Outside of his famous books, many of us have barley ventured out to learn much about his life. One thing you may not have known about him is that he was single for most of his life, other than his two year marriage to Joy Davidson Gresham. She was an American writer from Jewish decent, who was also an atheist turned Christian. Soon after the two were married, Joy was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer, and died a few years later in 1960. Such a tragedy devastated Lewis and shook him to his core. He was full of grief, and at times, angry at God. In order to deal with his grief, he did what he did best- he wrote. He wrote to deal with his pain and honor his wife. The book penned during this time is called A Grief Observed. The book was so full of raw emotion that his publisher released it under the pseudonym N. W. Clerk. It was only after Lewis' death that he was revealed as the true author. In the book he discusses his almost loss of faith due to the death of his wife. In this book Lewis says many shocking things, including relaying the story of the visitation of Joy from beyond the grave, or in other words, he claimed to have been visited by her ghost. In his writings, he refers to her as "H" for Helen:
"I said, several notebooks ago, that even if I got what seemed like an assurance of H's presence, I wouldn't believe it. Easier said than done. Even now, though, I won't treat anything of that sort as evidence. It's not the quality of last nights experience- not what it proves but what it was- that makes it worth putting down. It was quite incredibly unemotinal. Just the impression of her mind momentarily facing my own. Mind, not "soul" as we tend to think of soul. Certainly the reverse of what is called "soulful." Not at all like a rapturous reunion of lovers. Much more like getting a telephone call or a wire from her about some practical arrangement. Not that there was any "message"- just intelligence and attention. No sense of joy or sorrow. No love even, in our ordinary sense. No un-love. I had never in any mood imagined the dead as being so-well, so business like. Yet there was an extreme and cheerful intimacy. An intimacy that had not passed through the senses or emotions at all." (A Grief Observed, 85-86).
Notice what he is stating here about this experience- and this is of the utmost importance. Her appearance did not occur in an emotionally high state. Rather, the entire experience was sort of detached, even clinical like. This should cause great pause to all those who would question this experience and write it off as a hallucination of an emotionally distraught man, blinded by grief. In fact, Lewis goes on to critically examine the hypothesis that she was a hallucination:
"If this was a throw-up from my unconscious, them my unconscious must be a far more interesting region than the depth psychologists have led me to expect. For one thing, it is apparently much less primitive than my consciousness. (Grief, 86).
He goes on to describe her presence :
"Above all, solid. Utterly reliable. Firm. There is no nonsense about the dead. When I say "intellect," I will include will. Attention is an act of will. Intelligence in action is will par excellence. What seemed to meet me was full of resolution." (Grief, 87).
This entire experience went on to strengthen Lewis' faith and help him move on with God. So much so, that it seems that Lewis made is own ghostly appearance to a friend who was deeply discouraged.
Soon after Joy's death, C.S. Lewis began to develop heart problems. At one point, he actually fell into a coma. The heart problem eventually led to his death. Lewis died one week before his sixty-fifth birthday. The date was Friday, November 22, 1963. If that date sounds familiar, its because it was the same day John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
In his book, The Newborn Christian, J.B. Phillips describes how he was depressed, and about to give up on his translation. That is, until something paranormal took place.
"A few days after [Lewis'] death, while I was watching television, he 'appeared' sitting in a chair within a few feet of me. He was ruddier in complexion than ever, grinning all over his face and, as the old fashioned saying has it, positively glowing with health. The interesting thing to me was that I had not been thinking about him at all...He was just there - 'large as life and twice as natural.'" (pg 214).
Lewis made one brief statement, "J.B., it's not as hard as you think!"- and then disappeared (Marie A. Conn, C.S. Lewis and Human Suffering: Light among the Shadows, 1).
At the time of this first visit, Phillips wasn't aware that Lewis had died, since all the news was focusing on JFK. He would then find out that Lewis died the day before his special appearance in his home. In fact. two weeks later, Lewis appeared again with the same message, "J.B., It's not as hard as you think!" As a result, Phillips took heart and believed that it really wasn't as hard as he thought, thus finishing his New Testament translation.
All of his travels and ministry to those involved in the occult created quite a list of strange, paranormal and supernatural events that he observed. Koch both believed in ghosts and claims to have seen many strange things in his ministry. In gathering eye witness accounts, he talked with a Protestant minister who recounted for Koch this rather odd experience:
"A Protestant minister had a remarkable experience, while he was preparing his sermon, one Saturday evening. Suddenly the door opened and his deceased predecessor, whom he was able to recognize from a photograph, came into his study. The pastor was startled by this extraordinary visitation and did not know if he was suffering from a hallucination, or if the vision was something real. The dead pastor spoke to him. He complained that he could find no rest in the world beyond. The pastor asked him whether he could help him in some way. The ghost replied that the reason he could not find rest was because of a sordid matter concerning a bequest. He would not be free from his torment until the wrong had been put right. He told his amazed colleague that, together with his church council, he had made an unjust decision about a will. As a result, several of his church members had lost an inheritance they should have received from America. The ghost asked the pastor to come with him to take the relevant file from the filing cabinet. The ghost led the way to the record office and found the relevant file among a pile of papers. Taking the papers. the ghost explained the circumstances to the pastor. Then the phantom disappeared. The pastor immediately took steps to put the matter right, and went to visit the elderly former members of the church council. A meeting of the present council was called, and the matter put right. From that time on, the ghost never again appeared in the minister's house, although for years strange footsteps and other phenomena had been observed there.
I realize this story raises difficult theological problems. Is it really possible at all that a man who is dead can come back from the life beyond to put right something that he has done wrong here? Our understanding of the Bible's teaching would normally make us say no. On the other hand, this remarkable experience allowed a family to gain their rightful inheritance." (Koch, Occult ABC: Exposing Occult Practices and Ideologies, 78).
Second, if one doesn't allow for ghosts in their worldview, then these experiences don't make sense. Some might be tempted to say they were angels. If that is the case, then these "angels" are really no better than demons, since their appearance is causing deception, and making people believe they are seeing the ghosts of dead Christians. If God is a liar and His messengers are messengers of deception, then we might as well through the Bible out of this conversation. The fact of the matter is that only a worldview that allows for ghosts can make any sense of these, and hundreds or more experiences like them.
In the next post, I am going to offer some detailed critiques of the view that ghosts are demonic impostors.