text:
Final girl

The final girl is a trope in horror films (particularly slasher films). It refers to the last girl(s) or woman alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in many films, including Psycho, Voices of Desire, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, Alien, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream. The term was coined by Carol J. Clover in her article "Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film" (1987). Clover suggested that in these films, the viewer began by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experienced a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film.

Usage of the term
The original meaning of "final girl", as described by Clover in 1987, is quite narrow. Clover studied slasher films from the 1970s and 1980s (which is considered the golden age of the genre) and defined the final girl as a woman who is the sole survivor of the group of people (usually youths) who are chased by a villain, and who gets a final confrontation with the villain (whether she kills him herself or she is saved at the last minute by someone else, such as a police officer), and who has such a "privilege" because of her implied moral superiority (for example, she is the only one who refuses sex, drugs, or other such behaviors, unlike her friends).

Trope concept
A common plot line in many horror films is one in which several victims are killed one-by-one by a killer amid increasing terror, culminating in a climax in which the last surviving member of the group, usually female, either vanquishes the killer or escapes.

The final girl trope has evolved throughout the years, from early final girls most often being damsels in distress, often saved by a strong male (such as a police officer or heroic stranger), to more modern final girls who are more likely to survive due to their own abilities. According to Clover's definition, Lila Crane from Psycho (1960) is an example of a female survivor and not a final girl, due to her lack of moral purity, who is saved by a male (Sam Loomis, not to be confused with the Halloween character of the same name) at the film's ending. Laurie Strode from Halloween (1978) is a final girl, but one that is saved by someone else (also named Sam Loomis).

On this basis, Tony Williams argues that, while 1980s horror film heroines were more progressive than those of earlier decades, the gender change is done conservatively, and the final-girl convention cannot be regarded as a progressive one "without more thorough investigation." Furthermore, in many slashers, the final girl's victory is often ambiguous or only apparent. The fact that she is still alive at the end of the movie does not make her a victorious heroine. In many of these movies, the end is ambiguous, where the killer/entity is or might be still alive, leaving viewers uncertain about the future of the final girl (a notable example being Jess Bradford in 1974's Black Christmas). The viewers wait for a send-off or sequel bait, and are felt that they are left with an apparent victory. Tony Williams also gives several examples of final girls in the heroines of the Friday the 13th series, such as Chris Higgins from Part III. He notes that she does not conclude the film wholly victorious and is catatonic at the end of the film. Williams also observes that Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter does not have a final girl, despite Trish Jarvis surviving at the end. Additionally, Williams notes that final girls often survive, but in the sequel they are either killed or institutionalized. A notable example is Alice Hardy who survives Friday the 13th (1980) only to be killed in the beginning of Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981). Derek Soles argues that the tragic destiny of such final girls represents an expression of patriarchal society where capable, independent women must either be contained or destroyed. In more recent films, this has started to change, with the final girl no longer being always doomed, a notable example being the Scream series.

According to Clover, the final girl in many movies shares common characteristics: she is typically sexually unavailable or virginal, and avoids the vices of the victims like illegal drug use. She sometimes has a unisex name such as Avery, Chris, or Sidney. Occasionally the final girl will have a shared history with the killer. The final girl is the "investigating consciousness" of the film, moving the narrative forward and, as such, she exhibits intelligence, curiosity, and vigilance. Another trope of slashers (particularly in the 1980s) is "death by sex", where sex scenes are shortly followed by violence, with the participants being murdered in gruesome ways. More recent horror movies challenge more of these tropes. Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in the words of Jes Battis, "subverts" the final girl trope of B-grade horror films. Jason Middleton observes that although Buffy fulfills the monster-killing role of the final girl, she is the opposite of Clover's description of a final girl in many ways. Buffy is a cheerleader, a "beautiful blond" with a feminine first name, and "gets to have sex with boys and still kill the monster".

One of the basic premises of Clover's theory is that audience identification is unstable and fluid across gender lines, particularly in the case of the slasher film. During the final girl's confrontation with the killer, Clover argues, she becomes masculinized through "phallic appropriation" by taking up a weapon, such as a knife or chainsaw, against the killer. The phenomenon of the male audience having to identify with a young female character in an ostensibly male-oriented genre, usually associated with sadistic voyeurism, raises interesting questions about the nature of slasher films and their relationship with feminism. Clover argues that for a film to be successful, it is necessary for this surviving character to be female because she must experience abject terror, and many viewers would reject a film that showed abject terror on the part of a male. The terror has a purpose, in that the female, if she survives, is "purged" of undesirable characteristics, such as relentless pursuit of personal pleasure.

Mari Collingwood
While the character Mari Collingwood in the original 1972 version of the film The Last House on the Left has been viewed as primarily a victim, the 2009 remake of the film portrays the Collingwood character as more aligned with the "final girl" archetype. In Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas notes that the 2009 version of the character manifests traits of the trope.

Diane Adams
One pioneering example of the "final girl" trope occurs in Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972), whose main protagonist and narrator Diane Adams, portrayed by Mary Woronov, has been cited by multiple commentators as displaying the characteristics of a "final girl," with Rosie Knight of WomenWriteAboutComics even positing that she is arguably the first documentable example of this character type. Conversely, in her own review of the film, Rebecca McCallum of Attack from Planet B contends that the film "follows the then more typical presentation of the hysterical woman or submissive mistress as opposed to the final girl trope which would be cemented in Sally Hardesty of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

Jess Bradford
Another early example of a "final girl" can be found in the film Black Christmas (1974), where Jess Bradford, played by Olivia Hussey, is a well-developed character who refuses to back down against a series of more or less lethal male antagonists.

Sally Hardesty
Sally Hardesty from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), created by Tobe Hooper and portrayed by Marilyn Burns, has been regarded as one of the earliest examples of the final girl trope.

Laurie Strode
According to Clover, Laurie Strode (from Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Halloween Resurrection, Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends) is another example of a final girl. Tony Williams notes that Clover's image of supposedly progressive final girls are never entirely victorious at the culmination of a film nor do they manage to eschew the male order of things as Clover argues. He holds up Strode as an example of this. She is rescued by a male character, Dr. Samuel Loomis, in the ending of Halloween.

Ellen Ripley
Before the release of Alien 3, Clover identified Ellen Ripley from the Alien franchise as a final girl. Elizabeth Ezra continues this analysis for Alien Resurrection, arguing that by definition both Ripley and Annalee Call must be final girls, and that Call is the "next generation of Clover's Final Girl". In Ezra's view, Call exhibits traits that fit Clover's definition of a final girl, namely that she is boyish, having a short masculine-style haircut, and that she is characterized by (in Clover's words) "smartness, gravity, competence in mechanical and other practical matters, and sexual reluctance" being a ship's mechanic who rejects the sexual advances made by male characters on the ship. However, Ezra notes that Call fits the description imperfectly as she is a gynoid, not a human being.

Christine Cornea disputes the idea that Ripley is a final girl, contrasting Clover's analysis of the character with that of Barbara Creed, who presents Ripley as "the reassuring face of womanhood". Cornea does not accept either Clover's or Creed's views on Ripley. While she accepts Clover's general thesis of the final girl convention, she argues that Ripley does not follow the conventions of the slasher film, as Alien follows the different conventions of the science fiction film genre. In particular, there is no foregrounding in Alien, as there is in the slasher film genre, of the character's sexual purity and abstinence relative to the other characters (who would be, in accordance with the final girl convention, killed by the film's monster "because" of this). The science fiction genre that Alien inhabits, according to Cornea, simply lacks this kind of sexual theme in the first place, as it has no place in such "traditional" science fiction formats. Additionally, professor Brenda M. Boyle argues that in Alien Resurrection, Ripley has crossed the line between human and monster. This conflict of identity could further jeopardize her status as a final girl beyond Alien 3.

Sue Snell
In Brian De Palma's 1976 film based on Stephen King's 1974 novel, Carrie, Sue Snell (played by Amy Irving) is the sole survivor of Carrie White's telekinetic outburst of destruction at a high school prom.

Ginny Field
The character Ginny Field (from Friday the 13th Part 2) has often been viewed as an example of the trope. In The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, Barry Keith Grant stated that, "Ginny temporarily adopts Mrs. Voorhees's authoritarian role to survive. Although circumstances necessitate this, she clearly uses her enemy's strategy to become a phallic mother herself. This posture really questions the positive image of the Final Girl." He then called her "not victorious" when she called out for her boyfriend at the end of the film saying that it was done in a "non-independent manner". John Kenneth Muir references Ginny in Horror Films of the 1980s, Volume 1, saying "Amy Steel is introduced as Ginny, our final girl and heroine, and the only person who seems to have an inkling of the nearby danger. She's more resourceful than Alice and nearly upstages even Laurie Strode during the film's tense finale, wherein she brazenly dresses up as Jason's dead mother and starts barking orders at the confused serial killer." In Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle, Richard Nowell said "The shift in characterization of the female leads was also trumpeted during Ginny's self-confident entrance (Amy Steel) in Friday the 13th Part II. Where the makers of its predecessor introduced Alice as she prepared cabins while dressed in denim jeans and a shapeless lumberjack shirt, the sequel's conventionally attractive lead is established immediately as combining masculine traits with feminine attributes. Ginny exits a battered VW bug in a flowing fuchsia skirt and a low-cut t-shirt." Ginny's adoption of the monster's own strategy, in Part II, brings into question whether the final girl image is in fact a wholly positive one.

Nancy Thompson
The character Nancy Thompson (from A Nightmare on Elm Street and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors) has often been regarded as one of the most influential horror movie heroines. In his book Horror films of the 1980s, John Kenneth Muir references Nancy Thompson.

Sidney Prescott
The character Sidney Prescott (from the Scream films) is widely recognized as one of the most iconic and popular horror film heroines. Ana Horvat describes Sidney Prescott as "embodying the most important characteristics of the Final Girl".

