Jane Gaskell, First Lady of the Weird
Non-Fiction: 'What Men Read in Hospitals' by Miriam E. Carey (1918)

'Ghost with a Knife' (1977)

Wooo!

"Ghost with a Knife" from CBS Radio Mystery Theatre, originally aired on Dec. 16, 1977. Listen along here.

Thoughts Before Listening

I am going to listen to something called Ghost with a Knife because ghosts are scary and knives are scary so this should be scary as heck, right? I DON’T KNOW! I GUESS!! Now here are some questions regarding this radio drama, raised by Illustrious Acquaintance and an assortment of friends who would be very offended to hear me refer to them as friends (WE COULD BE FRIENDS THO JUST SAYING)

Is the knife also a ghost and if so, how did that happen?

Why doesn’t the ghost have a gun?

Do we have to listen to this too?

Isn’t a gun a more effective weapon than a knife? Or is it different for ghosts?

Does the ghost have a pocket to keep this knife?

Is this that one about egrets? (I DON’T KNOW! MAYBE! I HOPE SO!)

Thoughts While Listening

So this one is from 1977. Which, as the youth inform me, was a really long time ago.

EG Marshall has invited us in but I’m not sure where “in” is. In any case, we are in and EG Marshall has welcomed us

He’s quoting some Egyptian something? Not really listening because I’ve already assumed it’s going to be racist, which in itself is super-racist and I’m sorry

Sudden segue to someone called Rebecca? Telling some dude about a ghost she saw that was wearing green pants

He also had a beard and a knife

Seriously impressed that she noticed this ghost was wearing pants

Do ghosts wear pants usually?

In real life, we often notice when people are NOT wearing pants

When I was a small youth I read this story about some purple pants and these pants scared me to heck.

Like, it was a horror story.

I hope it was a horror story.

Anyway, this story was adapted from an actual psychic case study!

Not sure that warranted an exclamation mark. Anyway.

I think this is from a psychic case study from Bryce Bond who is a psychic scientist.

Is that an actual thing?

Can I be one?

BryceBond and a fellow with an infra-red camera or something have gone to see the couple who have the ghost issue and nothing very interesting is happening right now

For whatever reasons, BryceBond thinks they should look on this ghost with a knife as a friend

This doesn’t seem like a good idea to me but I am not a psychic scientist so what do I know

Footsteps! Happening like right now!

This is the ghost apparently

This ghost first appeared in the son’s room and the son is 4 and named Tommy in case anyone was interested

Rebecca believed the ghost wanted them to follow it down to the cellar so they did but they didn’t see anything special

The house has two oil burners

They are talking way too much about oil burners

I’m guessing the oil burners are the special thing they did not see in the cellar

“The house was built in 1929 so the old oil burner didn’t owe us anything.” WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN

The ghost apparently came at the wife and kid with its aforementioned knife

This does not seem like a friendly thing to do imho

BryceBond says this is the first time he has heard of an entity holding a knife. ME TOO BRYCE

So now BryceBond is going up to Tommy’s room with Rebecca

And the other guy, the guy with the camera, whose name I think is David, is going into the cellar with Leo who is the husband of aforementioned Rebecca

There was basically a lot of boring conversation which I didn’t listen to

I think the ghost killed a houseplant or something

I am also very adept at killing any and all kinds of plant life

If you ever need a plant to die, I am the right person for that job

“We watch them, water them, but they all die.” EXACTLY

We still have like half an hour to go here

The house is now getting hot because, apart from wearing green pants and carrying a knife, this ghost also likes playing with the thermostat

Wow this is making me so sleepy

Rebecca screamed and now I’m awake again hi everybody

Now a voice is telling us this all really happened and the family lived on Locust Avenue. Because I am from a non-American culture and paying attention to the wrong things, I am finding it interesting that one would name an avenue after a locust

Ok! Well I guess we are into act 2 and the ghost has tripped Rebecca a couple of times while she was going down the cellar steps

The ghost seems to be a bit of a jerk tbh

So there was some boring conversation and then Leo said I haven’t been to the cellar today and David was like uh yes you have, you showed me the cellar just a few minutes ago NICE!

Leo is very sure he didn’t go down to the cellar DUDE YES YOU DID

Rebecca has been requested to close her eyes and think about being inside a ball of white light

David asked if Rebecca could see anything and she said I have my eyes closed and he said I know that. Really, that happened

Rebecca can now see the light in her mind’s eye. I guess it’s really great

David, apart from being the camera fellow is also a medium!

He is a dude of many talents

David is now in a trance and he’s making his face look like the ghost’s face? idk

The ghost wants to speak through BryceBond!

I think the ghost via BryceBond said no harm. Or ho hum

And then he thanked BryceBond for the voice usage

BryceBond is shook about the voice usage

David is out of the trance so they are going to examine all the rooms for vibrations

They are starting with the attic and they have turned the lights out so the ghosts can’t see them

I didn’t know ghosts worked like that but ok

The way they are trying to tell the ghost to leave reminds me of my youth time when various adults would try and make me leave their house and go home

They are going through different rooms and so many different vibrations wow and David took pictures and now they’re going to do an exorcism

And before all that happened BryceBond was possessed and then he was not possessed

Don’t you need a priest for an exorcism? Is David also a priest?

They are going to exorcise every room

It looks like they are going to use the cross but not as a Christian symbol, which is nice I guess

Now the exorcism is over so they are going to try and talk to the ghost again

Ok now someone is telling us that BryceBond was real and everything actually happened

Feel like they keep telling us this because they’re scared we won’t believe them

Now act 3!

BryceBond is explaining trance state and I’m sure it’s an interesting explanation sorry for not listening

So I think the ghost is saying I mean no harm and then BryceBond was saying we mean no harm so that’s settled at least

BryceBond has asked the ghost if it remembers Christmas and the ghost said Christmas Christmas Christmas

I’m not really sure what that has to do with anything

They both had a really tedious conversation wow

The ghost is making noises

The ghost is gone

Everyone feels like they have to go to the cellar like RIGHT NOW

The ghost is in the oil burner room SHOCKING

I think the ghost is saying there are death leaks!

Gas leaks! sry

Now they’re like omg there actually IS a gas leak here YOU’RE JUST NOTICING THAT NOW??

They are now on the phone with a man and the man on the phone is like you have an oil burner? Can you switch it off? Because they hadn’t done that yet even though they knew there was a gas leak oh wow

So apparently this gas leak had been leaking away for quite some time and they just couldn’t smell it because I don’t know why and they caught it just in time

This all happened in real life btw. In case ya’ll forgot.

Now there’s some special something we are going to learn

I have learned the special thing and I have no idea what it is or why it is special

Thoughts after Listening

Ideally I would like to ask so many questions because there are SO many questions right now but since this happened in real life, I don’t think we can do that because who are we to question real life? So I will just say bai deers. Bai deers.

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Image from Ghostly Tales (1896), via the British Library

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