Poltergeist

Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}}

Artist conception of poltergeist activity claimed by Thérèse Selles, a 14-year-old domestic servant of the Todescini family at Cheragas, Algeria. From the French magazine La Vie Mystérieuse in 1911.

In German folklore and ghostlore, a poltergeist (Template:IPAc-en or Template:IPAc-en; {{#invoke:IPA|main}}; Template:Gloss or Template:Gloss) is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed. Most claims or fictional descriptions of poltergeists show them as being capable of pinching, biting, hitting, and tripping people. They are also depicted as capable of the movement or levitation of objects such as furniture and cutlery, or noises such as knocking on doors. Foul smells are also associated with poltergeist occurrences, as well as spontaneous fires and different electrical issues such as flickering lights.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

These manifestations have been recorded in many cultures and countries, including Brazil, Australia, the United States, Japan and most European nations. The first recorded cases date back to the 1st century.

Skeptics explain poltergeists as juvenile tricksters fooling credulous adults.

EtymologyEdit

The word poltergeist comes from the German language words {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Template:Gloss and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Template:Gloss and the term itself translates as Template:Gloss, Template:Gloss or a Template:Gloss.

Suggested explanationsEdit

HoaxEdit

Template:ParanormalMany claims have been made that poltergeist activity explains strange events (including those by modern self-styled ghost hunters), however, their evidence has so far not stood up to scrutiny.<ref>Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults: Legends We Live. Bill Ellis. 2001</ref> Many claimed poltergeist events have been proven upon investigation to be hoaxes.<ref>Hines, Terence. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 98. Template:ISBN</ref>

Psychical researcher Frank Podmore proposed the 'naughty little girl' theory for poltergeist cases (many of which have seemed to centre on an adolescent, usually a girl).<ref name= "Hall 1958">Dingwall, John; Hall, Trevor H. (1958). Four Modern Ghosts. Duckworth. pp. 13–14</ref> He found that the centre of the disturbance was often a child who was throwing objects around to fool or scare people for attention.<ref name= "Hall 1958"/><ref>Goldstuck, Arthur. The Ghost that Closed Down the Town: The Story of the Haunting of South Africa. Penguin Books. p. 275. Template:ISBN "Podmore advanced a 'naughty little girl' theory, suggesting that trickery accounted for nearly all poltergeist manifestations, and that the girls and boys who so often seemed to be the victims of poltergeists were actually pulling the strings."</ref> Skeptical investigator Joe Nickell says that claimed poltergeist incidents typically originate from "an individual who is motivated to cause mischief".<ref name="Nickell2012">Template:Cite book</ref> According to Nickell:

In the typical poltergeist outbreak, small objects are hurled through the air by unseen forces, furniture is overturned, or other disturbances occur—usually just what could be accomplished by a juvenile trickster determined to plague credulous adults.

Nickell writes that reports are often exaggerated by credulous witnesses.<ref name=NickellCSI>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Time and time again in other "poltergeist" outbreaks, witnesses have reported an object leaping from its resting place supposedly on its own, when it is likely that the perpetrator had secretly obtained the object sometime earlier and waited for an opportunity to fling it, even from outside the room—thus supposedly proving he or she was innocent.

Unsubstantiated claims:

Stockwell ghost (1772) - since 1825<ref>Hone, William. (1878 edition, originally published 1825). The Every Day Book. London: William Tegg. pp. 31-35</ref>
Ballechin House (1876)
The Enfield poltergeist claim (1977) - John Beloff, a former president of the Society for Psychical Research and Anita Gregory concluded that the claimants were playing tricks on the investigators.<ref>Clarkson, Michael (4 February 2006). Poltergeists: Examining Mysteries of the Paranormal. Firefly Books. p. 135. ISBN 978-1554071593. "Anita Gregory, of the Society for Psychical Research, who had spent just a short time at the Hodgson home, said the mysterious men's voices were simply the result of Janet and Margaret putting bed sheets to their mouths. In addition Gregory said that a video camera had caught Janet attempting to bend spoons and an iron bar by force and 'practising' levitation by bouncing up and down on her bed."</ref>
Columbus poltergeist case (1984)

PsychologicalEdit

A claim of activity at Caledonia Mills (1899–1922) was investigated by Walter Franklin Prince, research officer for the American Society for Psychical Research in 1922. Prince concluded that the mysterious fires and alleged poltergeist phenomena were because of a psychological state of dissociation.<ref>Colombo, John Robert. (2000). Ghost Stories of Canada. Dundurn. p. 43. Template:ISBN</ref>

Nandor Fodor investigated the Thornton Heath poltergeist claim (1938). His conclusion of the case was a psychoanalytical explanation and in a subsequent publication: "The poltergeist is not a ghost. It is a bundle of projected repressions,".<ref name="Timms 2012">Timms, Joanna. (2012). Phantasm of Freud: Nandor Fodor and the Psychoanalytic Approach to the Supernatural in Interwar Britain. Psychoanalysis & History. Volume 14: 5-27. <templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

claim for the recognition of a malevolent type of psycho-physiological disturbance, to which "haunted people" find themselves subjected...Nothing that is submitted in this book is believable{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries
}}

