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Did Edgar Allan Poe Believe in Ghosts?

Ghosts of New York Blog 9 Did Edgar Allan Poe Believe in Ghosts? © 2017 by Dr. Philip Ernest Schoenberg, Ghost with a Blog #ghost

“Did Poe himself believe in ghosts?  I don’t really know, but somehow I doubt it. He never showed any particular interest in spiritualism, which became extremely popularly during his lifetime. He certainly never wrote about it, though lots of other writers did.” Daniel Cohen, Ghost of Elvis and Other Celebrity Sprits  (New York: Pocket Books), page 43  Daniel Cohen argued that Edgar Allan Poe never wrote any real ghost stories.

 

Perhaps this is the nearest thing he wrote on the subject.  He certainly had the power of suggestion.

A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

 

In visions of the dark night

I have dread of joy departed –

But a waking dream of life and light

Hath left me broken-hearted.

 

And what is not a dream by day

To him whose eyes are cast

On things around him with a ray

Turned back upon the past?

 

That holy dream – that holy dream,

While all the world were chiding,

Hath cheered me as a lovely beam

A lonely spirit guiding.

 

What though that light, thro’ storm and night,

So trembled from afar

What could there be more purely bright

In Truth’s day-star?

 

What though that light, thro’ storm and night,

So trembled from afar

What could there be more purely bright

In Truth’s day-star?

 

 

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