Ghost Stories (as told by John Wesley)

The history of Methodism is covered in imagery of theology, grace, and organization. But if you look hard enough you’ll find ghosts.

Old Jeffrey, the Wesley’s ghost.

“As [Samuel] attempted to go into his study (of which none had any key but himself) the he opened the door, it was thrust back with such violences had like to have thrown him down. However, he thrust the door open and went in…He then said, ‘These spirits love darkness; put out the candle and perhaps it will speak’…but still there was only knocking and no articulate sound.” ¹

In 1784, an article was published in a periodical called Arminian Magazine. The article was titled “An Account of the Disturbances in My Father’s House.” The author? John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.

The Epworth Poltergeist.

John’s father Samuel Wesley had been rector of a small parish in Epworth, on the Isle of Axholme. Young John was a teenager when his father and many in his household had begun to hear spooky sounds in their home. Whatever poltergeist made its home in the Epworth home, John’s sister Emily had started calling it Old Jeffrey, named after one who had died in the house before.

John was not without experience of poltergeists, nor would he have done away with conversations of haunted houses or supernatural occurrences. As a young adult, he would experience unexplained happenings involving a door opening and closing on its own. But the stuff of ghost stories was located in letters his father had written and in interviews John later conducted with witnesses.

The Ghost Cradle.

Between the years of 1716 and 1717, there were many visits from Old Jeffrey in the form of continuous unexplained knockings on doors, walls, and glasses. In one incident, John’s sister Emily took their mother Susanna into the nursery where both witnessed the poltergeist at work:

“[Emily] begged her [mother] to come into the nursery. She did, and heard in the corner of the room, as it were the violent rocking of a cradle; but no cradle had been there for some years.” ²

Warnings from the Dog.

Of course, the Wesley’s greatest evidence of the eerie circumstances seems to be their dog. Throughout the whole affair, the dog “used to bark and leap, and snap on one side and the other, and that frequently, before any person in the room heard the noise at all. But after two or three days, he used to tremble and creep away before the noise began. And by this, the family knew it was at hand; nor did the observation ever fail.” ³

John Wesley demonstrates the dog’s eventual fear on a particularly chilling evening when the poltergeist was up to some particularly loud noises: “our large mastiff dog came and ran to shelter himself between [Samuel and Susanna].” ⁴

The Vicar and the Pistol.

John’s father Samuel tried not to fear the ghost, but one evening, he reached out to a friend, a vicar down the road. Samuel and the vicar followed the violent knocking around the home. In one of the rooms, they found a few of the girls terrified. Samuel raised his pistol toward the place in the wall where the knocking was loudest. As he went to fire, his friend the vicar grabbed him by the arm and said,

“Sir, you are convinced this is something preternatural. If so, you cannot hurt it, but you give it power to hurt you.” ⁵

Many began to advise Samuel to leave the house, but he replied, “‘No; let the devil flee from me; I will never flee from the devil’.” ⁶ It was about that time that the frightening presence disappeared for good.

John Loved Scary Stories.

Wesleyan scholar Richard Heitzenrater writes that John Wesley always had a “fascination with haunted houses, witches, and other objects of local folklore,” and that such an interest in “country superstitions may indeed have played a major role in helping him bridge the ‘culture gap’ between his Oxford-educated outlook and the rather primitive worldview of many of the folk throughout the kingdom to whom he later ministered.” ⁷

However, I wonder if there is something else he gleaned from the stories. I’m curious if his father’s stubbornness in relation to the ghost in his own home ever played a part in John’s own stubbornness, in his own life, in his own theology.

Defeating Our Ghosts.

I could certainly understand if John reread the account of the night of the gun and the vicar, and understood the vicar’s words in a more universal sense. I could see John applying those words to his preaching, taking care to illustrate to his congregation that the invisible insecurities and the covert brokenness of humanity do not need to hold more power than they already do.

I’m interested if John Wesley ever mentioned his father’s last stand against Old Jeffrey in relation to the defeating power of Jesus and the cross against the power of sin and death, allowing the fullness of grace and love to take hold instead of guilt.

Perhaps not. For now, I’ll say this. In the 21st century, there are things that plague us. Invisible powers continue to take our attention. Unseen instabilities find their ways into our hearts. Ghosts of the past visit us at night, knocking on our minds and our hearts, reminding us of mistakes and regrets and pain that we end up listening to for hours.

To the endless knocking of things concealed from view, may we, like a preacher and a vicar in the presence of a poltergeist, find those things hidden and hear the words, “you cannot hurt it, but you give it power to hurt you.” And like Samuel Wesley, perhaps we might hold our ground and speak loudly, “may these devils that plague me, flee from me.”

1. Richard P. Heitzenrater, The Elusive Mr. Wesley, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2003), 50.
2. Ibid., 49.
3. Ibid., 51.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., 50.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 47.