see him in the different rooms and in the halls” (St. George 1990, 84). Such feelings are still common and may trigger sightings among imaginative people and those predisposed to see ghosts. The first person to report actually seeing Lincoln’s ghost was Grace Coolidge (First Lady from 1923 to 1929), who saw his tall figure looking out an Oval Office window (Scott and Norman 1991, 74; Cohen 1989, 10). During her tenure, guests were lodged in the “Lincoln bedroom” and "Every newcomer was informed of the legend that when the great light over the front door was dimmed for the night the ghost of Abraham Lincoln was supposed to pace silently to and fro on the North Porch” (Ross 1962, 109).

Among subsequent Lincoln sightings was one by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (who had a prior interest in spiritualism). She was a guest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt when she heard a knock during the night at her bedroom door. Opening it, the drowsy queen saw the figure of Abraham Lincoln looking down at her, causing her to swoon (Ronan 1974, 40; Cohen 1989, 10). Religious leader Norman Vincent Peale claimed that a prominent actor (whom he would not name) had been a White House guest when he awoke to Lincoln’s voice pleading for help. The actor sat up to see “the lanky form of Lincoln prostrate on the floor in prayer, arms outstretched with fingers digging into the carpet” (Winer and Osborn 1979, 135). And President Reagan’s daughter Maureen said she had occasionally seen Lincoln’s ghost-"an aura, sometimes red, sometimes orange"-during the night. So had her husband Dennis Revell (Caroli 1992, 39).

These examples are typical of many ghost sightings that are due to common "waking dreams,” an experience that occurs when someone is just going to sleep or waking up and perceives ghosts, lights, or other strange imagery (Nickell 1995, 41, 46). Other apparitions are most likely to be seen when one is tired, daydreaming, performing routine chores, or is otherwise in a reverie or dissociative state (see e.g., Mackenzie 1982). This may help explain sightings such as one by Eleanor Roosevelt’s secretary, who passed by the Lincoln Bedroom one day and was frightened to see the ghostly president sitting on the bed and pulling on his boots (Alexander 1998, 43; Jones 1996, 8).

Once the notion of a ghost is affixed to a place, almost anything-an unexplained noise, mechanical malfunction, misplaced object, or the like-can be added to the lore. For example, on one of my appearances on “The Michael Reagan Show,” Mike told me an anecdote about his father and their dog, Rex. According to President Reagan, when passing the Lincoln Bedroom Rex would often bark but would refuse to enter the room (Reagan 1998; see also Caroli 1992, 39, and Alexander 1998, 45). Mike related the story as more of a novelty than as proof of a supernatural occurrence. (President Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis, once asked her father if he had ever seen Lincoln’s ghost. “'No,' my father answered-a bit sadly, I thought. 'I haven't seen him yet. But I do believe he’s here'” [Davis 1995].) Neither the Bushes nor, as far as they could tell, their dog Millie ever saw the ghost of Lincoln, or indeed any of the other historical specters who are occasionally reported (Alexander 1998, 45).

Not all of the reports of Lincoln’s ghost, however, have featured apparitions. In earlier times there were frequent reports of sounds that were variously interpreted, some describing them as heavy footfalls (Cohen 1989, 10; Jones 1996, 8), others as knockings at the door, with Lincoln’s ghost typically being thought responsible. Not only Queen Wilhelmina but also “Presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Herbert Hoover and Harry Truman all said they heard mysterious rappings, often at their bedroom doors” (Scott and Norman 1991, 74). However, ghosthunter Hans Holzer (1995, 70) concedes: “President Truman, a skeptic, decided that the noises had to be due to 'natural' causes, such as the dangerous settling of the floors. He ordered the White House completely rebuilt, and perhaps this was a good thing: It would surely have collapsed soon after, according to the architect, General Edgerton.”

