Spiritualism, Superstition and the Supernatural During the First World War
War Poet’s Lucky Escapes, Superstitions and a Ghost Sighting At the Front in 1915, Lieutenant Robert Graves, 3rd Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers, was counting his lucky escapes. On 28 May in the chaotic trenches among the brick stacks at Cuinchy in the sector between Ypres and the Somme, he had met a rifle-grenade at close […]
Was Corporal Bird Saved by His Dead Brother at Vimy Ridge? Corporal Will Bird of the 42nd Battalion, The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada, was sleeping fitfully in his cold dugout near Vimy Ridge, April 1917. Two warm hands on his back woke him. He opened his eyes expecting to see one of […]
Did the Spirit of a Dead Soldier Save His Friends in the Ypres Salient? December 1915, in a frontline trench somewhere in the Ypres salient, Belgium, Second Lieutenant William M. Speight of the 3rd Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own), sat in his dug-out. The First and Second Battles of Ypres had already […]
War Poet Rupert Brooke died during the First World War. The mystic Aelfrida Tillyard claimed to have paranormal experiences in which she was visited by his ghost or spirit in dreams and received communications allegedly from Brook via automatic writing.
Private Cleaver Swears on Oath to Having Seen the Angels at Mons The only named witness to the Angels of Mons to come forward during the First World War was Robert Cleaver, a private in the 1st Battalion, the Cheshire Regiment. Not only did he claim to have seen the Angels, he swore an affidavit […]
Arthur Machen Claims Short Story ‘The Bowmen’ Inspired the Angels Legend The writer Arthur Machen claimed to have invented the greatest supernatural mystery of the First World War: the Angels of Mons. The problem was, nobody believed him. When World War I broke out, Welshman Arthur Machen was living in London and earning a living […]
Angels in the Trenches: Spiritualism, Superstition and the Supernatural During the First World War The mechanised slaughter of the First World War brought a sudden and concentrated interest in life after death, living in spite of death and trying to predict, or even influence, when the merciless killing would end. People asked, can one communicate […]