By Brad Steiger
Artwork By Ricardo Pustanio
Harry Price, the British journalist-psychical researcher, devoted much of his life to an examination of the poltergeist phenomenon. His Polter?geist over England (1945) is a classic study of the wide range of poltergeist activity, and many of his articles have served as references for other writers in the field of paranormal inquiry, including myself (Strange Guests, Anomalist Books, (2006).
As might be expected, Price received accounts of poltergeist activity from all over the world, and it appears that he was in the process of writing a much larger work on the poltergeist at the time of his death on April 24, 1948. Price's letters and notes regarding this particular phe?nomenon went to the well-known British clairvoyant, John Pendragon, who had assisted in the research at Borley Rectory (once called the most haunted house in England) and who would later serve as the subject of one of my books (Pendragon, 1968). When Pendragon passed on in January, 1970, I learned that he had made me his heir and that his solicitors had bundled up stacks of Harry Price?s research papers and posted them to me.
I felt incredibly honored by such an inheritance, for the ?ghost hunter? heroes of my early days of research were Hereward Carrington, Dr. Nandor Fodor, Sir William Crookes, William James, Sir Oliver Lodge, Fredric W.H. Myers, and Harry Price.
For those serious investigators of our plastic reality, I am pleased to share herewith selections from the dozens of letters Harry Price received in regard to his inquiries regarding psy?chokinetic and haunting manifestations:
From Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, British Malaya {Malaysia}:
Some European girls whom we know rang us up one evening to say that peculiar things were happening in their house--knives and spoons wouldn't stay on the table; potatoes and onions kept leaping out of their box; wooden clogs were thrown at people. We all went down to investigate that evening, and after a number of days, we are all entirely convinced that there is no hoax, but that this is a genuine poltergeist case.
I have myself seen with my own eyes. and am prepared to swear on any oath, that the following occurred: 1.) A round Stone about an inch in diameter dropped from a completely bare ceiling; 2.) a piece of glazed tile fell out of a tiled roof; 3.) a knife flew past my face when I was the only person in the room; 4.) several potatoes and onions leapt out of a wooden box and rolled across the floor.
The medium, or whatever you wish to call it, of all the manifestations seems to be the Malay maid, as she is always around when these things happen. She has only recently been engaged, and before she came, nothing was reported. All the skeptical policemen who have investigated, and myself, are quite convinced that this is not a put-up job. I have so often read of these things that it is fascinating to have first-hand acquaintance with them, and to be convinced, as I am, that such things do happen by some agency or power that one cannot at present explain.
Withdrawal route taken by the Carrier Platoon - 8th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment
From a major in the British Army who during April, 1940, had been billeted in a small farm about five miles west of Orchies, near Douai, France:
One evening during the last week of April--I am unable to remember the exact date--I was Duty Officer and, as was the custom, I visited the posts along the France-Belgian frontier. Shortly after midnight I arrived back at the farm. It was a very bright moonlight night, and as I had walked back I had noticed the complete absence of any wind or noise.
I undressed ... opened the windows and shutters (along the narrow windowsill were my shaving and washing kit), then I put out the oil lamp and got into bed.
Within a very few minutes I suddenly heard a sound that appeared to be human hands fumbling along the outside wall of the farm toward my window, but no sound of footsteps, although the road was cobbled.
Nearer and nearer came the sound. I lay back watching the window, not knowing what to expect. Then the sound stopped and slowly a dark shape, the head and shoulders of a very small but broad human being, appeared over the windowsill, silhouetted against the bright moonlight background. No features were visible and not a sound could be heard.
By now I had decided that the only action to be taken was to attack. As I moved to leap out of bed, the form disappeared. Then with a crash, the windows and shutters closed, throwing my washing utensils onto the floor. I threw myself out of bed and with all my strength threw open the windows and shutters and brought my fists down against the outside of the house. They hit nothing but the wall.
