SPINDRIFT: Spray from a Psychic Sea

The author, an actress and writer, lived with her husband for a few years in an old apartment in Manhattan's West Village, later in another that adjoined the first -- both uncomfortably tenanted by ghosts. Footsteps, loud crashes, a flash of a woman in white, sudden chilling of the air, emanations which cowed the author's dogs -- the works. Then there were those unoccupied marching boots and reported appearances of Samuel Clemens who had once lived there. Hans Holzer receives a well-deserved smack on his ghost-devouring chops for exploiting the couple's experiences without their knowledge or permission, but he did bring in a medium who muttered clues and shooed a ghost cat. Miss Bartell, articulate, intelligent, somewhat of a diviner herself and extensively read in many matters including psychic and mystical theories, obviously believed and feared -- at the last for her own life. Nine persons from ten families in the East Wing of the building had died -- and she was the tenth. She died two weeks after presenting the manuscript. (Coincidences, all?) Tangled, distraught, but certainly honest, this account just might persuade the believers, and skeptics may yawn but won't laugh.