For all his greatness Abraham Lincoln was of course human. Among his foibles were a tendency to melancholy, a sense of fatalism, and a touch of superstition from his frontier upbringing. However, as this investigation demonstrates, neither his life nor his death offers proof of paranormal or supernatural occurrences-not his very human apprehensions of mortality, not his wife’s sad seduction into spiritualism, and not the evidence, even if expressed as anecdotes of ghostly apparitions, that his great legacy lives on.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to S. L. Carson, Silver Spring, Maryland, for his helpful comments, and to Old as the Hills Antiques (at Kelly’s Antique Market), Clarence, N.Y., for use of the vintage mirror.

Note

1. Among other implicitly paranormal claims relating to Lincoln are the “mysterious coincidences” that are often claimed between him and President John F. Kennedy. See Martin Gardner, The Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1985) and Bruce Martin, ”Coincidence: Remarkable or Random?” Skeptical Inquirer 22(5) (September/October 1998): 23-28.

References

• Alexander, John. 1998. Ghosts: Washington Revisited. Atglen, Pa.: Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
• Brooks, Noah. “Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. July, 222-226.
• Caroli, Betty Boyd. 1992. Inside the White House. New York: Canopy Books.
• Cescinsky, Herbert. 1931. The Gentle Art of Faking Furniture. Reprinted New York: Dover, 1967, 135.
• Cohen, Daniel. 1989. The Encyclopedia of Ghosts. New York: Dorset Press.
• Davis, Patti. 1995. Angels Don't Die. New York: HarperCollins, 65.
• Holzer, Hans. Ghosts, Hauntings and Possessions: The Best of Hans Holzer, ed. by Raymond Buckland. 1995. St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications.
• Jones, Merlin. 1996. Haunted Places. Boca Raton, Fla.: Globe Communications.
• Lamon, Ward Hill. 1895. Recollections of Abraham Lincoln 1847-1865. Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Co.
• Lewis, Lloyd. 1973. Myths After Lincoln. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith.
• Mackenzie, Andrew. 1982. Hauntings and Apparitions. London: Heinemann Ltd.
• Neely, Mark E., Jr. 1982. The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo.
• Nickell, Joe. 1995. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
• Reagan, Michael. 1998. “The Michael Reagan Show,” October 30.
• Ronan, Margaret. 1974. Strange Unsolved Mysteries. New York: Scholastic Book Services.
• Ross, Ishbel. 1962. Grace Coolidge and Her Era. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co.
• Scott, Beth, and Michael Norman. 1991. Haunted Heartland. New York: Dorset Press.
• St. George, Judith. 1990. The White House: Cornerstone of a Nation. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
• Suits, Linda Norbut (curator, Lincoln Home, Springfield). 1998. Interview by author.
• Temple, Wayne C. 1995. Abraham Lincoln: From Skeptic to Prophet. Mahomet, Ill.: Mayhaven Publishing.
• Winer, Richard, and Nancy Osborn. 1979. Haunted Houses. New York: Bantam Books.

Several articles in the Skeptical Inquirer have discussed a view currently popular in our universities, claiming that every value judgment or assertion that one statement is more objective or true than another (such as that science provides our most reliable account of the universe) is merely a subjective expression of personal bias.¹ This view is usually attributed to deconstructionism, postmodernism, feminism, or some other recent movement. It is older than these.

I taught literature in universities for many years. I retired before postmodernism and its ilk became fashionable. From the beginning of my career, I heard views like those above, usually from students trying to persuade me to raise their grade on a test or critical essay. Typically they argued the view right after I said that their evidence did not support their conclusions. If I questioned the validity of their reasoning, they usually responded, “It’s valid for me.”

Many of them were merely trying to justify sloppy work. (Paradoxically, they justified it by denying the need for justification.) But sometimes I heard similar arguments from students whose sincerity I respected. One year I taught a small graduate seminar on Contemporary American Fiction. Each week we read a novel by a different modern author (Pynchon, Barthelme, Hawkes, Vonnegut, et al.) and one student would prime the class discussion by surveying the published criticism of the work and presenting a few questions for the class to talk about.

