I'd like to think that I'm finally going down hill with respect to completing this report, that all I have to do is organize the paragraphs and improve overall readability. However, I have taken yet another investigative detour after becomming aware of alleged poltergeist activity which, although seemingly boring on the surface, on second glance seems to fit the Borley Rectory "formula" of something being moved to a well.
On this undate I reexamined some strange happenings in the main stairwell. I've determined that these happenings possibly reflect that the Rectory's poltergeist nun intended the cold spots, especially the one on the first floor outside the Blue Room, to be thought of as a well shaft. I will note other poltergeist activity concerning the "well head" outside the Blue Room. Indeed, one incident may have been a charade using Marianne Foyster and Dom Richard Whitehouse as "volunteer" actors depicting the nun and the murderer of the nun dropping the nun down the well. See for yourself...
Again, note that I am still in the process of double-checking all the detail's I've referenced in this report as I have caught myself embellishing the details of what was alleged to have happened at Borley Rectory. Still, I feel this report is relatively accurate. Also, feel free to volunteer critiques on anything about this report as I feel it has no more form at this time than some spirits do. ;^) Indeed, critique even the font I used for the periods. ;^)
House Rule: Any acknowledgment of the understanding of any assertion in this report on the reader's part will not be construed that the reader is agreeing with that particular assertion or any other assertion in this report.
Introduction
1. "Normal" ghost phenomena concerning nun's freedom, betrayal, imprisonment:
The following lists, 2 and 3, reference the same events. The events are organized roughly chronologically in list 2 and then by checklist criteria in list 3.
2. Out of context charade phenomena concerning nun's fall into well:
3. Borley Rectory nun well tragedy general checklist:
Note 1. I haven't bothered to address such things as the phantom stagecoaches and their headless horsemen or other Borley phenomena as they don't seem to have an "obvious" place with respect to the nun's tragedy "formula".
Note 2. I do not see cloud formations which I think resemble a nun falling into a well. ;^)
Note 3. One of the things that distinguishes the Borley Rectory poltergeist from other alleged poltergeists is the amount of energy that went into moving objects. Indeed, if certain happenings, especially Marianne Foyster's being catapulted from her bed several times in one day are considered, manually duplicating such events pose the risk of back injury, for example.
Note 4: I attribute many strange happenings at the Rectory to horseplay, especially many instances of "psychokinetic" happenings that took place during the Foyster days. It's just too much of a temptation for practical jokers to try to get a rise out of people with some kind of a prank especially when you're at a place that has a reputation for being haunted. However, I don't believe that everything was a prank.
Note 5: With respect to note 4, the lack of detail in the written accounts of many of the strange happenings makes it difficult to ascertain if paranormal activity was really being witnessed as opposed to some practical joke being played on people. Note that Marianne Foyster did catch a village lad throwing stones on the Rectory's roof on one occasion. Otherwise, while people were certainly blamed for some of the incidents that took place, nobody was ever caught in the act of doing something.
Preface (Go to top)
As far as I'm concerned no two people would define a ghost in the same way and this leads to problems. Indeed, ghosts haven't as yet been described in terms of metric units and I don't blame people for shying away from ghost discussions because of this. Many "definitions" would simply show that lots of people have undisciplined imaginations; they're ignorant in other words.
After studying Borley Rectory I've decided that people did experience bizarre things although many things perhaps shouldn't be taken for their face value. In other words, when somebody saw an apparition were actual photons being reflected off the apparition or was the impression of a ghost telepathically induced, as if our brains could receive radio waves? Indeed, did people actually see a ghost or did they have a "vision" such as Bible prophets were known to experience? I believe that people experienced ghosts at Borley Rectory to the extent that that they minimally had what many people will accept as psychic visions.
But also consider this. If "spirits" could induce visions in people then the spirits can also induce what is called a negative halucenations in people. More specifcally, were the objects that allegedly moved by themselves at the Rectory actually manipulated by physical contact, the entity responsible for the contact able to telepathically make itself invisible in the eyeballs of any witnesses?
The bottom line is I believe that Borley Rectory was a genuine haunt. However, the actual mechanism involved as to why people got the sensory impressions they did with respect to their experiences remains a mystery.
Introductory paragraph (Go to top)
Borley Rectory is regarded by many ghost researchers as the heavyweight champion of haunted houses. The reason for this is that the Rectory eventually had such an extensive history of alleged freak occurrences that many researchers have long found it practical to allow for the possibility that paranormal forces may have been at work in the Rectory. As far as I know, this report will be introducing a new perspective on many of these occurrences. This new perspective will minimally provide an even greater challenge for people to allow for the possibly that many happenings may indeed have had a paranormal basis.
(Simply put, even if you don't believe in ghosts, if you had ever had the opportunity to hang around the Rectory for any length of time then there was a chance that you would have witnessed something that would defy ready explanation.)
With many witness testimonies and theories still fresh in my mind after blitzing the main Borley Rectory books, I began to investigate a hunch I got with respect to my overall impression of the Rectory's alleged haunting. Although there was initially nothing obvious that I could identify, I was able to start testing a theory based on information in the books and the web site. Simply put, I asked myself if there was some significance behind the things that happened at the Rectory. More specifically, could order be factored out of what is fairly described as chaotic happenings? And if order, some pattern, could indeed be factored out of the Rectory's mayhem then the chaos that was allegedly observed perhaps wasn't chaos after all.
This "experiment" phase arguably seems to have revealed a relationship between happenings that on the surface appear to be unrelated. The resulting Borley Rectory "formula" reduces many of the seemingly unrelated things people had witnessed into a definite although subjective pattern. For example, previous generations of researchers had identified certain things regarded as "pointers" which suggest that a disembodied intelligence was responsible for the Rectory's freak events. (With respect to paranormal investigations, pointers are objects carefully selected and arranged by a poltergeist to help investigators profile the person who had left a ghost behind.)
It turns out that a variety of seemingly unrelated things that had been witnessed in the Rectory over a span of about 75 years arguably do follow a repeating pattern. This pattern suggests that there was a disembodied intelligence, let's call it a ghost, which made its presence at the Rectory known in various ways. The various disturbances that this ghost presumably caused can be thought of as cleverly planned and staged charades by which the ghost was telling us (us; same as the Queen's "we") about herself. Based on her charades, she seemed to be preoccupied with telling us about her last tragic days on this earth. (I am presuming a female ghost with respect to Borley's nun legends.)
Psychokinetic phenomena (Go to top)
With respect to how she engineered her charades, let's toy with the definition of a phenomena known in niche circles as psychokinetic energy. A basic working definition of psychokinetic energy is that people who have it allows them to manipulate objects by simply thinking about it; by thought power. The first modification of this definition necessary to even begin trying to try explain how things happened at Borley Rectory is best done with a hypothetical example, quite rare in fact if such things actually happen.
Let's say a teenage college student who has latent psychokinetic abilities is studying at a desk in her room for a final examination. This student leafs through book after book for too many hours into the night until at 2 o'clock in the morning her eyes are burning and she decides to call it quits and go to bed. This student then has difficulty sleeping and not too surprisingly dreams about being buried alive under her books. The student wakes up the next morning to find her books piled haphazardly on her desk, not at all the way she had left them when she went to bed. She starts at the top of the pile and, digging quickly to the bottom of the pile, proceeds to stack the books neatly on the shelf again. To her surprise, however, she finds a picture of herself at the bottom of the pile of books, a picture that normally hangs on the wall over her desk. She is puzzled by this pile of books, wondering if someone stole into her room while she slept, but she shrugs off any concern for the time being. She's preoccupied with getting to school so she can take her exam.
