The latest adaptation of Henry James’ classic 1898 ghost story The Turn Of The Screw is called The Turning starring red hot teenage actor Finn Wolfhard but it’s not the only adaptation being released this year. Mike Flanagan’s sequel to his Netflix smash The Haunting of Hill House is going to be called The Haunting of Bly House and will rework James’ novella into a modern story as well.

One-hundred and twenty years after the initial publication why does James’ work still resonate? After all, in our current society, we’re about as far removed from the Victorian age as you can be. We laugh when we think of their “uptight” sexuality, their treatment of women as the “fairer sex”, and of course, the superior attitude that came along with “ the empire on which the sun never sets “.

The Turn Of The Screw is a story about a governess who is hired to take care of a girl and boy whose uncle is a busy gentleman that can’t be bothered with raising them himself. While originally enjoying the job, the governess starts seeing ghosts surrounding the children and her thoughts are eventually consumed by the spirits which raises tensions to an untenable level in the house. Part of the story that makes it the most interesting is that no one else ever sees the ghosts besides the governess, so is it real or is it all in her imagination?

Now, Henry James’ inspiration for The Turn Of The Screw came from a supposedly true story he was told Archbishop of Canterbury, whose wife was involved with the Society for Psychical Research. And James’ equally famous brother, William, was also a member of that English organization and returned to the United States to form the American branch.

William James was not only one of the founders of parapsychology, he was also one of the founders of modern psychology. He was as interested in the study of spiritual pheneomena as he was in the workings of the mind and his psi research help set the template for modern experimental psychology still practiced today.

So Henry James was interested in ghost stories from a narrative standpoint while his brother was investigating them from a scientific standpoint! How might the reality of research into spirit communication have leaked over into the fiction?

We discuss the real-life paranormal influences behind The Turn Of The Screw as well as William and Henry James’ views on the paranormal and its effect on the world of parapsychology. Some of the topics include:

• Henry James’ father’s own strange “vastation”, a spiritual crisis which lasted two years
• Just what or who did Henry James call “The Others”?
• William James’ work on religious experiences and how they might be a result of mental illness (a foreshadowing of using therapy instead of exorcism to help the victims)
• What did Henry James really think about the afterlife according to his article “Is There Life After Death”?
• Did William James return to talk to the dead after he passed away in 1910?

Welcome to See You on the Other Mike, where the world of

the mysterious collides with the world of entertainment.

A discussion of art, music, movies, spirituality,

the weird and self discovery. And

now, your hosts, musicians and entertainers

who have their own weakness for the weird, Mike and

Wendy from the band Sunspot. Episode

280, The Turn of the Screw, Henry James

and the History of Parapsychology.

Wendy, Allison, how are you guys doing on this fine

Sunday afternoon? Oh, great. I'm glad to be here. Just

wonderful. We survived the snowmageddon that was supposed to come and ended

up being, like, almost nothing. Yeah. It was just a nice little blanket of

snow that came over. It was. And basically, no problem at all. Didn't even

I haven't even shoveled yet. That's of course, I'm

lazy. But it kinda gave everybody an excuse to, like,

stockpile food and then just hole up for the weekend Yes. At home. So that

was kinda funny. And and that actually that actually happened.

So, Scott, like, I I didn't realize

people would have the level of panic

that there seemed to be because, I just thought, oh, we need a

couple things. I'm out of salad dressing. And Scott's like, I'll go to

Woodman's. And and he's Mike, oh, no. I was in line for

40 minutes. Yeah. I wow. I

had to rob a Piggly Wiggly and to get everything I

needed. Woodman's is bad on a normal day, but on a in this

kind of situation I was gonna say 40 minutes. Either

way, that's the real life horror we had to face this week. Yes.

As far as the fictional horror, coming out on

January 24, 2020 is the latest adaptation

of Henry James' 18 98 horror

novella, The Turn of the Screw, and this new

version's called The Turning, and it's a modernization of it. So I

believe it's set in the 19 nineties. So instead of being set in the 18

nineties, it's set in the 19 nineties, And it's starring

Finn Wolfhard, the actor with the sweetest name in all

of television. You guys know him as Mike

from Stranger Things. Yes. The guy who makes all the

kissy faces with Elle in the last scene.

But and he's I mean, he also was in It, and he's

gonna be in Ghostbusters Afterlife coming out this summer. So basically,

Finn Wolfhard is the coolest actor in Hollywood right now

and he can't even, I mean, I don't

think he can drive. Can he drive yet? Well, when would he have time to

take Driver's Ed with all those acting gigs, though? He's, like, got the it

factor going. He can take driver's ed with me. Sure.

Once the phone stops ringing. Right. I'm trying to

I'm trying to find his birthday here and see exactly

when he was born. Finn Wolfhard, like Let's find out he's, like,

30. Oh my god. No. December

23, 2002. Oh, wow. Yeah.

He is a baby. Yeah. So December 23, 2002. It's

not like Michael j Fox who was Mike 30 when he starred in Back to

the Future. Or all of the Beverly Hills 90 2 10

cast. Right. They're Mike in high school, but they're actually like middle aged.

Jason Priestley was actually getting,

the AARP magazine when he was in Beverly Hills 90210.

But the thing is he played there's there are 2 kids in the turn of

the screw. So just if you guys haven't read the book since high school or

college or if you've never read the book, we'll just give you a quick summary

right now. You have an old English

manor and 2 kids whose parents have died who

are being raised by their uncle, but their uncle doesn't want any part of their

lives. So he hires people to take care of them so he doesn't

have to worry about it. The new governess shows up on the

scene in order to raise the kids, and

she starts seeing the ghosts of the

old governess and the old governess's lover and thinks that

they are trying to turn the children evil

and against her. And, the turn of the screw, the actual

meaning of the phrase and I guess I never realized that what the

actual phrase meant, but is that every action

leads to something worse. So every

turn of the screw like, I always thought I thought it meant Mike the tightening.

