Poltergeists

[emmy]

Poltergeist activity is probably the most misunderstood form of paranormal activity. There appear to be two distinct poltergeist types - one connected to a classic haunting where the poltergeist activity is simply part of the ‘haunting’ - the ‘ghost’ may move things for instance. Secondly, where the activity is connected to a person or place and does not display any classic haunting elements.

The term poltergeist comes from the German words poltern, meaning to knock, and geist, which means spirit. Poltergeists cause physical disturbances from flashing lights to throwing objects around.

Poltergeist activity can manifest itself in a variety of ways - spontaneous fires, shyness whilst under investigation, levitation of people, general unease on behalf of the victim.

The most common types of poltergeist activities are rains of stones, and small objects; moving or throwing of objects, including large pieces of furniture; loud noises and shrieks; doors slamming; lights turning on and off; fires breaking out.

The activity almost always occurs at night or early evening when someone is present. Typically this is the an individual who seems to serve as a focus or magnet for the activity. Poltergeists are linked to a specific person or object. Poltergeists travel with The person or object they are attracted to.

History of Poltergeists

There were some cases of stone-throwing poltergeists in years 355, 530, 1138 and 1170.

The Cieza de Leon (1549) mentions that the cacique of Pirza, in Popyan, during his conversion to Christianity, was troubled by stones falling mysteriously through the air (the mysterious point was the question of whence they came, and what force urged them), while Christians saw at his table a glass of liquor raised in the air, by no visible hand, put down empty, and replenished!

There are several Chinese cases of poltergeist; and one case was from the 18th century, in Cochin China.

Willington Mill, near Morpeth (1831-1847), the phenomena are attested by the journal of Mr Procter, a Quaker. He and his family endured unspeakable things for sixteen years, and could find an explanation.of the sights and sounds, among which were phantasms of animals.

The Enfield Poltergeist

The case made the front page of the Daily Mirror and alos the radio. There were knockings on walls and floors happened on an almost daily basis, furniture moved of it's own accord across the floor, and threw itself down the stairs; objects would fly across rooms and bedsheets and blankets would get pulled off the beds; there were unexplained puddles of water appearing on the floor. After two years of activity, the events subsided.

Before the 19th century, poltergeist activity was blamed on the Devil, demons, witches, and ghosts of the dead.

In the 1930s the psychologist and parapsycologist Nandor Fodor advanced the theory that some poltergeist disturbances were caused not by spirits but by human agents suffering from intense repressed anger, hostility, and sexual tension. Since then most researchers in the field have based there beliefs and research on this idea. From my own personal experiences with ghosts and poltergeists I have to disagree with Nandor Fodor's idea. Maybe in some cases this is true, that some of this phenomenon maybe PK effects, But I am sure that not all cases of poltergeist activity can be blamed on angry adolescents. Poltergeists I feel are mainly ghosts. In some cases, the poltergeist can be driven out by religious & spiritual ceremony or by paranormal investigators.

Brazillian Poltergeist Case, 1959 - A family encountered a poltergeist in their home. There were many stones falling from nowhere, rolling on the floor, bouncing off the walls. None of the stones hit anyone. They also had kitchen objects flying around the house.

Go to My own Poltergeist Experience

Energy

Poltergeist energy is built up over time, then goes dormant and starts over again. It is not continuos like that of a regular ghost. Poltergeists can become dangerous to the living, inflicting both mental and physical terror sometimes. The poltergeist go through 5 stages of progression and then a period of quiet before starting over again. At each stage the energy levels increase making the poltergeist stronger. The duration of each stage can vary from days to years depending on the poltergeist.

The Stages of a Poltergeist

1: Senses - The activity mainly revolves around the five senses of the human body.

Cold spots, strange noises, hearing footsteps, pets running from rooms, feeling of being watched.

2: Communication - Strange noises and smells are more easily discernible and direct. - Whispers,moans,breezes in closed areas,marks on floors or walls.

3: Physical - The poltergeist make there presence known. - Appliances turning on/off, electric lights flashing, invisible hands touching people, doors opening and closing by themselves, strange knocks at doors and windows, windows opening/closing.

4: Tricks - It might seem like a harmless and playful entity, but it is really gathering knowledge of what people consider frightening, which it will use to inflict terror in the next stage and derive its energy from the fright. - Moving objects, flying objects, objects disappearing and reappearing elsewhere, shaking furniture, appearing as frightening entities, creating visions or illusions, speaking in ordering tones; windows, mirrors or other objects breaking for no reason.