With respect to this example, this college student not only dreamed about being buried alive under her books but her latent psychokinetic abilities were somehow activated and manipulated objects in her room symbolically according to what she had dreamed. This was evidenced by her picture being under a pile of books. Now we've got to take this example one step further in order to even begin to understand what possibly happened at Borley Rectory. (I'm not going to address possible scientific explanations in this report mainly because I don't have any to address.)
For a little over 75 years the ghost of someone, perhaps a nun, who had died traumatically in the area where Borley Rectory was eventually built was evidently able to relive the memories of her traumatic last days over and over again. She did this by expressing psychokinetically what she had experienced in her last troubled days on this earth. She did this in ways that have traditionally been perceived by witnesses mostly as bizarre happenings in and around Borley Rectory, many which arguable depict her falling down a well.
(You can at least now bluff your way about Borley Rectory with the information in the above paragraph.)
With this aspect of psychokinetic energy in mind let's begin our discussion of Borley Rectory.
---------
If I hadn't given Harry Price's End of Borley Rectory one last try that early summer evening in 2001 and read the few pages of Reverend Canon Pythian-Adams' analysis of the Rectory's wall writings, I'd have returned the Borley books to the library the next day. I really enjoy a good ghost story. A chronological history of the Rectory is fun to read as there are things that allegedly happened at the Rectory that tease, indeed, expertly tease the imagination. But when I got to the chapter about the Foyster's time in the Rectory I was actually turned off by the National Inquirer type descriptions of things that allegedly took place at the Rectory. (Come on! Bottles materializing from out of thin air?) I abruptly got mad at myself for having spent any time at all trying to decide if Borley Rectory was a real haunt or not.
(This may be a good place to note that, with respect to the theories this paper will introduce, the projectile bottles have seemingly turned out to be some of the most profound examples of poltergeist related psychokinetic charading I have ever read about. Although this implies that I've read comparable examples elsewhere, the other examples I'm alluding to are actually the strange things indicated in other chapters of Borley Rectory books. Indeed, Borley Rectory's mayhem, when looked at in the right perspective in my opinion, seems to be an unrivaled showcase of cleverly planned poltergeist charades.)
Before going any further, I will expand on the basic presumptions I used to try to spot patterns in the Rectory's strange happenings. History books provide us with general aspects of what sometimes happens to prisoners of conscious. A good example of this is the early history of the Tower of London. "Distinguished" residents of the Tower typically initially lived in their own abodes. But for one reason or another they became a thorn for those in authority over them and wound up in the Tower, their basic freedoms eroding. Many of them eventually lost their lives as a consequence of Tower politics.
I regard Borley's nun similarly as an example of such a prisoner except in a different physical context. With one exception, the way she was evidently murdered, I've concerned myself with refining the Borley Rectory "formula" only to the extent of being able to map general aspects of the nun's last days that are relatively independent of the context. In other words, as a prisoner the nun's daily routine at Borley was arguably similar in ways with the prisoners of the Tower. However, the ghost nun may have charaded memories unique to her situation at Borley which is why I don't concern myself with everything that happened at the Rectory. I don't believe it is possible to reverse-engineer everything that happened to our nun regardless if we have a general template that seemingly applies to many of the Rectory's unusual happenings.
With respect to Borley Rectory, the entity that allegedly "visited" the halls of the Rectory seems to have spent time and energy reenacting the basic stages of its trauma which included imprisonment and then murder. It reenacted these stages by cleverly moving various things out of place in the Rectory, a known indicator of poltergeist activity in general. The reason that the entity's reenactment charades have, until now, been perceived largely as meaningless, chance happenings is that the most often repeated charade, her fall down a well, was done in ways that were sorely out of context with respect to the inside of a house.
Getting back to Reverend Pythian-Adams' analysis of the wall writings, his insight into evidence noted at the Rectory proved sufficiently intriguing enough for me to decide to hold onto the Borley books for a few more days instead of dissapointedly returning them to the library. As it turns out, his analysis was my first major impression of a scientifically disciplined analysis of things that had happened at the Rectory. The Reverend's analysis of the Rectory's mysterious wall writings gave me the patience I needed to at least read further for anything that would help me to resolve whether the Rectory was really haunted or not.
I was most intrigued by Reverend Pythian-Adams' concept of pointers. As they pertain to paranormal investigations, pointers are things similar to the previous example of the college girl finding her picture buried under the books. They are out-of-place objects supposedly having been arranged by a poltergeist so that people can infer from the objects and their arrangement something about who the poltergeist originally was. We inferred from this pile of books on the picture, for example, that there was a girl who was perhaps a hard studying college girl. It turns out that Borley Rectory actually has a wealth of pointers most of which have evidently never officially been recognized as such. If so, I feel this report may be breaking new ground with respect to paranormal research.
For an example of possibly overlooked pointers, let's consider the famous French dictionary that allegedly dropped to the floor from out of thin air in one of the Rectory's bedrooms one night. (Note that in the dictionary has long been recognized as a pointer being thought to infer that the nun was from France. However, the actual scope of the poltergeist's use of the dictionary now seems to go beyond just the dictionary with respect to what Mr. P. Shaw Jeffrey's experienced in the Rectory.) Indeed, Reverend Pythian-Adams complemented this observation about the dictionary by noting that the unusual wording of some wall writings suggested that they were written by someone who's first language was indeed probably French. This presumes, of course, that the same spirit was responsible for both the dropped dictionary and the wall writings.
Little did I know at this time that I was pondering the Reverend's analysis, I was inadvertently playing with a combination lock of thoughts, effectively but unknowingly (probably nervously too) playing with the buttons of this subconscious lock. (A subconscious lock as I'm using thin term is more appropriately regarded as a subconscious filter.) Indeed, the lock would soon open and I would see Borley Rectory happenings in a new way; not that this new perspective was the guaranteed correct perspective. The consequences for "sucessfully" picking the lock is that I would find myself riding a most astonishing roller-coaster of logic and emotion (probably the reason for the filter in the first place) that would forever change my understanding of Borley Rectory and ghosts in general. (This "ride" is still going on as I write this report.)
As I have already indicated, somebody was possibly traumatically murdered long ago in the area where BR was eventually built. However, aspects of this person were somehow evidently preserved by an unknown mechanism. Although this disembodied intelligence evidently possessed some of the same mental qualities that a living person has (memories, sensory perception, reasoning and emotions, for example) there were some remarkable differences too, the most startling being that "it" had the ability to express its thoughts psychokinetically, moving various objects around inside the Rectory. (This is an understandably a troubling thought for many people as it seems to contradict the known "equal and opposite reaction" law of physics. But let's proceed with this discussion.)
Also, regardless that this disembodied spirit could arguably think like we do, its actions indicated that it did not necessarily think like a normal person does. As I have already indicated, the bottom line with respect to its actions is that it seemed to have been intensely preoccupied with drawing attention (who's attention I wonder?) to the troubled memories of the last days of her life.
Borley Rectory's looking glass (Go to top)
My Twilight Zone adventure into Borley Rectory's "hidden secrets" began with wall writing #3. First, I have no problem thinking that any of a number of people could have written this message even if they were in an altered state of consciousness. The problem I have always had with wall writing #3 is where did the information in it come from? Up to the time of wall writing #3, the Borley legends tell us that a nun tried to elope with a monk but they were both caught. They were then allegedly put to death, the nun killed by being bricked up alive inside a wall.