Gale Weathers
The character of Gale Weathers (also from the Scream films) is recognized as "one of the most seminal character arcs in horror movie history". Often cited as a foil to protagonist Sidney Prescott, her character development over the course of the series has led many critics to acknowledge her as a prominent final girl as well.

Julie James
In the Kevin Williamson 1997 slasher film based on Lois Duncan’s 1973 novel, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Julie James (played by Jennifer Love Hewitt) and her boyfriend Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.) are the only main characters to survive a vengeful killer.

Dana Polk
Characters in the 2011 horror film The Cabin in the Woods explicitly discuss Dana's role as the final girl after a zombie attack on her and her friends. As part of a human sacrifice ritual that mirrors various horror film traditions and requires the deaths of five slasher movie archetypes: "the whore," "the athlete," "the scholar," "the fool," and "the virgin," the equivalent of the final girl who can die last or survive.

Mia Allen
From the 2013 horror remake Evil Dead. Mia's whole ordeal is beyond devastating, and the fact that she survives is incredible. She starts off as a troubled addict, goes through withdrawal, literally goes to Hell and back, loses her brother and friends and turns into a tough-as-nails final girl. Also, the fact that the Abomination appears as an evil double of Mia could be seen as a metaphor for Mia overcoming her drug addiction and gaining control. She faces her inner demon both literally and figuratively and conquers it.

Victoria Heyes
Heyes from the 2016 slasher film Terrifier has been observed by some critics to be a darker depiction of the "final girl" archetype. Having been driven insane by the events in the film, Heyes becomes a killer herself. An analysis by Brendan D. describes Victoria as a reflection of Art—"Our most recent final girl is Victoria from Terrifier, and what makes her so unique is her post-final girl status. Most final girls appear in the sequel or following situation as a capable guide for the next group of cannon fodder to demonstrate the villain's return. Instead, the trauma corrupts Victoria; she becomes monstrous like Art, with a disfigured appearance; and the brutality of a live-show death when a talk-show host mocked her. She is not a heroine but a dark reflection of the atrocities Art the Clown committed, fit for ridicule and loathing."

Tree Gelbman
John Squires of Bloody Disgusting described Happy Death Days Tree Gelbman as a modern example of the trope and contrasts her to Friday the 13ths Alice Hardy.

Maxine Minx
The character Maxine Minx (from X films), manages to escape the farm alone where she and her friends have endured horrors under the elderly couple during the night. Attempting to ignore her own resemblance to Pearl—the elderly farm owner—by yearning to be a star, Maxine kills Pearl and drives away from the farm. ScreenRant says that "As her friends are killed off in increasingly creative ways, Maxine emerges as the film's Final Girl.".

Samantha Carpenter
Being the estranged daughter of the late Billy Loomis, Samantha Carpenter (from Scream (2022)) becomes the new target of the new generation of Ghostface killers. Throughout the film, it is revealed that she has been haunted by her father's past and struggles with the legacy he left behind. Her survival and eventual triumph over the killers further subverts the traditional Final Girl trope, as she is not presented as a purely innocent or virginal character. Instead, she is a "flawed and complex individual who is ultimately able to use her past trauma and inner strength to overcome the killers".

title: Final girl


text: User talk:70.22.42.105

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User talk:70.22.42.105


text:
Creator in Buddhism

Generally speaking, Buddhism is a religion that does not include the belief in a monotheistic creator deity. As such, it has often been described as either (non-materialistic) atheism or as nontheism, though these descriptions have been challenged by other scholars, since some forms of Buddhism do posit different kinds of transcendent, unborn, and unconditioned ultimate realities (e.g., Buddha-nature).

Buddhist teachings state that there are divine beings called devas (sometimes translated as 'gods') and other Buddhist deities, heavens, and rebirths in its doctrine of saṃsāra, or cyclical rebirth. Buddhism teaches that none of these gods is a creator or an eternal being, though they can live very long lives. In Buddhism, the devas are also trapped in the cycle of rebirth and are not necessarily virtuous. Thus, while Buddhism includes multiple "gods", its main focus is not on them. Peter Harvey calls this "trans-polytheism".

Buddhist texts also posit that mundane deities, such as Mahabrahma, are misconstrued to be creators. Buddhist ontology follows the doctrine of dependent origination, whereby all phenomena arise in dependence on other phenomena, hence no primal unmoved mover could be acknowledged or discerned. Gautama Buddha, in the early Buddhist texts, is also shown as stating that he saw no single beginning to the universe.

During the medieval period, Buddhist philosophers like Vasubandhu developed extensive refutations of creationism and Hindu theism. Because of this, some modern scholars, such as Matthew Kapstein, have described this later stage of Buddhism as anti-theistic. Buddhist anti-theistic writings were also common during the modern era, in response to the presence of Christian missionaries and their critiques of Buddhism.

In spite of this, some writers, such as B. Alan Wallace and Douglas Duckworth, have noted that certain doctrines in Vajrayana Buddhism can be seen as being similar to certain theistic doctrines like Neoplatonic theology and pantheism. Various scholars have also compared East Asian Buddhist doctrines regarding the supreme and eternal Buddhas like Vairocana or Amitabha with certain forms of theism, such as pantheism and process theism.

Early Buddhist texts

Damien Keown notes that in the Saṃyutta Nikāya, the Buddha sees the cycle of rebirths as stretching back "many hundreds of thousands of eons without discernible beginning." Saṃyutta Nikāya 15:1 and 15:2 states: "this samsara is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving."

According to Buddhologist Richard Hayes, the early Buddhist Nikaya literature treats the question of the existence of a creator god "primarily from either an epistemological point of view or a moral point of view". In these texts, the Buddha is portrayed not as a creator-denying atheist who claims to be able to prove such a god's nonexistence, but rather his focus is other teachers' claims that their teachings lead to the highest good.

According to Hayes, in the Tevijja Sutta (DN 13), there is an account of a dispute between two brahmins about how best to reach union with Brahma (Brahmasahavyata), who is seen as the highest god over whom no other being has mastery and who sees all. However, after being questioned by the Buddha, it is revealed that they do not have any direct experience of this Brahma. The Buddha calls their religious goal laughable, vain, and empty.

Hayes also notes that in the early texts, the Buddha is not depicted as an atheist, but more as a skeptic who is against religious speculations, including speculations about a creator god. Citing the Devadaha Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 101), Hayes states, "while the reader is left to conclude that it is attachment rather than God, actions in past lives, fate, type of birth or efforts in this life that is responsible for our experiences of sorrow, no systematic argument is given in an attempt to disprove the existence of God."

Narada Thera also notes that the Buddha specifically calls out the doctrine of creation by a supreme deity (termed Ishvara) for criticism in the Aṅguttara Nikāya. This doctrine of creation by a supreme lord is defined as follows: "Whatever happiness or pain or neutral feeling this person experiences, all that is due to the creation of a supreme deity (issaranimmāṇahetu)." The Buddha criticized this view, because he saw it as a fatalistic teaching that would lead to inaction or laziness:

"'So, then, owing to the creation of a supreme deity, men will become murderers, thieves, unchaste, liars, slanderers, abusive, babblers, covetous, malicious and perverse in view. Thus for those who fall back on the creation of a god as the essential reason, there is neither desire nor effort nor necessity to do this deed or abstain from that deed.'"

In another early sutta (Devadahasutta, Majjhima Nikāya 101), the Buddha sees the pain and suffering that is experienced by certain individuals as indicating that if they were created by a god, then this is likely to be an evil god:

"'if the pleasure and pain that beings feel are caused by the creative act of a Supreme God, then the Nigaṇṭhas surely must have been created by an evil Supreme God, since they now feel such painful, racking, piercing feelings.'"

High gods who are mistaken as creator

According to Peter Harvey, Buddhism assumes that the universe has no ultimate beginning to it and thus sees no need for a creator god. In the early texts, the nearest term to this concept is "Great Brahma" (Maha Brahma), such as in Digha Nikaya 1.18. However, "[w]hile being kind and compassionate, none of the brahmās are world-creators."

In the Pali Canon, Buddhism includes the concept of reborn gods. According to this theory, periodically, the physical world system ends and beings of that world system are reborn as gods in lower heavens. This too ends, according to Buddhist cosmology, and god Mahabrahma is then born, who is alone. He longs for the presence of others, and the other gods are reborn as his ministers and companions. In Buddhist suttas, such as DN 1, Mahabrahma forgets his past lives and falsely believes himself to be the Creator, Maker, All-seeing, the Lord. This belief, state the Buddhist texts, is then shared by other gods. Eventually, however, one of the gods dies and is reborn as human, with the power to remember his previous life. He teaches what he remembers from his previous life in lower heaven, that Mahabrahma is the Creator. It is this that leads to the human belief in a creator, according to the Pali Canon.

A similar story of a high god (brahma) who mistakes himself as the all-powerful creator can be seen in the Brahma-nimantanika Sutta (MN 49). In this sutta, the Buddha displays his superior knowledge by explaining how a high god named Baka Brahma, who believes himself to be supremely powerful, actually does not know of certain spiritual realms. The Buddha also demonstrates his superior psychic power by disappearing from Baka Brahma's sight, to a realm that he cannot reach, and then challenges him to do the same. Baka Brahma fails in this, demonstrating the Buddha's superiority. The text also depicts Mara, an evil trickster figure, as attempting to support the Brahma's misconception of himself. As noted by Michael D. Nichols, MN 49 seems to show that "belief in an eternal creator figure is a devious ploy put forward by the Evil One to mislead humanity, and the implication is that Brahmins who believe in the power and permanence of Brahma have fallen for it."

