Like the pamphlet printed in London in 1698 by Mr. Ricard Chamberlain, which provides an account of a poltergeist-type haunting that had occurred some years before. Two copies of the pamphlet exist in the British Museum called: "Lithobolia, or stone throwing Devil. Being an Exact and True account (by way of Journal) of the various actions of infernal Spirits or (Devils Incarnate) Witches or both: and the great Disturbance and Amazement they gave to George Walton's family at a place called Great Island in the province of New Hampshire in New England, chiefly in throwing about (by an Invisible hand) Stones, Bricks, and Brick-Bats of all sizes, with several other things, as Hammers, Mauls, Iron-Crows, Spits, and other Utensils, as came into their Hellish minds, and this for space of a quarter of a year...."
1698?
A few years before Hollywood.
Quite so. As usual, then, let’s start from the beginning…
Good idea. Poltergeist is a German word that roughly translates into “noisy spirit” and denotes a spirit or ghost that manifests itself by moving or influencing objects. During the last century, several mechanisms have been put forward by parapsychologists to try to explain the origins of these widespread and well documented phenomena.
First, noting that poltergeist activity often occurs around a single person called an agent or a focus, after almost seventy years of research, the Rhine Research Center in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, has proposed that the "poltergeist effect" could be a form of psychokinesis generated by a living human mind (that of the agent) as the outward manifestation of psychological trauma.
This explanation, however, does take into account neither the fact that – as we have already noted some days ago – PK effects are known to be quite small (whilst poltergeist activity is macroscopic), nor the fact that some poltergeist activities are not associated with any identifiable agent.
Another version has it that poltergeists originate after a person dies in a state of rage. According to yet another opinion, ghosts and poltergeists are "recordings." When there is a powerful emotion, sometimes at death and sometimes not, a recording is believed to be "embedded" in a place or, somehow, in the "fabric of time" itself. This recording will continue to play over and over again until the energy embedded disperses.
You will appreciate that such theories are really far fetched, quite unscientific. Researchers are completely in the dark and simply try to make sense of the things they see. The most interesting thing, however, is that some poltergeists appear to have the ability to articulate themselves and to have distinct personalities, which suggests some sort of self-awareness and intent. This would support the survival hypothesis.
Umm…
Well – I understand your skepticism, but give me time to present some of the evidence and you’ll perhaps understand. First, let’s look at a very well known (and extremely well researched) case involving an agent.
The events took place in a city called Rosenheim in southern Bavaria, Germany, more specifically in the office of lawyer Sigmund Adam. Starting in 1967, strange phenomena began to manifest in the office - the lights would turn themselves off and on again, the phones would ring without anybody apparently calling, photocopiers spilled their copier fluid, objects would fly around and desk drawers would open without being touched. Not long after the onset of the inexplicable phenomena, the Deutsche Post was requested to investigate the anomalous behaviour of the phones and installed instruments that recorded numerous phone calls that were never made: within five weeks the instruments recorded roughly 600 calls to the speaking clock even though all the phones in the office were disabled and only Adam himself had the key required to enable them.
In October 1967 all light bulbs went out with a huge bang. The police, the electric company and others tried to find an explanation for all this for weeks, until they gave up with no useful explanation. A team of scientists, including the renowned parapsychologist Hans Bender and two Max Planck Institute physicists began investigating the case.
After installing cameras and voice recorders they were able to discover that the phenomena only occurred when 19-year old Annemarie Schneider (a recently employed secretary) was present. You can see her in the left picture, looking at a dish flying in mid air (you can make it out if
once she entered the office and how a lamp shade would swing violently when Ms Schneider walked beneath it.
After questioning Ms Schneider, they found out that she was going through a difficult time due to a personal relationship turned wrong. Once the secretary was sent on vacation the poltergeist activity stopped. Annemarie Schneider was dismissed from the company when the infestations began anew after she had returned from her vacation. There are no records of any further infestations after that.
Interesting, as usual. What did critics say?
The usual things. That “the incident of all the lights blowing may suffer from some degree of exaggeration and is hardly unusual”, that lights may well flicker in case of changes in the voltage, that desk drawers “often appear to roll out on their own, especially when the desk is sat on imperfect flooring” and that “photocopiers are hardly unknown to be unreliable”. Also, we only have Adam's word that he held the only key to the phone system and – critics say – he may well be telling the truth, but “a trouble maker in the office (potentially the centre of the disturbances, Ms Schneider) may have made a surreptitious copy”.