(Just for the record, I have eliminated Marianne Foyster as having written the messages. First of all, the journals show that Marianne's initial reaction to the wall writings was to wash them off the walls, a job that she didn't like at all. (http://www.borleyrectory.com/willnotdie/ghosts5.htm; search for "washed") The journals also show that Marianne seemed to think that Dom Richard Whitehouse was the wall writing culprit and Dom Richard Whitehouse likewise gave Marianne this "honor". Finally, a recent comparison of several examples of Marianne's signature to similar wall writings yielded enough substantial differences, in my opinion, that I've eliminated Marianne altogether as the wall writing culprit.)
The bottom line is that I want to believe that everybody who had access to the Rectory at least had enough respect for other people's property that they weren't inclined to deface it. I don't think that Harry Price would have arranged to have a brick thrown through the verandah's glass roof either, for example. Indeed, regardless if any suspected pranksters did take advantage of entering the Rectory discretely through the Rectory's undocumented cellar door, I still question if any of them were mean enough to make a mess in the Rectory by breaking glass bottles.
Again, my main concern with respect to wall writing #3 is, who had the audacity to change the Borley legend about a nun eloping with a monk? But don't think about this for two long or you may "fall through" wall writing #3, Borley Rectory's looking glass, like I did.
If somebody is calling for help from the bottom of a well as wall writing #3 implies, you can pretty much surmise that they fell into the well in the first place. So can you imagine a nun falling down a well, splashing into water at the bottom of a well? That's what I started doing. (I later figured that I had automatically imagined her splashing into water because the only other possibility was too harsh to think about.)
So what happens when you become preoccupied with visualizing a nun falling down a well while other Borley Rectory incidents are still fresh in your mind? Consider P. Shaw Jeffreys' experience with the dictionary, for example. With respect to this dictionary incident it soon occurred to me that if "they" can infer that the nun was from France because the dictionary was a French dictionary then why can't I infer from the fact that the dictionary dropped to the floor was also intended to reflect her fall into a well? When I first thought about this I simply regarded it as a nice little tidbit that I would note for Mr. O'Neil although I wished I had more reasons to justify it. After all, a falling dictionary can be construed as anything - including a falling dictionary. But there was nothing obvious in Mr. Jeffrey's account of the incident that would suggest a well, at least not glaringly obvious.
Now let's incorporate a bit of abstraction into visualizing the nun falling into the well. Around this time I was also visualizing Dom Richard Whitehouse watching the bottle hover near the kitchen ceiling and then fall to the floor, shattering to pieces as it hit the stonework of the floor. This incident had gotten my attention because it was "obviously" poltergeist activity. My snap in perspective concerning these incidents, one real one conjecture, occurred when I realized that I was essentially using the same mental "special effect" for visualizing both splashing water and shattering glass. I "complained" to my "imagination department" about this but instead got a "dirty look" from my "insight department" to take the hint. (I later likened this impression to Scrooge as he dealt with the spirits in "A Christmas Carol".) Indeed, was our nun actually trying make "us" think that the bottle represented her as she fell into the well, the shattering glass of the bottle intended to depict splashing water? Looking for more such clues I considered other broken glass incidents. The obvious "freebie" incident that could readily be construed as a charade of the nun falling into the well was, of course, Harry Price's experience with the brick that seemingly fell from nowhere and broke through the glass roof of the verandah.
This train of though concerning incidents that were possibly poltergeist charades reflecting on somebody falling into a well was certainly interesting enough that I thought it deserved a short essay. So our poltergeist nun was possibly shattering glass in various ways to charade her fall into water at the bottom of a well. Two of the charades I had identified so far, the bottle and the verandah, made use of shattered glass to imply splashing water although I still couldn't find the "water" with respect to the dropped dictionary. After all, the dictionary seemingly just fell to the floor. But the immediate question at this time was, were there any other documented incidents concerning shattered glass? Actually no, to answer the question, there were no other reports concerning shattered glass. But it turns out that there was indeed a well known anomaly concerning the Rectory that implied shattered glass. Can you guess what this particular anomaly was? There are even several pictures that show it. I will now talk for awhile about the Rectory's famous bricked up window.
Ghost nun or no ghost nun, nobody permanently blocks a perfectly good view of the countryside unless they have to. The dining room window must have been a problem window if you've ever heard of a problem window. My guess is that it would periodically shatter for no obvious reason, even if the shutters were closed. (Was it this window that Rev. Harry Bull was referring in his generalization about ghosts breaking glass?) The bottom line is that Rev. Henry Bull had no choice but to permanently brick up the window probably because it kept on breaking. He could only surmise that the nun that he occasionally saw at the window probably had something to do with it but that was beside the point. He still had to something about the window.
Isn't it erie that even without this analysis the things that people allegedly witnessed at this window seem to complement the Borley legend of a nun being bricked up? But now, more than a hundred years later we have given ourselves the license to imagine the glass in this window shattering. This license comes from the bottle in the kitchen that fell to the floor, shattering to pieces, along with the half brick that crashed through the glass roof of the verandah, both of them now arguably suggesting a nun splashing into water at the bottom of a well. Also note that windows break and get boarded up all the time anyway.
What's more astonishing is that the splashing water, the shattering glass that is, somewhat complements Reverend Pythian-Adams analysis of wall writing #3. The Reverend's analysis theorized that the juxtaposition of the words well and tank in writing #3 was the ghost trying to tell us that the nun was thrown down a well which is later sealed up in the name of safety but really only to hide the evidence of her murder.
So can we call the mystery of Borley Rectory's bricked up dining room window solved? Well, yes and no. There is actually more to this bricked up window than just the stuff that happened at the window. Indeed, just as visualizing certain things got me started on Borley Rectory's "yellow brick road," an appropriate reference with respect to seeing things I was already familiar with from the Borley Rectory books in a different way, a visualization within a visualization was soon to set the stage for even more of our nun's charades being revealed. Indeed, even at this point it turned out that "Emerald City' was further away than I had originally thought. But we're talking about Borley Rectory after all, an allegedly haunted house with a very active poltergeist that was doing everything but resting in peace.
(Note that the Foyster's experiences include a minor incident where Marianne went to investigate a room whose door she had seen swing open by itself (a drafty day of course). Inside the door she found some unfamiliar paraphernalia. Likewise, while I was trying to visualize the things that allegedly happened at this window my mind's eye was seemingly led to something a bit unexpected.)
With respect to other aspects of this window charade, can you imagine Reverend Henry Bull sitting at the other end of the dining room table watching the nun giving him that cold, sad stare that she was alleged to give him? But do you also realize what this scene which includes the Reverend Bull and the window would arguably resemble if you tilted you head 90 degrees so that left to right becomes up and down? Indeed, can you imagine the nun seeing not Reverend Bull looking at her from over the edge of the table but her murderer looking down at her from over the edge of the well's opening? Indeed, this hypothetical but reasonable analogy seems to complement wall writing #3 in an uncanny way.
Also note that the number of criteria for testing if a given freak event matches the "nun falling into a well" formula was slowly expanding. Indeed, whenever I suspected a new criterium with respect to a given charade I would go back to the other suspected charades to check for a corresponding element. Consider that three of the four well charades we have examined so far all contain some element which indeed suggests a man in the vicinity of the well. So far, this man has been played by Dom Richard Whitehouse, Harry Price, and now Reverend Henry Bull. But this correlation loses steam when we consider the dropped dictionary. I suppose that we can consider the fact that P. Shaw Jeffrey was in the room when the dictionary dropped. But it doesn't feel right to regard him as a part of the charade because he wasn't doing anything that would arguably contribute anything to a charade reflecting the nun's murderer. So the dictionary episode still doesn't want to fit the pattern.
