Ghosts Or Poltergeists?

Poltergeist (1982) "They're here." At first, the ghosts haunting the Freelings' new home seem playful, rearranging furniture and interfering with their TV reception. Then, little Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke) is abducted into their netherworld, and her parents (Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams) fear they may have lost their child to specters with more malevolent intentions.

It is only in the past fifty years or so that poltergeist activity has been traced to psychokinesis, or PK energy emanating from a human agent. Before that, poltergeist incidents were usually thought of as ghost hauntings. However, as William Roll writes in The Poltergeist, there are distinct differences between ghosts and poltergeists.

Ghostly disturbances can generally be divided into either of two groups: haunting and poltergeist phenomena.... In general, poltergeist incidents are connected with an individual, while hauntings seem to be connected with an area, usually a house. Physical disturbances predominate in poltergeist incidents, hallucinatory experiences in hauntings. These experiences, which may include seeing ghosts and hearing footsteps, are called hallucinatory because they are generally expericnced by some persons and not by others....

Haunting occurrences may also involve physical disturbances, but these instances are generally less frequent and violent than in poltergeist cases. However, hauntings tend to stretch over longer periods of time. Poltergeist disturbances are usually of fairly short duration, rarely lasting more than a couple of months, while a haunting may go on for years. As a rule, there seems to be no (living) person around whom haunting incidents revolve.

Scientists have provided answers to many of the world's mysteries. They have cured diseases that have cursed humanity for millennia, manipulated human DNA, and sent spacecraft to circle the rings of Saturn. There are some mysteries, however, that have escaped scientific explanation. In the realm of the supernatural there are still few solid facts known about the sources of poltergeist activity.

While the causes of this supernatural phenomena are unknown, the effects of poltergeists have been well documented for hundreds of years. As long ago as the twelfth century, Reginald of Durham, an English monk also known as St. Goderic, was said to witness poltergeist phenomena. Stones rained down inside Reginald's humble apartment, furniture and other objects were hurled about by invisible forces, and a container of wine flew through the air and poured itself over his head. At the time, the common belief was that these disturbing events were caused by rambunctious ghosts or other demonic creatures who either acted alone or worked through possession of innocent victims. By the fourteenth century, these destructive, malicious ghosts in Germany were called rumplegeists - rumbling or jostling spirits. Because their alleged activities were often loud and disruptive, sixteenth-century religious reformer Martin Luther labeled the ghosts "PolterGeister," or noisy spirits. Oddly, while the word is in widespread use in English-speaking countries, it is not used today in Germany, where a poltergeist is known as a "spuk," or spook.

Whatever they are called, poltergeists have been blamed for a wide range of bizarre pranks including breaking objects, provoking spontaneous fires and floods, whipping up strong winds on a calm day, and even placing excrement in food or on walls. Some have even said they were pinched, bitten, hit, or sexually assaulted by poltergeists. Such activities are known to start and stop abruptly, as opposed to more "normal" ghostly activity that can continue for decades or even centuries. Sometimes the activity lasts only for a few hours or days; other times it can continue off and on for several years.

Stories of troublesome ghosts are common to every age and culture. Sometimes these spirits are said to appear in visible form, as fog, light, or ghostly images of the formerly living. However, one particular category of spirit, the poltergeist, almost always remains invisible. These entities make their presence known by creating commotion, throwing objects, making cacophonous noises, starting fires or floods, or emitting odd, sometimes repulsive, smells. For centuries, these bizarre events were blamed on confused ghosts who did not realize they were dead and tried to return to living bodies. By crashing about between this world and the afterlife, these apparitions purportedly generate chaos, as Herbert Thurston writes in Ghosts and Poltergeists: "[Poltergeists] enter houses and turn everything upside down, doing more mischief in an hour than a thousand monkeys would do in a day."

For reasons unknown, in most cases such pandemonium seems to take place in the presence of a specific person, often a child, adolescent, or teenager. In past centuries it was believed that this may have been a result of witches casting spells on young people to curse their families. In more recent years, with the belief in witchcraft fading, some paranormal researchers believe that children are involved because poltergeists are unable to manifest their existence without what author A.R.G. Owen calls a "human focus." Those who subscribe to this theory believe the poltergeists might be disembodied spirits using human agents as "mediums" to incarnate, or give themselves human form.

Other believers in the human agent theory say that certain individuals can create poltergeist phenomena without the presence of a ghost. They say the movement of objects, rapping, and other phenomena are traced to the agent's "astral" body, an invisible "energy" body said to reside within a person that can move about independently as the "real" body stays behind. As Owen writes, "Poltergeist activities [may be] carried out by some invisible emanation, [an] `astral body' or roving `personality fragment' [that can break] off from the body or psyche of the poltergeist focus."

Some paranormal researchers trace poltergeist activity to psychokinesis, or PK energy. This is a powerful blast of energy that is emitted, often unconsciously, from the mind, brain, or nervous system of a human agent. While this energy may be strong, it is uncontrollable; hence the chaotic results. This energy is often traced to adolescents who are under severe emotional stress. According to Gauld and Cornell, "[repressed] sexual feelings, repressed aggression, `family tensions,' and hysteria have all been proposed, and ... there is quite a lot of evidence to implicate plain fright.... I have not heard it claimed that a surfeit of happiness may cause a poltergeist outbreak." Whether a believer says poltergeist activity is from PK energy, astral bodies, or malicious ghosts or witches, no one has been able to explain how the basic laws of physics are sus pended or reversed when large objects float or fly through space.