The Problem of Evil in the Jatakas
Some stories in the Buddhist Jataka collections outline a critique of a Creator deity that is similar to the Problem of Evil.

One Jataka story (VI.208) states:

"If Brahma is lord of the whole world and Creator of the multitude of beings, then why has he ordained misfortune in the world without making the whole world happy; or for what purpose has he made the world full of injustice, falsehood and conceit; or is the lord of beings evil in that he ordained injustice when there could have been justice?"

The Pali Bhūridatta Jātaka (No. 543) has the bodhisattva (future Buddha) state:

 * "He who has eyes can see the sickening sight,
 * Why does not Brahmā set his creatures right?
 * If his wide power no limit can restrain,
 * Why is his hand so rarely spread to bless?
 * Why are his creatures all condemned to pain?
 * Why does he not to all give happiness?
 * Why do fraud, lies, and ignorance prevail?
 * Why triumphs falsehood—truth and justice fail?
 * I count you Brahmā one th'unjust among,
 * Who made a world in which to shelter wrong."

In the Pali Mahābodhi Jātaka (No. 528), the bodhisattva says:

 * "If there exists some Lord all powerful to fulfil
 * In every creature bliss or woe, and action good or ill;
 * That Lord is stained with sin.
 * Man does but work his will."

Medieval philosophers
While Early Buddhism was not as concerned with critiquing concepts of God or Īśvara (since theism was not as prominent in India until the medieval era), medieval Indian Buddhists engaged much more thoroughly with the emerging Hindu theisms (mainly by attempting to refute them). According to Matthew Kapstein, medieval Buddhist philosophers deployed a host of arguments, including the argument from evil and others that "stressed formal problems in the conception of a supreme deity". Kapstein outlines this second line of argumentation as follows: "God, the theists affirm, must be eternal, and an eternal entity must be supposed to be altogether free from corruption and change. That same eternal being is held to be the creator, that is, the causal basis, of this world of corruption and change. The changing state, however, of a thing that is caused implies there to be change also in its causal basis, for a changeless cause cannot explain alteration in the result. The hypothesis of a creator god, therefore, either fails to explain our changing world, or else God himself must be subject to change and corruption, and hence cannot be eternal. Creation, in other words, entails the impermanence of the creator. Theism, the Buddhist philosophers concluded, could not as a system of thought be saved from such contradictions." Kapstein also notes that by this time, "Buddhism's earlier refusal of theism had indeed given way to a well-formed antitheism." However, Kapstein notes that these criticisms remained mostly philosophical, since Buddhist antitheism "was conceived primarily in terms of the logical requirements of Buddhist philosophical systems, for which the concept of a personal god violated the rational demands of an impersonal, moral and causal order".

Madhyamaka philosophers
In the Twelve Gate Treatise (十二門論, Shih-erh-men-lun), the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna (c. 1st–2nd century) works to refute the belief of certain Indian non-Buddhists in a god called Isvara, who is "the creator, ruler and destroyer of the world". Nagarjuna makes several arguments against a creator God, including the following: In his Hymn to the Inconceivable (Acintyastava), Nagarjuna attacks this belief in two verses: 33. Just as the work of a magician is empty of substance, all the rest of the world has been said by you to be empty of substance—including a creator deity.
 * "If all living beings are the sons of God, He should use happiness to cover suffering and should not give them suffering. And those who worship Him should not have suffering but should enjoy happiness. But this is not true in reality."
 * "If God is self-existent, He should need nothing. If He needs something, He should not be called self-existent. If He does not need anything, why did He [cause] change, like a small boy who plays a game, to make all creatures?"
 * "Again, if God created all living beings, who created Him? That God created Himself, cannot be true, for nothing can create itself. If He were created by another creator, He would not be self-existent."
 * "Again, if all living beings come from God, they should respect and love Him just as sons love their father. But actually this is not the case; some hate God and some love Him."
 * "Again, if God is the maker [of all things], why did He not create men all happy or all unhappy? Why did He make some happy and others unhappy? We would know that He acts out of hate and love, and hence is not self-existent. Since He is not self-existent, all things are not made by Him."

34. If the creator is created by another, he cannot avoid being created and, consequently, is not permanent. Alternatively, if he creates himself, it implies that the creator is the agent of the activity affecting himself, which is absurd. Nagarjuna also argues against a Creator in his Bodhicittavivaraṇa. Furthermore, in his Letter to a Friend, he also rejects the idea of a creator deity: "The aggregates (come) not from a triumph of wishing, not from (permanent) time, not from primal matter, not from an essential nature , not from the Powerful Creator Ishvara, and not from having no cause . Know that they arise from unawareness , karmic actions, and craving."

Bhāviveka (c. 500 – c. 578) also critiques the idea in his Madhyamakahṛdaya (Heart of the Middle Way, ch. III).

A later Madhyamaka philosopher, Candrakīrti, states in his Introduction to the Middle Way (6.114): "Because things (bhava) are not produced without a cause (hetu), from a creator god (isvara), from themselves, another or both, they are always produced in dependence [on conditions]."

Shantideva (c. 8th century), in the 9th chapter of his Bodhicaryāvatāra, states:

"'God is the cause of the world.' Tell me, who is God? The elements? Then why all the trouble about a mere word? (119) Besides, the elements are manifold, impermanent, without intelligence or activity; without anything divine or venerable; impure. Also such elements as earth, etc., are not God.(120) Neither is space God; space lacks activity, nor is atman—that we have already excluded. Would you say that God is too great to conceive? An unthinkable creator is likewise unthinkable, so that nothing further can be said."

Vasubandhu

The 5th-century Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu argued that a creator's singular identity is incompatible with creating the world in his Abhidharmakosha. He states (AKB, chapter 2):"The universe does not originate from one single cause (ekaṃ kāraṇam) which may be called God/Supreme Lord (Īśvara), Self (Puruṣa), Primal Source (Pradhāna) or any other name." Vasubandhu then proceeds to outline various arguments for and against the existence of a creator deity or single cause. In the argument that follows, the Buddhist non-theist begins by stating that if the universe arose from a single cause, "things would arise all at the same time: but everyone sees that they arise successively". The theist responds that things arise in succession because of the power of God's wishes; he thus wills things to arise in succession. The Buddhist responds: "then things do not arise from a single cause, because the desires (of God) are multiple". Furthermore, these desires would have to be simultaneous, but since God is not multiple, things would all arise at the same time.

The theist now responds that God's desires are not simultaneous, "because God, in order to produce his desires, takes into account other causes". The Buddhist replies that if this is the case, then God is not the single cause of everything, and furthermore, he then relies on causes that are also dependent on other causes (and so on).

Then the question of why God creates the world is taken up. The theist states that it is for God's own joy. The Buddhist responds that in this case, God is not lord over his own joy since he cannot create it without an external mean, and "if he is not Sovereign with respect to his own joy, how can he be Sovereign with respect to the world?" Furthermore, the Buddhist also adds:"Besides, do you say that God finds joy in seeing the creatures which he has created in the prey of all the distress of existence, including the tortures of the hells? Homage to this kind of God! The profane stanza expresses it well: 'One calls him Rudra because he burns, because he is sharp, fierce, redoubtable, an eater of flesh, blood and marrow." Furthermore, the Buddhist states that the followers of God as a single cause deny observable cause and effect. If they modify their position to accept observable causes and effects as auxiliaries to their God, "this is nothing more than a pious affirmation, because we do not see the activity of a (Divine) Cause next to the activity of the causes called secondary".

The Buddhist also argues that since God did not have a beginning, the creation of the world by God would also not have a beginning (contrary to the claims of the theists). Vasubandhu states: "the Theist might say that the work of God is the [first] creation [of the world] (ādisarga): but it would follow that creation, dependent only on God, would never have a beginning, like God himself. This is a consequence which the Theist rejects."

Vasubandhu finishes this section of his commentary by stating that sentient beings wander from birth to birth doing various actions, experiencing the effects of their karma and "falsely thinking that God is the cause of this effect. We must explain the truth in order to put an end to this false conception."

Other Yogacara philosophers
The Chinese monk Xuanzang (fl. c. 602–664) studied Buddhism in India during the seventh century, staying at Nalanda. There, he studied the Yogacara teachings passed down from Asanga and Vasubandhu and taught to him by the abbot Śīlabhadra. In his work Cheng Weishi Lun (Skt. Vijñāptimātratāsiddhi śāstra), Xuanzang refutes a "Great Lord" or Great Brahmā doctrine: "According to one doctrine, there is a great, self-existent deity whose substance is real and who is all-pervading, eternal, and the producer of all phenomena. This doctrine is unreasonable. If something produces something, it is not eternal, the non-eternal is not all-pervading, and what is not all-pervading is not real. If the deity's substance is all-pervading and eternal, it must contain all powers and be able to produce all dharmas everywhere, at all times, and simultaneously. If he produces dharma when a desire arises, or according to conditions, this contradicts the doctrine of a single cause. Or else, desires and conditions would arise spontaneously since the cause is eternal. Other doctrines claim that there is a great Brahma, a Time, a Space, a Starting Point, a Nature, an Ether, a Self, etc., that is eternal and really exists, is endowed with all powers, and is able to produce all dharmas. We refute all these in the same way we did the concept of the Great Lord." The 7th-century Buddhist scholar Dharmakīrti advances a number of arguments against the existence of a creator god in his Pramāṇavārtika, following in the footsteps of Vasubandhu.

Later Mahayana scholars, such as Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla, Śaṅkaranandana (fl. c. 9th or 10th century), and Jñānaśrīmitra (fl. 975–1025), also continued to write and develop the Buddhist anti-theistic arguments.