Hold on a second! I've almost overlooked a seemingly minor detail concerning P. Shaw Jeffrey's experiences. Here I've been wondering how I can justify the assertion that ghost was possibly seizing situations with men to "play the part" of her murderer and I now see where the ghost nun had quite possibly addressed this issue with respect to the dropped dictionary. Indeed, lets consider what happened to P. Shaw Jeffrey's boots.
Dropped French dictionary and raised boots (Go to top)
The next multiplexed charade concerns French dictionary that dropped to the floor from out of thin air. I now regard the moved boots and the dropped dictionary as being a part of the same charade. Indeed, the boots were initially mysteriously moved to a higher place in the room. Consider that moving the boots up was the poltergeist's way of reestablishing ground level. But the boots also indicate the presence of some man, the nun's murderer, in the vicinity. So the dictionary didn't simply drop to the floor but somewhere below ground level as suggested by the boots. The dictionary, dropped by what the poltergeist intended to be understood as the "man in the boots" represented our nun. But just because some projectile falls to the ground doesn't mean we can infer something dropped down a well; so I looked for the water in this charade. Indeed, not only did P. Shaw Jeffrey curiously used the word "sprawled" to describe the dictionary as it set on the floor but a drawing of this scene showed the dictionary with its leaves pressing into the ground. It dawned on me that the curled, disordered leaves of the dictionary can be construed to suggest water. The icing on the cake with respect to this charade is that the cover of the dictionary might suggest the water, actually the well, having been covered in some way. Also note that Jeffrey described the dictionary as having been a bit tattered with respect to its condition a few days earlier. The fact that it had been mishandled was perhaps the ghost's way of reflecting the nun's mental/physical state when she was murdered. Finally, the fact that the dictionary had been missing for a few days also possibly reflects back to the aspect that she had perhaps been imprisoned.
Mrs. Cecil Baines abstract of P. Shaw Jeffrey's experiences
See part of room 7 which I believe was regarded as "the haunted room," the same room, in my opinion, where P. Shaw Jeffrey experienced the rising boots and the dropped dictionary.
Out of context paranormal charades (Go to top)
Another way of looking at this is, despite some very clever attempts at making her plight known, having no choice but to stage her main charade which depicts well shaft opening into an underground stream against the backdrop of the interior of a house. Her stream depicting charades essentially lost their effect because their backdrop, the inside of a house, simply did not complement them in any way. In other words, even if witnesses had perceived what the poltergeist was trying to tell them subconsciously, the subconscious mind evidently refused to burden the conscious mind with the ramifications of what their senses were telling them. So instead of people being able to nod their heads in agreement whenever someone was able to discern from a seemingly freak occurrence that "oh that must be the nun falling down the well again," for example, the best return that she ever got for her efforts was dropped jaws and confused looks.
However, based on information in the main BR books and the BR web site, there are no fewer than ten(?) happenings in the Rectory that can be construed as reflecting back on something at least sinking into water for example. The more complex charades are actually quite astonishing with respect to the details they suggest. Falling down a well would undoubtedly be traumatic for anybody in a conscious state and the entity that haunted the Rectory not surprisingly seemed to be preoccupied with this final event of the tragedy.
Nun sightings (Go to top)
To begin with, with respect to "normal" ghost phenomena, when Borley's nun was alive she was probably initially free to at least walk around the Borley area, not that she wasn't coping with some troubling personal situations. This stage of her presence in Borley is reflected by the various sightings of her ghost outside the Rectory.
The Rectory's mysterious ringing bells (Go to top)
Then, as paralleled by the history of the Tower, I suspect that the nun was eventually expected to answer to a curfew bell, as suggest by the Rectory's mysterious ringing bells. Based on information in the BR books and the gist of some of her more elaborate charades (perhaps a largely untapped Borley Rectory resource until now), I'd say she had somehow gotten herself involved in a questionable relationship where things had gone from bad to worse. Indeed, it's astonishing to consider that a couple of her charades seem to have been trying to clue us about an interfaith marriage (a nun would have had to violate her vows as nuns are not allowed to marry) further complicated by a possible mistress affair before Eugene Banks volunteered such a possibility in the Enigma of Borley Rectory.
Slapped Rectory residents (Go to top)
Basic stages of new restrictions as reflected in her charades possibly included a decisive confrontation where her betrayer slapped her in the face. Many people who spent time in the Rectory likewise complained of being slapped. These people were perhaps "volunteer empaths" meaning that the ghost of the nun was able to cause (by telepathy?) females, I believe, to relive the memory of her slap. This was perhaps the ghost's way of saying, simply, "then he slapped me on the face!"
Trapped Marianne reflects imprisoned nun (Go to top)
Once the mask of deception came off after this possible painful confrontation the nun was then probably forcefully confined in some way. This is reflected by the Rectory doors which seemed to have minds of their own with respect to closing and locking themselves. The incident where Marianne Foyster was trapped in the blue room was possibly the tour de force of this particular manifestation of the poltergeist's confinement memories. The prisoner nun was then given the ultimate confinement which was being murdered by being thrown down a well.
As this analysis is developed the reader will see that the poltergeist possibly employed an assortment of household materials to represent water, e.g. porcelain, wood - curiously except for water itself. Indeed, although there is no hint of this ever happening at the Rectory, it probably wouldn't surprise any BR researcher if some witness had claimed that a particular room in the Rectory had been drenched with water. But why didn't she use water in her charades? Indeed, what better way to suggest an underwater stream than with actual water? One reason may be that the ghost was able to consider that actual water would have destroyed many things in the house. But there's another possible reason.
Given our poltergeist nun seems to have deliberately avoided using water, I suspect that one of the things that intensified the trauma of falling down a well was that she possibly didn't know how to swim and reflected this by using everything but water in her charades. I think the poltergeist at one time removed water from somebody's drinking glass. This was perhaps her way of emphasizing that she could drink water, of course, she just couldn't swim in it.
As I've already mentioned, the poltergeist's more elaborate charades are quite astonishing. The poltergeist was evidently sensitive to the personal profiles (religious beliefs, marital status, personal relationships) of people who frequented the Rectory. She was also evidently not only aware of what people in the Rectory were doing but was also able to seize a situation and divert people's attention to things in a way where they would arguably act out her original situation without her flesh-and-blood "volunteer" actors even knowing they were doing so. Marianne Foyster and Richard Whitehouse were star actors here. Indeed, I'll go so far as to suggest that poltergeist nun possibly even created the illusion of the ghost of Harry Bull for Marianne, using Harry Bull's unhappy marriage to profile aspects of her murderer. Indeed, the poltergeist seems to have waited, perhaps for years at at time, to seize unexpected situations to employ many men, including Harry Price, to play the role of her murderer in her charades. These men are Reverend Henry Bull, his son the Reverend Harry Bull, Richard Whitehouse many times, again Harry Price, and one soldier?, visitor who had never been to the Rectory before. One prop that the poltergeist used to reflect back to her murderer was P. Shaw Jeffrey's boots.
Both the wall writings and the charades which included unsuspecting people reflected that not only was the poltergeist aware of relationships but it also had a knowledge of how rooms in the Rectory had been utilized as well. Indeed, the ghost was evidently aware of how rooms in the house were used from its earliest days. Again, the poltergeist used it knowledge of the house, its architecture and how the rooms were used, to profile her trauma including her murder.
