Many people credit Edgar Allen Poe with initiating the horror genre. His stories are captivating and a little gruesome, or dark, in the Alfred Hitchcock way of story telling. Clearly, Poe was first, so his footprint is large, one of which is “The Black Cat.”

I recently discovered this short story of Poe’s is in the public domain. It would have been better for an October post, but I thought some of you still might enjoy it. It’s got some length to it, but I don’t think it will disappoint.

The Black Cat

BY
EDGAR ALLAN POE

FOR the most wild yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified—have tortured—have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but horror—to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the commonplace—some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.

From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.

This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point—and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.

Pluto—this was the cat’s name—was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.

Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character—through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance—had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when, by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me—for what disease is like Alcohol!—and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish—even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.

One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.

When reason returned with the morning—when I had slept off the fumes of the night’s debauch—I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.

In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart—one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself—to offer violence to its own nature—to do wrong for the wrong’s sake only—that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cold blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree;—hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart;—hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence;—hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin—a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it—if such a thing were possible—even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

On the night of the day on which this most cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts—and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire—a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words “strange!” “singular!” and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas-relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal’s neck.

When I first beheld this apparition—for I could scarcely regard it as less—my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd—by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.

Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.

One night as I sat, half stupefied, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of gin, or of rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat—a very large one—fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast.

Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to it—knew nothing of it—had never seen it before.

I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with my wife.

For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but—I know not how or why it was—its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed me. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually—very gradually—I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence.

What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures.

With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly—let me confess it at once—by absolute dread of the beast.

This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil—and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own—yes, even in this felon’s cell, I am almost ashamed to own—that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest chimeras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow degrees—degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my reason struggled to reject as fanciful—it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name—and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared—it was now, I say, the image of a hideous—of a ghastly thing—of the GALLOWS!—oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime—of Agony and of Death !

And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast—whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed—a brute beast to work out for me—for me, a man fashioned in the image of the High God—so much of insufferable woe! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone, and in the latter I started hourly from dreams of unutterable fear to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight—an incarnate nightmare that I had no power to shake off—incumbent eternally upon my heart!

Beneath the pressure of torments such as these the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates—the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas, was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.

One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal, which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded by the interference into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot without a groan.

This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard—about packing it in a box, as if merchandise, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar, as the monks of the Middle Ages are recorded to have walled up their victims.

For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up and made to resemble the rest of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect any thing suspicious.

And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crowbar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself: “Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain.”

My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it at the moment, there could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forbore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe or to imagine the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night; and thus for one night, at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul.

The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a free man. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises for ever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted—but of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.

Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.

“Gentlemen,” I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, “I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen this—this is a very well-constructed house,” (in the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all),—“I may say an excellently well-constructed house. These walls—are you going, gentlemen?—these walls are solidly put together”; and here, through the mere frenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brickwork behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.

But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb!—by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman—a howl—a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.

Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and awe. In the next a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Short Story: “The Black Cat” Author: Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–49 First published: 1843

The original short story is in the public domain in the United States and in most, if not all, other countries as well. Readers outside the United States should check their own countries’ copyright laws to be certain they can legally download this e-story. The Online Books Page has an FAQ which gives a summary of copyright durations for many other countries, as well as links to more official sources.

The joy of someone telling you that your writing, your story, moved them or lifted them up during a rough time in their life is something that can’t be matched. The joy of crafting the perfect scene or getting excited over a new plot idea or a hundred other creative sparks that fire in the writer’s mind is an experience that’s hard to quantify.

However, as with any creative endeavor, the roadblocks are many. You can pour yourself into a story and leave a trail of blood, sweat, and tears along the way, only to produce low sales numbers and tepid responses. Art is subjective and you’ll encounter your share of detractors along the way. These people, some with well-intentioned advice, can steal the joy right out of your writing journey. It’s best to prepare yourself for the common offenders beforehand, and ready your tools of recovery.

The Bottom Liner

You’ve met this person, typically it’s an extended family member or a friend of a friend. Right after they ask what you do and in a foolhardy mood you respond, “I’m a writer,” they ask, “You making any money with that?” I don’t fault them for their curiosity. It’s an honest question. After all, everyone has to make a living.

The problem is, until you’ve tried to make it as a writer, you don’t realize it’s about the long game. Becoming a full-time writer takes a lot of, well, time. Stories of new writers who hit it big with their first novel are the rare exception to the rule. It takes years of reading, falling in love with storytelling, followed by years of writing and learning the craft, followed by years of publishing and slowly building an audience, etc… Like I said, it’s the long game. So, when someone wants to know the “bottom line” on how much money you’re making, as if that’s the only metric to measure the value of a pursuit, it’s a difficult question to answer in a comprehensive way that makes sense in relation to most careers. So, once you fumble through an answer of your paltry earnings, the typical person dismisses your efforts with a response like, “Oh, well, I guess it’s a fun little hobby then, right?” The bottom line often buries artistic dreams.