Within a matter of seconds I was outside the front door accompanied by the dogs. As I looked around, I felt the dogs close up to my legs. They were whimpering and hugging my feet. They were as scared as I was.
I was the only witness to this occurrence, but there are three things which I feel need some explanation: 1.) Why did I not hear footsteps on the cobbles--if it was a human being? 2.) What force could close the shutters? 3.) What scared the dogs'
In my own mind I know that this form was not human, but I can give no explanation to what it was.
The major also presented Harry Price with a second account, that of a drinking glass which had appeared out of nowhere to explode over a table on which he and other officers were studying a map.
No one was injured, although we were all somewhat surprised. On investigation, the following facts were found :
1.) Fragments of the glass were scattered not only all over the table but also all over the floor directly under the table. 2.) The only fragment of any size was from the base of a glass which was not the type of glass that we had on the sideboard. How did the fragments get under the table? Where did the glass come from?
******
From a woman in Stalbridge, Dorset, England, who had been beset by ghostly phenomena since, as a child of eleven, she would awaken to become aware of a small child lying beside her:
Early in February, 1940, I awoke to the sounds of the most terrific bangs on my bedroom door. I called out, "Who is there?" A short silence, then another set of dreadful bangs. I quite thought the door would give way.
I opened it expecting to face a burly ruffian. Instead, all was calm and serene, and not a soul to be seen. I am not particularly nervous, but that did upset me, and in fact, made me ill. For some time afterward I slept downstairs, but eventually returned to my old quarters ....
One day last year, five of my windowpanes were badly cracked at about the same time, with nothing whatever to account for it.
On another occasion, I took a ring off my finger whilst in the kitchen, dropped it, heard it run over the linoleum, and after giving a spin, come to rest behind the door. But when I went to pick it up, I could not find it. Many weeks later, on going to my dresser cupboard to get a tall tin from an inner corner of the lower part, I found my ring reposing behind it.
That cupboard was closed when I dropped the ring. Even if it had been open, there is a deep ledge along the bottom of it which the ring would have had to jump over and then get into that far corner behind the big tin, which nearly reached the shelf above it. And even now I can distinctly recollect hearing the ring roll across the floor and give a spin before coming to rest behind the door.
From Worcester, England, the recollections of a woman who had lived with an aunt and her family while they were under siege by a poltergeist::
When I was about thirteen the whole household became disturbed as a result of extraordinary rappings on the windows of the house. Queer noises, shufflings, etc. were the terror of my young life.
The rappings on the windows and showers of stones apparently hurled in handsful from without never seemed to have been connected by the family with myself. The young daughter of the house seemed to be favoured by these attentions, as they usually happened in a room where she was present and usually when she was alone.
We all heard the rappings; indeed, they were so violent one could not have failed to hear them, even though one might not actually be in the particular room where the demonstration was taking place.
For many years I did not experience anything of the same character, until, in 1913, I went to live in a large house near the Station in Mayfield, Sussex. There we were worried by sounds like deep breathing under door frames, doors constantly being slammed, a barking dog we could never trace, and sounds suggesting the upheaval of large pieces of furniture in the attics, which were devoid of any furniture.
The letters go on, stacks of them, from men and women in all walks of life. There is an extremely long report from MacKinlay Kantor, who would one day win a Pulitzer Prize in literatute, telling of a baffling poltergeist case in his home town of Webster City, Iowa.
Among the letters are theories from learned individuals suggesting various approaches to a more complete understanding of the poltergeist phenomenon.
One of the questions that I am most interested in answering is whether these breaches of our physical laws can be accomplished through mental effort --either conscious or unconscious--or if the physical organism is no more active in its participation in the process than are the chunks of ice, stones, and crockery that appear to drop from the sky.
The temptation is to personify the poltergeist force and to endow it with attributes of intelligence. Traditionally, the poltergeist was thought to be a rather nasty, disembodied spirit. The word itself is German for "noisy ghost,? ?throwing ghost.? But it seems that the poltergeist is most often ?born? when some aspect of the human personality is being denied more accepted ave?nues of expression.