The 11th-century Buddhist philosopher Ratnakīrti, at the former university at Vikramashila (now Bhagalpur, Bihar), criticized the arguments for the existence of a God-like being called Isvara that emerged in the Navya-Nyaya sub-school of Hinduism in his "Refutation of Arguments Establishing Īśvara" (Īśvara-sādhana-dūṣaṇa). These arguments are similar to those used by other sub-schools of Hinduism and Jainism that questioned the Navya-Nyaya theory of a dualistic creator.

Theravada Buddhists
The Theravada commentator Buddhaghosa also specifically denied the concept of a Creator. He wrote:

"'For there is no god Brahma. The maker of the conditioned world of rebirths. Phenomena alone flow on. Conditioned by the coming together of causes.' (Visuddhimagga 603)."

Mahayana and theism

Mahayana Buddhist traditions have more complex Buddhologies, which often contain a figure variously termed the Eternal Buddha, "Supreme Buddha", the One Original Buddha, or Adi-Buddha (primordial Buddha or first Buddha).

Mahayana buddhology and theism

Mahayana Buddhist interpretations of the Buddha as a supreme being, which is eternal, all-compassionate, and existing on a cosmic scale, have been compared to theism by various scholars. For example, Guang Xing describes the Mahayana Buddha as an omnipotent and almighty divinity "endowed with numerous supernatural attributes and qualities". In Mahayana, a fully awakened Buddha (such as Amitābha) is held to be omniscient as well as having other qualities, such as infinite wisdom, an immeasurable life, and boundless compassion. In East Asian Buddhism, Buddhas are often seen as also having eternal life. According to Paul Williams, in Mahayana, a Buddha is often seen as "a spiritual king, relating to and caring for the world".

Various authors, such as F. Sueki, Douglas Duckworth, and Fabio Rambelli, have described Mahayana Buddhist views using the term "pantheism" (the belief that God and the universe are identical). Similarly, Geoffrey Samuel has compared Tibetan Buddhist Buddhology with the related view of panentheism.

Duckworth draws on positive Mahayana conceptions of buddha-nature, which he explains as a "positive foundation" and "a pure essence residing in temporarily obscured sentient beings". He compares various Mahayana interpretations of Buddha-nature (Tibetan and East Asian) with a pantheist view that sees all things as divine and that "undoes the duality between the divine and the world". In a similar fashion, Eva K. Neumaier compares Mahayana Buddha-nature teachings that point to a source of all things with the theology of Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464), who described God as an essence and the world as a manifestation of God.

José Ignacio Cabezón notes that while Mahayana sources reject a universal creator God that stands apart from the world, as well as any single creation event for the entire universe, Mahayanists do accept "localized" creation of specific worlds by the Buddhas and bodhisattvas as well as the idea that any world is jointly created by the collective karmic forces of all the beings who reside in them. Buddha-created worlds are termed "Buddha-fields" (or "pure lands"), and their creation is seen as a key activity of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas.

Much comparative work has also been done on Mahayana Buddhist thought and Whiteheadian process theology. Scholars who have worked in this include Jay B. McDaniel, John B. Cobb, Jr., David R. Griffin, Vincent Shen, John S. Yokota, Steve Odin, and Linyin Gu. Some of these figures have also been involved in Buddhist–Christian dialogue. Cobb sees many affinities with the Buddhist ideas of emptiness and not-self and Whitehead's view of God. He has incorporated these into his own process theology. In a similar fashion, some Buddhist thinkers, like Dennis Hirota and John S. Yokota, have developed Buddhist theologies that draw on process theology.

East Asian Buddhism and theism

In Huayan Buddhism, the supreme Buddha Vairocana is seen as the "cosmic Buddha", with an infinite body that comprises the entire universe and whose light penetrates every particle in the cosmos. According to a religious pamphlet from Tōdai-ji temple in Japan (the headquarters of Japanese Huayan), "Vairocana Buddha exists everywhere and every time in the Universe, and the Universe itself is his body. At the same time, the songs of birds, the colors of flowers, the currents of streams, the figures of clouds—all these are the sermon of Buddha". However, Francis Cook argues that Vairocana is not a god, nor has the functions of a monotheistic god, since he is not a creator of the universe, nor a judge or father who governs the world.

Thích Nhất Hạnh, meanwhile, has written that the idea of the Buddha's "cosmic body", who is both the cosmos and its creator, "is very close to the idea of God in the theistic religions". Similarly, Lin Weiyu writes that the Huayan school interprets Vairocana as "omnipresent, omnipotent and identical to the universe itself". According to Lin, the Huayan commentator Fazang's conception of Vairocana contains "elements that approach Vairocana to the monotheistic God". However, Lin also notes that this Buddha is contained within a broader Buddhist metaphysics of emptiness, which tempers the reification of this Buddha as a monotheistic creator god.

The Shingon Buddhist view of the Supreme Buddha Mahāvairocana, whose body is seen as being the whole universe, has also been called "cosmotheism" (the idea that the cosmos is God) by scholars like Charles Eliot, Hajime Nakamura, and Masaharu Anesaki. Fabio Rambelli terms it a kind of pantheism, the main doctrine of which is that Mahāvairocana's Dharma body is co-substantial with the universe and is the very substance that the universe consists of. Furthermore, this cosmic Buddha is seen as making use of all the sounds, thoughts, and forms in the universe to preach the Buddha's teaching to others. Thus, all forms, thoughts, and sounds in the universe are seen as manifestations and teachings of the Buddha.

Tantric Adi-Buddha theory and theism

B. Alan Wallace writes on how the Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana concept of the primordial Buddha (Adi-Buddha) is sometimes seen as forming the foundation of both saṃsāra (the world of suffering) and nirvana (liberation). This view, according to Wallace, holds that "the entire universe consists of nothing other than displays of this infinite, radiant, empty awareness."

Furthermore, Wallace notes similarities between these Vajrayana doctrines and notions of a divine creative "ground of being". He writes: "a careful analysis of Vajrayana Buddhist cosmogony, specifically as presented in the Atiyoga (Dzogchen) tradition of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, which presents itself as the culmination of all Buddhist teachings, reveals a theory of a transcendent ground of being and a process of creation that bear remarkable similarities with views presented in Vedanta and Neoplatonic Western Christian theories of creation." He further comments that the three views "have so much in common that they could almost be regarded as varying interpretations of a single theory".

Douglas Duckworth sees Tibetan tantric Buddhism as "pantheist to the core", since "in its most profound expressions (e.g., highest Yoga tantra), all dualities between the divine and the world are radically undone". According to Duckworth, in Vajrayana, "the divine is seen within the world, and the infinite within the finite."

Eva K. Neumaier-Dargyay notes that the Dzogchen tantra called the Kunjed Gyalpo ("all-creating king") uses symbolic language for the Adi-Buddha Samantabhadra, which is reminiscent of theism. Neumaier-Dargyay considers the Kunjed Gyalpo to contain theistic-sounding language, such as positing a single "cause of all that exists" (including all Buddhas). However, she also writes that this language is symbolic and points to an impersonal "ground of all existence", or primordial basis, which is "the mind of perfect purity" that underlies all that exists.

Alexander Studholme also points to how the Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra presents the great bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara as a kind of supreme lord of the cosmos and as the progenitor of various heavenly bodies and divinities (such as the Sun and Moon, the deities Shiva and Vishnu, etc.) Avalokiteśvara himself is seen, in the versified version of the sutra, to be an emanation of the first Buddha, the Adi-Buddha, who is called svayambhu (self-existent, not born from anything or anyone) and the "primordial lord" (Adinatha).

Adi-Buddha as non-theistic

The 14th Dalai Lama sees this deity (called Samantabhadra) as a symbol for ultimate reality, "the realm of the Dharmakaya – the space of emptiness". He is also quite clear that "the theory that God is the creator, is almighty, and permanent is in contradiction to Buddhist teachings... For Buddhists the universe has no first cause, and hence no creator, nor can there be such a thing as a permanent, primordially pure being."

Further discussing the doctrine of the Adi-Buddha, the Dalai Lama writes that the tantric Buddhist tradition explains ultimate reality in terms of "inherent clear light, the essential nature of the mind" and that this seems to imply "that all phenomena, samsara and nirvana, arise from this clear and luminous source". This doctrine of an "ultimate source", says the Dalai Lama, seems close to the notion of a Creator, since all phenomena, whether they belong to samsara or nirvana, originate therein". However, he warns that we not think of this as a Creator God, since the clear light is not "a sort of collective clear light, analogous to the non-Buddhist concept of Brahman as a substratum. We must not be inclined to deify this luminous space. We must understand that when we speak of ultimate or inherent clear light, we are speaking on an individual level. When, in the tantric context, we say that all worlds appear out of clear light, we do not visualize this source as a unique entity, but as the ultimate clear light of each being... It would be a grave error to conceive of it as an independent and autonomous existence from beginningless time."

The Dzogchen master Namkhai Norbu also argued that this figure is not a Creator God but is a symbol for a state of consciousness and a personification of the ground or basis (ghzi) in Dzogchen thought. Norbu explains that the Dzogchen idea of the Adi-Buddha Samantabhadra "should be mainly understood as a metaphor to enable us to discover our real condition". He further adds that:"If we deem Samantabhadra an individual being, we are far from the true meaning. In reality, he denotes our potentiality that, even though at the present moment we are in samsara, has never been conditioned by dualism. From the beginning, the state of the individual has been pure and always remains pure: this is what Samantabhadra represents. But when we fall into conditioning, it is as if we are no longer Samantabhadra because we are ignorant of our true nature. So what is called the primordial Buddha, or Adibuddha, is only a metaphor for our true condition." Regarding the term Adi-Buddha as used in the tantric Kalachakra tradition, Vesna Wallace notes:"when the Kalacakra tradition speaks of the Adibuddha in the sense of a beginningless and endless Buddha, it is referring to the innate gnosis that pervades the minds of all sentient beings and stands as the basis of both samsara and nirvana. Whereas, when it speaks of the Adibuddha as the one who first attained perfect enlightenment by means of imperishable bliss, and when it asserts the necessity of acquiring merit and knowledge in order to attain perfect Buddhahood, it is referring to the actual realization of one's own innate gnosis. Thus, one could say that in the Kalacakra tradition, Adibuddha refers to the ultimate nature of one's own mind and to the one who has realized the innate nature of one's own mind by means of purificatory practices." Jim Valby notes that the "All-Creating King" (Kunjed Gyalpo, i.e., the primordial Buddha) of Dzogchen thought and its companion deities "are not gods, but are symbols for different aspects of our primordial enlightenment. Kunjed Gyalpo is our timeless Pure Perfect Presence beyond cause and effect. Sattvavajra is our ordinary, analytical, judgmental presence inside time that depends upon cause and effect."