How do you recover your joy after such an encounter? Know why you write. What are your motivations and expectations? What’s your purpose in writing? If it’s just to make money, The Bottom Liner will be your biggest nightmare. As a Christian writer, grappling through the reasons why you write is the only place to find peace. If you come to the point where after seeking God’s will and much prayer you discover writing is your calling (and this could be a part time calling) then your expectations and motivations don’t have a price tag. It’s about being faithful with your gift, finding joy in pursuing excellence in your art, and leaving the results to God.

Captain Maturity

Once you let it slip in a conversation that you’re a writer, some people might actually seem impressed for half a second. Until they ask, “What kind of books do you write?” If you’re a speculative fiction author, this is usually where things fall apart. Once you start talking about magic, dragons and spaceships, prepare for the Peter Pan Syndrome diagnosis.

Many will see this pursuit as childish or frivolous. At this point, Captain Maturity will often (sometimes even with good intentions to redeem your lost cause) turn into The Bottom Liner and ask, “You making any money with that?” At this point, the conversation has flat lined.

How do you recover your joy after such an encounter? Similar to the previous method, if the Lord has laid on your heart the desire to write these type of stories, His is the only approval you need. Look at the impact of “childish tales” such as The Chronicles of Narnia. I’m sure CS Lewis suffered many a turned up academic nose when he first released them.

The Righteous Writer

Inside the publishing/writing world, The Righteous Writer has a preconceived list of what constitutes “worthy writing.” If the genre or style of your writing falls outside of their list, your books could be dismissed as a waste of time. Speculative fiction is often a target of attack, even within the Christian publishing world where authors like Lewis and Tolkien were pioneers of the category.

A book about riding dragons or discovering the universe in your spaceship might be labeled “fluff” by those who consider books on theology or guides to Christian living to be the only redemptive use of your reading time. Occasionally, the Righteous Writer will allow a brief trek into a fantastic world as long as it abides by their strict guidelines. These usually include overt messages, allegories, or close parallels to Biblical stories.

How do you recover your joy after such an encounter? Hopefully you have a close group of Christian friends and writers that offer constructive spiritual guidance on your writing. When you have the support of Christian friends, it’s easier to laugh off the judgmental types. Our God is a big God. Most genres and styles have their time and place. Just as God has created a wide variety of talents and abilities in the body of Christ, there’s room for a wide variety of books and writing styles to reach a wide variety of readers.

Many of these people types listed above are well meaning people trying to understand why you spend hours in front of your computer writing about dragons and laser guns. Honestly, if I didn’t have the writing bug and I wasn’t such a nerd, I’d probably ask all the same questions.

Finding our joy in writing comes with the understanding of where we find our peace, motivation, and purpose. It’s asking the hard questions of why do we write? Who are we writing for? What expectations do we have for our writing?

When you realize that your desire to write is a God given desire that should be pursued with gusto regardless of the results, it’s a freeing experience. And knowing that your particular style of writing, while frivolous to some and a financially questionable pursuit to others, is valued by God, just as you are valued by God. He created each of us with unique talents and abilities to bless others and communicate His truth.

If I could sum up my thoughts on this matter, it would be this: No matter what people think or say about your writing, it makes no difference to what God has called you to accomplish in this life. If you have a calling to write from God, as cliché as it might sound, you are writing for an audience of One. Revel in that calling, use it to recapture the joy in your writing, and leave all the rest behind.

Author Bio

Paul Regnier is a speculative fiction author perpetually lost in daydreams of spaceships, magic, and the supernatural. He is the writer of Paranormia, an urban fantasy/supernatural comedy (read an excerpt here), and the Space Drifters series, a sci-fi/space opera comedy (read an excerpt of the first book here).

Paul is a technology junkie, drone pilot, photographer, web designer, drummer, Star Wars nerd, and a wannabe Narnian with a fascination for all things futuristic. Paul lives in Treasure Valley, Idaho, with his wife and two children.

Paranormia is presently available at Amazon in various platforms, including audio book.

Featured Image by Bruce Mars from Pexels

This article is inspired by an article in Answers in Genesis on Halloween, which says some things I judge to be false, but also says some things that are true and are worth repeating. Since the Bible offers a guideline about how to react to pretty much everything in life in I Thessalonians 5:21: “Test all things, hold fast that which is good,” I’m going to apply that to the Answers in Genesis article by mentioning some things I believe it gets wrong, while celebrating “that which is good.” Which is an attitude that could actually guide the entire celebration-or-non-celebration of Halloween, now that we’re on that subject.

