Several former seats of power make the list, including Egypt’s Baron Empain Palace, Myanmar’s Keng Tung palace (now a hotel), Pakistan’s Mohatta Palace, Lisbon’s Beau-Séjour Palace, Madrid’s Palace Of Linares, and the Jakarta History Museum (formerly the capitol building under Dutch colonial rule).
Thing we were happiest to learn: There are a lot of haunted castles. Malahide Castle in north County Dublin (the surrounding town is the shooting location for most of Bad Sisters), has no less than five ghosts: a knight killed on his wedding day, a noblewoman who was married in the castle; a jester who was in love with a woman imprisoned in the castle (who was himself murdered), a painting of a lady in white who occasionally comes to life, and the man who was (temporarily) given the castle by Cromwell, and was hanged during the Restoration.
Ireland also accounts for Castles Charleville, Leap, and Ross, each with their own gruesome deaths and subsequent hauntings. Most gruesomely, Zvikov Castle in the Czech Republic is supposedly so haunted that anyone who sleeps in the main tower dies within a year, and spectral dogs with burning eyes guard a tunnel under the castle.
But it’s hard to top Germany which, alongside Lichtenegg, Schloss Nordkirchen, and Wolfsegg, boasts Frankenstein Castle, whose imposing towers allegedly inspired Mary Shelley’s novel (and no less than Ghost Hunters International determined it had “significant paranormal activity.”
Europeans even exported the haunted castle overseas. A Scottish businessman built Kellie’s Castle in Malaysia for his wife, who died before building was completed. It’s haunted not by her, but by the workers who died during construction. New Zealand also has Larnach Castle, haunted by the wife and daughter of the original owner.
Thing we were unhappiest to learn: Colonialism casts a long shadow. A lot of the haunted sites are the sites of past atrocities by colonial powers: Vietnam’s Ma Thiên Lãnh Bridge was built by 300 prisoners, forced into labor under French rule, and a number of ghosts haunt the site. Besides the Jakarta History Museum, Indonesia is home to Toko Merah, a Dutch colonial building that was the site of a massacre, as well as torture and killings by the regime, and screaming at night can still be heard there. The Japanese (allegedly) tortured and executed Malaysian locals at what eventually became the Shih Chung Branch School, and the now-abandoned building is haunted by their ghosts.
Best link to elsewhere on Wikipedia: We honestly thought parapsychology was a term made-up for the original Ghostbusters, but it’s been an active discipline since philosopher Max Dessoir coined the phrase in 1889. It’s the study of “alleged psychic phenomena,” a list that includes “extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and psychometry,” as well as near-death experiences, synchronicity, and apparitional experiences, and again, it’s hard not to hear that list being read off in Annie Potts’ most jaded tone of voice.
Further down the Wormhole: These stories are all relatively recent, compared to the folklore surrounding ghosts, which has existed as long as people have been dying and telling stories. Children have long had an entirely separate world of folklore, concerning the consequences of stepping on a crack, and whether or not Batman smells. Their mysterious culture also includes children’s games, which recent generations of adults seem loath to let go of. One such game, pencil fighting, is an unlikely candidate to spawn an adult league, but here we are. There isn’t quite enough in the world of extreme pencil fighting to justify a full-length column, so we’ll wrap up the year with a bunch of short topics before resuming our regular format in 2025.