Modern Buddhist anti-theism

The modern era brought Buddhists into contact with the Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity. Attempts to convert Buddhist nations to Christianity through missionary work were countered by Buddhist attempts at refutations of Christian doctrine and led to the development of Buddhist Modernism. The earliest Christian attempts to refute Buddhism and criticize its teachings were those of Jesuits like Alessandro Valignano, Michele Ruggieri, and Matteo Ricci.

These attacks were answered by Asian Buddhists, who wrote critiques of Christianity, often centered on refuting Christian theism. Perhaps the earliest such attempt was that of the Chinese monk Zhu Hong (祩宏, 1535–1615), who authored Four Essays on Heaven (天說四端). Another influential Chinese Buddhist critic of Christian theism was Xu Dashou (許大受), who wrote a long and systematic refutation of Christianity, titled Zuopi (佐闢, "help to the refutation"), which attempts to refute Christianity from the point of view of three Chinese traditions (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism).

The monk Ouyi Zhixu (蕅益智旭, 1599–1655) later wrote the Bixie ji ("Collected Essays Refuting Heterodoxy"), which specifically attacks Christianity on the grounds of theodicy as well as relying on classical Confucian ethics. According to Beverley Foulks, in his essays, Zhixu "objects to the way Jesuits invest God with qualities of love, hatred, and the power to punish. He criticizes the notion that God would create humans to be both good and evil, and finally he questions why God would allow Lucifer to tempt humans towards evil."

Modern Japanese Buddhists also wrote their own works to refute Christian theism. Fukansai Habian (1565–1621) is perhaps one of the best-known of these critics, especially because he was a convert to Christianity who then became an apostate and wrote an anti-Christian polemic, titled Deus Destroyed (Ha Daiusu), in 1620. The Zen monk Sessō Sōsai also wrote an important anti-Christian work, the Argument for the Extinction of Heresy (Taiji Jashū Ron), in which he argued that the Christian God is just the Vedic Brahma and that Christianity was a heretical form of Buddhism. His critiques were particularly influential on the leadership of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Later Japanese Buddhists continued to write anti-theist critiques, focusing on Christianity. These figures include Kiyū Dōjin (a.k.a. Ugai Tetsujō 1814–91, who was a head of Jōdo-shū), who wrote Laughing at Christianity (1869), and Inoue Enryō. According to Kiri Paramore, the 19th-century Japanese attacks on Christianity tended to rely on more rationalistic and philosophical critiques than the Tokugawa-era critiques (which tended to be more driven by nationalism and xenophobia).

Modern Theravada Buddhists have also written various critiques of a Creator God, which reference Christian and modern theories of God. These works include A.L. De Silva's Beyond Belief, Nyanaponika Thera's Buddhism and the God Idea (1985), and Gunapala Dharmasiri's A Buddhist critique of the Christian concept of God (1988).

title: Creator in Buddhism


text:
Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen

Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen (originally released as Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen) is the fourth installment in the Might and Magic series by New World Computing.

Plot
Might and Magic IV focuses on the events that occur after the adventurers of Might and Magic III set off to follow Sheltem after he escapes from Terra. Trouble is brewing in the land of Xeen. A mysterious villain by the name of Lord Xeen has imprisoned Crodo, overseer of Xeen, in a tower and is unleashing havoc across the land. A new band of adventurers must be formed to stop him and save both the Clouds of Xeen and the underground town of Shangri-La.

Gameplay
Might and Magic IV uses a game engine based on that used by Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra, and the gameplay is almost identical. More emphasis is placed on cutscenes than in the earlier game, possibly due to the availability of larger hard drives.

This game and its successor, Might and Magic V: Darkside of Xeen can be combined to make one large game, World of Xeen. In-game, this is visualised as either game being a 'side' of a flat, rectangular planetoid. In the combined game, areas in both games become available that are impossible to access in the standalone games. Both game's endings can be achieved, after either of which gameplay continues. A third ending is available only in the combined games.

The game was initially available on floppy disc but was also released on CD. Might and Magic IV and V were some of the first Western games to come out on CD, although Japanese studios had been using the CD-ROM medium since 1988. They were also the first games to come out where every character's dialogs are recorded on the CDs; the software plays the CD back at specific tracks, seeking to the proper second offset within the track.

Clouds of Xeen introduced several new features into the series. This included a notes section which kept track of important information such as quests, clues, passwords, and the coordinates of locations of note. It also had a difficulty setting where you could select Adventurer or Warrior, with the latter having more challenging enemies in combat, but no other gameplay differences. It also had a separate inventory for quest items which kept the player from accidentally discarding or selling critical items.

Reception
Computer Gaming World' Scorpia stated in 1993 that "There isn't much plot to Clouds of Xeen ... The world is rather empty of everyday people", similar to previous games in the series. She criticized the ending for being too binary: "if you have the right item, Xeen is toast; if you don't have it, your party is toast ... makes the confrontation almost pointless". Scorpia nonetheless concluded that both "hard-core Might & Magic fans" and some others might enjoy the game. She later that year advised players to install and play Clouds and Might & Magic V: Darkside of Xeen together for "the most enjoyment". The game was reviewed in 1993 in Dragon #191 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 5 out of 5 stars. Might and Magic: World of Xeen (comprising Clouds of Xeen and Dark Side of Xeen) was reviewed in 1994 in Dragon #201 by Sandy Petersen in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Petersen gave the compilation 3 out of 5 stars.

Barry Brenesal of PC Magazine wrote that "some fans may ... find the game too easy, with few puzzles to bedevil the novice adventurer." However, he considered the game "well crafted and visually entertaining", and believed that it should be "enjoyed as a free ride through the imaginations of New World Computing's artists."

title: Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen


text:
Cock Lane ghost

The Cock Lane ghost was a purported haunting that attracted mass public attention in 1762. The location was a lodging in Cock Lane, a short road adjacent to London's Smithfield market and a few minutes' walk from St Paul's Cathedral. The event centred on three people: William Kent, a usurer from Norfolk; Richard Parsons, a parish clerk; and Parsons' daughter Elizabeth.

Following the death during childbirth of Kent's wife, Elizabeth Lynes, he became romantically involved with her sister, Fanny. Canon law prevented the couple from marrying, but they nevertheless moved to London and lodged at the property in Cock Lane, then owned by Parsons. Several accounts of strange knocking sounds and ghostly apparitions were reported, although for the most part they stopped after the couple moved out, but following Fanny's death from smallpox and Kent's successful legal action against Parsons over an outstanding debt, they resumed. Parsons claimed that Fanny's ghost haunted his property and later his daughter. Regular séances were held to determine "Scratching Fanny's" motives; Cock Lane was often made impassable by the throngs of interested bystanders.

The ghost appeared to claim that Fanny had been poisoned with arsenic and Kent was publicly suspected of being her murderer. But a commission whose members included Samuel Johnson concluded that the supposed haunting was a fraud. Further investigations proved the scam was perpetrated by Elizabeth Parsons, under duress from her father. Those responsible were prosecuted and found guilty; Richard Parsons was pilloried and sentenced to two years in prison.

The Cock Lane ghost became a focus of controversy between the Methodist and Anglican churches and is referenced frequently in contemporary literature. Charles Dickens is one of several Victorian authors whose work alluded to the story and the pictorial satirist William Hogarth referenced the ghost in two of his prints.

Background
In about 1756–57 William Kent, a usurer from Norfolk, married Elizabeth Lynes, the daughter of a grocer from Lyneham. They moved to Stoke Ferry where Kent kept an inn and later, the local post office. They were apparently very much in love, but their marriage was short-lived as within a month of the move Elizabeth died during childbirth. Her sister Frances—commonly known as Fanny—had during Elizabeth's pregnancy moved in with the couple and she stayed to care for the infant and its father. The boy did not survive long and rather than leave, Fanny stayed on to take care of William and the house. The two soon began a relationship, but canon law appeared to rule out marriage; when Kent travelled to London to seek advice he was told that as Elizabeth had borne him a living son, a union with Fanny was impossible. In January 1759 therefore, he gave up the post office, left Fanny and moved to London, intending to "purchase a place in some public office" in the hope that "business would erase that passion he had unfortunately indulged". Fanny meanwhile stayed with one of her brothers at Lyneham.

Despite her family's disapproval of their relationship, Fanny began to write passionate letters to Kent, "filled with repeated entreaties to spend the rest of their lives together". He eventually allowed her to join him at lodgings in East Greenwich near London. The two decided to live together as man and wife, making wills in each other's favour and hoping to remain discreet. In this, however, they did not reckon on Fanny's relations. The couple moved to lodgings near the Mansion House, but their landlord there may have learnt of their relationship from Fanny's family, expressing his contempt by refusing to repay a sum of money Kent loaned him (about £20). In response, Kent had him arrested.

