Carnacki, Thomas. Thomas Carnacki was created by William Hope Hodgson (Captain Gault, Captain Jat) and appeared in six stories in The Idler and The New Magazine between 1910 and 1912, beginning with “The Gateway of the Monster” (The Idler, Jan. 1910); the stories were collected in Carnacki the Ghost Finder (1913). Thomas Carnacki is an Occult Detective. He is a “Psychic Investigator” who is called in to investigate psychic and or occult phenomena. Carnacki tends to use far more scientific equipment in his cases than most Occult Detectives, although he also uses the traditional paraphernalia of the ghost-breakers. In the Carnacki stories the world is full of evil psychic forces, the “Outer Monsters,” and these sometimes break through into our reality to threaten humans. Although Carnacki is doubtful about the occult–“all hauntings (are) unproven until he has examined them”–over half of the stories in which he appears involve the supernatural and/or psychic. Carnacki always begins by testing for real-world causes of the seemingly supernatural horrors; when his days-long investigation does not reveal anything, he then moves on to checking the occult. Carnacki uses such things as pentacles, standard magical equipment like candles, ribbons, the mysterious Saamaa Ritual, and the Sigsand Manuscript, a 14th century document of great occult insight and worth.
The stories are usually told by Carnacki himself, relayed to his friends Jessop, Arkright, Taylor and Dodgson, at Carnacki’s home at 472 Cheyne Walk in “Chelsa.”