Thoughts on Poltergeists from Harry Price February 27, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern , trackback
What do poltergeists like? Or, in more scientific terms, in what kind of environment do poltergeist phenomenon take place? Here is Harry Price, one of the most famous ghost hunters, with his views. Beach quotes this paragraph as part of a quest to understand what poltergeist phenomenon are. Price has the virtue here of concentrating in a paragraph a lifetime of interest and examination of the phenomenon. You can reject everything that Price believes and still find his data points intriguing: even if poltergeist is wishful thinking and fakery his impressions are still important in telling where this wishful thinking and fakery tends to crop up.
Poltergeists are domestically-inclined, and their chief haunts are private houses, comfortable homes, family circles (especially if a young girl is present), small houses in preference to large ones, and they prefer the country and quiet places to the town and noise. They are fond of farms, and can hardly keep away from rectories! And they love the homes of holy men. Poltergeists infest new homes as well as old, cottages have attractions for them, but they shun hotels and boarding-houses like the plague! Poltergeists like company – young company for preference. And they like girls better than boys, and if they are infesting a place one can be sure that the focus of the disturbances is in or near a girl’s bed…For every interference with a boy’s bed, there are a hundred girls’ beds disturbed. I think they are afraid of schools, even girls’ schools. Tombs and crypts have occasional – and morbid – interest for Poltergeists…
Can anything be made of this list? Price himself spends some time on the mysterious manner in which vicars and those with a religious vocation generally have (or seem to have) more ghostly experiences. Some thoughts: are these religious folk live in more ‘hauntable’ buildings (whatever that means); are they more open to the supernatural; are they more likely to have an interest in the supernatural; are they more likely to be literate and taken seriously (a bit like UFO societies favouring reports from ‘reliable witnesses’, particularly men in uniforms). Alternatively, as has been noted before on this blog, do very religious households create unusually contorted family lives.
In terms of buildings it is interesting that Price accepts the idea that new and old houses both host Poltergeists. The absence of boarding houses, and hotels – save the Shining hotel, of course – might be taken to mean that a house needs a sustained atmosphere created, in some way, by residents: but in a relatively small sample what can the absence of such places from Price’s list really mean?
The idea that poltergeists gather around children is a commonplace. Indeed, the only thing that this author knew about poltergeists before beginning his research (via the readers of this blog) was that children were often associated. There are perhaps very broadly five possibilities in the literature on poltergeists: (i) the connection with children is the invention of researchers; (ii) children are more likely to manipulate their environment in this way; (iii) the child creates an energy that they may or may not control; (iv) a family creates an energy, which nevertheless focuses on a child; (v) another entity (discuss, discuss…) uses the child’s energy. Beach is sometimes worried by these para-psychological explanations just because there is a danger that we are explaining such events with Freudianism-lite, just as our ancestors invoked God or house fairies. Note that as one correspondent pointed out that just as most poltergeist cases have children, most have adults…
Beach has also been struck by the beds. Price interprets this as proof that sexuality is somehow involved: Price had some uncomfortable tendencies where sex is concrned. Beach would just connect this with a sleep-like state: people who see fairies and demons are often in bed too. Again whether this is because a poltergeist energy is unleashed or because different perceptions and misperceptions are unleashed is anyone’s guess.
A final thought. Probably the only way to really get a grip on the poltergeist phenomenon is to head back to before it was recognized as a phenomenon in the mid late nineteenth century: when poltergeists were billed as demons, brownies, ghosts etc etc. It is these sources, because they are witnessed and written according to different formulae, that promise so much. For example, a common modern poltergeist phenomenon is the impression that something is broken (typically after a smashing sound), only for it to transpire that nothing was broken. If this rather unpromising phenomenon appears in pre-poltergeist texts then suddenly the common elements start to become rather more striking. As above this need not be explained by a paranormal clause but we come closer to an apparently human experience.
Any other thoughts on poltergeists: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
29 Feb 2016: Bruce T: I think you’ve answered your own question, Beach. The poltergeist is a modern day version of what would have been laid off on an offended or not properly propitiated household spirit in times past. Is it a spirit, of course not, but the phenomena has been around for a millennia. The only thing that changes is what the phenomena is believed to be caused by. My guess is the answer lies in pubescent children pushing for both freedom and attention from their parents and others as their hormones start boiling. Children of that age seem to be the common denominator and kids that age like to play tricks. Throw in a superstitious parent, grandparent, or neighbor to stir the pot about the “strange phenomena”, and you have a situation beyond the child behind it to control. What eleven year old is going to A) Have the guts to come clean about starting the mess? and B) Once it gains traction and adult reputations are involved, would anyone believe them? People tend to reach for the current explanation in these things, whether it be subconscious angst, ticked off hearth and home deities, or just your common witch.