While attending early morning prayers at the church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, William Kent and Fanny met Richard Parsons, the officiating clerk. Although he was generally considered respectable, Parsons was known locally as a drunk and was struggling to provide for his family. He listened to the couple's plight and was sympathetic, offering them the use of lodgings in his home on Cock Lane, to the north of St Sepulchre's. Located along a narrow, winding thoroughfare similar to most of central London's streets, the three-storey house was in a respectable but declining area, and comprised a single room on each floor, connected by a winding staircase. Shortly after Mr and Mrs Kent (as they called themselves) moved in, Kent loaned Parsons 12 guineas, to be repaid at a rate of a guinea per month.

It was while Kent was away at a wedding in the country that the first reports of strange noises began. Parsons had a wife and two daughters; the elder, Elizabeth, was described as a "little artful girl about eleven years of age". Kent asked Elizabeth to stay with Fanny, who was then several months into a pregnancy, and to share her bed while he was away. The two reported hearing scratching and rapping noises. These were attributed by Mrs Parsons to a neighbouring cobbler, although when the noises recurred on a Sunday, Fanny asked if the cobbler was working that day; Mrs Parsons told her he was not. James Franzen, landlord of the nearby Wheat Sheaf public house, was another witness. After visiting the house he reported seeing a ghostly white figure ascend the stairs. Terrified, he returned home, where Parsons later visited him and claimed also to have seen a ghost.

As Fanny was only weeks away from giving birth Kent made arrangements to move to a property at Bartlet's Court in Clerkenwell, but by January 1760 it was not ready and so they moved instead to an "inconvenient" apartment nearby, intending only a temporary stay. However, on 25 January Fanny fell ill. The attending doctor diagnosed the early stages of an eruptive fever and agreed with Kent that their lodgings were inadequate for someone at so critical a stage of pregnancy. Fanny was therefore moved, by coach, to Bartlet's Court. The next day her doctor returned and met with her apothecary. Both agreed that Fanny's symptoms were indicative of smallpox. On hearing this, Fanny sent for an attorney, to ensure the will she had had made was in good order, and that Kent would inherit her estate. An acquaintance of Kent's, Stephen Aldrich, Rector of St John Clerkenwell, reassured her that she would be forgiven for her sins. She died on 2 February.

As sole executor of Fanny's will, Kent ordered a coffin, but fearful of being prosecuted should the nature of their relationship become known, asked that it remain nameless. On registering the burial he was, however, forced to give a name, and he gave her his own. Fanny's family was notified and her sister Ann Lynes, who lived nearby at Pall Mall, attended the funeral at St John's. When Ann learned of the terms of Fanny's will, which left her brothers and sisters half a crown each and Kent the rest, she tried but failed to block it in Doctors' Commons. The bulk of Kent's inheritance was Fanny's £150 share of her dead brother Thomas's estate. This also included some land owned by Thomas, sold by the executor of his estate, John Lynes, and Kent received Fanny's share of that too (almost £95). Her family resented this. Legal problems with Lynes's sale meant that each of Thomas's beneficiaries had to pay £45 in compensation to the purchaser, but Kent refused, claiming that he had already spent the money in settling Fanny's debts. In response to this, in October 1761 John Lynes began proceedings against Kent in the Court of Chancery. Meanwhile, Kent became a stockbroker and remarried in 1761.

Haunting
Echoing the actions of Kent's previous landlord, Parsons had not repaid Kent's loan—of which about three guineas was outstanding—and Kent therefore instructed his solicitor to sue him. He managed to recover the debt by January 1762, just as the mysterious noises at Cock Lane began again. Catherine Friend had lodged there shortly after the couple left but moved out when she found the noises, which had returned intermittently and which were becoming more frequent, could not be stopped. They apparently emanated from Elizabeth Parsons, who also suffered fits, and the house was regularly disturbed by unexplained noises, likened at the time to the sound of a cat scratching a chair. Reportedly determined to discover their source, Richard Parsons had a carpenter remove the wainscotting around Elizabeth's bed. He approached John Moore, assistant preacher at St Sepulchre's since 1754 and rector of St Bartholomew-the-Great in West Smithfield since June 1761. The presence of one ghost, presumed to belong to Fanny's sister, Elizabeth, had already been noted while Fanny lay dying, and the two concluded that the spirit now haunting Parsons' house must be that of Fanny Lynes herself. The notion that a person's spirit might return from the dead to warn those still alive was a commonly held belief, and the presence of two apparently restless spirits was therefore an obvious sign to both men that each ghost had an important message to disclose.

Parsons and Moore devised a method of communication; one knock for yes, two knocks for no. Using this system, the ghost appeared to claim that Fanny had been murdered. It was conjectured that the mysterious figure in white which so terrified James Franzen, presumed to be the ghost of Elizabeth, had appeared there to warn her sister of her impending death. As the first ghost had seemingly vanished, this charge against Kent—that he murdered Elizabeth—was never acted on, but through repeated questioning of Fanny's ghost it was divined that she had died not from the effects of smallpox, but rather from arsenic poisoning. The deadly toxin had apparently been administered by Kent about two hours before Fanny died and now, it was supposed, her spirit wanted justice. Moore had heard from Parsons how Kent had pursued the debt he was owed, and he had also heard from Ann Lynes, who had complained that as Fanny's coffin lid was screwed down she had not been able to see her sister's corpse. Moore thought that Fanny's body might not show any visible signs of smallpox and that if she had been poisoned, the lack of scarring would have been something Kent would rather keep hidden. As a clergyman with inclinations toward Methodism he was inclined to trust the ghost, but for added support he enlisted the aid of Thomas Broughton, an early Methodist. Broughton visited Cock Lane on 5 January and left convinced the ghost was real. The story spread through London, The Public Ledger began to publish detailed accounts of the phenomenon, and Kent fell under public suspicion as a murderer.

Séances
After reading the veiled accusations made against him in the Public Ledger, Kent, determined to clear his name, and accompanied by a witness, went to see John Moore. The Methodist showed Kent the list of questions he and Parsons had drawn up for the ghost to answer. One concerned William and Fanny's marital status, prompting Kent to admit that they never married. Moore told him he did not think he was a murderer, rather, he believed the spirit's presence indicated that "there was something behind darker than all the rest, and that if he would go to Parson's house, he might be a witness to the same and convinced of its reality". On 12 January therefore, Kent enlisted the aid of the two physicians who attended Fanny in her last days, and with Broughton, went to Cock Lane. On the house's upper floor Elizabeth Parsons was publicly undressed, and with her younger sister was put to bed. The audience sat around the bed, positioned in the centre of the room. They were warned that the ghost was sensitive to disbelief and told that they should accord it due respect. When the séance began, a relative of Parsons, Mary Frazer, ran around the room shouting "Fanny, Fanny, why don't you come? Do come, pray Fanny, come; dear Fanny, come!" When nothing happened, Moore told the group the ghost would not come as they were making too much noise. He asked them to leave the room, telling them he would try to contact the ghost by stamping his foot. About ten minutes later they were told the ghost had returned and that they should re-enter the room. Moore then started to run through his and Parsons' list of questions:

 * "Are you the wife of Mr. Kent?" —Two knocks
 * "Did you die naturally?" —Two knocks
 * "By poison?" —One knock
 * "Did any person other than Mr. Kent administer it?" —Two knocks

After more questions, a member of the audience exclaimed "Kent, ask this Ghost if you shall be hanged". He did so, and the question was answered by a single knock. Kent exclaimed "Thou art a lying spirit, thou are not the ghost of my Fanny. She would never have said any such thing."

Public interest in the story grew when it was discovered that the ghost appeared to follow Elizabeth Parsons. She was removed to the house of a Mr Bray, where on 14 January, in the presence of two unidentified nobles, more knocking sounds were heard. A few days later she was returned to Cock Lane, where on 18 January another séance was held. In attendance were Kent, the apothecary, and local parish priest and incumbent of St John Clerkenwell, Stephen Aldrich. On that occasion, when a clergyman used a candle to look under the bed, the ghost "refused" to answer, Frazer claiming "she [the ghost] loving not light". After a few minutes of silence the questioning continued, but when Moore asked if the ghost would appear in court against Kent, Frazer refused to ask the question.

When they lived at Cock Lane William and Fanny had employed a maid, Esther "Carrots" Carlisle (Carrots on account of her red hair). She had since moved to a new job and knew nothing of the haunting, but seeking evidence of Fanny's poisoning, Moore went to question her. Carrots told him that Fanny had been unable to speak in the days before she died, so Moore invited her to a séance, held on 19 January. Once there, she was asked to confirm that Fanny had been poisoned, but Carrots remained adamant that Fanny had said nothing to her, telling the party that William and Fanny had been "very loving, and lived very happy together." Kent arrived later that night, this time with James Franzen and priests William Dodd and Thomas Broughton. Frazer began with her usual introduction before Moore sent her out, apparently irritated by her behaviour. He then asked the party of about 20 to leave the room, calling them back a few minutes later. This time, the séance centred on Carrots, who addressed the ghost directly:

 * "Are you my mistress?" —One knock, followed by scratches
 * "Are you angry with me, Madam?" —One knock
 * "Then I am sure, Madam, you may be ashamed of yourself for I never hurt you in my life."

At this, the séance was ended. Frazer and Franzen remained alone in the room, the latter reportedly too terrified to move. Frazer asked if he would like to pray and was angered when he apparently could not. The séance resumed and Franzen later returned to his home, where he and his wife were reportedly tormented by the ghost's knocking in their bedchamber.