5: Danger - The poltergeist has reached its highest energy point, and should be considered dangerous. Violent and threatening actions begin. After this stage, the poltergeist will go dormant and then begin the cycle again at the first stage. - Biting, slapping or punching people; animating objects; blood on walls, floors and ceilings, fires, attacks by unseen forces, flying knives or sharp objects, heavy objects falling. Threatening writings or visual signs of danger; onset of unknown medical illness.

[Althalus]

This is good emmy, thank you, i especially liked the history and the stages.

It is especially interesting to learn that poltergeists grow in power and then fade only to grow again, this would be indicative of a feeding state, as it feeds on energy.

[Ghostboo]

Very interesting stuff, Emmy. So, basically the poltergeist feeds off of fear? Pretty wierd. Though, I usually call poltergeists demons, I don't think they're very connected are they?

[Celumnaz]

I'm not going to say that some kind of spirit isn't responsible, but I've always thought First of the Hutchenson(sp?) effect.

John Hutchenson a long time ago got a bunch of electrical stuff, tesla coils among them, and plugged it all in to a normal wall socket. Left the stuff running for a while. And then. Boom. Wierd stuff starts to happen.

Things levitate. Machenery can fold on itself, talkin heavy metal here. Spoons will bend. Faucets will turn. Lights will be seen, cold spots. Things will catch on fire (papers on a desk). It tends to also damage the electrical equipment causing the effect. He can run this stuff for a week and nothing, or turn it on and everything. Basically, it causes poltergeist activity.

Then, it was found that Some of the houses where this activity occurs are around power lines, inverters and such. Some.

The others? I'm kinda thinking something geological... those ley lines or whatever you want to call them. Ground absorbs energy at a focal point and someone happens to be living on it. Or the magnetosphere or something like that.

Or some combination of what was said in above posts... I dunno, no scientist am I.

[Aslan]

I found your post very interesting, Celumnaz, so I went away and I did a little reading on the Hutchinson Effect.

While it certainly seems baffling and not a little eerie (if we accept that it's actually real) I dispute that

Basically, it causes poltergeist activity.

Firstly, there is no willfullness about the various phenomena. They are patently blind forces, they act randomly, sporadically and of course, to no purpose. While a poltergeist is often destructive - often alarmingly so - it seems to all intents and purposes to be an intelligence with something to prove. They can, I agree, produce some of the phenomena associated with the Hutchinson Effect, but largely they just don't. They don't fuse metals together, for example, or fuse dissimilar substances. More they seem to be childish, wanton in their destruction, petulant, whimsical and very often bitingly sarcastic. Read the case of the so-called Black Monk of Pontefract, or even the Enfield Poltergeist and you will see what I mean.

Secondly, you yourself point out that

He can run this stuff for a week and nothing, or turn it on and everything.

...which never seems to be the case with poltergeists. They develop, slowly, as if drawing power from some unsuspected temporal source. First scratching, then knocking, movement of objects, voices...and so on up. It's never day one things are levitating, catching fire, warping or what have you. Try the case of Ballechin House, or the Hydesville poltergeist (ridiculed of late, I know, but actually very interesting. Even the Borley Rectory haunting followed this pattern more or less, although I don't suppose you could claim it was only a poltergeist.

And thirdly, the Hutchinson effect produces largely only physical phenomena. I couldn't find anything about cold spots, for example, but I don't dispute it. Poltergeist often make themselves heard in one way or another, knocking, spaeaking - singing even. They can also show themselves. The Hutchinson effect can not produce a full phsyical manifestation. Again, the Black Monk is a good place to read about audile phenomena.

But that all said, I don't, of course, know nearly enough about the Hutchinson Effect to come any sane conclusion, and I don't dispute that it could cause certain poltergeist-type 'activity'...but if you read the Rosenheim case (which is now widely considered to have had a 'natural' though largely inexplicable explanation) and then read about any of the cases I have suggested above, you will see what I mean. The former could certainly have been some type of Hutchinson Effect, while any of the latter are patently a different beast entirely.

[Celumnaz]

Wow, some of those stories are interesting!!!

It seems that some of that activity needed prompting, the idea had to be expressed and then the entity assumes the role?

The buildup nature of the thing reminds me of a battery... or a volcano...

Could it be (I'm just making this stuff up now... ) that the driving force of these are electrical in nature, and then fed motion through the thoughts/energy of people in the area? Not that it has a personality of its own but kind of like umm... not sure how to say my idea... Like a robot maybe? Or like electricity itself?