The discussions were fresh and fascinating because the works had not been exhaustively analyzed in print and the students were hard working, intelligent, and dedicated. But sometimes the students bogged down in an impasse they couldn't resolve. Some would still be trying to uncover the central core of the work, but others would argue that this effort was pointless because, they said, every reader experiences a work differently.

I thought about this impasse but couldn't find a way past it. Finally, in the hope that even stating the problem might help, I defined for the class what seemed to me to be the two opposing points of view. I admitted that I favored one of these, so I expected objections. To my surprise, there were none. More to my surprise (since I wasn't trying to be persuasive), I had the impression that I had won the class over to my view. Still more to my surprise, the impasses seldom occurred during the rest of the term. When similar problems occurred in other courses, I told those students about my experience in the seminar, and again, the explanation usually seemed to reduce the conflict.

I now believe that I had unwittingly defined an Hegelian synthesis of their views that both groups could live with.

We all agreed that a basic difference between the two positions was that one group believed that there are many realities, whereas the other group believed that there is only one. I called these groups “pluralists” and “monists” and described the pluralists’ position like this: “The only reality we know is what we experience. Since your experience differs from mine, your reality is different from mine. Hence there are as many realities as there are people. Those multiple realities are the only reality there is.” I think the pluralists agreed with this description. At least, they nodded. (Maybe they were just sleepy.)

The disparity appeared in our respective notions of what the monists believed. Apparently the pluralists assumed that monists-by definition, people who believe in only one reality-must also believe that they (and only they) know exactly what reality is. To the pluralists, monism sounded like bigotry.

But the monism I described, which I and the other students seemed to share, was this: There is only one reality. We don't know it completely or perfectly. We can't know it completely because it’s too big. Our spacecraft can never investigate every planet. We can't know it perfectly because our instruments aren't good enough. Besides, according to relativity and modern quantum physics (which most of us currently consider the most reliable descriptions), the universe is so weird that our minds cannot possibly form a clear image of it.

We can't even see our immediate environment directly. Instead, we construct a mental image of it and “see” that. Although there’s an image painted on our retina by light rays, we're not like cameras. We ourselves don't see an image until our optic nerves have sent their individual little bits of data up to and through a series of centers in our brain that combine and interpret these bits with the aid of knowledge stored in our memories. Our feelings help us to construct the image, but also distort it. Our emotions and cultures make some things beautiful and important, other things ugly and trivial. We continually make mistakes.

But the very fact that we know that we make mistakes and can detect and often correct them shows that there’s a reference reality out there, a “real” reality, and that we can improve our image of it. We can learn by experience and history and knowledge we get from others. None of us is always right, but some people are right more often than others (at least within their “fields”), and the rest of us would be wise to consult these people and respect and weigh their advice. We can test our knowledge with double-blind experiments and peer review. We have assembled a large and generally (though not perfectly) reliable body of information. If it is contaminated with bias, we can reduce the contamination.

I didn't say all this in the literature seminar. I didn't even explicitly connect these philosophical abstractions to the study of literature. It didn't seem necessary. Probably the students saw for themselves that one purpose of their literary analysis was to improve their image of the author’s image of reality. Anyway, it was clear that the central idea of our monism was that objectivity, truth, and reality exist, even though we can't master or define or know them perfectly.

I believe that the pluralists in the seminar decided that their position was not so different from ours after all. What they called personal realities, we called mental images. What they experienced as different realities, we experienced as limitations in our images, streaks on our windows. All (!) we were adding was that out there beyond the windows exists the real thing. We'll never see it directly or wholly, just as we'll never see Mt. Rainier or Mt. Fuji from all sides at once. But we can get closer and closer.

References

Skeptical Inquirer articles:

1. Is science concerned with truth? Estling 22(4);
2. Science, scientism, and anti-science in the age of preposterism, Haack 21(6);
3. Antiscience in academia, Gross and Levitt 19(2);
4. The antiscience threat, Kurtz and Holton 18(3);
5. Science: The feminists’ scapegoat? Walker 18(1)