Because it's a horror novel, I meant Mike, oh, the world's

tightening around the governess kind of thing. But, the actual meaning of the

phrase, the turn of the screw, is every time the screw turns, every

action just leads to a worse and worse outcome. Yeah. And it's

also, it's actually used in the book a

couple times as just, you know, to emphasize or exaggerate

to say, like so I'll I'll read you the quote of its first instance in

the book. Because the book actually it sets up the story

before it goes into the actual story. It sets up the story of a

family at Christmas time telling ghost stories. Right? Mhmm.

And, somebody tells a story that involves a child and everybody's very

disturbed that, you know, this ghost story has a child in it. And

then someone else steps in and says, if the child gives the

effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to 2

children? And then proceeds to tell the story that, you know,

the actual story that involves 2 children. So

they're saying, like, okay, if if having 1 kid in the ghost story is bad,

you know. They're kinda Then let's turn the screw more. Yeah. They're

trying to top each other. Exactly. Yeah. So I thought that was kind

of an interesting Which reminds me of, you know, the whole

tradition of telling stories or or making up

the more extreme stories, like, as, you

know, with with the ghost story

session that led to the creation of Frankenstein, for

example. Yeah. That's right. They were trying to,

you know, this dismal summer, you

know, came and they couldn't do anything except sit by

the Mike, so they just kept trying to tap each other and

tell the, you know, the more horrible ghost

story. But what was happening though what was happening though what you're talking about,

Allison, on Lake Geneva Oh, no. In Switzerland,

in in that state with with Percy Shelley, with Mary Shelley, and with Lord

Byron, I think the turn of the screw had a completely

different definition No. For that group

of people. Well, that's true. There's a lot of screwing going on

whichever way you wanna look at it. Absolutely. So there's

a couple of ways. I I love that. First of all, it's just a great

title for something. Yeah. It is. You know, because

it just it has a, there's some kind of darkness to

it. And the fact that it just means, like, everything just spirals in. The tighter

it gets, you know, the worse it gets.

It's it's a great thing. And Wendy James, obviously,

famous novelist and came from a super famous

family. This is something that I think is really interesting

that Henry James, was a famous novelist.

His father, Henry James senior, was Mike a

fairly like a rich guy in the mid 1800,

19th century. He amasses

a fortune through some kind of business dealings in upstate New

York, mostly real estate, money lending, and he

helped build the Erie Canal. Wow. Oh, what a guy.

Yeah. Even the dad was into Erie stuff. Oh,

man. Wow. Okay.

So, age of 13 But that surely

wasn't the Erie stuff. Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

So so let's not leave his father yet because his father was

pretty straight laced and didn't believe in ghosts, but

then something happened, didn't it Mike? Right. Well his

father, I mean he became a rich man, though, after

his leg was amputated as a boy. Age age of 13, his leg is

amputated. Oh, he's right. He's trying to stamp out a fire in a

barn, and then his leg gets burnt,

and the only way to save it is to chop it off.

So he gets his leg chopped off when he's 13 years old, then he's

bedridden for 3 years. And so then he has to become a

he becomes a very studious person. He becomes a scholar,

becomes somewhat spiritual. He studies at the Princeton Theological Seminary

in the 18 thirties, but then he starts to have a

crisis of faith, and he abandons the idea of becoming a minister,

goes off to England for a year to think. How did you do? Probably

not to ride in the countryside, probably not a ride going on with his wooden

leg or whatever, but he comes back in now

this is an interesting thing. So in May of 1844,

he's hanging around in in Windsor, England. He's, like, on a vacation. He has

an evening dinner, and then he's

sitting after dinner gazing at a fire, and he has,

in that moment, what he calls the defining spiritual experience

of his life. He calls it a vastation,

where he has to spiritually regenerate. So in his

words, here's what he he finds. He starts feeling this

fear and terror and, quote, a perfectly

insane and abject terror without ostensible cause

and only to be accounted for to my perplexed imagination

by some damned shape squatting invisible to me within the precincts

of the room and ring out from his fetid personality

influences fatal to life. This lasts for 2

years. So he, like, goes a little

bit off his rocker for 2 years, and then he starts really getting

to this guy named Emanuel Swedenborg.

Yes. A very famous mystic, actually. So

Swedenborg is a Swedish Lutheran theologian,

who also was a really great cook,

and his actual He was a Swedish chef?

Right. So It was the inspiration for the Swedish chef. Is that what you're telling

us, Mike? He writes this book called bork bork bork.

He wrote a bork. And,

actually, he wrote a book called Heaven and Hell. And the thing is so

Swedenborg lived from 16/88 to 17/72,

and he believes that he received a new new revelation from

Jesus, and he experienced these revelations over 25 years.

He writes it up saying that a new church is gonna be established

that kinda gives up on the old testament and just concentrates on

Jesus, and that everybody has to cooperate in

repentance, reformation, and regeneration, and that the

second coming is on the way.

So Swedenborg is he's almost like,

Joseph Smith in the Mormons, because Joseph Smith had his,

specific revelations that happened in the early 1800. Swedenborg

was maybe about 50 years beforehand. And then, I mean, Swedenborg,

he was put on trial in Sweden for being a heretic.

Wow. And so they kinda, like he didn't really become

famous until after he had died. So it's the same kinda thing. Like,

people kinda like, kinda like Jesus or whatever. He people kinda

took up his, mantle of his, you know, his

religious ideas after he had died, and then

churches start springing up, particularly in England. And so that's

where, Henry James senior, he was exposed to

this kind of stuff. And Henry James senior, he's

got 5 kids, and 3 of the kids end up being fairly

famous. One of them, of course, is Henry James junior,

who writes the turning of the screw. One of them is Alice James,

who after her death, her diaries make her famous.

So she writes these diaries that people think are brilliant, and she's very

witty and clever, and she becomes a famous writer after she passes

away. And then finally, we have William

James, who's basically the father of American

psychology. And a lot of people would argue of parapsychology

itself. Right. So, I mean, William James,

he's doing actual, like psych like parapsychological

research at the turn of 19th century.

He's part of the British Society For Cyclical Research.

