GHOSTS: What the Homeless Have in Common with Ghosts

By Stephen Wilson, our reporter in Moscow

Some strange occurrences are simply impossible to forget.  They can leave an indelible impression on you. This is especially true when you come across something uncanny. For fifty years, I have been haunted by the memory of living in a scary house where I and others heard and saw a ghost.  

It all began with the whole family being woken up by the sobbing of my younger sister.  My sister later told me that she had woken up in the middle of the night to see a hooded figure lying in front of her bed staring quietly but with intense curiosity at my sister.  Being upset, she started crying.  When my father came into the room and switched the light on the ghost vanished.  He took my sister to his room telling her, “It was just a bad dream you had.” 

She told me she had seen and heard this ghost on other occasions.  It would whistle, fall down the stairs with a loud thud, and knock on doors in a rhythmic way as if conveying some message in Morse Code.  My sister also told me she had seen this same spirit in the nearby wooded path.  

When we recounted this tale to a visitor to our home, he was convinced it was no ghost but some homeless person who had been drinking.  It was in vain to tell most adults that we had seen a ghost.  They would tell us, "You have a vivid imagination" or "You have been seeing things… Ghosts don't exist." 

Then one day I not only heard this ghost but came face to face with it.  It began when I heard some rustling inside the bathroom cupboard.  I thought someone or something was in it.  So I approached it and peeped in.  What I saw amazed me.  I noticed a small figure adorned in medieval clothes, wearing a black robe reminiscent of a monk.  It was crouched, on its legs, attempting to conceal its face with its arms.  It would move a little as if either trembling or attempting to look inconspicuous.  The face was badly disfigured as it had been burnt in a fire.  I couldn't believe my eyes!  So I went back and then peeped in again.  It was still there.  I did this again and again.  

This ghost did not vanish!  It was not transparent but looked as real as any human being.  

I soon left but never told my parents lest they would think me mad—or would ridicule me.  I did not relish the thought of a psychiatric examination.  I got so scared I would keep the light on in my room all through the night.  Our bill for electricity shot up!  I was more than glad to leave this home in Roman Road, Bearsden, Glasgow, Scotland!

Later, the new residents who moved in couldn't stand living in that house.  They told our former neighbors that "This house is haunted by a ghost.  We can't go on living there.”  Years later when I met my Aunt Betty, she reassured me I had not been seeing things.  She told me, "When I was staying the night at your home I saw the same thing.  You were not seeing things.” I asked her, "Why didn't you tell me?"  She responded, "I did not want to scare you. I think it would have made things worse.”

I felt deeply sorry for this ghost.  It appeared to be more scared of us than we were of it.  I felt that this ghost had experienced something terribly traumatic… that perhaps it was a victim of some murder or accident.  The ghost did not seem to feel at home in that house.  In a sense, given the deep alienation it felt, it seemed to be attempting to conceal its presence from us.

It was as if it was playing some weird game of hide and seek.  I also began to wonder to what extent ghosts are themselves homeless.  They are stranded in this world yet not quite physically embodied or rooted in it.  They don't live in it but 'haunt' it. It is as if after death they have become homeless themselves.  They seem doomed to wander or haunt rather truly feel at home.

Perhaps works of literature best express this starkly profound alienation.  Richard Middleton wrote a short story called, "The Brighton Way” (1912).  The story tells of how a homeless tramp is on his way to London, becomes tired and falls down on the street.  Not knowing he has frozen to death he wakes up and meets another homeless boy.  The tramp tells the boy, "Do you know last night I was so tired that I just dropped down at the side of the road where I'd fallen.  It is a wonder I did not die what with it being so freezing cold.”  The boy asks him, "But how do you know you didn't?"  Both these homeless had died, but without knowing it.  Death did not offer a reprieve or new home.  They remained homeless after death.  

The writer Franz Kafka wrote about a homeless ghost in his short story “The Hunter Gracchus.”  In this tale a hunter who died from falling is doomed to sail around aimlessly in a boat.  He does not understand what he has done to deserve such a strange fate and puts it down to his guide losing the way.  He states, “'I followed a chamois and fell from a precipice.  Everything happened in good order.  I pursued, I fell, I bled to death in a ravine, died, and this ship should have conveyed me to the next world.”

Those works hint that ghosts and the homeless suffer an intense alienation.  The public often view both through negative stereotypes.  Like the homeless, ghosts represent an unwanted presence.  People prefer not to see them.  While the homeless might be deported beyond 101 kilometres in Moscow by the police or detained in particular detention centers, priests sometimes even attempt to or exorcise ghosts.  Both are subject to attempted expulsion.  Both attempts often fail.  The homeless continue to return to Moscow, and ghosts often return to relentlessly haunt the same houses.  Just as many people are scared of the homeless, so they are afraid of ghosts.  The appearance of both ghosts and the homeless inspire dread.  

I recall that during the late 1990's how a young female volunteer was literally shaking from fear as if the homeless represented a dangerous threat.  She was to hand out coffee to them.  I calmed her down by saying the homeless we are helping are harmless and that she should just concentrate on preparing the coffee and nothing else.  (A survey found 46% of Russians in Saint Petersburg viewed the homeless as a dangerous threat to children.)  So the appearance of both ghosts and the homeless can unsettle people.  Both the homeless and ghosts are viewed as unreal.

Like ghosts, people often deny the homeless exist.  "There are no homeless in our town," declares one person even though a night shelter which caters for the homeless can be found in the town!   The local governments often attempt to deny, conceal or drive away the homeless.  Both ghosts and the homeless have often been perceived as “wicked people.”  For instance, both the Orthodox church and the Protestant Reformers viewed ghosts as “the damned” and “evil.” 

Previous views that ghosts were in purgatory (somewhat good, somewhat evil) were dispensed with.  Both the homeless and ghosts have been condemned as “unreformed sinners.”  Self-righteous people look down on the homeless and ghosts as bringing their own problems on themselves through their sins.

In Russian Folklore, ghosts are viewed as suffering from hunger, thirst and the cold.  The Russians have even organized special days where they fed and warmed up the dead.  It is not uncommon to see some Russians visit graveyards and leave food to 'feed ' the dead.  On specific days named "Parent's Days" they would shout out "All dead relatives! Come and dine."  The condemned spirits such as ghosts or the “unclean spirits” were given separate days to be fed.  Just like the homeless, ghosts suffer from hunger, the cold and isolation.

We still hear in England that “Children should be seen but not heard.”  And some say, “The homeless should not be seen or heard.”  As for ghosts, they should not be seen, heard and acknowledged.  Their presence is also unwanted.  However, a big problem with ghosts still remains.  Whereas you can arrest, deport and even kill the homeless, you can't do that with ghosts.  Whoever heard of the police arresting a ghost?  There have been legal cases accusing ghosts of disturbing the peace, but those ghosts never seemed to appear in court...  

Of course, there have been some cases where evil spirits are thought to have been behind numerous plane and car crashes.  But it would be a foolish driver who attempted to prove his innocence by blaming a ghost.  The authorities prefer to check the state of the driver, the condition of the car, whether the brakes were working, what speed he was driving at, and whether he made a wrong turning or was distracted by something.

It is sad that both the homeless and ghosts get a bad deal.  Maybe we should give them a little dignity… or help them in some other way.

Maybe we should say some prayers for them!