It is a common notion among parapsychologists that poltergeist events can be traced to teenagers who may be utilizing psychokinesis, or PK energy, to move objects. There are those who believe, however, that human agents of poltergeists are possessed by supernatural agents, and their bodies and actions are controlled without their consent.

Poltergeist possession is said to be a terrifying experience both for the victim and the friends and family of the possessed. Those said to be possessed by poltergeists are often troubled by severe headaches, insomnia, buzzing in the ears, hallucinations, and even insanity. They might utter strange, unintelligible sounds in voices not their own. Other symptoms include levitation, or floating into the air, and regurgitation of strange objects such as feathers, leaves, and dirt. Although the victims have no control over these bizarre actions, they are often all too aware that the events are happening. Sometimes the trauma is so great, however, that the possessed will block out any memories and will remember nothing.

Most people instinctively run away from poltergeists, terrified by the peculiar and unexplainable activities. However, some are intent on finding answers to poltergeist hauntings, and instead of fleeing, they move into homes where such activities are taking place. In doing so they risk their own physical and mental well-being to help victims solve their ghostly dilemmas. While many of these paranormal investigators labor in obscurity, a few have become relatively well known, mostly from the books they have published about their activities.

Most researchers are not driven by a desire for fame but a need to prove with solid scientific evidence why poltergeist activities take place. These people, commonly referred to as psychic investigators, employ a variety of methods, both scientific and supernatural, in order to follow and trace the movements of poltergeists.

Poltergeist hunters either work for a fee or volunteer their services to those who believe that they are victims of mischievous hauntings. While there have always been scholars who investigated hauntings, the first people to call themselves ghost hunters began to appear in the nineteenth century when the fascination with apparitions was at its peak in the United States and Europe. Many of these people, then called spiritualists, were charlatans or fakers who staged poltergeist events using hidden partners, wires, and other tricks to create loud noises, make tables float, spread puddles on the floor, and so on.

In England there were so many such frauds in the poltergeist hunting business that, in 1882, the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) published official guidelines that legitimate ghost hunters were told to follow. This information is explained by Katherine Ramsland in Ghost: Investigating the Other Side: The SPR categorized possible [poltergeist] manifestations in terms of information received: noises, odors, physical contact, movement of an object, and appearances. They urged investigators to be open but skeptical, and to check everything. Sites had to be investigated under many conditions, during both the day and night. Maps are checked for things in the area that might be causing the apparent manifestation [such as underground sewers].... Then eyewitness accounts are recorded.

When poltergeists commit their mischief, the pandemonium is purportedly accompanied by rapping, screeching, popping, and other thunderous noises. It is also said that poltergeists may sometimes attempt to communicate to witnesses messages that are delivered, according to Bayless, in "[yells], screams, bellows, whistlings, whispers, laughs, sobs, grunts, and every imaginable sound possible."

In past centuries it was the rare poltergeist event that did not include a report of some sort of message delivered by the spirit. These were alleged to materialize from thin air or blast through a range of items including vases, flowers, and trumpets. Communication might be through a single word, a threatening sentence, a song, or endless paragraphs filled with bizarre lectures.

Some messages delivered by poltergeists have been clear and needed no interpretation. Oftentimes, however, the spirits are said to communicate with words that might be in an unknown language or simply in gibberish. Whatever the case, poltergeist voices seem to develop and change during the course of a haunting, according to Colin Wilson in Poltergeist: A Study in Destructive Haunting: Poltergeist voices ... do not sound like ordinary human voices; at least not to begin with. It seems as if the entity is having to master a strange medium, to form sounds into words. (Even the rapping noises are probably "manufactured" sounds, not genuine raps) made by hard objects. Most talking ... poltergeists begin in a guttural voice that sounds as if it is made up from grunts and groans; [in one case the spirit] made gasping, whispering noises more like an asthmatic cough. Gradually the voice developed until it was a low audible whisper. . . . [The voice] graduated from a whisper to a normal voice.... Then it began to use bad language - again a common characteristic of talking [poltergeists].

In some cases, mediums are summoned in order to interpret the words of the poltergeist, and possibly reply to the spirit's message. Mediums are so-called because they work between the earthly world and the world of spirits. To communicate with poltergeists, a medium voluntarily "channels" the spirit in order to allow it to possess his or her body. The poltergeist may then express its desires through the medium by speech or through a process called automatic writing in which the spirit takes control of the channeler to jot down words or pictures. Of course, throughout history, some dishonest mediums have been expert ventriloquists; that is they could speak without perceptible movement of the lips, "throwing" their voices so that the sounds seem to emanate from a different room. For those unfamiliar with ventriloquism, the effects could be startling.

As annoying and frightening as poltergeists can be, victims of hauntings are seldom injured. In the majority, of cases, poltergeists create their mischief and move on, leaving witnesses and researchers with dozens of questions and few answers. History is filled, however, with cases of poltergeists that bite, wound, scar, and even kill their victims. For reasons that defy explanation, these hostile spirits take great joy in tormenting until the victims are driven to insanity or death.

Compared to the overall number of poltergeist disturbances, those that involve assault are relatively uncommon. But as Gauld and Cornell write: "Uncommon, perhaps, but not unknown.... Sometimes poltergeists have been wildly, one might say insanely, violent and destructive." Stories about these vicious spirits have been told for thousands of years.

Stuart A. Kallen. . Lucent Books. January 31, 2005.

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