Poltergeists
Boo!
No,
but, yeah, but, no, but seriously. The Poltergeist phenomenon has been around
for quite some time. In fact it has been around for centuries and from all
around the world, including various cultures. The characteristics associated
with poltergeist activity may not have always been known by the name we use
today, but records that date back, long into the distant past have referred
to the specific characteristics we now call poltergeist activity but believed
at the time to be the work of demons and evil spirits.
Characteristics of the poltergeist are many and these include:
- Sounds – banging, knocking, thuds.
- Temperature changes – both hot and cold.
- Changes in atmosphere – breezes, being watched.
- Smells – offensive odours or just unusual.
- Levitations.
- Doors slamming.
- Lights and electrical items switch on and off.
- Water appears from nowhere.
- Fires ignite and extinguish.
- Furniture moves or is stacked.
- Objects are thrown across the room or disappear.
- Sightings of vague apparition-like forms.
- Personal injury from attacks or thrown objects.
- It often centres on a particular individual.
- It is usually temporary, from hours, days to a year or so.
This list doesn’t cover all of the characteristics but it gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect. Although there are only a few recorded incidents of terrible injuries to people, they do happen. Most of the time though, it tends to be a show for the horrified audience.
There is some debate into the true translation of the German word poltergeist, but it is generally considered to mean, a noisy or mischievous ghost or entity. What sets the poltergeist apart from your average ghost is the haunting aspect itself. The difference between a haunting and a poltergeist is pretty straightforward. A haunting tends to be a spirit or ghost that remains in a specific place or building whereas a poltergeist tends to centre itself on a specific person, also known as an agent. So when that person goes anywhere, the activity continues to occur wherever they may be.
There has been a phenomenal amount of research into the poltergeist and the general conclusion attributes the reason ‘mostly’ to teenage girls who maybe going through a personal trauma that results in R.S.P.K. or Recurrent Spontaneous Psycho Kinesis. Simply put, this means the poltergeist is not an external spirit, but an internal manifestation of stress and anger or other kind of internal repressed emotion. Eventually the agent expresses these repressed emotions in the form of psycho kinetic energy that causes the classic bangs, crashes and objects being thrown. While this is happening, the agent is unaware that it is actually they who are causing the disturbance and therefore reacts to the situation with as much shock as anyone else would.
Although this is a generally simplified answer to poltergeists, there have been recorded cases of activity where all of the persons involved have no underlying issues, are not teenagers or even female. These cases are not that rare but are considered to be a minority. Additionally, some of these cases tend to be more dangerous because it is believed there is some supernatural influence behind it.
Researchers have graded poltergeist activity in to five levels, these are;
- Level 1 involves the senses. You may hear strange sounds
or whispers, you may feel as though something is watching you or you can
sense hot or cold spots.
- At the next level you may experience unusual smells, loud
noises or sudden breezes for no obvious reason.
- At this level things become more physical such as lights
and appliances being switched on or off, and the opening or closing of doors.
- When it gets to this level you’ll find objects begin
to move, disappear from one place to turn up in another or they are thrown
down.
- Should this level be reached then you could be in danger of being punched, slapped, bitten, scratched or pushed around - sometimes strong enough to throw you across the room.
If you believe you have a poltergeist then don’t feel afraid seek help. Expert help should be free so seek out experienced paranormal groups for advice. Genuine groups will not charge, mainly for the experience, but also to research the phenomenon and help the agent.
Genuine
treatment may involve counselling, interviewing family members who are affected
by the activity and finding the source of the stress trigger. As this can by
quite a psychologically harrowing experience, it is only to be expected that
further psychological damage could be caused if the situation is not handled
correctly, driving the problem deeper, or manifesting itself in other ways.
Family members conflicting, hormonal changes, sexual repression and many other
reasons depending on the age and sex of the person involved could trigger poltergeist
activity. Once all possibility of psychokinetic energy and troubled people
being the cause has been ruled out, what does that leave you with? Demons or
spirits?
Not all poltergeist activity is as initially believed. One such case in the study of the Enfield Poltergeist in the late 1970’s. It was reported that a family was plagued by paranormal activity and this in turn attracted a lot of attention. A reporter from the Daily Mail said that this activity warranted further investigation. The Daily Mail contacted the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) where an investigator called Maurice Grosse conducted an intensive investigation that lasted around 5 months.
In that time many unusual things happed and Grosse was completely convinced by phenomena such as cold breezes, shallow pools of water appearing on the floor, and fires that spontaneously ignited and extinguished themselves. However, on a number of occasions the children involved were caught faking activity which then threw the investigation off track. As soon as fraud is discovered, credibility is immediately lost. Incredibly though, there was apparently some genuine phenomena which could not be explained and this was eventually admitted in later interviews. The children admitted faking activity to see if they would be caught out by the investigators but were adamant that most of the activity was genuine. A year or so later activity had ceased and has never occurred since. So was this a ‘spirit’, ‘externalised psycho kinetic energy from the young girl’ or completely faked?
So, as much as science has tried to explain the poltergeist, it hasn’t completely satisfied the question of its existence. It has shown that there are a number of similarities between cases that has lead to successful treatment and thus eradication of the activity, but there are also a number of cases that defy the tick boxes and add further mystery to the phenomena. Perhaps the poltergeist has been mistakenly categorised. There maybe evidence to support the theory that psychokinetic energy laden teenage girls are the cause of poltergeist activity but coincidently, it may also be a mischievous spirit who just so happens to reflect the effects displayed by psychokinetic outpourings.
Whatever happens, the poltergeist phenomena is an interesting one and those who witness it are either very lucky, very frightened or in danger. Whichever one you are, good luck and tell me all about it.
Further Reading
Web
Books
Loyd Auerbach. Ghost
Hunting, How To Investigate The Paranormal. Ronin Publishing Inc. 2004
Joshua P. Warren. How To Hunt Ghosts. Fireside, 2003