Note the translation of I Thessalonians 5:21 I wrote above is a modernized take off the King James Version, though I did consult several different Greek texts before doing so–note also that many modern translations tie verse 21 to verse 20, which talks about prophecies. So in the NIV, for example, verse 21 would not seem to be a general guideline, but might only be talking about prophecy. But since “prophecy” can be understood as “authoritative statements made by church leaders”  I think the practical meaning is about the same even if verses 20 and 21 aren’t separate statements. (Seeing the verses as separate is justified by an immediate context of a number of short statements that aren’t directly connected to each other in I Thes 5 and also be the phrasing in the Greek behind the KJV. But not all Greek texts are exactly alike, so the NIV reading has justification, too.)

I think the connection between “prophecy” and “authoritative statement” would be true even if you believe that prophecies were a spiritual gift limited to the First Century, because if it was legitimate to test claims that authoritative messages were given by the Holy Spirit in the First Century, wouldn’t it also make sense to suggest that we should likewise “test” or “analyze” things Christian leaders say that are derived from the Bible? Which is a message Christians hold to have been given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit? And since Christian leaders discuss pretty much all aspects of life at various times, I believe the phrase “test all things” in reference to authoritative statements would in practice refer to everything, making the “test all things” part a valid general principle, whether you link verse 21 back to verse 20 or not.

So, since we are to test or analyze or examine or think through (the KJV said “prove” which I like, but it sounds funny to modern ears) all things and retain or keep or make use of the parts that are good, let’s look at that Answers in Genesis article on Halloween. It gives a fair history of Halloween as a Celtic celebration related to remembering the dead and gives a correct derivation of the word “Halloween”:

In fact, the current name of “Halloween” originates from the day before All Saint’s Day, which was called “All Hallow Evening”; this name was shortened to “All Hallow’s Eve” or “All Hallow’s Even.” The name changed over time and became “Hallowe’en.”

The article correctly points out that many cultures have celebrations of the dead, listing seven of them. Then the article asks the question why so many cultures have memorials for the dead in the Fall. It offers five possible explanations and draws the conclusion that the most likely explanation is tied back to Noah’s Flood. This is based on the idea that many cultures hold to the same sort of celebration at the same time of year because of the relatively recent origin of human culture after the Flood–and then the article supposes that it makes sense that this would have been the time of the year when Noah made his sacrifice to God after the Flood.

So, according to the Answers in Genesis article, Halloween would be a day of the dead in memory of the sacrifice Noah made after the Flood, transmitted down through time via many cultures. One among many days remembering the dead all happening around the same time of year in a form of cultural memory of the past, specifically the Flood.

OK, so that’s an idea–let’s examine it to see if it’s a “good” or valid one.

For this concept to be valid, it would require, as the article itself said, cultural celebrations remembering the dead to happen in the Fall, right? But the immediate problem is that they don’t. Famadihana (“the turning of the bones”) in Madagascar happens in March. Qingming, one of several Chinese festivals for the dead, takes place in April. Lemuria, the ancient Roman festival of the dead, took place in May. The Japanese Bon festival happens in August (late Summer, not Fall). The Gaijatra festival in Nepal is late August, early September. And there are a number of celebrations in early Fall, like Pitru Paksha in India or Chuseok in Korea and the Chinese Ghost Festival. There are also some late Fall celebrations like Halloween and El Día de Los Muertos in Mexico.

While it’s true my casual Google searching didn’t come up with any celebrations of the dead in the middle of Northern hemisphere Winter (I found no December, January, or February celebrations), one of the key ideas behind the Answers in Genesis article is clearly false. There isn’t any clear unity among world cultures as to when to celebrate a day remembering the dead. This very much weakens the case that all these festivals “must” have had an origin in a common event.

It probably makes more sense to generally tie these celebrations to the cycle of agriculture in the various nations where they are celebrated. So some celebrated death rather ironically with the first growth of new plants (as though remembering the dead alive again) and others celebrated death when the harvest of dried, dead crops come in. Some of these celebrated the early harvest and some later harvesting. At least, that reasoning makes more sense to me than the origin of these common celebrations of the dead offered in Answers in Genesis.

But after pointing out a common origin for days celebrating the dead not justified by a simple examination of a calendar, Answers in Genesis then mentioned some of the Pagan associations with Halloween over time. The article says something I agree with:

Psalm 24:1 points out that everything belongs to the Lord. Therefore, there is no reason to let Satan have Halloween. Despite the Halloween origin, it is not his day in the first place!