Investigation
On 20 January another séance was held, this time at the home of a Mr Bruin, on the corner of nearby Hosier Lane. Among those attending was a man "extremely desirous of detecting the fraud, and discovering the truth of this mysterious affair", who later sent his account of the night to the London Chronicle. He arrived with a small party which included James Penn of St Ann's in Aldersgate. Inside the house, a member of the group positioned himself against the bed, but was asked by one of the ghost's sympathisers to move. He refused, and following a brief argument the ghost's supporters left. The gentleman then asked if Parsons would allow his daughter to be moved to a room at his house, but was refused. For the remainder of the night the ghost made no sound, while Elizabeth Parsons, now extremely agitated, displayed signs of convulsions. When questioned she confirmed that she had seen the ghost, but that she was not frightened by it. At that point several of the party left, but at about 7 am the next morning the knocking once more recommenced. Following the usual questions about the cause of Fanny's death and who was responsible, the interrogation turned to her body, which lay in the vaults of St John's.

Parsons agreed to move his daughter to Aldrich's house for further testing on 22 January, but when that morning Penn and a man of "veracity and fortune" called on Parsons and asked for Elizabeth, the clerk told them she was not there and refused to reveal her whereabouts. Parsons had spoken with friends and was apparently worried that Kent had been busy with his own investigations. Instead, he allowed Elizabeth to be moved that night to St Bartholomew's Hospital, where another séance was held. Nothing was reported until about 6 am, when three scratches were heard, apparently while the girl was asleep. The approximately 20-strong audience complained that the affair was a deception. Once Elizabeth woke she began to cry, and once reassured that she was safe admitted that she was afraid for her father, "who must needs be ruined and undone, if their matter should be supposed to be an imposture." She also admitted that although she had appeared to be asleep, she was in fact fully aware of the conversation going on around her.

Initially only the Public Ledger reported on the case, but once it became known that noblemen had taken an interest and visited the ghost at Mr Bray's house on 14 January, the story began to appear in other newspapers. The St. James's Chronicle and the London Chronicle printed reports from 16 to 19 January (the latter the more sceptical of the two), and Lloyd's Evening Post from 18 to 20 January. The story spread across London and by the middle of January the crowds gathered outside the property were such that Cock Lane was rendered impassable. Parsons charged visitors an entrance fee to "talk" with the ghost, which, it was reported, did not disappoint. After receiving several requests to intercede, Samuel Fludyer, Lord Mayor of London, was on 23 January approached by Alderman Gosling, John Moore and Parsons. They told him of their experiences but Fludyer was reminded of the then recent case of fraudster Elizabeth Canning and refused to have Kent or Parsons arrested (on charges of murder and conspiracy respectively). Instead, against a backdrop of hysteria caused in part by the newspapers' relentless reporting of the case, he ordered that Elizabeth be tested at Aldrich's house. Meanwhile, Elizabeth was again the subject of study, in two séances held 23–24 January. Parsons accepted the Lord Mayor's decision, but asked that "some persons connected with the girl might be permitted to be there, to divert her in the day-time". This was refused, as were two similar requests, Aldrich and Penn insisting that they would accept only "any person or persons, of strict character and reputation, who are housekeepers". Aldrich and Penn's account of their negotiations with Parsons clearly perturbed the clerk, as he defended his actions in the Public Ledger. This prompted Aldrich and Penn to issue a pointed retort in Lloyd's Evening Post: "We are greatly puzzled to find Mr. Parsons asserting that he hath been always willing to deliver up the child, when he refused a gentleman on Wednesday evening the 20th inst. [...] What is to be understood, by requiring security"?

Elizabeth was taken on 26 January to the house of Jane Armstrong, sleeping there in a hammock. The continued noises strengthened the resolve of the ghost's supporters, while the press's ceaseless reporting of the case continued. Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, announced that with the Duke of York, Lady Northumberland, Lady Mary Coke and Lord Hertford, he was to visit Cock Lane on 30 January. After struggling through the throngs of interested visitors though, he was ultimately disappointed; the Public Advertiser observed that "the noise is now generally deferred till seven in the morning, it being necessary to vary the time, that the imposition may be the better carried on".

Exposure
With Lord Dartmouth Aldrich began to draw together the people who would be involved in his investigation. They chose the matron of a local lying-in hospital as principal lady-in-waiting, the critic and controversialist Bishop John Douglas, and Dr George Macaulay. A Captain Wilkinson was also included on the committee; he had attended one séance armed with a pistol and stick; the former to shoot the source of the knocking, and the latter to make his escape (the ghost had remained silent on that occasion). James Penn and John Moore were also on the committee, but its most prominent member was Samuel Johnson, who documented the séance, held on 1 February 1762:

"On the night of the 1st of February many gentlemen eminent for their rank and character were, by the invitation of the Reverend Mr. Aldrich, of Clerkenwell, assembled at his house, for the examination of the noises supposed to be made by a departed spirit, for the detection of some enormous crime. About ten at night the gentlemen met in the chamber in which the girl, supposed to be disturbed by a spirit, had, with proper caution, been put to bed by several ladies. They sat rather more than an hour, and hearing nothing, went down stairs, when they interrogated the father of the girl, who denied, in the strongest terms, any knowledge or belief of fraud. The supposed spirit had before publickly promised, by an affirmative knock, that it would attend one of the gentlemen into the vault under the Church of St. John, Clerkenwell, where the body is deposited, and give a token of her presence there, by a knock upon her coffin; it was therefore determined to make this trial of the existence or veracity of the supposed spirit. While they were enquiring and deliberating, they were summoned into the girl's chamber by some ladies who were near her bed, and who had heard knocks and scratches. When the gentlemen entered, the girl declared that she felt the spirit like a mouse upon her back, and was required to hold her hands out of bed. From that time, though the spirit was very solemnly required to manifest its existence by appearance, by impression on the hand or body of any present, by scratches, knocks, or any other agency, no evidence of any preter-natural power was exhibited. The spirit was then very seriously advertised that the person to whom the promise was made of striking the coffin, was then about to visit the vault, and that the performance of the promise was then claimed. The company at one o'clock went into the church, and the gentleman to whom the promise was made, went with another into the vault. The spirit was solemnly required to perform its promise, but nothing more than silence ensued: the person supposed to be accused by the spirit, then went down with several others, but no effect was perceived. Upon their return they examined the girl, but could draw no confession from her. Between two and three she desired and was permitted to go home with her father. It is, therefore, the opinion of the whole assembly, that the child has some art of making or counterfeiting a particular noise, and that there is no agency of any higher cause."

- Samuel Johnson (1762)

Disappointed that the ghost had failed to reveal itself, Moore now told Kent he believed it was an imposter, and that he would help reveal it. Kent asked him to admit the truth and write an affidavit of what he knew, so as to end the affair and restore Kent's reputation, but Moore refused, telling him that he still believed that the spirit's presence was a reminder of his sin. Moore's view of the couple's relationship was shared by many, including Mrs Parsons, who believed that the supposed ghost of Elizabeth Kent had disapproved of her sister's new relationship.

Another séance on 3 February saw the knocking continue unabated, but by then Parsons was in an extremely difficult—and serious—situation. Keen to prove the ghost was not an imposture he allowed his daughter to be examined at a house on The Strand from 7–10 February, and at another house in Covent Garden from 14 February. There she was tested in a variety of ways which included being swung up in a hammock, her hands and feet extended. As expected, the noises commenced, but stopped once Elizabeth was made to place her hands outside the bed. For two nights the ghost was silent. Elizabeth was told that if no more noises were heard by Sunday 21 February, she and her father would be committed to Newgate Prison. Her maids then saw her conceal on her person a small piece of wood about 6 by and informed the investigators. More scratches were heard but the observers concluded that Elizabeth was responsible for the noises, and that she had been forced by her father to make them. Elizabeth was allowed home shortly after.

On or about 25 February, a pamphlet sympathetic to Kent's case was published, called The Mystery Revealed, and most likely written by Oliver Goldsmith. Meanwhile, Kent was still trying to clear his name, and on 25 February he went to the vault of St John's, accompanied by Aldrich, the undertaker, the clerk and the parish sexton. The group was there to prove beyond any doubt that a recent newspaper report, which claimed that the supposed removal of Fanny's body from the vault accounted for the ghost's failure to knock on her coffin, was false. The undertaker removed the lid to expose Fanny's corpse, "and a very awful shocking sight it was". For Moore this was too much and he published his retraction:

"In justice to the person, whose reputation has been attacked in a most gross manner, by the pretended Ghost in Cock-lane; to check the credulity of the weak; to defeat the attempts of the malicious, and to prevent further imposition, on account of this absurd phenomenon, I do hereby certify, that though, from the several attendances on this occasion, I have not been able to point out, how, and in what manner, those knockings and scratchings, of the supposed Ghost, were contrived, performed, and continued; yet, that I am convinced, that those knockings and scratchings were the effects of some artful, wicked contrivance; and that I was, in a more especial manner, convinced of its being such, on the first of this month, when I attended with several persons of rank and character, who assembled at the Rev. Mr. Aldrich's, Clerkenwell, in order to examine into this iniquitous imposition upon the Public. Since which time I have not seen the child, nor heard the noises; and think myself in duty bound to add, that the injured person (when present to hear himself accused by the pretended Ghost) has not, by his behaviour, given the least ground of suspicion, but has preserved that becoming steadfastness, which nothing, I am persuaded, but innocence could inspire."

- John Moore (1762)

It was not enough to keep him from being charged by the authorities with conspiracy, along with Richard Parsons and his wife, Mary Frazer, and Richard James, a tradesman.

Trial
The trial of all five was held at the Guild Hall in London on 10 July 1762. Presiding over the case was Lord Chief Justice William Murray. Proceedings began at 10 am, "brought by William Kent against the above defendants for a conspiracy to take away his life by charging him with the murder of Frances Lynes by giving her poison whereof she died". The courtroom was crowded with spectators, who watched as Kent gave evidence against those in the dock. He told the court about his relationship with Fanny and of her resurrection as "Scratching Fanny" (so-called because of the scratching noises made by the "ghost"). James Franzen was next on the stand, his story corroborated by Fanny's servant, Esther "Carrots" Carlisle, who testified later that day. Dr Cooper, who had served Fanny as she lay dying, told the court that he had always believed the strange noises in Cock Lane to be a trick, and his account of Fanny's illness was supported by her apothecary, James Jones. Several other prosecution witnesses described how the hoax had been revealed, and Richard James was accused by the prosecution's last witness of being responsible for some of the more offensive material published in the Public Ledger.

