Do you believe in spirits? Here's a ghost story

Factual Questions
1

Has anybody heard of Borley Rectory?

That’s supposed to be the most haunted house in England.
It was built on 1863 and destroyed in a fire 1939.

Around 1930-35 over 2000 strange events were reported. There were writings appearing on the walls (“Please help get”,“Marianne”-first name of Mrs Foyster) when noone was present and some of them even when observers were watching, strange noises and knocking. Things thrown at people staying there and trying to contact “the spirits”, things dissapearing and reappearing. Bedcovers pulled away from people in an empty locked room. And let me mention that Foysters, who occupied the house during the most active period did mainly socialize with the cultural elite of that time.

I read an old book about the house. What were included
in the book were numerous “discussions with the spirits”, especially with one of them who appeared to be a woman, by her own information a nun (and a ghost of a nun had previously been seen several times) who was strangeled after she became pregnant by a man named Waldegrave. She constantly asked for “light, mass and prayers” and also mentioned that they should dig in the cellars. A jawbone and a part of a scull of a young woman were found. The spirits also mentioned that the house will be destroyed by fire and even mentioned where the fire will start from.

Here is a photo of a brick levitating in the air:

http://www.borleyrectory.com/misc/pagefour.htm

Strange writings:

http://www.prairieghosts.com/brectory.html

Strange?
Or just a human joke?

Whaddaya think?

2

http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/pborley.htm

A Google search on ‘Borley rectory hoax’ will throw up the original news story and numerous other related items.

3

The Borley Rectory is a fairly well-known haunted house hoax. No doubt it will continue to bring in the gullible and incredulous, but when it comes to ‘phenomena’ like this you have to think critically. Is there no other possible explanation? Is it impossible to fake a photo of a brick floating in the air? Or a piano playing ‘by itself’? If a book flies across the room, is it impossible (or even unlikely) that something besides a paranormal force could have done it?
The whole business always reminds me of the classic gag in ‘Ghostbusters’:

Akroyd: ‘Look! Symmetrical book-stacking!’
Murray: ‘You’re right, no human being would stack books like that…’
You should read ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions & The Madness Of Crowds’ by MacKay. There’s an excellent section on famous hauntings of the past that lays the foundation for healthy skepticsm-plus it’s a great book.