{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}</ref>

According to research in anomalistic psychology, claims of poltergeist activity can be explained by psychological factors such as illusion, memory lapses, and wishful thinking.<ref>Zusne, Leonard; Jones, Warren H. (1989). Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking. Psychology Press. p. 192. Template:ISBN</ref> A study (by Lange and Houran, 1998) wrote that poltergeist experiences are delusions "resulting from the affective and cognitive dynamics of percipients' interpretation of ambiguous stimuli".<ref>Lange, R; Houran, J. (1998). Delusions of the paranormal: A haunting question of perception. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 186 (10): 637–645.</ref> Psychologist Donovan Rawcliffe has written that almost all poltergeist cases that have been investigated turned out to be based on trickery, whilst the rest are attributable to psychological factors such as hallucinations.<ref>Rawcliffe, Donovan. (1988). Occult and Supernatural Phenomena. Dover Publications. pp. 377–378. Template:ISBN</ref>

Psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung was interested in the concept of poltergeists and the occult in general. Jung believed that a female cousin's trance states were responsible for a dining table splitting in two and his later discovery of a broken bread knife.<ref name="Wilson2010">Template:Cite book</ref>

Jung also believed that when a bookcase gave an explosive cracking sound during a meeting with Sigmund Freud in 1909, he correctly predicted there would be a second sound, speculating that such phenomena were caused by the 'exteriorization' of his subconscious mind. Freud disagreed, and concluded there was some natural cause. Freud's biographers maintain the sounds were likely caused by the wood of the bookcase contracting as it dried out.<ref name="Wilson2019">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>CG Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Flamingo 1983, pp 126, 179</ref>

Unverified natural phenomenaEdit

Attempts have also been made to scientifically explain poltergeist disturbances that have not been traced to fraud or psychological factors. Skeptic and magician Milbourne Christopher found that some cases of poltergeist activity can be attributed to unusual air currents, such as a 1957 case on Cape Cod where downdrafts from an uncovered chimney became strong enough to blow a mirror off a wall, overturn chairs and knock things off shelves.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In the 1950s, Guy William Lambert proposed that reported poltergeist phenomena could be explained by the movement of underground water causing stress on houses.<ref name="Wiseman 2011">Template:Cite book

Lambert, G. W. (1955). Poltergeists: A Physical Theory. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 38: 49–71.</ref> He suggested that water turbulence could cause strange sounds or structural movement of the property, possibly causing the house to vibrate and move objects. Later researchers, such as Alan Gauld and Tony Cornell, tested Lambert's hypothesis by placing specific objects in different rooms and subjecting the house to strong mechanical vibrations.<ref name="Wiseman 2011"/> They discovered that although the structure of the building had been damaged, only a few of the objects moved a very short distance. The skeptic Trevor H. Hall criticized the hypothesis claiming if it was true "the building would almost certainly fall into ruins."<ref>Dingwall, Eric; Hall, Trevor H. (1958). Four Modern Ghosts. Gerald Duckworth. p. 105</ref> According to Richard Wiseman the hypothesis has not held up to scrutiny.<ref name="Wiseman 2011"/>

Michael Persinger has theorized that seismic activity could cause poltergeist phenomena.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, Persinger's claims regarding the effects of environmental geomagnetic activity on paranormal experiences have not been independently replicated and, like his findings regarding the God helmet, may simply be explained by the suggestibility of participants.<ref name="French">Template:Citation</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

David Turner, a retired physical chemist, suggested that ball lightning might cause the "spooky movement of objects blamed on poltergeists."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Sampford Peverell (1810–1811) - poltergeistal noises were determined made by smugglers from behind a false wall<ref>Codd, Daniel. Paranormal Devon (2013). Amberley Publishing. p.30-34. Template:ISBN.</ref>

ParanormalEdit

Parapsychologists Nandor Fodor and William G. Roll suggested that poltergeist activity can be explained by psychokinesis.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Houran, James; Lange, Rense. (2007). Hauntings and Poltergeists: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. McFarland. p. 290. Template:ISBN</ref>

Historically, actual malicious spirits were blamed for apparent poltergeist-type activity, such as objects moving seemingly of their own accord.<ref>Goss, Michael. (1979). Poltergeists: An Annotated Bibliography of Works in English, Circa 1880–1975. Scarecrow Press. p. 92. Template:ISBN</ref> According to Allan Kardec, the founder of Spiritism, poltergeists are manifestations of disembodied spirits of low level, belonging to the sixth class of the third order. Under this explanation, they are believed to be closely associated with the elements (fire, air, water, earth).<ref>Allan Kardec, Le Livre des Esprits. (2000). chapter 106, Jean de Bonnot. p.46.</ref> In Finland, somewhat famous are the case of the "Mäkkylä Ghost" in 1946, which received attention in the press at the time,<ref>IS: Espoon poltergeist: Mitä tapahtui Mäkkylän kummitustalossa syksyllä 1946? (in Finnish)</ref> and the "Devils of Martin" in Ylöjärvi in the late 19th century, for which affidavits were obtained in court.<ref>Esko Mustonen: Poltergeist: tuntematon voima. WSOY 1986. Template:ISBN (in Finnish)</ref> Samuli Paulaharju has also recorded a memoir of a typical Template:Nowrapthe case of "Salkko-Template:Nowrapfrom the south of Lake Inari in his book Memoirs of Lapland (Lapin muisteluksia). The story has also been published in the collection of Mythical Stories (Myytillisiä tarinoita) edited by Lauri Simonsuuri.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>