When Satan tried to tempt Jesus, he offered Jesus something that was not his to offer (Matthew 4:8—all the kingdoms of the world). Jesus obviously didn’t succumb because it wasn’t Satan’s to give, nor did Satan exercise any authority over Him. Many today believe that Halloween is Satan’s day and recommend staying away from it. But recognizing such a thing would be to disregard that Satan owns nothing and that all days belong to God. Christians can take this day and make better use of it…

I could quibble with the article and say what while Satan isn’t the proper owner of anything, he is a squatter who claims rights over many things and in fact has real influence in the world and (temporary) control over it (see Eph. 2:1-3 for one of many Scriptures that state this). But the article is correct in seeing God as the ultimate owner of everything. And its also correct in saying that we Christians can make claim to elements of the world around us. Modern Pagans celebrate Halloween–that’s a fact. Criminal activity increases on Halloween–that’s also a fact. The adult version of Halloween tends to focus on sexy costumes, getting drunk, and general licentiousness–also a factual statement about a general trend.

But we followers of Christ don’t have to allow it to be celebrated that way in our lives. We can make it something different, at the very least for ourselves. We can “hold fast to what is good.”

Which isn’t me saying you must celebrate Halloween–you certainly don’t have to. But if you do, do it for the Lord and find a way to claim the holiday in the name of God, whether subtly or overtly. (Yes, being overt is okay at times, all you “I’m too cool to be overt” people.)

So if you celebrate your Halloween, celebrate it to the Lord–as in fact a Christian should bring all things back to Him, even if subtly, testing all things and holding fast to what is good. And if you don’t celebrate it, don’t be dour and off-putting. You are not celebrating in devotion to and worship of the Lord, Creator of heaven and earth, someone worth celebrating! (even if you abstain from this particular event).

Let me end with Romans 5:5-6a, 8 (NKJV): “One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it…For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”

 

 

Another Halloween is upon us. Some bemoan the existence of what they see as a blasphemous holiday, others grumble about how commercial Halloween has become, while yet others complain that the true essence has been lost. People engage the holiday across a broad celebratory spectrum, with some treating it essentially as a fall festival with pumpkins and hay bale decor, and others turn their homes into shocking displays of demonic carnage and gore. Transcending the debates is one simple fact: that Halloween is about scaring others and being scared oneself.

Even when one’s preferred Halloween vibe is low-level creepy rather than outright scary, the “creepiness” is rooted in fear. Inflatable spiders and cartoony skulls and adorable zombies are still tethered to our innate fears of death and creepy-crawly things, even if we don’t actually feel fear when beholding these images. Likewise, when we see a latex-molded slaughter scene in someone’s front yard, we might feel a tingle in our spine but this is because these innocuous plastic props hearken to the real thing, even though we have likely never actually seen “the real thing.”

Before industrialization, people’s lives held many more opportunities for genuine fear than our lives do today. Ever been in the woods in pitch black darkness? That was a regular occurrence until electric lights became widespread. People were much closer to death, human and animal, than we are in modern society. Of course, since these elements were once common, people also developed an equilibrium with them. Finding oneself in the woods after dark wasn’t as scary back then because it was normal.

At the root of all fear is the desperate unwillingness to lose something precious, the ultimate fear being the fear of losing one’s life or the lives of loved ones. If you have a family of your own, you know the fear of something happening to your spouse or children is infinitely greater than the fear of something happening to you. Yet the adrenaline rush from fear is also something we crave, so we try to get as close to it as possible without actually experiencing true peril, at least in most cases. You can indulge in the fear of falling and tease death by going skydiving, a remarkably safe pursuit. Haunted houses goose our imaginations but we know they would be laughable with the lights on. People like to spook (and flatter) themselves with stories of crazed killers stalking beautiful victims.

With the fearful overload these days, what is truly scary? I’ve always made a distinction between “jumpy” and “frightening.” Someone giving my chair a jerk will “scare” me, but only for a moment, just like a knife-wielding maniac bursts onto the screen accompanied by a jarring musical score. There is literally zero danger to me in any capacity, and the feeling of fear is borne out of empathy for the fictitious victim about to meet their demise and for the natural “fight or flight” response triggered in my brain. Things that are truly scary are things that ironically surround us every day: cancer, abandonment, financial collapse, injury, death of a loved one, failure, embarrassment. Yet these harbingers of dread are usually not entertainment-worthy, at least not in a Halloween context.