He comes back to the US and starts the American Society For

Cyclical Research, the ASPR. So,

we talk about Henry James being very influential in the creation

of the classic ghost story. It's of a haunted

house, Bly house, that's in the turn of the

screw. And in fact, speaking of Bly house, there is a

second adaptation of a turn of the screw coming, which is a sequel

to The Haunting of Hill House from last year. If you guys saw that on

Netflix, It's really good. So good. I I did.

I watched them all. Yeah. It was a lot better than and I

I've read the original Shirley Jackson book. I'm a fan of the original Robert Wise

movie from 1962, The Haunting.

And I thought I was Mike, okay. Remember they made like a haunting

redo in 1999 with I mean, she's my girlfriend,

but I hated the movie, Catherine Zeta Jones. Yeah. And

who else was in it? Owen Luke no. Owen Wilson.

No. Luke Wilson. Which one? The one with the Owen. Owen Wilson with the

blonde hair and the nose. The blonde one. Yeah. And

Liam Neeson was in anyway, it was horrible, that The Haunting movie.

They took all of the, like, all of the psychological scares out

and made, like, the bad guy come to life, like, out of a painting

directed by the man from the man who brought you Speed. Here comes the new

horror classic, The Haunting of Man. It's terrible, but The

Haunting of Hill House was terrific. So good. So scary. Yeah. So

scary. Yeah. Scary, and it really adapts the story into something

that is a lot of fun as well as chilling.

And so the sequel to that is gonna be an adaptation of turn of the

screw Cool. Haunting called The Haunting of Blythe House.

So that's coming soon. So that's a second adaptation. So Henry James has

been dead since 1916, a 103 years, and he's

more popular than ever Yeah. Considering that he's

got a new movie coming out with Finn Wolfhard.

Teen heartthrob. Right. And

and do you think high school girls are looking

at Finn Wolfhard? Mike, Wendy, you might have looked at Corey Feldman

or Allison. You might have you might have looked at that,

Leif Garrett guy. Leif Garrett. Oh my

god. I think so. Or maybe one of the hard

Allison, did you like the Hardy Boys? Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, maybe. I I could've I

could've, like, read a few issues of Tiger Beat. Yeah. I haven't looked

at it lately. Oh, god. Okay. That's so great. I'm just

thinking about girls today being interested in film Wolfhard and you're just

Mike, what? The kid from Stranger Things? Yeah. Yeah. Because think about it Mike Kirk

Cameron was was in Tiger Beat Magazine. Like that's what I'm saying. Like

the nerdy kind of Right. And Finn Wolfhard at least has cool

hair. Like Kirk Cameron had to perm that.

But, you know, speaking of, so who's you know, one of the people who

is in the new turn of the screw movie, The Turning,

with Finn Wolfhard is Jolie Richardson, and

this is interesting. She is the 4th member of her family

to be involved in a turn of the screw adaptation.

So she comes from the Redgrave famous acting

family, and so her mother

was Vanessa Redgrave, who you guys probably remember her

from the what was Vanessa Redgrave? She was in like the Weight Watchers

ad. You know, she was in a bunch of Weight Watchers ad,

but her aunt Lynn Redgrave was in the

1974 version of The Turn of the Screw. She played the governess. Her

uncle Corin Redgrave played the professor in the 2009 version of The

Turn of the Screw, and her grandfather Mike Redgrave was the uncle in

the movie The Innocence in 1961, which was

a adaptation of it. So I mean this is the

4th adaptation to star a one of the Redgrave acting family.

And so that's just an interesting thing too that, you know, you

think of over Mike, we think, oh, man, just everything

gets remade or rebooted. This is nothing

new. Yeah. And it became it happened so many times. It became

a family tradition. Right, that they're like when

Natasha Richardson, who she passed away, she was Liam Neeson's

wife and she passed away in that skiing accident a few years ago, she

never appeared in a turn of the screw adaptation. So

obviously the family was very disappointed in her. Yes. But just an

interesting thing. But let's get into a little bit of Henry James now.

So Wendy James senior obviously is a dude that's

super into religion, and so much so that he has a

2 year kind of breakdown

because, he can't figure out, you know, he feels

an evil presence in the room or whatever of the the fetid

manifestation of my fears. Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me

of of Pan, you know, the idea of of this

kind of presence that comes into your life that creates panic.

Yeah. I mean, an existential crisis kind of thing. So I mean,

Pan Right. Or who whoever snuck in, whoever's was crouching next to

him, next to that fire, he had an existential crisis. It's funny

though because Henry James senior, he is hanging out with people

like Emerson and Thoreau, and he's

hanging out with the transcendentalists too. And in fact, that's one of

the reasons that Henry James actually, he had

lived for a while in Cambridge, Massachusetts

because it was he believed it was the center of American thought.

Oh. And William James was living in Cambridge too because he had

studied at Harvard, and so he was doing some of his experiments

into spiritualism at Harvard. Now Henry James senior

thought spiritualism was a bunch of bunk, so he

wasn't into, in fact, he wrote articles

spiritualism, old and new spiritualism, modern

diabolism in the Atlantic Monthly

in the 18 seventies Wendy people after the civil war are

obviously into spiritualism because they're trying to contact their dead sons and Yeah. You

know So it's reckoning with all the loss around them. Yeah.

And Henry James senior then, his Swedenborgism,

for some reason does not mesh. So so his belief in life after

death does not mesh with spiritualism as Mike

mediums and stuff. And so then he writes a couple of articles, and

the the Atlantic Monthly obviously still comes out, but it comes out

every week, I believe, in the as as the Atlantic. And the

Atlantic also is where, Emerson had

written some of his initial essays on transcendentalism and Thoreau,

and he writes these articles in the 18 seventies saying that spiritualism is

crap, mod modern diabolism.

So, diabolism is evil and because it comes

from our word diablo Diablo. The devil.

So he believes that the, you know, spiritualism that we think of with

people hanging around the table and stuff. Yeah. Of course, when you

look at his experience that changed his life,

you know, he was feeling that he was experiencing

an evil presence, the spirit in the room crouching in the

corner in the shadows, and perhaps

this led him to see spiritualism through

this negative lens. Interesting. Sure. Right. Because when he had a when he

had an experience with an external spirit, it made him clap his pants and changed

his life for 2 years. Right. It's kinda like Zac Bagan seeing as everything as

demons. Right. Did that demon tell you were kampooing

now? Did you say my name? Right. Yes,

Zac. The demon said your name. I've got yeah. Don't say

my name because the demon will be provoked.

