(Extract from Encounters in the Borderland, Jillian Noble’s biography
of Gabriel Lafayette, as amended and serialised in The Mail ahead
of publication.)

Do you believe in ghosts?

That’s what this all ultimately comes down to, doesn’t it? It’s
going to colour your impressions of everything you’re about to
encounter, perhaps even determine – very quickly – whether
you’re going to read on or just put this down and move on to
something else. The fact that you’ve begun at all is no guarantee
to me that you’re going to give me a fair hearing; I know
how delicious a prospect it would be to see someone of my
profile and reputation make a fool of themselves.

I don’t believe and frankly don’t much care whether I’m
likely to change anybody’s mind, because short of the abortion
issue, I can think of no other area that so rigidly divides people
into irreconcilable opposition. It is said of the believers that
they remain credulous despite a lack of evidence, but it is
equally true – more so, in my experience – of the so-called sceptics
that they will remain unconvinced no matter how much
evidence they are presented with.

Sceptics, we are told, are open-minded and intend not to
debunk or automatically disbelieve, but merely seek proof of
what is being claimed. And the band played believe it if you
like! In practice, I have found, they are as slavish and inflexible
in their fidelity as the most dedicated religious fundamentalist.
Nothing will sway them from their beliefs, and they exhibit a
staggering level of closed-mindedness that stems from an
unshakeable faith in their own intellectual superiority.

I am therefore not wasting my time here in any good-hearted
but naïve attempt to convince the inconvincible. The Jehovah’s
Witnesses have been doing that for years, and all it’s ever got
them was a close-up view of a rapidly closing front door. Nor
am I comfortable with the likelihood that my work will be
embraced by the army of crackpots and fantasists who make it
so easy to discredit genuine study of the paranormal. I have
more in common with the hardest-bitten sceptics than with any
of the New Agers, conspiracy theorists, spook-hunters and
assorted peddlers of superstition and mumbo-jumbo. However,
that won’t stop the first constituency from lumping me in with
the others as a lazy way of discrediting my inconvenient testimony.

It probably goes without saying that I have little to gain and
a great deal to lose by publishing this. If you are a regular
reader of mine in the press, you may well be reading this with
a hand clasped over your mouth in concern, asking yourself,
‘What is she doing?’ And not just on my behalf. When your
husband is Holyrood’s education minister, you don’t need
reminding of the potential fall-out amidst a political culture
that rewards insincerity, posturing and outright cynicism but
rushes to ridicule genuine faith.

So why am I doing this, laying myself wide open and my
husband vulnerable by association? Well, for one, I feel humbled
by and duty-bound towards those who are risking more and
exposing themselves to far worse, simply because they appreciate
that there are more important things at stake here than egos
and reputations. The advent of every major juncture in man’s
understanding of himself and his environment, every staging
post on the journey of knowledge that we all have the right to
call science, was heralded by the sound of scoffs and guffaws.
In the words of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer,
‘All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second,
it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.’

Ridicule will merely represent the trumpet-blasts of the
approaching foe. There is a battle looming, one that was prematurely
dismissed by many as a storm in a teacup, but which has
already seen storm clouds gather over one of our country’s most
esteemed seats of learning. Before the end, it is likely to have
been joined in all our schools and surely our parliament. And
once its dust has settled, man’s greater understanding will be
the victor over small men and closed minds.

For another, I feel duty-bound towards my vocation and
my profession. There has been rumour, exaggeration and
innuendo – from both sides of the credulity divide – over what
is believed – or not believed – to have happened almost three
years ago on the night of 7 October 2003 at Glassford Hall. I
am hereby presenting an honest and accurate account of
remarkable events. The sceptics will no doubt say that of itself
it does not constitute any evidence, despite its being corroborated
several times over. I am content to present it, no matter
the consequences, because I know for a fact that it does constitute
the truth, and that is the only thing that any journalist
ought to care about.

Before my account begins, in an admittedly perhaps futile
bid to pre-empt some of the hysterical nonsense that will
inevitably be precipitated by this piece, I would like to state as
plainly as possible that I did not see a ghost. Got that? I’ll spell
it out again. I have never seen a ghost and nor did I see anything
that I would describe as a ghost at Glassford Hall.

Do I believe in ghosts? Three years ago I might have said a
flat-out no. After Glassford Hall, I would amend my response
to say I don’t know, because, quite simply, I don’t know what a
ghost is. I’ll state it one more time for the guys on the red-tops:
I did not see a ghost. So with that cleared up, I can freely relate
what I did see, what I did feel and, most importantly, what I and
several corroborating witnesses most definitely did hear.