Ruththeunstoppablycurious: Could be high-spirited (no pun intended) young girls living with overly religious, repressive, perhaps cruel-spirited, or even misogynistic, and possibly nasty minded old men. Something I have often noticed in religiously inclined men, or people. Especially ones who cannot understand or will not understand those who have a different outlook on life. You see that in a lot of religions nowadays and it makes you wonder if any of them are haunted, unless they choose to kill the young girls who might be the focus of the haunting, or whatever. Just a warning, you know, try to muffle those who are (again, no pun intended) high spirited or just different from the main stream belief, and things will break out eventually. Whether it’s a haunting or war, take your pick.
25 Mar 2016, Bruce T: I think you’ve answered your own question, Beach. The poltergeist is a modern day version of what would have been laid off on an offended or not properly propitiated household spirit in times past. Is it a spirit, of course not, but the phenomena has been around for a millennia. The only thing that changes is what the phenomena is believed to be caused by. My guess is the answer lies in pubescent children pushing for both freedom and attention from their parents and others as their hormones start boiling. Children of that age seem to be the common denominator and kids that age like to play tricks. Throw in a superstitious parent, grandparent, or neighbor to stir the pot about the “strange phenomena”, and you have a situation beyond the child behind it to control. What eleven year old is going to A) Have the guts to come clean about starting the mess? and B) Once it gains traction and adult reputations are involved, would anyone believe them? People tend to reach for the current explanation in these things, whether it be subconscious angst, ticked off hearth and home deities, or just your common witch.
25 Mar 2016, Alan L writes The first thing one notices about Harry Price’s list is that he has already decided what poltergeists are, as he presents them as conscious agents, with likes and dislikes. But any objective investigation of an unexplained phenomenon should follow the data, not assume that the answer is known in advance. That poltergeist phenomena are “parapsychological” rather than physical is an assumption, not an established fact, and what’s more, it explains nothing at all. Parapsychologists tend to refer to poltergeist phenomena as “Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis”, attributing them to a human agent. This is nonsensical in the absence of any clear scientific evidence of intentional psychokinesis. And there is the question of where the energy comes from: the human brain consumes about 20 watts, which is definitely not enough to move objects such as furniture. The energy must therefore come from an external source (objects moved by poltergeists are almost invariably described as warm or hot; this suggests a real physical phenomenon). Unexplained phenomena of all kinds have always been personified as conscious agents. Such “reasoning” gave us the gods of old and present-day myths of aliens. Somebody is killed by lightning? He was struck down by the god(s)! Strange lights in the sky? It’s aliens! Let’s look at some of Price’s statements:
– “Poltergeists are domestically-inclined, and their chief haunts are private houses, comfortable homes, family circles (especially if a young girl is present), small houses in preference to large ones.” If you replace the word “poltergeist” in the sentence above by “people”, the underlying fallacy becomes obvious. There is a blatant observational bias. Observations are made wherever observers happen to be, and people tend to spend most of their lives indoors (especially in cooler countries).
– “They prefer the country and quiet places to the town and noise.” No, there are well-documented urban poltergeists (Rosenheim, Enfield, etc.)
– “They love the homes of holy men.” Clergymen, by definition, believe in the supernatural, so this may be another source of observer bias. A poltergeist report does not necessarily refer to a real poltergeist.
– “Poltergeists infest new homes as well as old.” As I would expect in the case of a real physical phenomenon.
– “Poltergeists like company – young company for preference.” As I have pointed out in the past, although many poltergeist cases involve children, ALL poltergeist cases involve adults. In other words, any connection between poltergeists and children is fallacious.
– “If they are infesting a place one can be sure that the focus of the disturbances is in or near a girl’s bed… For every interference with a boy’s bed, there are a hundred girls’ beds disturbed. This sounds more like child abuse to me.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Of course it bloody well does! And poltergeist phenomena may well occur when there is no human observer. Is there any evidence of this? Please see below a freerepublic and a science-frontier post
25 Mar 2016: Barry writes ‘I can’t believe you are still looking for an answer to this question, or perhaps you are just trolling on the beach? 🙂 I would say there is nothing paranormal about poltergeists, that it is the uncontrolled flashing off of bio-energy. The cases all involve repressed or juvenile sudden rising of sexual or kundalini energy. The uncontrolled release of a blockage of this energy creates the phenomena. When one has practiced Qi Gong the existence of this Qi, prana, Reich’s orgone, bioenergy is no mystery as it is possible for anyone to learn to accumulate and manipulate it at will. It is absolutely real, and possible to feel the energy pass from the hand of a practitioner to the hand of someone who has no knowledge of this energy. When asked what they feel they always describe the sensation in exactly the same way. It would be interesting to know if there were any records of sensations in the room where the phenomena was happening, such as a rise in temperature and feeling of “electricity” in the air? In fact I have done numerous experiments with this energy using Reich orgone accumulators in the sprouting of various types of seeds. Seeds are impervious to the placebo effect, and the boost that seeds get under the effect of this energy is quite remarkable. When this life force is released in an uncontrolled manner it causes mischief.