Well, obviously, he has stayed overnight in the house that ranks 8 on

the demon side. It's called the demon, And he's ready to

go mano demono with Right. Any

color. There you go. Mano diablo. Mano diablo.

Okay. So we can make fun I mean, obviously, we could

make fun of Zach Baggins all day long. But the thing is so

3 people in the James family were famously

fascinated with communication with the dead. And Henry,

in fact, he called them the others. And,

not like I mean, like the others in Lost or whatever or the others

in the, the novelization of The

Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, in the books they're called the others,

not just the White Walkers. In fact, the reason that in the show Game of

Thrones, they call them the White Walkers instead of the others is

because when they were working on the script, Lost was still on the air,

and they didn't want, people to think of the

White Walkers as just like the others from Lost, which I

thought was interesting. Yeah. But speaking of that term, the others,

there is a very Henry James ish,

Mike, gothic horror movie from 2001

called The Others, with Nicole Kidman. Yeah. And I

felt I I don't know. I mean, there's I knew what was

coming, so it wasn't Mike a big surprise to me, but,

you know, I I think I would recommend it. There's they're they're playing

with all these themes Mike light and dark, and and there's

a lot of interesting, like, inversions going on. So

I I would recommend it. I I think I might even like to watch it

again Wow. With Henry James and, you know, the turn of

the in view. Right. Because the other the reason it's the reason

the movie The Others, I would say, is very inspired by The Turn of the

Screw is because, there's a woman who's

taking care of 2 young children, who have

a rare disease that they are sensitive to light, and

so odd things start happening around the children inside

the house. Yeah. And it's so it's very similar,

this whole idea of you're in this English country

house and there's kids that you have to protect

versus the spirits who are coming in, and who is

seeing the spirits is the woman who's

taking care of the kids, And so she might think she's crazy. Right.

The unreliable narrator. And and she

in that movie, she's wondering about her own sanity.

Right. And and which is interesting when you look at it through the lens

of Victorian society and how they saw women as, you

know, potentially hysterical at any moment. Well, I think it's interesting

too Mike the the governess, you know, she's responsible for these

children. She is the adult in the situation. She's supposed to

be in charge and control and calm and, you know, I used to

babysit as a teenager. And I remember being in a house and, you know, you

hear a weird sound and it's Mike, okay. Don't let the kids see that you're

scared, you know. And so she's not even sure if what

she's seeing is real or, like you said, you know, if she's imagining it

or but she has to be sort of investigating

it calmly. So I think that's kind of an interesting

position for the main character to be the unreliable narrator to be in.

Right. You know, because she's under such pressure to keep them safe and

she feels like, you know, this super supernatural

threat is getting more and more intense. Right. And, you

know, she has no one to turn to because, you know, their uncle

is just absolutely He said, don't bother me. He said, like, just take care of

that and leave me alone. Yeah. He's like deal with these kids. And

so she has no one to turn to. Poor woman. There's a couple of things

here, a couple of connections I just wanted to make. Number 1, I was just

talking about Lost. One of the characters in there,

missus Mills in the movie The Others is played by Irish actress

Fianna Flanagan who also plays a character in on

Lost as she is one of the others in Lost, that

goes back to the island. And then also the Game of Thrones connection,

so, missus not missus Stark, Catelyn Stark. There was

no missus in the Game of Thrones, but Catelyn Stark, Ned's wife

is also one of the people who's taking care of the kids, like one

of the servants who's hired by Nicole Kidman's character or whatever

in the movie. So there is a it's funny that all of these maybe there's

only so many British actors to go around. I think so. You know, it's

like well, we've got Wendy. So this one's on loan. This

one's on loan, but you can have him. He's been in Doctor Who

kind of thing. But like you're saying

though, also the way that James portrays the

governess, she seems to have Mike a

obsessive love for the uncle. You know, she wants

him to see how well she's doing taking

care of the kids in the beginning. Like the uncle seems to be

some kind of fantasy lover in her

mind. Mhmm. And, you know, one like this this

that she's not worthy of the love, but she wants to show him that she's

worthy of it. Yeah. And I think that's an interesting

thing. I mean, Henry James is criticized because he only dealt

with the people who were more well-to-do,

you know? I mean, you're you're right what you know and Henry James grew

up in rarefied I mean, when you are having intellectual

conversations with Ralph Waldo Emerson as a teenager because he's friends

with your dad, it's different than if your dad worked in the coal

mine. And so what is who's the guy that wrote The

Jungle? Oh. Upton Sinclair?

Upton Sinclair. Yeah. And he was he was really into

parapsychology as well. He wrote another book called Mental Radio all

about psychics though. That's cool. Oh, that's right. But Upton

Sinclair talked about Henry James and he's Mike, well,

he, you know, like one day in the Chicago stockyards would

teach him kind of thing. So he was so Henry

James was criticized for being somebody who wrote books about the higher class, who

wrote novels about the upper class at a time

when novels, I mean this was part of Dickens, when people

are thinking of a Victorian novel, Dickens' work where he was

trying to at least portray some of the Victorian

underclass and the plebs in the, you know,

Victorian society. Henry James was not dealing with what was

called novels were supposed to represent reality at the time. They were supposed to

be grittier and showing people's true life experiences,

not a governess who's gotta take care of some rich brats and

thinks that she might see some ghosts in the old house. I I know

but, you know, she is the victim of the

story. And, you know, she's of a lower class because she's

a a servant. And, you know, the Hey. Tell that to Austin

Sinclair, not me. The the well, the other the other goat, the

goat star, the servants as well. You know? So they're all being

victimized by high society. There's there's plenty of victimization

and exploitation to go around. Great. Well, I

hope so. But, you know, some interesting things in the novel is that

this idea that the ghosts are there to corrupt the children,

and she's trying to save the children from corruption. That's almost I

mean that's the theme of The Catcher in the Rye. That's, Holden

Caulfield's whole thing is he sees kids as innocent

and this world coming down on the I mean, the Holden Caulfield is

just out of being a kid himself, but he sees the

world around him coming in and corrupting

these beautiful creatures, and that's I mean at the turn of the screw her whole

idea is that she's trying to keep them from being corrupted by the

previous servants who were getting in on with each other

and, like the rough life that

what was the guy's name? The the guy so one of

the ghosts, was walking home from the bar and

Mike gets drunk and slips on the ice, and that's how he

dies. Oh, right. And the thing is because the

kid, the boy, Mike, he

wants to hang out with this guy that's the

valet of his uncle because his uncle's

never around and he's just got women around him. Yeah. He needs a male

figure. He needs some kind of male figure and he ends up hanging out with

this drunkard or whatever. Right. Quint. And then he lie he lies about it. Quint.