Falling Down The Well Charades (not in any sort of chronological order)
The ghost nun evidently seized circumstantial situations in the Rectory to depict the scene of the crime with respect to her being thrown down a well. She was able to pick scenarios where the objects in question could be construed as some object falling into water. Many such scenarios suggested the presence of a man in the immediate area, presumably her murderer. Richard Whitehouse seems to have been "volunteered" for this role at least three times. Indeed, Harry Price was unknowingly used once himself.
Multiplexed Charades (Go to top)
Another thing that added to the confusion with respect to people not being able understand her charades is that parts of what are actually a single charade manifested as time-separated events, the only thing common to the events is that they occurred at the same place in the Rectory. But when the events concerning a particular spot are "superimposed" then the resulting shift in perspective becomes more evident. Two especially pronounced groups of time related events pertain to the room where P. Shaw Jeffery stayed in as a summer guest of Harry Bull and also the famous, bricked-up window of the dining room. These seemingly unrelated aspects of Borley Rectory are charades, in fact, for the same event, the nun falling into the well. The fact that the poltergeist seems to have deliberately chosen to complicate some charades by "time phasing" the components suggests that their interpretation was actually meant for a later generation of researchers.
Horizontally Polarized (Go to top)
Another confusing factor about some of the well charades is mechanical. Gravity makes things accelerate down vertically, not horizontally. But three of the charades had a horizontal "well shaft". The poltergeist was evidently satisfied with a visual effect as opposed to technical correctness.
Dining room bricked up window (Go to top)
The bricked up dining room window. This bricked up window was one of three known "multiplexed" charades, all of which arguably reference the nun falling down the well. Because they were seemingly multiplexed I'm inclined to think that eyewitnesses probably had no clue as to the possibility that mayhem was possibly intended to depict the nun fall down the well. The ghost employed the dining room window to represent the well. The dining room table, if it was arranged in the room so that the bricked up window appeared at its far end then suggests the wall of the well shaft. Rev. Henry Bull's presence somewhere at the other end of the table would suggest the nun's murderer. The window was eventually bricked up probably because the window had a tendency to break on its own, the breakage actually the poltergeist's way of suggesting splashing water as possibly intended by all incidents in the Rectory where glass was mysteriously broken. (Note that Rev. Harry Bull mentioned broken glass in conjunction with poltergeist activity.) The ghost nun actually played herself by appearing outside the window which, when imagined with breaking glass arguably suggests that she is falling into water. The story that Rev. Henry Bull had the window bricked up to prevent the nun from staring at him was probably concocted so as not to trouble the young Bull children with what the adults may have been suspected as poltergeist activity at the window. Indeed, given the Bull children did not remember specifics of why this window was bricked up, the children were evidently still very young when Reverend Henry had problems with this window. The bricked up window also suggests the alleged, sealed off well suggested by wall writing #3.
Captain Gregson poses outside the Rectory's dining room in front of the Rectory's oldest bricked up window.
Notice the bay window of the dining room at the far end of the kitchen hall. Reverend Henry Bull was perhaps visible in this end of the dining room at the times when the glass of the window the nun appeared at presumably broke, suggesting that she splashed into water at the bottom of a well.
Ghost of Harry Bull, main stairwell window (Go to top)
The final known multiplexed charade concerns the main stairwell window. The ghost of Reverend Harry Bull had been seen in this window by a local woman. With respect to this sighting, the local woman would never have guessed that she was playing the nun in the well, the ghost having taken advantage of the main stairwell window to suggest the well. The ghost of Reverend Harry Bull was presumably created telepathically by the ghost nun to profile her murderer. Indeed, consider Harry Bull's unhappy, interfaith marriage with his wife Ivy. At some other time a rock was thrown outside the Rectory through this window, shattering it, the rock perhaps intended to reflect back on the nun actually splashing into water at the bottom of the well.
"Uninteresting" falling pieces of paper (Go to top)
The falling pieces of paper with Marianne's name on them. I wanted to ignore this one because it initially appeared so meaningless. But then the relevant symbolism occurred to me. Charades that reflect that the falling nun typically have some element which reflect that the nun was somehow "incomplete," actually that she was suffering from some physical or emotional trauma. In this sense, the falling pieces of paper with Marianne's name on them actually show the smarts of this poltergeist. A piece of paper having been cut to pieces represent the nun's trauma. Cutting up a piece of paper also drastically changes the aerodynamics of paper. Indeed, confetti has more drag that a sheet of paper when it falls. The increased drag makes it fall sluggishly through the air similarly as objects sink in water. The falling pieces of paper can therefore be construed as our nun sinking into water.
Wall writing #3, room 3, bathtub room (Go to top)
The well/tank wall writing between room 3 and the bathtub room. This one took me awhile but the ghost nun had picked the one particular wall to write on that linked two key Rectory rooms together. The ghost was evidently aware of the thousands of times that maids dressed in nightgowns (resembling a nun) stepped out of room 3 and into the bathtub room. This is all symbolic of our nun winding up in water. The message was written on the part of this wall where perhaps the maids eyes followed, maybe subconsciously, in the candlelight to find the doorknob of the bathtub room. (It would be interesting to know how high that doorknob was.) Also, if the maids took their bath before going to bed then they were undoubtedly tired which would reflect the trauma state of our nun.
Look down the bathroom hall at the open doorway to room 3, The door (not visible) to the bathtub room is in the shadows a few feet closer to viewer on the left.
Marianne, Richard, chapel/landing (Go to top)
(page 94 of The Most Haunted House in England)
The most elaborate charade - one of the most elaborate charades anyway - centers around wall writing #7 and "starred" Marianne Foyster and Richard Whitehouse as the nun and her murderer. Marianne Foyster had been invited to recite the last part of a novena with Richard Whitehouse. She described that they were only partially in the chapel when they recited this. Then they became aware of a presence with respect to room 7. So after they finished the novena Mrs. Foyster crossed the stairway landing to enter room 7 to investigate the presence while Whitehouse presumably walked to the bathroom hall and down the stairs to inspect the wall writings. Then Whitehouse came back up the stairs where he noticed a writing that he hadn't noticed before in the arched opening connecting the main stairwell landing with the chapel area. Marianne then joined him after coming out of room 7.
I don't know how many times I had contemplated this rather uninteresting scenario until I wondered if there was some reason that the ghost had chosen to write on the inside wall of the arched opening next to the chapel. Indeed, that very clever ghost!
The ghost had possibly chosen that particular spot to write on in order to associate activities that had just taken place on both sides of this wall with each other. Let's now examine these activities more closely.
Marianne Foyster said that she and Richard were not quite in the chapel. This can be construed as meaning that they or just Marianne had one foot in the church and one foot out of it, perhaps a situation our ghost nun seized on to profile her own situation with respect to the Church. Additionally, the ghost could could have been using Marianne and Richard to reflect that her situation concerned a man and a woman (the nun) although one of them was married. This can be construed to suggest that our nun was possibly a mistress or that a former nun had married. Also, Richard Whitehouse was a Catholic, Marianne Foyster a Protestant, so perhaps the nun was also wanting to imply an interfaith social situation. So activity on the chapel side of the main stairwell wall made use not only of people's personal profiles but also their position inside the rectory to possibly profile the situation the nun was in in her day. But this charade evidently doesn't stop here.
