“A Christmas Carol, A Ghost Story of Christmas” by Charles Dickens: However, in real life, Dickens mocked belief in ghosts and was a ghost buster!

“Dickens…like many of his contemporaries, routinely mocked the belief in ghosts as a lingering trace of the uncivilized past…” (1, Introduction, p. xiii). Indeed, he was a skeptic of paranormal phenomena and was a ghost buster (2).

Why was he skeptical? As discussed in past posts, citing nonfiction sources, Dickens would sometimes hear the voices of, visualize the presence of, and converse with, people who seemed real, but he knew were imaginary.

Moreover, as an avid student and practitioner of hypnosis (known then as mesmerism) (3), Dickens had probably seen, and possibly induced, such phenomena in others.

1. Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol [1843] and Other Christmas Books. Edited and with an Introduction by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006.

2. Charlotte Ahlin. “This Famous Author Was a Real Life Ghost Buster.” https://www.bustle.com/articles/186345-charles-dickens-was-a-real-life-ghost-buster-and-member-of-the-worlds-oldest-paranormal-research

3. Fred Kaplan. Dickens and Mesmerism: The Hidden Springs of Fiction. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1975.