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This is the completed novella of “The Language of the Mad”. It is very reminiscent of Robert W. Chambers’ “The King in Yellow” in that the chapters are short stories tied loosely together in a unified arc.

In the case of “The Language of the Mad”, the stories are each about insanity and tied together in the evolving story of two asylums and the root of their madness. There are references to The King in Yellow as well.


The Language of the Mad



Dr. Carlson: “Bizarre how?”






The Creepy Scientific Explanation Behind Ghost Sightings








“Edith? What are you talking about?”


“A procedure?”



























That night I sat at home with the case files Matt had given me. He had insisted that before I read any of the case files that I read a paper Moody had written explaining his theories behind his work. I give a portion of his treatise here because I hope to show how persuasive a hypothesis Moody lays out. After reading his cogent argument I was fully drawn into the research one would need to conduct to prove his theory. Before reading his argument I was at a loss for why Matt was so entranced by Moody’s later work, but after reading his treatise, I was intrigued to the point of wanting to reproduce his research.


Humans are a species of storytellers and as long as man has created and shared stories, his tales have included beliefs in the supernatural. For a scientist who holds a materialistic view of the world, one must wonder why it so prevalent throughout the multitude of races and societies that supernatural hauntings be a common belief theme. Is there a rational explanation that can be proven empirically?

Before embarking on this venture, I must make a thorough definition and classification of what I mean by the term ‘haunting’. When a person claims that they have experienced a haunting they may mean that they have seen a ghost or other such apparition, heard unexplained noises, been tormented by demons through possession, or simply felt a presence that can’t be explained. In all such cases, the causative agent is some type of spirit or energy that is incorporeal in nature somehow interacting with the corporeal world. What changes from case to case is the motive of the entity in why it is interacting with the senses of the material percipient.


Initially, I was tempted to make a first categorization of two types of hauntings: personal and impersonal. But closer reflection shows that all types of hauntings are ultimately personal in nature. For example, a personal haunting would be one wherein the victim feels like the apparition is targeting them for some purpose, such as a possession or to deliver a warning. One would be tempted to say that a passive haunting such as merely seeing a ghost walk past a doorway would be of the impersonal kind. The ghost didn’t try to interact at all with the witness. But is it not still a personal, subjective fact that this particular person believes they saw a ghost? Ultimately, it falls into the psychological realm because a statement of belief about witnessing something supernatural, i.e. outside of the normal natural order of things, is a statement about the psychological state of the person’s belief in what their senses have conveyed to them.

I therefore took a different tack and searched for a categorization schema that centers on the psychological state of the hauntee. It became readily apparent that hauntings carry with them a strong emotional component and that these emotions are completely in the realm of negative emotions that serve to hinder the flourishing of a healthy psyche. One would also be tempted to default to the emotion of fear as common to all types of hauntings. While fear is a common reaction, it is not necessarily the causative emotion. In researching many such cases I have recognized just three types of hauntings based on the negative emotional, psychological state of the hauntee.

The first type of haunting involves the emotions of loss or remorse. I call this type ‘The Sad Haunting’. This type of haunting is typified by a spirit that is unable to pass over to the afterlife because of an emotionally charged episode that leaves them replaying over and over the same moment of emotional tragedy. As for the witness of this type of haunting, they have lying latent in their subconscious, or even overtly recalled in their consciousness, an episode of extreme attachment to someone or someplace that has been severed. They are therefore compelled to find psychic equilibrium by externalizing the feelings of loss being replayed.

The second type of haunting is centered upon the emotion of anger. I have titled this ‘The Angry Haunting’. This haunting manifest in two primary ways: either by possession or through the mischievous poltergeist. In the former, the spirit inhabits the body of a person to force them to commit violent, aggressive, or vindictive acts on those around them. This is many times attributed to malevolent entities such as demons but may also be a channeled spirit of a deceased person. In the latter, the entity manifest in the environment by causing disruption through noise, vandalism, or disorder. One can easily see how these are all displays of anger being projected onto others. From a psychological standpoint of the hauntee, there is again a repression of anger either needing to be expelled or reciprocated from receiving anger from someone else.