Our ghost nun, seizing upon their orientation with respect to the chapel (does the ghost continually wait, even for decades, for such situations to occur?) seemingly creates a telepathic disturbance, making an invisible presence felt. Of the various ways that Marianne and Richard could have reacted to this Marianne just happens follow the ghost's "script" and walks through the main stairwell landing to head for room 7, necessarily walking between the arched openings at both ends of the main stairwell landing. She then disappears into room 7 which is associated with falling into the well in the stiletto charades. Note that the arrangement of the main stairwell's arched doorways can be construed to suggest a well shaft.
Meanwhile, while Marianne had went to investigate room 7, Richard had left the area outside the arched opening that led to the chapel to possibly go down the bathroom hall and then downstairs to inspect the wall writings in that area. In other words, given how they exited the chapel area, Marianne "played" the nun falling into the well and Richard unknowingly played here murder leaving the area of the well head.
The poltergeist's finishing touch for this all-encompassing charade is wall writing #7 on the inside of the opening to the stairwell. As previously mentioned, Marianne and Richard eventually wound up at this point and, fixing their attention on this seemingly new wall writing, unknowingly symbolically unified the otherwise unrelated activities that had just occurred on either side of this opening.
See arched opening leading to chapel. Wall writing number 7 was discovered on the left of this opening not visible in this picture. Also the ghost of Rev. Harry Bull was seen on this landing through the window to the left (not visible) as she stood outside the Rectory.
See arched opening leading to room 7. Dom Richard Whitehouse would be visible at the top of the main stairwell landing as he rushed to see who just came into the Rectory. (It was Lionel Foyster returning from the Church.) At this time he heard Marianne scream as Marianne was allegedly thrown from her bed in room 7 behind the arched opening and to the left. Also the ghost of Rev. Harry Bull was seen on this landing through the window to the left (not visible) as she stood outside the Rectory.
See part of room 7 which I believe was regarded as "the haunted room," the same room, in my opinion, where P. Shaw Jeffrey experienced the rising boots and the dropped dictionary. Dom Richard Whitehouse had just left the room through this door when Marianne screamed as she was allegedly catapulted out of her bed to the floor, the bed's mattress ending up on top of her. This room is also where Marianne saw the floating stiletto appear from behind Richard Whitehouse.
Marianne thrown out of bed (Go to top)
(page 91 The Most Haunted House in England)
With respect to the time that Marianne had been thrown out of the bed in room 7 (three times in one day), the ghost was possibly reenacting the well scene again using both Marianne and Richard. Richard had described one such bed incident as Marianne winding up on the floor under the bedding and the mattress. Again, it took me awhile to notice this but the sheets of the bed and the mattress can be construed as water, the mattress then suggesting the bricks or concrete that the well shaft was sealed off with. Richard played the part of her murderer as he left room 7, the well head, and started down the stairwell when Lionel Foyster let himself into the Rectory's front door. So just as the dictionary been used as a prop to suggest water and also the sealed off well, the bedding and mattress had been employed for the same purpose. Indeed, I suspect that the dictionary had also been dropped in room 7 which I think was the main guest room and was also known as the haunted room.
See part of room 7 which I believe was regarded as "the haunted room," the same room, in my opinion, where P. Shaw Jeffrey experienced the rising boots and the dropped dictionary. Dom Richard Whitehouse had just left the room through this door when Marianne screamed as she was allegedly catapulted out of her bed to the floor, the bed's mattress ending up top of her. This room is also where Marianne saw the floating stiletto appear from behind Richard Whitehouse.
Marianne, Richard Whitehouse, stiletto (Go to top)
Not a well charade.
Finally, the stiletto incident. Marianne Foyster was resting on a bed in room 7 because of her flow. She was wearing only a simple gown and had her hands at her sides below her. Did the poltergeist nun seize upon Marianne's overall appearance to suggest the nun's innocence, nativity? Marianne was looking up at Richard positioned somewhere between the two windows of room 7, the light of two window falling on Marianne further suggesting the nun's innocence. Her gaze on Whitehouse was probably also intended to suggest the nun's relationship to the man who would betray her.
The ghost nun again seized upon a happenstance arrangement of people in a room and their general appearance. The poltergeist interrupted Marianne's innocent gaze at Whitehouse with the stiletto. This was notably reflected in the startled look on her face when she saw it swing into the air from behind Richard. This sudden change in Marianne's expression corresponds with the many slaps in the face people experienced which possibly reflect back on the theory that the nun was betrayed. Marianne watches the stiletto actually go through circular motion as if the stiletto was being used for its made purpose which is to stab or cut something. The tour de force is the stiletto landing in Richard's lap which suggests that the target of the stiletto was a man's genitals. So not only does Marianne's shocked look suggest a possible betrayal but that betrayal could be associated with a rape as well as a slap on the face. Indeed, how many rape victims have wanted to literally cut off or mutilate their aggressor's genitals? (Might Borley Rectory's intense poltergeist activity reflect the peak emotional trauma of a rape?)
Finally, with respect to a rape, I believe there was a sticky(?) substance that was noted on the floor of the Rectory's chapel at one time. Might this substance have been the ghost's way of suggesting semen associated with a rape?
See part of room 7 which I believe was regarded as "the haunted room," the same room, in my opinion, where P. Shaw Jeffrey experienced the rising boots and the dropped dictionary. Dom Richard Whitehouse had just left the room through this door when Marianne screamed as she was allegedly catapulted out of her bed to the floor, the bed's mattress ending up top of her. This room is also where Marianne saw the floating stiletto appear from behind Richard Whitehouse.
Scullery spiral wall writing (Go to top)
Given at least two wall writings seem to have been placed at key points in the Rectory, I wondered about the wall writing associated with the scullery. I had remembered that some writings were just squiggly lines as opposed to words. Given the scullery had sinks I wondered if the scullery's line resembled a spiral. This is because a spiral would somewhat complement the drain which we could associate with our nun sinking into water. Although I had seen the line writings before and am not sure which wall this writing appeared on, it turns out that the line associated with the scullery indeed has the appearance of a spiral. This can be construed as more evidence that the ghost was profiling her situation using things that normally took place in the Rectory.
The bottle in the kitchen that hovered then dropped (Go to top)
(page 100 of The Haunting of Borley Rectory?)
(page 98 of The Most Haunted House in England)
The bottle that Richard had seen while he and Marianne, Adelaide and the maid were in the kitchen had hovered near the kitchen's ceiling and then dropped to the floor. In this charade, the bottle was the nun. The bottle was empty which was possibly intended to reflect the mental/physical state of the nun. The bottle then drops to the floor the shattering glass suggesting water splashing at the bottom of the well. Richard once again unknowingly plays the part of the nun's murderer. (Note that Marianne indicated that the bottle smashed into fine particles which suggest the liquid state.)
Look out the kitchen door into the hallway. There's a chance that bottle that Dom Richard Whitehouse claimed to see hover near the ceiling of the kitchen may have appeared here. The broken porcelain plates that Marianne said went out the kitchen door probably went through this door.
Sound/appearance of a stream of water (Go to top)
Consider the Le Estrange testimony which alleges that many bottles appeared from out of nowhere in the main stairwell outside the closed library door. Both the visual impression of the breaking glass along with the obvious tinkle of breaking glass can be construed to suggest a gurgling stream. This event parallels the claim of the Bulls hearing the sound of a rushing stream in the house that had no apparent cause.
Kitchen table, contents of store cupboard (Go to top)
(page 16 of Diary of Occurences)
Also, on one occasion with the Foysters the kitchen table had been overturned with its legs sticking up. Marianne also noted that the stork cupboard had been scattered all over the kitchen including going over the inverted table and out the kitchen door. Note that the cupboard opening suggests a narrow, possibly underground passage. The miscellaneous contents of the store cupboard can be construed to suggest turbulent, swiftly flowing water, scattered white, powdery foods such as flour and sugar perhaps suggesting white water. Indeed, the table, cupboard and broken plates were evidently used as stage props to perhaps suggest an underground stream "flowing" out of the cupboard, through the kitchen including over the inverted table, and out the kitchen door.