As I’ve gotten older (and hopefully wiser), I feel the excitement of getting scared starting to evaporate. I rarely watch horror movies or go to haunted houses because I don’t want to want to enjoy simulated fear (personal preference, not proscribed behavior) and dark and creepy places don’t hold the same fascination like they used to. I remember being on youth group camping trips and freaking ourselves out in the dark, but now if I’m in the woods before sunrise, I just think that this is God’s design, and the biggest dangers are ticks and unseen roots as opposed to phantom killers or bloodthirsty beasts.

When it comes to those things in life that are actually frightening, I remind myself that we are not given a spirit of fear, but power, love, and self-control (1 Tim. 1:7). As an adult who is responsible for his family, there are countless fearful things that I could dwell on, but then I remember that the safety and security of my life and my family is really in God’s hands. Yes, I am a steward and am expected to be a responsible caretaker, but being paralyzed with worry and anxiety demonstrates a lack of faith in God’s sovereignty.

So in the end, what is truly scary? For a believer who is grounded in God’s word, the answer should be “nothing”. This Halloween, let your fears be fun-filled jumpy moments and set your real fears before God for Him to command and control.

By know you know the drill: Hip-hop’s Kanye West says he’s really a Christian now. He even made a whole album about it.

Other Christians, as is our wont, react in considerably less musical ways by the writing of many words. So here are mine.

Yet first I must state why Speculative Faith’s unique, fantasy-fan readers should care about a hip-hop artist.

Why?

Because this ongoing drama has basically everything we like to explore here: biblical faith, creativity, debate, art vs. truth, and beyond.

So let’s go, beginning each section with five (generalized) responses I’ve heard from Christians. (Disclaimers in this footnote.¹)

1. ‘Yay! It’s Christiannn! Let’s make Kanye our new top celebrity!’

via Gfycat

This response is predictable and inevitable. That’s because evangelicals have been doing this with Big Celebrities for ages. When I was a child, they were going nuts over music artist Pat Boone and Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton. More recently you see this done to film stars, say, after They supposedly told Chris Pratt to “leave God off the movie set,” and his response LEFT THEM SPEECHLESS.

However, perhaps I now follow better websites. Or have better friends. Either way, I haven’t seen this response nearly as much.

You, of course, might have more-traditionally conservative Christians among your friends, so you might see it more. I can easily imagine your very churchy Aunt Paula, taking a break from sharing more Minions memes and instead gushing on the Facebooks over West,² this nice young man who’s apparently very famous and who just got saved.

With West apparently determined to opine on some politically conservative concepts (like pro-life ideas and fatherhood), this response of conservative over-praise will no doubt increase.

And if West keeps making more explicitly Christian music—without the cusswords!—those jokes about playing his new music on K-LOVE won’t be jokes for much longer. You’ll see (well-meaning but occasionally silly) evangelicals seriously wonder if West could be drafted into God’s Not Dead–style movies and explicitly-Christian music albums.

However, other Christians have this pushback well covered. The Babylon Bee snarked that West will become a Newsboy or sing “Silly Songs with Larry Kanye.” More-serious articles, such as Eugene Park’s Kanye West: From ‘I Am a God’ to ‘Jesus Is King,’ warn about making a new believer into a Big Spiritual Cheese too early. (And many rightly warn of the real-world consequences of elevating new believers into leadership positions.) I’ve seen far more resistance to the “make Kanye West our leader” notion than I’ve seen evidence of the actual notion itself. And either way, Christian culture’s leading edge is against such nonsense.

2. ‘Oh, great. Even if he’s sincere, lame evangelicals will ruin it.’

Despite this leading-edge view that is more biblical, I think some Christians still acting as if our culture’s real power lies in those naive persons repeating the above view. Perhaps in their mind, Aunt Paula represents all that is vapid or harmful about The Evangelical Church. So partly as an attempt to correct this, they view West’s professed conversion with undue skepticism.

Some have even said that West is probably just doing some marketing ploy to sell albums to Christians. Which is an outright laughable notion. West has been a kingpin of secular hip-hop. Going for “the evangelical audience” with Jesus-talk and cuss-free lyrics, while staying on top, might work for one album. By the next, you’re finished.

Others don’t go so far. They sound agnostic about West’s conversion. Instead, they reframe the issue in terms of what those bad evangelicals will do in response to West. They come across as if they believe it’s those Lame Evangelicals who are the real story here.

Honestly, I wonder if folks who suggest these notions actually suspect that Lame Evangelicals (like Aunt Paula) still dominate Western culture. They don’t. (And they won’t again, for a very long time. Update your browser. Get with the times.)³

The only place the Lame Evangelicals truly rule is in the real lives and imaginations (or sometimes just the imaginations) of some younger evangelicals, who may be genuinely wounded from previous experiences with evangelicals. Maybe they need to do some healing from those real bad experiences before they project their own stories atop other people’s stories. Or, as I summarized on Twitter and on Facebook:

Kanye West converting isn’t about your own struggle with Lame Evangelicals who pin their hopes on celebrities. . . .