That's right. Quint. That's a good name. Quint is a good name. It just makes

me think of the ship captain or whatever from Jaws though the whole

Mike. When he tells that story about the USS Indianapolis

or whatever and, like, the sharks coming by and picking off the men of the

sunken ship during World War 2, That's who I picture Quint to be.

I also so that's how I Mike, instead of this, like, fine

English valet or whatever, I think of the old sailor.

Nice. And actually Robert Shaw, the character that the actor

that played Quint, he was wasted when he acted out that

scene where he tells the it's Mike the most effective scene in Jaws besides the

part where, you know, Jaws is eating people. And he was

drunk because he was terrified of that scene because that was his big moment. And

even as, like, a 60 year old actor, he was scared.

And so, you know, everybody thought Mike, oh

god. What's gonna happen? And then he comes on and delivers it perfectly and then,

like, passes out right after. So

right. The idea of her trying to save the innocents

and that these ghosts are going to corrupt the innocents. Yeah. Because

Quint and Mike miss Jessel are getting in on 247.

Right. Because that's what happened in the in the old house. And it also

is interesting too because in these 19th century

books, a lot of them, the narrator was someone involved in

the story. So you don't have a lot of omniscient narrators in

19th century novels. You have a lot of epistolary novels, which means they are

written in the form of letters. Oh, like Dracula. Right. So they

are written in the form of letters instead of a narrator that kind

of an all seeing narrator or from a certain

perspective. So this novel is done, the idea is that it's

the it's the governess herself who is writing

this at a time after she had experienced

it. And so Mrs. Gross,

the housekeeper, she basically is like

the simple woman who becomes the vehicle for exposition

in the story because the governess keeps on telling Mrs.

Gross when she's like, Oh, this is what I saw.

And I saw the ghosts and the kids didn't see the

ghosts, but that just means they're lying to me because the ghosts are perverting them

kind of thing. Mrs. Groves is the one who she's telling all the stories

to, and she becomes the vehicle by

which, the governess can kind of kind of

ramps up her own craziness. Right. She's basically giving

confirmation of the stuff that the governess is experiencing. So she'll

she'll say Mike, oh, yeah. There used to be a servant here that

looked like that or whatever. She's kinda feeding the fire there. She's

an enabler. She is enabler. Totally. What what what I

think is funny though too is that when the governess sees the ghost

of Peter Quint, she sees him in the clothes

of the uncle. So she sees him in

garb that is so she doesn't necessarily see Mike a a

ghost. She sees a man dressed up in the clothes of the

uncle. So when you're going to, like, is it a real ghost story or

is it all in her head, she's imagining

things that she's already seen. Mhmm. So I think this is where Henry James

gets this is where it becomes clever in the writing of the story

is that he gives it the possible explanation that it could

be all in the governess' head the whole time. And

while that it's kind of a cliche now, like now when I see something

and you're Mike, oh, it was all just a dream. Yeah. You're like, this

is crap. You know, that it's all just a

dream. You're like, yeah, I saw that one coming, you know, 2 hours

ago. At the time, that's a new thing.

And what makes the story clever is that he puts

into each part this questionable aspect

where, yes, these could be ghosts or it could be all in our

head, and it's left up to the it's it's the lady or the tiger or

whatever. It's left up to us to kind of make the decision

for ourself, whether it's a real ghost story or whether it's

schizophrenia. And that's something that William James,

his brother, in 1902, so just 4 years

after, Henry James releases The Turn of the

Screw, William James, his brother releases

the varieties of religious experience, a study of human nature,

and he links singular religious experiences to psychological

disorders in the brain. He now this is very this is very

19th century talk right here. He says these experiences

are delusional insanity.

Nice. And so he starts making the connection between

mental illness and religious experiences or belief in the

paranormal. And in fact, in 1994,

some Australian researchers find in one of their studies a correlation

between instances of schizophrenia and a belief in the paranormal,

at least for males. So it is not the hysterical

females where this happens. It's the

hysterical boys. Nice. But William James

and his brother, they're affecting each other because they're having these conversations. And

this is the cool thing, I think, too, is that when you think

about people's discussions, like you think about now, when people

have a discussion with someone who doesn't necessarily believe the same thing they do or

has an oppositional point of view, it's always

some kind of contest or always some kind of battle. It's

gotta be like on TV, and then you're like they're

just reaching for sound bites, or it has to be in some kind

of proper debate. Yeah. Instead of people just getting

together and having a conversation on what they think

might be the truth without having any kind of anger or

bitterness at each other. And Henry James and his brother are able to do

that. And interestingly enough, we talk about the relationship between

religious and the paranormal. Before Henry James writes The

Turn of the Screw, a couple in like 18/95 or whatever,

Henry James is depressed because he had a play that he was trying

to put on and the play failed miserably. So,

the wife of the archbishop of Canterbury is

involved in the, English or the I'm

sorry, the Society For Psychical Research, So the the

the English version of the Society For Psychical Research. And

so she, has the archbishop have a talk with

Henry James to kinda cheer him up. And then he tells him

the story of this governess who was taking care of the kids

and was haunted by apparitions of the former,

like, the former governess and the former governess's lover and says

Mike, oh, the ghosts were trying to

the ghosts were trying to corrupt the children and everything. And that kind

of boils in Henry's mind for a couple of years until he

starts writing the turn of the screw. And so So you're telling us it was

potentially based on a true story? Correct.