The inverted table, by the way, is what got my attention as it actually complements the well theory. Indeed, consider that with its legs sticking straight up in the air it was possibly meant to suggest splashing water. In other words, the legs sticking up in the air were intended to suggest that the nun had reached the bottom of the well shaft and had splashed into the underground stream. (Isn't it interesting that the Alexander MacDonald's picture that shows the yellow plastic cone is described in conjunction with the main well and an underground stream!) (Were other pieces of furniture with legs that were noted to have been turned over also intended to suggest splashing water? I don't know.)
Note that I had originally envisioned broken plates scattered throughout the kitchen including over the table because I had incorrectly remembered that the cupboard was a store cupboard, not a plate cupboard. However, the possibility that sugar and flour had been scattered about would work just as well to hint of a flowing stream. The bottom line, however, is that I would have guessed splashing water with respect to the table turned over with its legs sticking up on its own merit even if nothing else in the kitchen had been disturbed.
Also, given the witnesses to such things in the Rectory had no idea that they were possibly witnessing paranormal charades, they were understandably not concerned with noting the details of such happenings. Again, I'll have to be content with the gist of this possible charade which seems to fit the well tragedy formula.
Look out the kitchen door into the hallway. There's a chance that bottle that Dom Richard Whitehouse claimed to see hover near the ceiling of the kitchen may have appeared here. The broken porcelain plates that Marianne said went out the kitchen door probably went through this door.
Harry Price, brick, verandah (Go to top)
If I have forgotten to mention this, the brick that went through the verandah while Harry Price walked under it is the example of Price being used to symbolize the nun's murderer, the half brick representing a traumatized nun and the verandah roof water at the bottom of a well. Also somebody passing through Borley found shelter from the rain under the Rectory's verandah. If I remember, he saw a tile fall and make a hole in the verandah in another spot. So, like Price, a stranger to Borley was unknowing recruited by the Rectory's poltergeist to portray her murderer.
Girl falling through verandah glass roof (Go to top)
Finally, the legend of the girl holding onto the bottom of the window of room 6 and then falling through the glass verandah and dying. Given that you couldn't hang out this window because of the glass verandah, my guess is that one of the Bull girls dreamed this particular event and then told her family about it. If so, this may also suggest that the telepathic abilities of the Rectory's poltergeist nun can "invade" even our dreams to perform its charades.
The colder spots (Go to top)
I was a bit surprised to realize that I had forgotten to mention anything about the Rectory's "colder spots" in my original submission of HBR as I had spent considerable time trying to make sense out of this phenomena. But this inadvertent omission reflects the general pattern of "creativity" by which I derived my other explanations. In other words, I'd spend some time essentially getting frustrated about a certain aspect of the Rectory but then forget about it entirely for weeks and even months. Then all of the sudden some evening the "confusion" would then surface from the good old subconscious for me to play with again. But then my concentration seemed to be more focused and I would typically end up understanding the event in a new way. But this may all be meaningless. Regardless, let's take a look at the colder spots.
Borley Rectory seemed to have wanted to "one up" "competing" haunted houses by having more than one cold spot. Not only was the Rectory known for having several cold spots but given it was also known to be cold all year around anyway, I jokingly refer to the Rectory's cold spots as the colder spots. The Rectory's cold spots just happened to be oriented one on top of the other on three separate floors; the cellar, the ground floor and the first floor. Also, Harry Price noted that the ground in the area of the cellar's cold spot was was subsiding. I had long thought that the nun, when she had been abused, had physically been at this colder spot in the cellar when it was part of an order building. Perhaps she had been confined in this older cellar before being thrown down a well. While it had been suspected that the well tank in the cellar which opened into the NE corner of the courtyard was originally the well that the nun had been thrown into and then sealed up, I actually just got a new "revelation" concerning that.
My guess that the reason for the subsidence with its cold spot that Mr. Price noticed in the corner of the Rectory cellar was probably that the sealed off well that the nun had been thrown down was probably originally there. At this point I hate to assume that the nun's murder had capped off the abandoned well with a tank. This is because Mr. Andrew Clarke has pointed out that well tanks are elevated to give the water some pressure:
"For some reason, the investigators thought that a 'Well Tank' would be in the cellars, and whole chapters of books have been written that maintain this misunderstanding. This is an elementary mistake. Well Tanks are never ever in cellars."
Likewise, assuming that an abandoned well was capped off with a tank would be done mostly to make this theory conform to wall writing #3. However, it still remains a possibility that the nun's murder might have modified the well in a way that made it most convenient to bluff his way through any questions as to why he filled it in as Rev. Adams Pythian had suggested.
In any case, Rev. Henry Bull necessarily had to remodel the cellar to some extent when he built the Rectory. If the remnants of a well were indeed in that spot, given the Rectory's cellar was originally designed for storing fuel, probably both firewood and coal, Reverend Henry needed to insure that the cellar would stay relatively dry in spite of an abandoned but perhaps still "active" well. Indeed, pictures of the Rectory's ruins show evidence that Rev. Henry Bull had designed the Rectory with an outside stairwell in the courtyard which lead to the cellar. He seems to have designed the base of this stairwell with a water trap to keep water from getting into the cellar. I think that Reverend Pythian-Adams and I have mistaken this water trap as the nun's well/tank of wall writing #3.
Also, note if water is able to make it to the top of what used to be the main well shaft and cause problems with the concrete drive that now goes over it, I wonder if the skull fragment found in the cellar had possibly washed up through an abandoned well at one time especially if the cellar's sinking corner was evidence of this abandoned well. Indeed, not only has Andrew Clarke indicated that the cellar was known to flood, but his research into old area maps shows that the cellar had once been a pond that had formed in the abandoned cellars of much older buildings, a pond that wasn't necessarily fed by a stream.
Back to the Rectory's cold spot phenomena, what is a possible meaning for the three cold spots, lined up vertically in a row and spread out over three floors? Consider that "we'd" automatically be inclined to think of these colder spots as a column, perhaps a cylindrically shaped column. Indeed, just as the ghost nun seems to have cleverly redefined ground level for a well charade by moving P. Shaw Jeffrey's boots up to a higher spot in his room, I wonder if the arrangement of the Rectory's cold spots in a tall, well shaft suggestive shape over the sinking area in the cellar was our nun's way of "lifting" the well shaft out of the ground - or lowering the Rectory into the ground. Regardless of how we might choose to think of this, the cold spots might be the ghost nun's way of remembering freezing water in the well.
Finally, consider that Marianne Foyster got a considerable slap in the face from an invisible entity as she walked over the highest cold spot at the top of the main stairwell landing. We can regard this spot as possibly suggesting the top of the ghostly well from the above assertion. I wonder if a similar punch in the face actually caused our nun to lose her balance and fall down the well.
Also consider that a sack of coal had been mysteriously moved along the wall that was outside the library. This coal was undoubtedly burned in the large stove that was in the main stairwell. References don't note the direction that this sack was moved but one direction would have been most curious. Indeed, consider if the sack was moved in the direction of the area of the column-like cold spot. Just as Marianne was slapped (read the nun being knocked into the well) at the cold spot located on the landing straight above the sack, the sack was perhaps similarly being "dropped down the well". Indeed, note the contrast between cold coal as opposed to burning coal as possibly suggesting someone who is suffering from some sort of trauma.
