“It is 1938. As the shadow of
fascism darkens over Europe, strange things are happening in Alma Fielding’s
suburban home in Croydon. Crockery flies off the shelves; stolen rings appear
on Alma’s fingers, and white mice scuttle out of her handbag.
Nandor Fodor – chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research – arrives on the scene, determined to crack the case. As Fodor’s obsession deepens, and Alma becomes ever more disturbed, the pair find themselves in a treacherous battle of wills...”
The Haunting of Alma Fielding is not a ghost story in the
sense of a fun supernatural tale. The book examines early 20th
century history, what people were experiencing at the time, and what their
beliefs were. The narrative is carefully woven around lengthy historical
details, but they are so intriguing, you don’t want to put the book down. It is
hard to believe whether the episodes Alma Fielding experienced were real, or if
they were the work of a very clever trickster. Kate Summerscale has researched
these events, and whilst she treats Alma with respect and dignity, the facts
are laid before the reader so that they can reach their, hopefully unbiased, conclusions
about both Alma Fielding and Nandor Fodor.
Lord Rothermere had brought Nandor Fodor, a Jewish
Hungarian journalist, to the UK in the 1930s as an adviser on Hungarian
affairs. He was also the chief investigator for the International Institute for
Psychical Research, trying to uncover whether weird experiences were governed
by spirits. He wanted to find out the truth as to whether there was life after
death. Fodor wondered whether strange manifestations were a catalogue of
marvels, signs of mental breakdown, or nothing but pranks and petty crimes.
When thirty-four-year-old Alma Fielding, an ordinary
housewife, was recovering from a bout of ill health, she reported strange
happenings in her bedroom. Objects started to fly about her head.
Understandably she was terrified. Events were witnessed by newsmen who came to
see what all the fuss was about. They claimed they had seen an egg flying
towards them, coal appearing to float above the grate, and a tin opener
suddenly tearing a gash across Alma’s thumb. Would Alma finally be the person
who could assist Foder with his investigations into the paranormal?
During the 1920s, many people turned towards spiritualism. They had suffered great losses during the war, and now there was an inevitability that more war and suffering was to come. Attendance at church was rapidly declining, but people felt that there was a very thin barrier between the living and the dead, and seances were able to offer a form of comfort and diversion to their audiences which the church could not provide. But the supernatural was not without its detractors. This was an industry in which people could make a small fortune, folk were clamouring to hear their fortunes courtesy of people who claimed they could read crystals and tea leaves, and astrology was fast becoming a national craze. The fear of another war lingered in the hearts of many and they would turn to anything in order to quash that fear. Was the supernatural just a clever trick to make money off people’s insecurities?
Let us remember that Daphne du Maurier published her gothic
blockbuster Rebecca in 1938, at a time in which Fielding was dodging
flying frying pans and wardrobe doors that flew open and shut by themselves. The
book told of both a marriage and a house buckling under the pressure of psychic
haunting. Were these novels of make believe slowly dripping into the minds of
people like Alma and becoming their reality?
“Rene Magritte explained in 1938
that he aimed ‘to show everyday objects in situations in which we never
encounter them’, ‘to make them shriek aloud’.”
Art by Surrealists such as Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali
were becoming popular in London. These were artists, who just like Fodor, were
fascinated by the work of Sigmund Freud. In Magritte’s first solo show, L’Évidence
éternelle, he welcomed his visitors by describing his show as ‘an exhibition of
people’. People were not viewing art, art was viewing the people; one of his
portraits showed an eye staring from a piece of ham. Was being surrounded by
such art and literature influencing people like Alma?
Alma’s poltergeist started to take matters in a new
direction when it began to steal objects. Not happy with throwing items around
her bedroom, she had entered British Home Stores (UK store) and tried on a
ring. She returned it to the shop assistant claiming she didn’t like it, but
mysteriously, upon leaving the shop, the ring suddenly appeared as if by magic
on her finger. Her friend asked if it would be possible to go to Woolworths (UK
store) and get her a string of pearls, but despite Alma’s protests, they
visited the shop, and once again the poltergeist procured the jewellery and wrapped
it around Alma’s neck.
Fodor had previously managed to uncover a railway engineer
called Charles Stewart and a medium called Agnes Abbott as frauds. Stewart dressed
himself in a white sheet whilst Abbott waggled that Victorian staple, the seance
trumpet, on her thumb, in a bid to convince people that the spirits of their
dead relatives were close to them. Fodor had high hopes for Alma, but was he going
to have to reveal that Fielding was also a fraud? He invited Alma to the
institutes headquarters so that he could undertake tests in a tightly
controlled environment. She was strip searched before being sewn into a tight
body stocking, yet even under these conditions, she could manifest
extraordinary objects out of thin air.
Fodor could not explain how Alma was able to manifest
objects under such strict conditions and so either she was the real deal, or
she was shrewder than anyone suspected. Foder now increased the pressure on
Fielding by requesting x-rays before his sessions with her. Evidence now began
to mount that Fielding was in fact a talented performance artist and that
objects surreptitiously placed within her body could be extracted and flicked
through the air.
“We each live a fairy tale
created by ourselves. We move along in a spiritual track. What has happened
before — many times, perhaps — will probably happen again.”
Rather than being angered by Fielding’s possible deceit,
Fodor decided that instead of humiliating her, he would try to establish why
she was doing what she was. Did she believe wholeheartedly that any of the
events that happened were real, or was this her subconscious playing tricks on
her as well as to her audiences?
Fodor had studied Freud, and his interest in psychoanalysis
helped him to uncover things about Fielding that might help his investigation.
At least two of Fielding’s young children had died, and she had had a number of
operations during her life, including the removal of all her teeth and a mastectomy.
She had received no emotional support from her impotent husband throughout all
of her ordeals, and perhaps her new found fame was making up for her past torment.
Whilst I’m sure many readers would have loved for there to
be a spooky ghost at the heart of this “true ghost story” it is obvious early
on in the book that Alma is a charlatan, the real question is why. It
was amazing to see the lengths that she would go to in order to maintain that
she was really psychic, and despite Fodor starting to believe that her powers
were probably due to either childhood trauma, or her later life traumas, some
of the methods to uncover her duplicity were intrusive and cruel.
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This was certainly an intriguing topic for a holiday read! Sitting on a beach in bright sunshine, it was hard to believe that the events unravelling on the pages before me were not a piece of fiction, but part of 20th century history. This is a meticulously researched book, full of interesting articles and asides. At times the story is hard to follow because of all of the detail, but it is a fascinating insight to past times and I found it a compulsive read.
Genre: Non fiction, History,
Paranormal, True Crime, Horror, Ghost Story
Release Date: 16th September 2021
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 345
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