The final, and most complex, category I call ‘The Guilty Haunting’. There are many ways in which the feelings of guilt, embarrassment, or shame can be manifested in a person’s belief they are being haunted. A common type of haunting in this category is the apparition that is coming to somehow punish the hauntee; displayed as a vengeful spirit coming to set right the scales of justice. This is the most extreme and overt case wherein the person is fully aware of their transgression and feels deep down inside that they must atone for their sins. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a spirit, either. The person may merely feel like a curse has befallen them and that it is the curse that is acting as the judge of morality in rectifying their immoral act. But it need not be such a conscious form of guilt. A less overt form is the spirit that has come to act as a warning spirit or harbinger of impending doom. In this case, the hauntee has an unconscious feeling of guilt that is being externalized. The psychiatrist must uncover just why it is that the patient possesses these latent feelings of unworthiness or guilt. And finally, but very similarly to the harbinger haunting, is the watcher, shadow being, or unseen presence that points to a form of paranoia in the hauntee. They feel like judging eyes are upon them indicating yet another form of underlying guilt that must manifest itself in order for their psyche to seek a healthy balance again.

There are countless symbols with which human beings ascribe meaning to and the supernatural haunting stories or our species are no different. Many times it is these universal symbols that allow a person to rationalize their negative emotions being manifest in the world of the external. For example, based on the above theory, let’s suppose a devout and pious priest is walking through a park when suddenly, a black cat darts across his path. A witness sitting on a nearby bench comments to him that he will now be the recipient of bad luck. The black cat superstition is a widely held cultural symbol that could very well open the person up to a belief that they will actually befall ill luck. But our priest, being a person of healthy psyche and adhering to his belief system without serious transgression, will likely chalk this experience up to a silly superstition; or, he may likely believe it to hold truth but will very likely choose not to dwell on it because he will think that things are rightly in God’s hands and that his piety will surely ensure that God will see that the bad luck is so insignificant that he need not worry. Now imagine a person who possesses an unhealthy amount of unconscious guilt who is ripe for this imbalance in their psyche to find release being in the same predicament as our priest. The cat and the ensuing remark by the bystander will likely fester in their psyche inviting some type of pressure release in their belief system. For it is the belief system of the person that must be preserved. One can easily see how this one meaningless cat can be imbued with such symbolism that they are quickly carried away into a phantasy were they are the victim of a curse returning upon them for the bad deeds they have committed. And thus, they are suddenly haunted by a curse.


So you see that it is fear commingled with these other forms of negative emotion that causes the mind to override the senses in order to create a belief system that allows an outlet for such psychologically damaging emotions. If the psychiatrist could find a patient in such negative emotional distress and cause them to believe they were haunted in one of the various ways specific to their particular type of emotional distress, would this ultimately help the patient to achieve psychic equilibrium? The following case studies are the culmination of years of research along these lines and should suffice to prove that that above presented hypothesis is true.”

And there you have it, Dr. Calvin Moody’s presentation of his theory was wholly lucid and presented with fine logic for its case. In short, I was sold; at least well enough that I couldn’t wait to dive into the case files that now sat upon my desktop to see exactly how he managed to pull off these orchestrated hauntings. But before I cracked the first file, there was one burning question that needed to be answered.

I called Matt and he answered quite quickly saying, “Keith! Have you read his treatise? What do you think?”

“Fascinating! I must admit, Matt, at first I actually thought you were wasting my time, but this is actually quite riveting stuff.”

“And the case files? Even better, huh?”

“Well, I haven’t even started those yet. I wanted to ask you a question first?”


“What happened to Moody? Why hasn’t this work been brought to wider attention in the field?”

“Well,” he breathed a heavy sigh and I knew that I had stumbled upon the rub of the story, “As I mentioned today, he committed suicide before publishing.”

“But why didn’t anyone publish posthumously?”

“Because of the reason he killed himself. How would his theory stand up to the scrutiny of the fact that he killed himself because he claimed he was being haunted by the ghost of Shockley House?”