Also note that cold coal would correspond with a sad nun at the dining room window, the half brick that fell through the verandah glass roof, the roughly handled French dictionary, Marianne's health, the cut up pieces of paper and the tired maids, just to mention the few things that were possibly intended to reflect the nun's physical/mental state when she fell down the well.
Also, with respect to the the sack of coal, I wonder if the sack was made out of some woven material like burlap that could be construed to suggest a nun's habit? Indeed, if the sack was no longer full of coal then part of the burlap might have been draped over the lower part of the sack as is was mysteriously moved, further suggesting a nun's habit.
(Although many of my correlations are seemingly far fetched, I am still amazed at the "mileage" I'm getting of the nun/well charade formula.)
Also, although Marianne Foyster denies this incident ever happened (this is not suprising as she had supposedly passed out at the time) Dom Richard claimed that Marianne slipped on the main stairwell as she and Dom Richard were walking from the kitchen to the Blue Room. Dom Richard caught Marianne before she fell to the floor. He then carried her up to the landing and possibly laid her down on the cold spot! But did Marianne accidentally slip or did the poltergeist nun help Marianne to slip with respect to another clever charade intended to use Marianne and Dom Richard depicting the nun's murderer perhaps carrying a similarly disoriented nun to the well head?
http://borleyrectory.com/willnotdie/ghosts5.htm
http://www.borleyrectory.com/baines/baines14.htm
http://www.borleyrectory.com/baines/baines28.htm
So we have possibly four objects entering the Rectory's cold spot/well head. Marianne twice, one when she was slapped by an unseen hand; again when Dom Richard carried her to the top of the stairs. Also, the sack of coal, depending on the direction it moved, and also the noted subsistance in the cellar directly below. I'm tempted to also include Mariannes suspicious spill out of the bed in Room 7, only a few feet away from the cold spot on the first floor landing.
Egads, this cold spot analysis is the biggest conceptual stretch I've volunteered; please bear with me when I try to think like a ghost.
Conclusion (Go to top)
I am not able to answer whether the material I have presented here is statistically significant. But with respect to spending so many hours researching an allegedly haunted house, I thank God that I picked Borley Rectory. Borley Rectory fortunately has MORE than enough examples of possible poltergeist activity that I was able to reverse engineer and cross-reference a lot of them to the extent that I actually learned something about ghosts. Yes I believe that Borley Rectory was a genuine haunt. It's not haunted the way that Hollywood would haunt a house either. Indeed, it was "professionally haunted". The reference material is by no means the product of one imaginative writer which would be necessary to pull such a thing off. Just like the biblical prophets who experienced seemingly unrelated visions that later proved to reflect the earthly mission and resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no way the mishmash of Borley Rectory tales could otherwise prove unified in any way unless Borley Rectory did have a ghost which supernaturally choreographed its epitaph into what otherwise appears to be nothing but mayhem.
A note for the SETI people (Go to top)
With respect to the alleged haunt of Borley Rectory, us ghost hunters have possibly been looking straight at messages from the spirit world for the last 50 years without knowing it. The problem is that these messages didn't agree with what we expected to see so we didn't recognize them as such. So who knows? SETI might have evidence of the echoes of angelic choirs in its archives!
Concern for the ghost nun (Go to top)
Guy Le Estrange indicated that he watched Marianne Foyster "float" from room 7 on her way to the kitchen to have tea one time. She wasn't floating, of course, but she was dressed in a sheer night gown and was obviously in an altered state when Mr. LeEstrange questioned if she was ok. This little scene, not associated with any phenomena, suggests that our ghost nun's spirit is in happier places. First of all, Marianne came from room 7, a room that the ghost had arguably used twice to symbolize the bottom of the well, essentially the final resting place of the Borley nun. Therefore, in contrast to the sybmolism of the nun falling into the well as Marianne had walked ("fallen") down the hall ("well shaft") to investigate room 7 on the night she had prayed a rosary with Dom Richard Whitehouse, Marianne's trancelike "float" going the other way down the hall, coming "up" from room 7, can be construed that the nun's spirit had to a happy destination in another world. Indeed, Marianne had managed to answer from her trance that she was going to the kitchen to have tea - a period of quiet and rest.
Dodie plays the nun (Go to top)
I almost forgot this one. The writings of Mrs. Cecil Baines show that Dodie sometimes saw strange things while she was in bed. On occasion Dodie would see a man in a top hat by her bed. She also noted that on at least one occasion she had the impression that someone was sitting on her bed because of a depression in the sheets. The depression in the sheets is actually what connects this setting involving Dodie with our nun falling in the water.
The poltergeist was using the depressed bedding to suggest where the nun had entered the water, creating a circular wave. Dodie "played" the nun being carried downsteam in the fluid-like sheets of the bed after having risen to the surface of the "water". The nun's murder was being played by the ghost of the nun's murderer, the apparition wearing the top hat. This apparition brings Sir Waldengrave comes to mind but who knows.
This would actually be the first time that the poltergeist nun had telepathically created the impression of another ghost, perhaps based on her memory of the man who killed her. Years later the poltergeist would telepathically project the ghost of Dodie's older brother, Reverend Harry Bull, in the window of the main stairwell. Maybe this is because Harry Bull would actually profile the nun's murderer better than a relatively unknown gentleman wearing a top hat.
Ghost nun in the TV (Go to top)
I enjoy reading Mrs. Cecil Baines notes about Harry Price's notes about Borley Rectory. It so happens that on August 29, 2003 I read for the first time her notes about the Blue Nuns and their possibe connection with the Borley area. After finishing these particular notes I looked at the TV which was showing HGTV's House Hunters. I noticed a reflection on a piece of furniture showing in the lower left part of the screen. The orangish line of light started changing shape as I watched it and then it disappeared. Then I realized that the light couldn't have been a part of the TV signal. With the TV turned off and the room light turned on the screen indeed reflects a window in its lower left corner. Car headlights are known to flash through the blinds of this window. But car headlights are not orange. Also, I have since noticed that when I look at the TV from where I was standing the window in question is clearly visible in my side vision. I think that I would have immediately correlated the streak of light I saw on the TV screen with any light coming through the blinds of the window.
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Aside - From what I understand about ghost sightings there are two basic types. A ghost can be witnessed by everybody present or by less than the total number of people present. Interestingly, when not all the people present are able to see a ghost, the people said to be aware of a ghost can be thought of as having a vision, similarly as people in the Bible had visions. In this sense, "seeing" a ghost seems to be more of a psychic experience.
Note that I have since concluded that Adelaide was probably not responsible for the wall writings. This is because Adelaide was too young to fabricate the information in the wall writings on her own. Adelaide would have probably just written what she had heard from the few adults around her. I'm sure that Marianne, Lionel and Richard Whitehouse or Mary Pearson(?) would have made the connection between between the wall writings and any issues, actually just words that Adelaide might have heard the adults frequently repeating. But regardless if someone was responsible for the Rectory's wall writings and was better than Houdini at getting away with things like that, that's not my concern.
My guess is that Rev. Henry Bull discovered the hard way that the original cellar "holding tank" had actually capped off an abandoned well which he did his best to fill it in. But over the years the ground around this abandoned well began to sink. Indeed, the remains of the Rectory's main well head are now somewhat of a problem for the concrete drive that now goes over it.
Also, the "well tank" writing was presumably written by a French speaking person who was struggling with English so perhaps the idea was really to convey the thought "well then tank".
