Hell House

by Richard Matheson

“An alternative far more interesting, albeit far more complex and demanding; namely, the subliminal self, that vast, concealed expanse of the human personality which, iceberglike, inheres beneath the so-called threshold of consciousness. That is where the fascination lies, Miss Tanner. Not in the speculative realms of afterlife, but here, today; the challenge of ourselves. The undiscovered mysteries of the human spectrum, the infrared capacities of our bodies, the ultraviolet capacities of our minds. This is the alternative I offer: the extended faculties of the hinnan system not as yet established. The faculties by which, I am convinced, all psychic phenomena are produced.”

Science is more than a body of facts. It is, first and foremost, a method of investigation, and there is no acceptable reason why parapsychological phenomena should not be investigated by this method, for, as much as physics and chemistry, parapsychology is a science of the natural. This, then, is the intellectual barrier through which man must inevitably break.

“Is it any wonder, then, that Hell House is the way it is? Consider the years of violently emotional, destructive—evil, if you will—radiations which have impregnated its interior. Consider the veritable storehouse of noxious power this house became.

House is, in essence, a giant battery, the toxic power of which must, inevitably, be tapped by those who enter it, either intentionally or involuntarily.