The old Shockley House is a legendary place, although it had fallen into neglect for decades. The old manor home was in dire need of restoration and appeared a creepy husk of its former glory. Of course, I knew some of the legends about the place: it was an old sanitarium, Doc Holliday had convalesced there in his latter consumptive days, in later years in had become a home for mental patients who had nowhere else to go, and finally, it was haunted.

As I sat gazing at the faded, cracked walls and foreboding gothic architecture with its columned façade and lone octagonal turret, I could plainly see why the legend of it being haunted applied. While I didn’t believe that particular legend myself, it was obvious that this old home fit the stereotypical description of a haunted house and anyone who believed such pseudoscientific silliness would readily gravitate to such conclusions. Of course, Matt had brought me to this place for a very calculated reason and he soon began to tell me the story of the house.

Towards the end of the Civil War, Dr. Charles Brice Shockley built the house initially as his retirement residence. The elder doctor was too restless in his retirement to putter about the house and soon transformed the manor into a sanitarium for the then prevalent Tuberculosis patients who struggled through the disease with little to no effective treatments. In the parlance of the day, these people were said to suffer from “consumption”.

Shockley House remained in the Shockley family for the next four decades and was largely operated as a sort of resort or spa for most of that time. Just after the turn of the century it was then purchased by Dr. Calvin S. Moody, the forebear of Matt Remy; and the reason why Matt had brought me here began to become a bit more coherent. But there was yet more to the story before I finally understood what he wanted my role to be in his fantastic scheme.

Dr. Moody had refurbished the manor to create his in-patient mental hospital as the locus of his research. My knowledge of Dr. Moody’s work at this time was what the current psychological literature commonly taught; he was one of the prominent champions in the 30’s and 40’s of using psychotropic drugs instead of the more traumatic or invasive techniques such as shock therapy and lobotomy that were widely used by numerous professionals and colleagues of his day. These practices are considered barbaric by today’s standards, but it was not so long ago that they were considered legitimate, scientific treatments for mental maladies.


And then Matt told me this: “Shockley House has passed through the family into my possession. I’ve planned on renovating it for many years, but I just can’t bring myself to commit to it. You see, Keith, there’s something historic and romantic about it the way it is. I find a certain air of mystery surrounding it; like it’s still got more secrets to discover. Modernizing it would destroy my chance at finding them, I should think.

“The reason I brought you here, though, is to show you what secrets I’ve already learned from the place. You know the case of yours we were discussing the other day, the lady who believes she’s seeing apparitions?”

I told him I did.

“Well, it would seem that Calvin Moody, in his later years, became quite obsessed with many such cases. That phase of his life is left out of his biographies about his work. I suppose that on the surface it reeks of treading too close into the realm of the paranormal. The truth, however, is that his work was very methodical and that his obsession with this work finally led to his undoing.  In the end he committed suicide right up there.”

My gaze followed his pointing finger up to the octagonal tower that dominated the top of Shockley House.


“Come on,” Matt continued after a brief pause, “I want to show you his office and some of his case files.”

We made our way up the overgrown path and up the creaking, worn stairs. As Matt rummaged through a key ring searching for the right key to unlock the front door, I marveled at the state of the structure. It was sad, in a way, to behold this fantastic specimen of gothic architecture in such a neglected state. The paint was flaking to the point that the bare wood was as prominent as the painted portion. One had to carefully navigate the steps and porch for fear of treading upon a rotten section of wood that would surely give way underfoot.

Matt succeeded in finding the right key and we were soon inside. I was surprised to find the electricity was working as Matt proceeded to flip on switches as he led us through the front hall and several rooms. I had to keep up but wanted to pause and explore each room. The dust was thick and most furniture was covered with sheets that were also caked in films of dust and cobwebs. The walls still held pictures and décor that had probably been in place since the early part of the 20th Century. Following Matt, we soon entered the old office of Dr. Moody. It appeared as it must have appeared in his day except bereft of any cleaning. There was a large wooden desk with papers, paper weights, a name placard and a mortar and pestle upon it. The walls were covered in diplomas, certificates, and pictures. Several book cases lined the walls, each filled with text books, reference books, and random medical devices. On one wall was a large, sitting-couch and recliner.