Wow. Well, that's a huge revelation. So, I mean, that comes from a

journal called Psychical Research and the Turn of the Screw, from American

Literature in January of 1949. But that's that's kinda

weird that the archbishop of

Canterbury chose a ghost story to be the centerpiece

for his pep talk. Well You

think you got it bad? Well, at least you aren't fighting 2

ghosts and potentially your own sanity Yes. And

this and, you know, with 2 souls of the innocents,

in the ballad. If you think one soul is bad, imagine the turn of the

screw with 2 souls. Yes. He's

Mike, Henry, suck it up, dude.

Right. Stop being such a wimp. Man up, get back out there, and write

your most famous work. And that's what he did.

So interesting enough though, so Henry James,

he says that cyclical research has little to offer him in the way of

imaginative material. He says the prevalence

of clinical analytical approaches to quote unquote the others

had caused a quote marked and sad drop in the

general supply and still more in the general quality of the

ghostly tale. He thought that paranormal research had

made ghost stories more boring. Kind of

like paranormal TV has made ghost hunting more boring

as we walk as we walk around with k 2 meters

talking talking to lights

on a meter. Right? Or just just,

being endlessly fascinated with creaks.

Yeah. You know? It you know, as as, you know, we're going

back to the bumps in the night, and that's it. That's our

understanding. Did you hear that? All bumps or also just Mike like you're

saying with the meters, you know, taking it as absolute, like,

oh, the meter just moved. There's something in here. You know?

Right. It's just like, oh, oh, I just pooped. So

it's the debasing of, you know, something that

is really much more nuanced and has the potential

for deeper understanding. Well, to me, it almost seems like the

the I don't know. The desacritization would be I

mean, would that be sacrilege? Because that's that's more of a

blasphemy type of thing, but I'm just thinking of the word of so instead of

taking these religious experiences and having them in some kind of

sacred aspect or these once in a lifetime

ghost experiences that people have had, it now becomes,

well, a matter of when somebody farts and then you think you hear your

name. Yes. And that's what

Henry James felt. I mean, he said the more psychical the case,

so that, you know, he felt that quote unquote, new type indeed,

the mere modern psychical case, washed clean of all queerness

as by exposure to a flowing laboratory tap and equipped with

credentials vouching for this, respectively certified the

less it seemed, the nature to rouse the dear old sacred

terror. Ah, I see. So so, you know, the

the the spiritual power of the experience is

experiences is, kind of washed out

by the harsh clinical

approach to it. Correct. And so, you

know, that's Wendy he's writing about, you know, real ghost research is

he finds the more research his brother does into it, the less

exciting that ghost stories become. And, you know, interestingly enough,

Henry James then writes an essay

in 1910 called Is There Life After Death?

And one of the reasons he writes this essay is because his brother William

dies in 1910. And so William, who's fascinated with

spiritualism, he promises to his

friends that after he dies, he's gonna come back and leave a message. This is

what everybody says. Right? That's what Andy Kaufman said. That's what

remember they had a seance with Andy Kaufman on TV? I seem to recall.

And of course that's like Houdini as well and all the

famous seances to contact him. Right.

And they had George Zunza, which was Andy

Kaufman's best Wendy, and I believe he's played by Danny

DeVito in Man on the Moon where Jim Carrey plays Andy Kaufman.

Anyway, George is on this live seance with Andy Kaufman and

he's Mike, the medium said things that only Andy would

know. The problem is, like everything with Andy Kaufman, you're

like, is George just playing you here to, you

know, because that's a way better headline than this is all

bullcrap. I mean, talk about the unreliable narrator as

comedian. That's Andy Kaufman right there. Anybody

involved with latke from Taxi is chances of them lying to you are

high. Anyway, that just made me think of the Andy

Kaufman thing because that's the most recent example I can think of, someone that said

they would talk to you from the dead, and then they had a seance on

television, after the movie Man in the Moon came out to kind

of capitalize on the popularity of Andy Kaufman's work,

that was reinvigorated by that particular film.

So going back to William James at the same thing. William James is

basically the Andy Kaufman of the 19th century. Nice.

No. No. He wrestled women. He had such a he was

on Saturday Night Live. He was on right. Saturday Night Live was it had to

be live in 18/97. In the theater.

So a few weeks after he's died, William

James' friends are, like, writing letters to each other saying, you don't did

anything. Have you gotten a message? I mean,

just after he he passed away, a medium in Washington

state comes out and says, yes, William James has been in touch with

me. She says that he's left a letter in a place that only a few

friends know and would corroborate her story. Ah. And his friends are

like, nope. And so then she starts doing some writing saying

that they're from him. And, she's like,

nope. So the first one is a is a bust.

The second one, his Wendy, James

h Hyslop. I thought Hubert is a rough

name, but Hyslop is right up there.

So James H. Hyslop says that a

15 year old boy contacted him, the son of a minister,

and the boy fell into trances, and William James took control of his body.

This is 3 years after James died. According to Hislop, the young

psychic delivered a message from James warning him of an evil poltergeist who

left razor blades in matches where they could be found and used to do harm.

James also cautioned Hislop, I'm sorry. That name is

crazy, about a shade, quote, unquote shade, not like

a shade on your window, but like a shade of a ghost, which in the

middle of the night would hurl inkstands and stones at the heads of

spiritualists. So this

communication happens for a year, and then Hyslop just the kid stops

talking to him or the kid stops speaking through James or James stops speaking to

the kid over after a year. So Hyeslop

doesn't say that one is particularly true. He finally

says that in 1918, in the middle

of World War 1, he was sitting with a medium who said that

he was dictating a Mark Twain book from

the grave so that the medium said they were channeling Mark Twain and writing a

new book. Oh, yeah. There's there's a, you know,

lot. There's a history of of mediums, you know,

trying to do that. That's neat. Right. It's brilliant. It's a great way

to be like, well, you should probably buy this book because even though it's not

technically by the person, I channel their spirit. That's right.

Mike Twain is still writing from beyond the grave.