Jesus writes more than one subplot.

Kanye West converting isn’t about your own struggle with Lame Evangelicals who pin their hopes on celebrities.

John MacArthur v. Beth Moore isn’t about your own struggle with false teachers. Or with evangelical misogyny. Or with Moore’s fans.

Jesus writes more than one subplot.

— E. Stephen Burnett (@EStephenBurnett) October 26, 2019

The cynicism I see might be a result of someone who’s driven more by dislike of certain quarters of Christianity, more than love of Christ’s gospel’s power to overwhelm and change a wretched person.

This impulse is wrong. And Pharisaical. And dangerous if unchecked.

If you can’t even *theoretically* rejoice in one man’s conversion, because all those Wrong Sorts of Christians will go too crazy over it? Then you are letting them, not Christ’s joy, change you. You will grow blind to the glory of Christ’s messy mixed-up church, and even blind to the miracle of conversion.

3. ‘His new album isn’t even that good.’ (Or: ‘His earlier work was better.’)

A secondary re-framing comes by criticizing the art value West’s album “Jesus is King.” Some have said it’s not as good, creatively, as other hip-hop artists’ work that references biblical themes. Here I do think of one virtual-acquaintance who felt West’s earlier albums were in fact more substantive in faith content! (Despite the fact any previous spiritual messages were mixed not just with vile words but objectification of women and plain ol’ blasphemy, such as in the song “I am a God.”)

At that point, we really do need to re-evaluate whether we actually believe in this “sin and repentance” stuff, and even this “some people are saved and some people are not saved” concept, before we engage in criticism of a cultural form or creative work.

Presuming West wasn’t a Christian before, and is a Christian now: In a sense, I don’t care how Artistic his earlier albums were.

His present album—which by accounts I’ve read remains creative and engaging—is worth celebrating.

Yes, even more than his previous pagan works.

My record shows I’m all for Christians pursuing creative excellence, and not enabling bad stuff out of some bless-his-heart sentimentality. But. A person who has come to know Jesus should bring Christians more joy even if his newest creative work is arguably inferior. West may have been talking about Jesus before. But by all accounts, he’s only recently begun to take seriously the Lord’s call to holiness in all things, including sexual purity.

It’s highly worrisome to hear some folks who only want to talk about the Art and not the soul behind it. As if the Art, not the action, shows real holiness.

C. S. Lewis once remarked:

The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world.⁴

This is truth. Moreover, the world remains divided between people who are saved by Jesus and people who are not. Discipleship, not Artistic Excellence, remains the prime directive of the Church.

4. ‘Well, I’ll wait X months/years/albums before I think it’s true saving faith.’

I’m very sympathetic to this view, and not just because several good friends voiced it. It speaks to the value of discernment, shrewdness, and testing someone who claims to follow Jesus. It also has some secondary support in Jesus’s parable of the sower.⁵ In this story, some of the sower’s “seed” (the preached word) fell on shallow soil, where the plants sprang up fast and enthusiastic, but died in shallow soil or when the sun scorched them.

Still. None of us can discern West’s claim because we don’t know him. We’re not in a local church. Even then, we’d have a hard time finding proof that he means it all. Especially when new Christians, in A-list celebrity worlds, live in such different worlds from most of us.

For my part, I’m optimistic not just based on West’s album content and interviews, but watching West’s own pastor-friend recount the tale.

Anyone skeptical needs to at least watch or listen to this interview, before deciding to maintain skepticism as a default posture.

5. ‘Praise Jesus! Yes, let’s see what happens next. But praise Jesus!’

This is my view, and here is why.

I’d rather be excited about the possibility of a miracle, and later proven wrong, than constantly skeptical because I’m letting those Lame Evangelicals live rent-free in my head, and miss any miracles.

When I read West’s seemingly heart-wrenching lines like this, I’d rather keep my trust-but-verifying heart open and pumping, rather than wound myself with bitter cynicism:

“Said I’m finna do a gospel album
What have you been hearin’ from the Christians?
They’ll be the first one to judge me
Make it feel like nobody love me . . .

Make you feel alone in the dark and you’ll never see the light . . .

Don’t throw me up, lay your hands on me / Please, please pray for me.“⁶

And what if I knew West would come out tomorrow and said, “Ha ha! Such a great prank. I got all you silly Christians good! Gads! I stuck in those corny Chick-fil-A references and everything? And you fell for it”?

Then I’ll still sleep easily tonight.