It will do random stuff or nothing, but place a human/animal with some electicity coming from its brain in the area and it will start to take form/act like the mind is dictating it? Like the black monk shaking it's "fist" at the lady telling it to go away, and then pretending to conduct her tune of "onward christian soldiers" all could've been projected thoughts acting out on an electrical grid.

Doesn't explain stuff like stones, water puddles, or dust coming from nowhere... except that matter and energy are related... spontaneous creation from energy? A type of teleportation naturally occuring?

I don't know, it's a stretch I'll agree that. I'm probably way off base. I may be safely ignored.

Electricity and power are some pretty wierd things tho.

Maybe it is an energetic spirit, evil in its intent. Hey, I believe that's just as plausible. Want to keep me ole mind open.

Hope I never have to witness it.

Wierd.

(thanks for the account references)

[Aslan]

Could it be (I'm just making this stuff up now... ) that the driving force of these are electrical in nature, and then fed motion through the thoughts/energy of people in the area? Not that it has a personality of its own but kind of like umm... not sure how to say my idea... Like a robot maybe? Or like electricity itself?

I think this is a very valid suggestion.

Have a look at the various ouija board threads that are probably still kicking around somewhere. You won't learn anything but you'll notice how all of this can be argued into the ground without any universally reasonable conclusion being reached.

I've said it before somewhere, but the reason I believe in ghosts and poltergeists and so on is just that 'disembodied intelligences' seems to fit the facts so much better than anything else. We could argue all year about the minutae of electrical fields, and PK, and extemporisation phenomenon (see Karl Jung) and whatever else, but the only thing to fit the facts, in my opinion, is that ghosts and poltergeists are actually what people have claimed them to be for thousands of years - dead people come back for some reason.

[PurpleStuart]

But you must also remember people 'humanise' events - "The computer just crashed again, it's doing it on purpose" etc. With any ghostly activity that is witnessed, people assume that 'something' is behind it as they can't believe it would just do it by itself and thereby add an intelligence to it, where there might not be one. I'm not saying your wrong, just that i believe that disembodied intelligences are the best fit solution - surely there would be far more evidence of intelligence if there was.

[Aslan]

I agree that people 'humanise' things - but firstly, people is such a broad and easily generic term to bandy about. People do this and people do that is such a common reaction to anything out of the ordinary, when in fact the people involved are often very intelligent, or very down-to-earth, or very sure-footed, or very phlegmatic, or very cynical. (Acually, the fact that we use the very term 'people' in this way (I do it too) seems to suggest that we are somehow beyond and above the foibles of the 'people' we are talking about - we would never be fooled by any of this mundane stuff.)

As to there being more evidence of intelligence if it was available, I think you're completely wrong. I think the evidence for 'intelligences' being behind a lot of what goes on is astounding. I sincerely doubt whether the kind of banal phenomenon that passes for much of 'ghostly' activity would have survived the scrutiny of most 'people' for as long as it has if there wasn't a fair proportion of things going on that just defy explanation.

Yes, disembodied intelligences are the best fit solution - I agree with that - but when it gets to the point when intelligent, bucolic witnesses are being told that they are either completey mistaken or not really clever to understand what was really happening, then I rebel.

I am a person (contrary to forum opinion) and I have seen a lot of things that it was very easy for me to dismiss as 'natural' - but if I did ever see something out of the ordinary I would know it, and I would be outraged if anybody suggested to me that I was humanising an everyday occurence.

[Exeter]

Aslan

I don't know how else to word this question but, have you ever seen a ghost or been in the presence of ghostly phenomena such as poltergeist activity? I don't ask this to start a debate with you. I'm simply curious as to what you may have seen or experienced regarding this topic.

[PurpleStuart]

I agree i was being very general, but as we aren't discussing a particular case i hope you'll forgive me.

Rereading my post, i've spotted a typo - it should read:

"I'm not saying you're wrong, just that i believe that disembodied intelligences aren't the best fit solution - surely there would be far more evidence of intelligence if there was. "

I would point out that i didn't mean to say (heres that 'p' word again ) people where humanising everday events, but attributing human aspects to unusual unexplained occurances.

I have seen/experienced several things that i can't explain, and i'm open to any explaination to what caused them, i too would be most upset if someone turned round and said what i was seeing was a mixture of imagination and an everyday event! But i wouldn't be upset either if there was a scientific explaination for this up until now unexplained occurance as opposed to a supernatural one - To be honest i believe that some day all the supernaural that does exist will be explainable in the words of science - i think too many people think that one outrules the other.

Hmm i'mrather tired - i hope that all lucid enough