Right. I guess the rumors of his death were I'm

greatly exaggerated. That's right. So Hislop is having a meeting

with this spirit, and then one of Heislap's friends,

Hugo Munsterberg, comes through instead of Mark

Twain, and this guy predicts that Germany or that Potsdam, Germany,

will fall soon to the allied forces in the First World War.

Then a few days later, Hyaslop is having the automatic writing session

with the medium who's still writing about Mark Twain, and then all of a sudden,

William James Reading appears confirming the fall of

Potsdam, Germany coming a few days later.

And so he said that William James also predicted

the end of the First World War. So

that's not too crazy because, like, the Germans were losing by

that point in 1918. And,

Potsdam was where the Kaiser was ruling from, not Berlin but

Potsdam. So Mike that was just like saying like, Oh, the Germans are going to

lose soon. I guess Mark Twain told me. Yeah. So not

very reputable. But the the reason I wanna talk about that is

because William and Henry also made a deal that they would

talk to each other after William had died. And Henry

James writes this essay in 1910

called Is There Life After Death? And it's one of the few times he ever

talks about his actual beliefs about religion and the afterlife,

not just fiction and what's good for a

ghost story. And it's funny because at the

same time, Henry James was also depressed again, as these

sensitive writer types tend to be, because he had

just come through a Wendy volume edition of his own work

that he had collected together to be like a monument to his

career, and he's trying to sell it. Like he's like he's like this

is called he called it the New York edition, because he was back and forth

between New York and and, England. In fact,

he becomes an English, English citizen

in 1915 at a as a protest for the

United States not entering the First World War. So he was so offended

that the United States did not join the side of England in the First World

War that he switched his citizenship. But he

writes this thing. Is there life after death? And it's just kind of him

wondering about legacy because he tries to create this legacy for himself,

and then it fails in the writing. And so he's

like, well, if if these material

things are not going to be my legacy, you know,

will our personality survive after death?

And the answer is a resounding no.

He says he thinks basically, he thinks it's unlikely. And one of the big

reasons he thinks it's unlikely is because he never got a message from his

brother. So he says that,

it is art alone that retains and holds the life, the

consciousness of man long after the finders and the makers ever

gone. The true ormer immortality is the immortal picture

or statue, the immortal phrase whether of music or of words,

and that ends up being his faith, not his faith that his soul will

survive after death, even though it's what

his brother dedicated a lot of his life to and his

father, dedicated his life to that kind of philosophical

talk and search for the afterlife. So in the

end, Henry James is Mike I I think he's almost a victim of his own

ego in that he feels like

when he's not having the kind of success that he wants,

You know? I guess, you know, when the world's when Europe, when the

world smile you know, if they said Mike when you're smiling, the world smiles along

with you, but when you're sad, you're sad alone. Yeah. Or, you know, when you

cry, you cry alone kinda thing. That's, you know, that's Henry

James there. And so what he I mean, he

dies in 1916, and he's you know, he

says that, no. My brother has never reached me in the, in the

years, since he has passed. And also, you know, some

people have now come to the turn of the screw instead of it just being

a ghost story, which in the beginning people just thought of it as a ghost

story. And then for a while people were thinking of it, oh, maybe it's a

story about mental illness. And then it becomes like in

post the post Freudian world, which

is a big deal because if his brother's William James and

William James is the star of the pre Freudian world we're talking

about Sigmund Freud here, the, Austrian

psychologist or psychiatrist who said that everything had to do with your

penis or your vagina. He basically was a 5 year old of

psychotherapy. He you know, the post Freudian

analysis of the turn of the screw is it's really about repressed sexuality,

and because Henry James was a repressed homosexual, he

was trying to express that through the

turn of the screw, and that's why

everybody is so shocked by the sexuality of Quint and

miss Jessel, you know, and that's why people are talking about the corrupting

powers on the children and the idea that this innocence

must be protected at all cost. Yeah. Well, it's interesting that there's a

Freudian reading of it and What the every every

time the genitals are even involved in any place, there's a Freudian

reading of it. Right. Right. But, you know, to

me, it's just Mike this analysis of the turn of

the screw is so interesting, you know, knowing so much about William

James and, you know, how he he's really

thought to be the father of American psychology and certainly

founded, the American Psychological

Association. So and

both Henry and William suffered with depression.

So it's just interesting how that story, Mike, all these

influences of psychology and mental

illness and interest in a

potential afterlife Mike and ghosts, you know, they all come together

in this story, the turn of the screw, which is really, you

know, one of the most inscrutable stories out there because it

just leaves you wondering just as, you know, our

search for an afterlife keeps us Yeah. Wondering. You

know? Like, when you watch things like Hellyer, you know,

at where you read John Keel, you get that sense of the

paranormal too that, there's there's trickster,

element to it, you know, or maybe it's it's yourself.

It's, you know, you're your own unreliable narrator.