Because in presuming West’s conversion as genuine, I was still chasing joy and “believing all things, hoping all things,” while still testing all things. Rather than mutate into a skeptic, I will have remained true to my mission: to embrace grace wherever it’s found, and not just as tools to defeat my enemies; and to pursue joy in Christ and in anyone who rationally claims to love Jesus and worship Jesus as his king.

Here in the United States, most of us will be altering time this coming weekend (November 3, to be exact) because Daylight Savings Time will come to an end. Of course we haven’t actually saved any daylight, nor are we alerting time in any ultimate sense. Every day will still have twenty-four hours; every hour, sixty minutes; every minute, sixty seconds. But we will, of course, change time in the sense that we will change our clocks by “falling back” an hour. Five o’clock will become four, ten o’clock will become nine, and so forth.

In one sense, I’m glad for the change because I’m tired of waking up and getting up while it’s dark outside. For those people who have to start their day at some early morning hour when the rest of us are fast asleep, the change won’t affect them in the morning. I mean, it’s dark at four whether we are on Day Light Savings Time or not. But for me, where I live, I’m now eating breakfast just as the sun is starting to peek over the horizon. Which means I’ve been up, in the dark, for hours already.

In another sense, I hate this messing with time that we do. It throws my sleep pattern off. I get hungry at the wrong times, I’m eating just because the clock tells me it’s lunch, and so on. What’s worse, the whole thing changes back in five short months. And what’s worse still, from my perspective, is that the government decided to add this extra month to Day Light Savings Time because people are more inclined to shop when it is light. I guess they figure we’ll shop before Christmas no matter what, so it’s safe to change the time for a little while at least. But me? I don’t think shopping is a good reason to mess with time.

Beyond all my complaints about the time change, I find time an interesting topic, a part of world building, actually, in speculative stories.

I just finished a fantasy in which several individuals passed through a tunnel into another land. Yes, this was a portal fantasy. As it turns out, the individual who went through the tunnel some time later (weeks, maybe months) arrived in the alternate world before the person who went through the tunnel first.

Narnia famously gave readers this “time is different” element of fantasy when Lucy Pevensie famously spent hours and hours in Narnia, only to return to this world moments after she left. That’s been a fairly common element in these types of fantasies, though I don’t recall one in which time was so altered as it was in the book I just read.

Other types of fantasies, such as Lord of the Rings, must develop their own time system, usually only pertinent when recounting the past. I haven’t read The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited and published posthumously by his son, Christopher (and unlikely to become a movie, which suits some just fine), but I understand that the book delves into the history of Middle-earth, dealing with, among other things, the First Age, the Second Age, and the Third Age. These ages, of course, are the author’s fanciful dealing with the past. In fact, all of Middle-earth is supposedly about a time before our time, in some ways “explaining” why we do not have elves and dwarfs and wizards in our world today.

Then there are time travel stories, which are a type of speculative fiction we don’t see too much in contemporary literature, at least not since Back To The Future.

The most notable series I read was Stephen Lawhead’s Bright Empires. He used an interesting device called ley lines. When the characters passed from one reality to another, they were actually going into another world, like ours in every respect, with a history like ours. But they not only traveled to other places in the other world, they also traveled to other times in the other world. Confused yet? It actually made a lot of sense and was an interesting twist on the time travel novel.

Even science fiction must deal with time. At least stories that are set in space or that involve space travel, must, if only by developing warp engines or dilithima crystals or some other innovation that allows spaceships to reach a destination within the characters’ lifetimes, speeding through light years as if they are but hours. Some stories also must deal with longer days on some planets, or telling time on spaceships that aren’t in sync with one planet or the other.

All in all, time is a serious function of speculative literature. It helps build the world and make it into a believable other place. Consequently, in novels, messin’ with time is not only forgivable, it may be desirable.

What speculative stories have you read (or have you written) in which time must be altered in some way? How well did the author handle the time elements? Any of those books you’d like to recommend?

Featured Photo by Eugene Shelestov from Pexels

I’m always intrigued by backstories. Not only the formative past of the characters I engage with as I read a novel, but also the backstories of the authors who wrote those novels. What hints of their childhood inform their setting? What life experiences affect their choices in plot? What passionate concerns weave into their novel’s themes?

If you enjoy a bit of “writer backstory,” read on for a peek at one of the elements that contributed to my new novel, Hidden Current:

As the world of Meriel took shape in my mind’s eye, my first influence was one of my favorite novels. I still vividly remember the impact the book had on me in high school. Perelandra, by C. S. Lewis, spoke to my heart on many levels. It helped me understand the banal nature of much of evil, it helped me grasp the insidiousness of temptation, and it showed me that a book can lead a reader into a time of worship as characters joined in celebrating God’s presence.