The defence's witnesses included some of those who had cared for Elizabeth Parsons and who presumably still believed that the ghost was real. Other witnesses included the carpenter responsible for removing the wainscotting from Parsons' apartment and Catherine Friend, who to escape the knocking noises had left the property. One witness's testimony caused the court to burst into laughter, at which she replied "I assure you gentlemen, it is no laughing matter, whatever you may think of it." Thomas Broughton was also called, as was a priest surnamed Ross, one of those who had questioned the ghost. Judge Murray asked him "Whether he thought he had puzzled the Ghost, or the Ghost had puzzled him?" John Moore was offered support by several esteemed gentlemen and presented Murray with a letter from Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, who sought to intercede on his behalf. Murray placed the letter in his pocket, unopened, and told the court "it was impossible it could relate to the cause in question." Richard James and Richard Parsons also received support from various witnesses, some of whom although acknowledging Parsons' drink problem, told the court they could not believe he was guilty.

The trial ended at about 9:30 pm. The judge spent about 90 minutes summing up the case, but it took the jury only 15 minutes to reach a verdict of guilty for all five defendants. The following Monday, two others responsible for defaming Kent were found guilty and later fined £50 each. The conspirators were brought back on 22 November but sentencing was delayed in the hope that they could agree on the level of damages payable to Kent. Having failed to do so they returned on 27 January 1763 and were committed to the King's Bench Prison until 11 February, by which time John Moore and Richard James had agreed to pay Kent £588; they were subsequently admonished by Justice Wilmot and released. The following day, the rest were sentenced:

"The Court chusing that Mr. Kent, who had been so much injured on the occasion, should receive some reparation by punishment of the offenders, deferred giving judgment for seven or eight months, in hopes that the parties might make it up in the meantime. Accordingly, the clergyman, and tradesman agreed to pay Mr. Kent a round sum—some say between £500 and £600 to purchase their pardon, and were, therefore, dismissed with a severe reprimand. The father was ordered to be set in the pillory three times in one month—once at the end of Cock–Lane; Elizabeth his wife to be imprisoned one year; and Mary Frazer six months in Bridewell, with hard labour.  The father appearing to be out of his mind at the time he was first to standing in the pillory, the execution of that part of his sentence was deferred to another day, when, as well as the other day of his standing there, the populace took so much compassion on him, that instead of using him ill, they made a handsome subscription for him."

- Annual Register, vol cxlii. and The Gentleman's Magazine, 1762, p. 43 and p. 339

Parsons, all the while protesting his innocence, was also sentenced to two years' imprisonment. He stood in the pillory on 16 March, 30 March and finally on 8 April. In contrast to other criminals the crowd treated him kindly, making collections of money for him.

Legacy
The Cock Lane ghost was a focus for a contemporary religious controversy between the Methodists and orthodox Anglicans. Belief in a spiritual afterlife is a requirement for most religions, and in every instance where a spirit had supposedly manifested itself in the real world, the event was cherished as an affirmation of such beliefs. In his youth, John Wesley had been strongly influenced by a supposed haunting at his family home and these experiences were carried through to the religion he founded, which was regularly criticised for its position on witchcraft and magic. Methodism, although far from a united religion, became almost synonymous with a belief in the supernatural. Some of its followers therefore gave more credence to the reality of the Cock Lane ghost than did the Anglican establishment, which considered such things to be relics of the country's Catholic past. This was a view that was epitomised in the conflict between the Methodist John Moore and the Anglican Stephen Aldrich. In his 1845 memoirs, Horace Walpole, who had attended one of the séances, accused the Methodists of actively working to establish the existence of ghosts. He described the constant presence of Methodist clergymen near Elizabeth Parsons and implied that the church would recompense her father for his troubles.

Samuel Johnson was committed to his Christian faith and shared the views of author Joseph Glanvill, who, in his 1681 work Saducismus Triumphatus, wrote of his concern over the advances made against religion and a belief in witchcraft, by atheism and scepticism. For Johnson the idea that an afterlife might not exist was an appalling thought, but although he thought that spirits could protect and counsel those still living, he kept himself distant from the more credulous Methodists, and recognised that his religion required proof of an afterlife. Ever a sceptic, in his discussions with his biographer James Boswell, he said:

"Sir, I make a distinction between what a man may experience by the mere strength of his imagination, and what imagination cannot possibly produce. Thus, suppose I should think I saw a form, and heard a voice cry, "Johnson, you are a very wicked fellow, and unless you repent you will certainly be punished;" my own unworthiness is so deeply impressed upon my mind, that I might imagine I thus saw and heard, and therefore I should not believe that an external communication had been made to me. But if a form should appear, and a voice tell me that a particular man had died at a particular place, and a particular hour, a fact which I had no apprehension of, nor any means of knowing, and this fact, with all its circumstances, should afterwards be unquestionably proved, I should, in that case, be persuaded that I had supernatural intelligence imparted to me."

Johnson's role in revealing the nature of the hoax was not enough to keep the satirist Charles Churchill from mocking his apparent credulity in his 1762 work The Ghost. He resented Johnson's lack of enthusiasm for his writing and with the character of 'Pomposo', written as one of the more credulous of the ghost's investigators, used the satire to highlight a "superstitious streak" in his subject. Johnson paid this scant attention, but was said to have been more upset when Churchill again mocked him for his delay in releasing Shakespeare. Publishers were at first wary of attacking those involved in the supposed haunting, but Churchill's satire was one of a number of publications which, following the exposure of Parsons' deception, heaped scorn on the affair. The newspapers searched for evidence of past impostures and referenced older publications such as Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584). The ghost was referenced in an anonymous work entitled Anti-Canidia: or, Superstition Detected and Exposed (1762), which sought to ridicule the credulity of those involved in the Cock Lane case. The author described his work as a "sally of indignation at the contemptible wonder in Cock-lane". Works such as The Orators (1762) by Samuel Foote, were soon available. Farcical poems such as Cock-lane Humbug were released, theatres staged plays such as The Drummer and The Haunted House.

Oliver Goldsmith, who had in February 1762 published The Mystery Revealed, may also have been responsible for the satirical illustration, English Credulity or the Invisible Ghost (1762). It shows a séance as envisioned by the artist, with the ghost hovering above the heads of the two children in the bed. To the right of the bed a woman deep in prayer exclaims "O! that they would lay it in the Red Sea!" Another cries "I shall never have any rest again". The English magistrate and social reformer John Fielding, who was blind, is pictured entering from the left saying "I should be glad to see this spirit", while his companion says "Your W——r's had better get your Warrant back'd by his L—rds—p", referring to a Middlesex magistrate's warrant which required an endorsement from the Lord Mayor, Samuel Fludyer. A man in tall boots, whip in hand, says: "Ay Tom I'll lay 6 to 1 it runs more nights than the Coronation" and his companion remarks "How they swallow the hum". A clergymen says "I saw the light on the Clock" while another asks "Now thou Infidel does thou not believe?", prompting his neighbour to reply "Yes if it had happen'd sooner 't would have serv'd me for a new Character in the Lyar the Story would tell better than the Cat & Kittens". Another clergyman exclaims "If a Gold Watch knock 3 times", and a Parson asks him "Brother don't disturb it". On the wall, an image of The Bottle Conjuror is alongside an image of Elizabeth Canning, whose fraud had so worried Samuel Fludyer that he had refused to arrest either Parsons or Kent.

Playwright David Garrick dedicated the enormously successful The Farmer's Return from London to the satirical artist William Hogarth. The story concerns a farmer who regales his family with an account of his talk with Miss Fanny, the comedy being derived from the reversal of traditional roles: the sceptical farmer poking fun at the credulous city-folk. Hogarth made his own observations of the Cock Lane ghost, with obvious references in Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism (1762). This illustration makes a point of attacking Methodist ministers, one of whom is seen to slip a phallic "ghost" into a young woman's bodice. He again attacked the Methodists in The Times, Plate 2 (1762–1763), placing an image of Thomas Secker (who had tried to intervene on behalf of the Methodists) behind the Cock Lane ghost, and putting the ghost in the same pillory as the radical politician John Wilkes, which implied a connection between the demagoguery surrounding the Methodists and Pittites. The print enraged Bishop William Warburton, who although a vocal critic of Methodism, wrote:

"I have seen Hogarth's print of the Ghost. It is a horrid composition of lewd Obscenity & blasphemous prophaneness for which I detest the artist & have lost all esteem for the man. The best is, that the worst parts of it have a good chance of not being understood by the people."

The 19th-century author Charles Dickens—whose childhood nursemaid Mary Weller may have affected him with a fascination for ghosts—made reference to the Cock Lane ghost in several of his books. One of Nicholas Nickleby 's main characters and a source of much of the novel's comic relief, Mrs. Nickleby, claims that her great-grandfather "went to school with the Cock-lane Ghost" and that "I know the master of his school was a Dissenter, and that would in a great measure account for the Cock-lane Ghost's behaving in such an improper manner to the clergyman when he grew up." Dickens also very briefly mentions the Cock Lane ghost in A Tale of Two Cities and Dombey and Son.

According to a 1965 source, the site of Parson's lodgings corresponded to the building with the modern address 20 Cock Lane. The house was believed to have been built in the late 17th century, and was demolished in 1979.

title: Cock Lane ghost


text: User talk:156.63.101.132

title: User talk:156.63.101.132