She fied without packing, and no one has lived in the mansion since. "We know there's something queer about it," says Liebamn. "It's on some of the most valuable land in Boston and no one will go near it."

But when the club asked permission to investigate, ther owner just said, "Spooks--they dont exist," and refused to talk aboaut it any further.

Until it hears of new inner sanctums around Boston, the group is simply reading about spooks. Members have access to special Widener stacks, where they spend several days translating old German and Spanish writings. The manuscripts explain every phase of ghostdom--how to hold black mass, how to catch a witch, and how to kill your maiden aunt with a handful of pins and some tobasco sauce.

"Literary" Club

At the group's occasional meetings, members read trnaslations to one another. "We're actually a literary club," says Liebman.

If this is true, they're probably the only literary club in the world that over planned to walk through the streets of Salem carrying live goats and disembodied hands. That was last May 1--the dread "Walpurgisnacht"--when Hanging Hill was more bewitched than ever.

But members decided that Salem citizenry might be taken aback by such a procession, and voted it down. Instead, they decided to raise the devil.

Raising the Devil

The club met in Leverett House that night and chalked a magic circle on the floor. They drew cabalistic signs on the walls and in the air, following an ancient recipe. Everyone stood on the circle, for it wasn't safe to be outside. Accord- ing to the script, all this should make the devil appear, usually in the form of a goat or a butterfly.

Nothing happened.

"That's what we expected," Liebman says. "None of us really believe in ghosts, but we aren't joking when we try these things. We just want to find a rational explanation for everything."

So far, the club has found a rational explanation for at least one mystery--the zombie. "We translated several old books," Liebman says, "and we have the answer. Zombles are just imbociles, gaunt because they're underfed. Cuban families get rid of them when they're born, and they just go wandering over the country."

"If anyone knows a good haunted house around Boston, I wish he'd tell us about it," Liebman says. "We want a place with creaking doors, floating bodies, and muffled footsteps down the hall. We'd like to spend the night there.