Matt strode over to one book case and removed a thick set of patient records. “These are, in my opinion, the most interesting cases as well as the most representative of his categorization scheme.”

“Categorization scheme?” I asked confused.

“Oh, yes. As I said, he was very thorough and methodical in researching the many ways in which a person may be haunted by various apparitions. He codified several distinct types of hauntings which he was able to induce in his patients.”

“Induce? You mean he caused these patients to believe they were being haunted by ghosts?”

“Yes. But further, he was able to orchestrate the particular type of haunting he wanted!”

“I’m sorry, Matt, this sounds quite intriguing, but what is the point of you showing me all this exactly?”

A curious grin spread across his face as he said, “Because I want you to help me reproduce his work.”

Evil! Complicit in thought and deed with the Devil himself am I. My cold, black soul is doomed, as it should be, for all eternity. No amount of guilt, remorse, repentance, or atonement can, nor should, save me now. Would Satan be forgiven if he asked it? No! There is nothing left for me but to confess my part and name the one who has dragged me to Hell with him; for we shall be together for all eternity in that pit. It is that thought that stays my hand from ending it all this very instant!

The other day I saw the following article and recoiled in horror at its implications:

Are EMF’s making you see ghosts?

For some people, ghosts are a very real part of their daily experiences. Barring spectral visitors from the afterlife, what causes these people to believe they’re being haunted? A research team thought it might be people’s sensitivity to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and non-audible sound. So a group of scientists put several people inside a house full of EMFs and infrasounds and tried to haunt them.

According to the Daily Grail, the scientists from Goldsmith College’s Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit got mixed results with their EMF-laced house:

Recent research has suggested that a number of environmental factors may be associated with a tendency for susceptible individuals to report mildly anomalous sensations typically associated with ‘‘haunted’’ locations, including a sense of presence, feeling dizzy, inexplicable smells, and so on. Factors that may be associated with such sensations include fluctuations in the electromagnetic field (EMF) and the presence of infrasound. A review of such work is presented, followed by the results of the “Haunt” project in which an attempt was made to construct an artificial “haunted” room by systematically varying such environmental factors.

Unfortunately, when the team tested this theory, they came up ghostless. They asked 79 participants to walk through their haunted house and record if and where they experienced any unusual sensations. While some participants did feel such sensations, the locations in the house where they felt the sensations did not correlate with the locations the team had “haunted,” suggesting the sensations were caused more by the power of suggestion than electromagnetic fields.

But other researchers have had more luck summoning ghosts with EMF. Michael Persinger, a neuroscientist at Laurentian University, published a study on a brain damaged girl who reported frequent nocturnal visits from an apparition. Reports Scientific American:


Regardless of the cause, the notions of ghosts and haunting do have a measured effect on our psyches. In 2005, a study published in Human Nature had participants take a test on which they were given the opportunity to cheat. Some of the test takers were told the room was haunted, while the others were not. The students in the haunted group were overwhelmingly less likely to cheat than the non-haunted group, suggesting that, even if they didn’t fear ghostly retribution, they still had the uneasy feeling that someone might be watching them.

The research is perilously close to the work that Dr. Matthew Remy and I conducted on those poor, hapless mental patients. Such research can only lead to horrible outcomes. Dr. Remy may not be as famous as his great grandfather, but he inherited the same obsession that ultimately was both of their undoing. His great grandfather, Dr. Calvin S. Moody, was initially championed as a groundbreaking psychiatrist, but I know too much about his barbaric and cruel methods to let this view of him persist.


Dr. Calvin S. Moody

Matt Remy and I were colleagues for many years in Denver as psychiatrists at University Mental Health Clinic; and I knew he was the great grandson of Dr. Calvin Moody, but that was when I held the putative view that Dr. Moody was a great psychiatrist and researcher. One day Matt and I were having lunch and for whatever reason the topic of a current patient of mine came up. I explained that she was suffering from hallucinations and was convinced that she was being haunted by a ghost.

Matt found this case oddly interesting and continued to question me in great detail. Several days later I found myself on a rather unusual lunch trip with Matt that he assured me would be well worth it. Imagine my surprise when he pulled up to the foreboding remains of Shockley House!