But, it yeah. It's interesting how all those influences come

together in one story. It is. And I love the fact that he

never answered to any of the critics that were debating. Oh, did he

mean the ghosts were actually ghosts or did he mean that there

was psychological illness with the governess? He,

as the author, he just never he left it ambiguous. He left it up for

discussion. So, like, that's beautiful because, you know, art should

be open for interpretation. And then the fact that he just he didn't, you know,

maybe he didn't even know himself but I love that it's it's left

that way for us to discuss. Yeah. And I mean, art imitates

life in that, you know, even today with

with these strange experiences that people

have, you know, we're constantly asking ourselves, well,

you know, did that person experience

something extraordinary because of, you know,

a problem with their mental state or, you know, maybe they

were on, like, psychedelics or something like that

and, you know, maybe these altered states of consciousness

produced it. Where on the other side, it's like, well, maybe both

things are happening at once. Maybe the altered state

is just letting you see something that's actually always been there,

but, in, you know, normal consciousness, you wouldn't

notice it. Well, you know, I think that,

Henry James, the whole ambiguity of it is a beautiful thing

because you could ruin a movie by having too much

will he or won't he, is this true, is this not true, with the

director or the the person in charge,

who screws with it too much. And I'm thinking of Blade Runner as a great

example. Is Harrison Ford character an android, a

replicant, or is he not? Is he a human? Like the the initial

version of Blade Runner implies he's a human. Then 10 years

later, Ridley Scott's back like, oh, I'd like

to make him a robot. And then he changes a couple of things. He goes,

this is my original version. And all of a sudden,

you're like okay. And then he makes another version and another version. And you

ask him, is he supposed to be a robot? Now he's like, yes, he's totally

a robot. Where 20 years ago he's Mike, it's up to you. Is he a

robot or is he not a robot? And the thing is I still think

the original version, even with the silly,

narration by Harrison Ford, is the best version because making you feel

at that end that is he a human or is he a robot? Like, what

is he? Having those, questions

makes the whole thing more interesting because it brings up more

principles and debate than whether just saying straight

out, dude's a robot. Boy. Right. And it's

Mike it puts you in that liminal state, that in between

state where, you know, the paranormal, you know, that's

where it lives and, you know, you're constantly

questioning, but, you know, that's that's a great place to be as

far as learning, you know, rather than just

putting a stamp on it and saying, oh, we're all done with that now. I

know what that is. No. You're letting yourself

wonder about possibilities and there's there's a lot of potential

there and it reminds me of our friend, Doctor. Jack

Hunter and his his, concept of

ontological flooding which is why can't we let

all these things exist simultaneously in our mind

together? And, you know, these different views,

can coexist. And so perhaps

that, you know, the turn of the screw is a story that, you

know, makes you think about possibilities coexisting. Well, what

you know, I think something, interesting as well. So

Wendy, you brought this up in the notes before

we started recording, is that the idea of

ghost sickness and that

what the governess is suffering from is I mean

she is obsessed with these ghosts that she is seeing. She is obsessed with the

old governess. She is obsessed with Peter Quint

and his unwholesome love for the old

governess. She is obsessed with her own feelings that

are obviously, you know, they're obviously a problem

because she has feelings for the uncle, her employer,

which is completely improper because he's supposed to be a gentleman and she's

just a babysitter. Yeah. He's the servant. And so

Sound of music. Just saying. This idea that being obsessed

with the being obsessed with the dead,

you know, consumed by the deceased, preoccupied with the

deceased, gives you this thing called ghost

sickness where loss of appetite, suffocation, recurring

nightmares, and the terror all the Mike, almost like

Henry James Sr. Felt for the 2 years he was in a spiritual

crisis. And so that it's a

traditional, belief among some indigenous peoples, the

Navajo, the plains cultures, as well as some Polynesians. Yes. And

also, the Menominee of Wisconsin. I

had a Menominee friend

who told me about ghost sickness many years ago

and, you know, we think of that as sleep paralysis today,

but still in Menominee culture, you know, this idea

of nocturnal visitation of these spirits

that, that really will oppress

you physically as not a bad thing necessarily,

but just their contact with you is

oppressive. You know, they they just want to reach out to you,

but it causes the sickness among humans.

Yeah. It ends up draining the energy. Right. I mean, it's not

intentional, but it's just it's

just because those boundaries are crossing. You

know, Mike, you were saying, Wendy, Mike, the Sound of Music, the governess

Yeah. You have to be the wife in that one. Sorry to spoil people. But

but that is Who wouldn't want a piece of Julie Andrews? Yeah.

That's a hopeful story about the breaking down

of boundaries, which it seems the turn of the screw is

about reinforcing boundaries between the spirit world

and the world of the living and also,

it's like a prison in a sense and

then the social roles as well between

the servants and, you know, the

the man of the manor, you know, these are all

these divisions that keep us from each other.

And so when they cross in the turn of the screw,

tragedy results, not not, you know, like

a happy ending as in The Sound of Music. That's true. Yeah. Going back to

the ghost sickness too, a lot of the stuff that I read about

the psychological aspect of that is that sometimes it's

sort of a manifestation of someone dealing with their own grief from

having lost something or someone. So whatever

that I just thought that related nicely to this because the governess in the

story, you know, she's potentially got some of her own demons that she's struggling

with. Yeah. And and ghost sickness too is one of

those phenomena that

it's it's like you're asking yourself, is this

just psychological? Like, this person is

dealing with their grief and in, you know, not so

healthy ways? Or is it

Mike a two way situation where

the person left living is grieving, but also the person on the

other side, the the dead are grieving as well

and, you know, causing the inability of both

spirits to stay stuck and not move on. Well, that makes

me think of the Nietzsche quote. I mean, he who fights with monsters

should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into

an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. You know,

the ghost sickness makes me think of the more obsessed you are

with these things and the more obsessed you are with the grief and preoccupied,

the less living you actually do.

And that feels like the, that definitely feels like the governess in The Turn of

the Screw. Yeah, for sure. Now the governess in The Turn of the

Screw is in love with the uncle of the children she's taking

care of, her employer, that stated right in the beginning.

In fact, the guy says that she couldn't tell her

story without it coming out that she was in love with

him. But it was a forbidden love because she was his

servant. She felt that she wasn't worthy of his

love and she kept on hoping that he would see her with the children how

good she was and see that she was worthy. The overwhelming

desire to be worthy of your heart's desire is the inspiration

behind this next song. This is Sunspot, Mike

Without A Holiday.

Tell me nothing of your life.

I painted you as an

angel.

These lines, these curves don't do you

justice. If it's all the same to you,

I'll drop them just as well.

I can't believe you're not on paper.

I can't believe you are made for me a

touch. I will accept

that you are mine without a holiday,

but not that I deserve as much.

Tell me nothing of yourself.

I sculpted you as the goddess.

This life is king. Don't hold a candle to

your visage. It's all the same too.

I'll shape it in your image.

I can't believe that you're not fiction.

I can't believe that you are made for me to

hold. I will accept

that you are mine without a holiday,

but not that I should be so bold.

But not that I deserve as much.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. You can find us

online at othersidepodcast.com. Until next

Mike. See you on the other side. You know who

is worthy of our love, Wendy? I do know who's worthy of our love,

Mike. Yes. That is the Patreon community for

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the other side.

I had to rob a Piggly Wiggly.

Oh, oh, I just pooped.