The raw energy of the sex changes that occur during puberty and the sexual adjustments of the marital state have often been identified as hav?ing somehow provided the impetus for the peculiar psychokinetic dis?charge responsible for poltergeist activity. Many "psi" researchers have observed that more often a girl than a boy is at the center of poltergeistic disturbances, and that the sexual change of puberty is associated with either the beginning or the termination of the phenomena.
Since all these letters to Harry Price are circa 1947, I found it interesting that a young doctor from London would boldly present an explanation for the poltergeist that included its interaction with the "psycho-physiological phenomena of sex": ?It is, of course, exceedingly difficult to make experiments on these things, as human material is not exactly forthcoming; but so far, I am satisfied scientifically on at least one important point, which is, of course, common knowledge, namely that in the orgasm, both of male and female, very large amounts of energy are used; and this, I think, has a significant bearing on the subject of poltergeist mediums.
?The difference between the boy and the girl at puberty is that the boy actually has ?wet dreams,? or else masturbates himself, thereby using up his sexual energy, if I may so term it; but the normal girl does not have intercourse, or orgasms in any form, so that the sexual energy is latent, though present, and this latent sexual energy ... (is) ... large enough even (if all used at once) to move heavy objects, which the ordinary somatic physical strength of one man could not do.?
This frustrated desire to more fully express one's self, combined with the chemical changes taking place in marital or sexual adjustment, then may literally explode into violent, unrestrained psychokinetic activity.
It may be startling to consider the mind capable of bursting free of its three-dimensional bonds and utilizing specialized talents that know vir?tually no limits. The poltergeist seems to offer measurable proof of the mind's limitless creative capacity, but the tragedy is that the poltergeist phenomena represent a perverted, uncontrolled aspect of this ability.
The perverse talents of the poltergeist range from the tossing of pebbles to the manufacturing of disagreeable odors. Poltergeists throw things, break windows, and can even cause fires. But, as one investigator commented, "The phenomena are exactly such as would occur to the mind of a child or an ignorant person."
If the poltergeist is provided with enough psychic energy to develop a voice or the ability to communicate by raps or automatic writing, its communications are usually nonsensical, ribald, or downright obscene.
Author Sacherverell Sitwell observed that the poltergeist appeared always to direct its power toward "the secret or concealed weaknesses of the spirit ... the obscene or erotic recesses of the soul. The mysteries of puberty, that trance or dozing of the psyche before it awakes into adult life, is a favorite playground for the poltergeist."
Why the baser elements of the human subconscious should find their ex?pression in the poltergeist has been a matter of great speculation among psi researchers. Why shouldn't our noblest instincts be projected too? Physical violence is often directed toward the unconscious energy center of the phenomena, and a parent, a spouse, or a sibling may come in for his or her share of the abuse as well.
Because of the poltergeist's general low-level activities, the uncon?scious energy center, as well as his or her family, will generally declare the manifestations to be the work of some demonic, external agent. On the other hand, the question of external intelligence somehow interacting with the unconscious agent of poltergeist activity is difficult to resolve. Many percipients of poltergeist phenomena have reported seeing gro?tesque, gargoylelike entities that they felt were in some way associated with the haunting. Whether these beings are externalized projections of the agent's unconscious may be debated extensively--and, at present, inconclusively.
It may be well within the creative power of the human psyche to materialize other voices, other personalities, and junior psyches. (Isn't this what novelists and playwrights do quite "normally"?) If a poltergeist can manifest voices and forms, as well as pebble-throwing and crockery-smashing, then we are still talking about the human mind shaping a lively piece of our plastic reality. But if a poltergeist is an entity possessing an intelli?gence independent of the agent, then the noisy ghost is indeed "feeding" upon its medium's psychic and sexual energies and using a human agency to implement whatever purpose it may have
http://www.hauntedamericatours.com/ghos ... eality.php