Let me be frank here. Personally, I think all that is nonsense. “Rational” explanations may account for the isolated freak accident, but thinking that such an incredible cluster of inexplicable events would occur over a relatively short time span by chance is – as I said – nonsense.
And so?
So, like in many other cases, the only explanation that I consider realistic is fraud. And, once more, I leave it up to your own judgment. Think of the motives of Ms Schneider – what would she stand to gain? Remember that she was even dismissed… And think: could she organize all this by herself?
Impossible, isn’t it? She should enlist her lawyer employer, and the other colleagues in the law firm.
And all that conspiracy should be able to fool for weeks on end the police, the phone company, the electricity company, plus two physicists from an institution that the Times Higher Education Supplement ranked number 1 in the world in 2006 among non-university research centres. Before stopping for a moment to reflect, re-consider the quote from one of them, Dr. Karger, that I gave you in the beginning.
***
Now we can turn to another quite extraordinary story, which appears to involve a “distinct personality Poltergeist” and, as I said earlier, adds to the load of evidence in support of the survival hypothesis. First, however, I have to introduce you to whom I consider the single most important personality we’ll encounter in our conversations.
Professor David Fontana is a Ph.D. in psychology, and is currently Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Cardiff University in South Wales, Great Britain, and Professor of Transpersonal Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University, also in Great Britain. In addition he has held invited professorships at the Universities of Minho and of Algarve in Portugal.
He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, a Chartered Psychologist and a Chartered Counselling Psychologist and the author of 26 books on psychology translated into 25 languages. I consider Professor Fontana so important because one of his books (Is There an Afterlife? A Comprehensive Review of the Evidence, O Books, 2005) is the first (and could well have been the only) book I ever read on the subject.
In the book (a hefty 575 pages), Prof. Fontana, who is a long standing member of the Society for Psychical Research, for which he served as
Chairman of the Survival Committee, demonstrates an absolutely encyclopedic knowledge of the subject and a cautious, open-minded skeptic attitude that wins the reader over from the very first pages.
As you would expect, Is There An Afterlife? devotes one chapter to Poltergeist. Much of the chapter is used by Prof. Fontana to provide an account of the absolutely stunning three-month investigation he was asked to carry out at a very ordinary location – a workshop for the repair of lawnmowers adjacent to a gardening shop in Cardiff, Wales, UK.
The account begins with Fontana arriving at the workshop for the first time. Upon entering it, he sees the owner, John Matthews, and a visiting salesman. The salesman is sitting on some low boxes with his hands on his knees, whereas John Matthews is standing near some machinery when all of a sudden, even before the Professor could introduce himself, a loud 'ping' is heard as a stone, apparently materialized in flight out of thin air, hits the machinery. Mr. Matthews does not appear to be fazed at all by the projectile and even calmly said to Fontana “There you are, he's welcoming you.”
John Matthews and the salesman went on to tell Fontana that even though they were originally skeptical, they had seen enough for them to believe that something paranormal was behind it all.
Matthews had become so used to the activity, he had even named the unseen force 'Pete'.
Matthews told Fontana that the activity had started with Pete throwing large stones onto the roof of a shed in which John and one of his workmen were watching rugby one Saturday afternoon. Since then, the stone throwing had become so frequent that the police were called in on a number of occasions to catch the suspected culprits who, at the time, were thought to be some of the local youths. So far the police had been unable to find anyone responsible.
Mr. Matthews told Fontana that odd things had occurred inside the workshop too, including stones, bolts and even coins being thrown against the walls or being found scattered about the floor. If this was not enough, objects were said to fall from the ceiling or just appear on the work surfaces, such as pens, keys and coins. Tools were said to swing for no apparent reason; a blue case had been thrown violently around the room and planks of wood that are far too heavy to be thrown by hand had been hurtled through the open door of the workshop.
Mrs. Matthews, whilst sitting on the toilet, had stones thrown at the toilet door, dust had been stuffed down Mr. Matthews collar and loud knocks had been heard coming from the windows even when no one had been visible outside. Most frequent of all was the movement of small floats used in the carburetors of the lawnmowers in the workshop for repair.