In a nod to the world Lewis conceived, and because it was vital for the story, I also constructed a floating island—one that ripples with the waves and has the potential to ride the currents.

Another experience that inspired an element of Hidden Current was an encounter I had with dolphins.

Years ago, my husband and I vacationed in Hawaii. We rented a kayak and set out on our own to paddle a bay. As we were enjoying the sun, working to coordinate our strokes, and admiring the shoreline, grey forms suddenly appeared around us. A fearful thrill (sharks?) soon changed to awe and delight.

We were surrounded by a pod of spinner dolphins.

They were huge and wild and powerful. The puffing sound of their breaths made us hold our own breaths. They arched up and down zipping around our kayak—so close that some of our fear returned. Then one of them leaped. I can’t comprehend the strength it takes to fling such a huge body so far into the air. It spun in joyous multiple pirouettes, then flipped like a gymnast and splashed into the waves. Others joined in the dance, leaping and splashing, while we watched, entranced.

When the pod swam away, we paddled after until our arms tired, hoping for more glimpses.

It was a transcendent experience of the beauty of God’s creation and made me understand the literal truth of something being “breathtaking.”

Partway through writing the novel, I suddenly knew that there were sea creatures in this story world, and they popped into my imagination fully formed. The surprise delighted me much as the appearance of those dolphins had. I don’t want to say too much (spoilers!) and they aren’t a direct mirror of my experience. But the awe and joy those dolphins inspired fueled Hidden Current’s sea creatures.

Speculative fiction reflects a fallen world in need of redemption. But it also can paint the power and imagination of our Maker’s original intention. The beauty we notice in our world, or in the world of speculative stories, can remind us of His glorious nature and the many ways He manifests His love for us.

If you interested in more behind the scenes notes, I’m sharing the first chapter of Hidden Current, annotated with my handwritten comments, as a free gift to anyone who pre-orders the hard-cover edition of the novel before October 31. Get more details at my website!

Hidden Current releases Jan. 14, 2020. Lorehaven magazine says:

“Hidden Current introduces The Dancing Realms three-book series, and author Sharon Hinck draws readers into this unique and colorful world, whose quaking and wandering island itself matches the tumult of Calara’s doubts and challenges.”

Read the complete early review exclusively in Lorehaven magazine’s fall 2019 issue.

Today’s subject is ghost stories, because ’tis the season.

Ghost stories would, under modern classification, be sorted into horror. But they inhabit the outer fringes of that category and have a stronghold in more reputable categories (see: Hamlet and A Christmas Carol). There is nothing niche about the ghost story. Ghosts are immemorial and omnipresent in human stories, older than writing and haunting every culture. They make the flesh crawl, whether you believe in them or not.

One peculiar aspect to the phenomenon of ghost stories is how little they have to do with the next world. As a matter of pure logic, ghost stories imply an immortality of the soul, even if a kind of immortality that no one wants. But immortality is for the living, and ghosts are nothing but dead. Ghost stories offer no glimpse of the other side. It is, after all, the special tragedy of ghosts that they don’t make it to the other side but linger, without point or place, on this one.

The potency of ghost stories comes from how simply, but powerfully, they play on human instincts about death. People enjoy ghost stories because (this is the kind of creatures we are) people are afraid of ghosts. And it’s a singular kind of fear, half nerves and half spiritual. C.S. Lewis defined the fear perfectly in The Problem of Pain – the strange fear we have of dead men who are, as he points out, “assuredly the least dangerous kind of men”:

Suppose you were told there was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told, “There is a ghost in the next room,” and believed it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a different kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for no one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost. It is “uncanny” rather than dangerous, and the special kind of fear it excites may be called Dread.

In Miracles, Lewis digs into the source, and meaning, of our fear of the dead:

It is idle to say that we dislike corpses because we are afraid of ghosts. You might say with equal truth that we fear ghosts because we dislike corpses – for the ghost owes much of its horror to the associated ideas of pallor, decay, coffins, shrouds, and worms. In reality we hate the division which makes possible the conception of either corpse or ghost. Because the thing ought not to be divided, each of the halves into which it falls by division is detestable. … [O]nce accept the Christian doctrine that man was originally a unity and that the present division is unnatural, and all the phenomena fall into place.

The existence of ghost stories tells us nothing about ourselves except that we have noticed that we die and wondered if something might survive. It is our reaction to ghost stories that is revelatory. It is the shudder, the flesh-crawling horror. It is the dread and the sense of the uncanny that show how instinctually and how inexplicably we feel about death, about the broken unity of a human being.

It’s not all grimness. Even ghost stories have their happy endings, or at least their hopeful ones – when the ghost is able to leave this world, to finally travel to the other side. And that also tells us something of ourselves, doesn’t it?