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Updated: May 16, 2025
However Thyraeus relies on the anthropological test of evidence, and thinks that his belief is confirmed by the coincident reports of hauntings, 'variis distinctissimisque locis et temporibus, in the most various times and places.
And this was the view of Petrus Thyraeus, S.J., in his Loca Infesta . The alternative is to believe in neither. We have thus, according to the advice of Socrates, permitted the argument to lead us whither it would. And whither has it led us?
Perhaps seven burials were not sufficient to prevent haunting. The conclusion of the work of Thyraeus is devoted to exorcisms, and orthodox methods of expelling spirits. The knockings which herald a death are attributed to the Lares, a kind of petty mischievous demons unattached.
The spirits of an amorous complexion seem no longer to be numerous, but are objects of interest to Thyraeus as to Increase Mather. Thyraeus now raises the difficult question: 'Are the sounds heard in haunted houses real, or hallucinatory? Omnis qui a spiritibus fit, simulatus est, specie sui fallit. The spirits having no vocal organs, can only produce noise.
When it comes to establishing his position Thyraeus most provokingly says, 'we omit cases which are recent and of daily occurrence, such as he heard narrated, during his travels, in 'a certain haunted castle'. A modern inquirer naturally prefers recent examples, which may be inquired into, but the old scholars reposed more confidence in what was written by respected authors, the more ancient the more authoritative.
Or again, the sounds may be hallucinatory and only some mortals may have the power of hearing them. If there are visual, there may also be auditory hallucinations. On the whole Thyraeus thinks that the sounds may be real on some occasions, when all present hear them, hallucinatory on others. But the sounds need not be produced on the furniture, for example, when they seem to be so produced.
One or two curious circumstances have rather escaped the notice of philosophers though not of Thyraeus. The planks and heavy objects at Abbotsford had not been stirred, as the loud noises overhead indicated, when Scott came to examine them.
The sprites occasionally appear in their proper form, but just as often in disguise: a demon, too, can appear in human shape if so disposed: demons being of their nature deceitful and fond of travesty, as Porphyry teaches us and as Law illustrates. Whether the spirits of the dead quite know what they are about when they take to haunting, is, in the opinion of Thyraeus, a difficult question.
The dormitory of some nuns was haunted by a spectre who moaned, tramped noisily around, dragged the sisters out of bed by the feet, and even tickled them nearly to death! This annoyance lasted for three years, so Wierus says. Wodrow chronicles a similar affair at Mellantrae, in Annandale. Thyraeus distinguishes three kinds of haunting sprites, devils, damned souls, and souls in purgatory.
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