By Gaëlle Guémas and Helen Lansley
Why have we chosen to write about this topic?
On 7th August 2017, a young man that we will call Eddie, posted the first of a long series of messages on Twitter, claiming that the ghost of a dead child who was trying to kill him was haunting his apartment. Since then he has been trying to prove the existence of the ghost by using photos and videos. Eddie has installed nanny cams that connect to the WIFI running 24/7. Some of the facts he reports are very disturbing: for several days, his two cats walked over to the door at midnight and stared at it, meowing… objects move by themselves… For a while now, the cameras have started to take photos of the ghost child, and Eddie’s posts have become more and more terrifying as they become more and more viral around the internet…
So, is this situation fake or real? Poltergeist phenomena have been reported for centuries. If many cases can be explained by science and others have turned out to be hoaxes some of them have never been definitively elucidated: the mystery remains. Nowadays, psychologists are interested in this phenomenon, trying to explain it as a parapsychic manifestation. The following article that we have chosen to summarize and criticize offers an overview of the psychological and scientific approach to poltergeist activity.
Article Summary
The word “ poltergeist ” comes from German and can be translated as “ noisy ghost ”. It is mostly associated with strange and rare phenomena occurring in a specific place or in the presence of a particular person. Disturbances commonly attributed to poltergeists are often tapping noises, moving and breaking objects with no seemingly rational explanation. Although reports of poltergeist activity are rare, scientists and serious investigators have been able to offer various explanations, such as poltergeist disturbances being caused by a psychic unconscious force or by not commonly known natural events.
For the historical aspect, poltergeist activity has been witnessed for a very long time. Indeed, some descriptions go back to 350 AD. A lot of cases were reported during medieval times. In that period, many unknown natural phenomena were misinterpreted and put down as the involvement of a ghost or a spirit. Although most of the descriptions lack information, there is one well documented case which occurred in France in 1526. A nun who lived in a monastery, Antoinette, seemed to be followed by a supernatural force, causing strange noises and “ bangs ” as well as the apparition in human figure.
The phenomena involved in poltergeist activity have been described by Gauld and Cornell (1969). To conduct their study, they closely investigated 500 poltergeist descriptions. Most commonly, poltergeist activity includes the movement of objects and tapping noises. In respectively 29% and 26% of cases, there is a human figure apparition or the hearing of a voice or a groan. The authors also closely looked at the quality of each description, quoting if they were first or second hand, the number of witnesses and the length of time between the event and the report. In their conclusion, they point out that some cases ought to be categorized as haunting phenomena instead of poltergeist activity.
The media mostly determine public attitudes towards poltergeists. A lot of movies, TV programs, newspapers and websites deal with the subject. Unfortunately, the information transmitted is inaccurate because the aim of the media is more about entertaining people than about informing them.
Some poltergeist cases have attracted a lot of media attention, such as Amityville, but these are not the best-documented events. Less known cases are much more interesting. For example, in 1960, Virginia Campbell seemed to be associated with anomalous phenomena happening all around her, but not caused by her. At school, her teacher and classmates witnessed moving objects and strange noises around the young girl. One of the most impressive objects to be seen moving was when her school desk started to rise up in the air. In 1995, in the Netherlands, a Turkish family kept being troubled by sand and stones which were thrown in (or into?) their house with no possible explanation. The police got involved and could not understand what was happening. Famous parapsychologists came from Germany and suggested psychological help for the family, as they thought that the phenomenon was due to family tensions.
A certain number of cases report a form of communication between people and the poltergeist’s “ knocks and bangs ”. Indeed, it appears that sometimes, the tapping sounds seem to be answering yes and no questions. For example, in 1848, a case was reported where the family received coherent answers to their questions with one knock for “ no ” and two knocks for “ yes ”. Another interesting case is described, where sir William Barrett, a well-known scientist, tested the Derrigonnely case by asking that a number of knocks be given accordingly to the number of fingers he had open in his jacket pocket. The correct number of knocks was given each time.
Studying poltergeists is a real challenge for parapsychologists. First of all, poltergeist activity is rare and often only lasts for a couple of days or weeks. Also, it is very difficult for scientists to raise money to study this phenomenon. Parapsychologists often find themselves involved with amateurs of the paranormal who spoil their work. Additionally, they must be aware of cases where witnesses are suffering from psychosis or are simply frauds.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, parapsychologists have been studying poltergeist activity in a more scientific way. William Roll discovered that the person around whom the phenomena seems to gravitate often suffers from repressed anger and distress. He proposes that the effects of these repressed feelings are a form of discharge of mental energy that cause the different phenomena described in poltergeist activity. He named this concept “ Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis ” (RSPK). Nevertheless, even if this hypothesis is accepted by almost the whole psychological community, they all agree to say that in some cases RSPK cannot explain the strange activity.
When it comes to theories around poltergeists, there happen to be two broad categories. One of them regroups natural and simple explanations, whereas the other one requires the involvement of forces we do not yet understand. In the first category we can find natural explanations such as fraud, misinterpretation and natural physical phenomena (seismic forces for example). This category also includes the findings of extended physics (commonly known as paraphysics), such as action at a distance, higher space, field theory and anthropomorphic theories. The second category suggests that in some cases, there really is a paranormal activity at work.
Critiques
This article called “ Poltergeist Overview ” was written in 2017 by doctor Barrie Colvin who is a member of the council of the Society for Psychical Research, the first organization to conduct scholarly research into exceptional experiences founded in 1882. What is interesting with this article is that it offers a global approach to poltergeist phenomena accessible to a novice of the subject. However, it does leave us unsatisfied, as we do not get into precise psychological analyses of poltergeists. Recent publications such as the book by parapsychologist Djohar Si Ahmed, Pour une psychanalyse des expériences exceptionnelles (2006), brings a new perspective on exceptional experiences. Considering the paranormal as a datum of psychic life, the author presents this unusual but fundamental aspect of human existence and shows the place of the unconscious in the genesis of exceptional experiences.
One of the interesting points of this article, is that it contains a lot of different examples of poltergeist cases around the world. Nevertheless, it would have been appreciated if a few more recent cases had been reported.
Parapsychology, which studies psychic phenomena, also known as “psi phenomena” such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis but also some types of events such as out-of-body experiences, poltergeists and reminiscences of past lives, was officially recognized as a legitimate field of scientific research by the American Academy of Sciences in 1969. It is also taught in many universities around the world. Despite all of this, parapsychology had always been a controversial subject. Many scientists have expressed doubts about the reality of psi phenomena and the legitimacy of this particular field of research. Indeed, if some consider that the paranormal does not exist, then why study it as an authentic scientific phenomenon? However, some scientists support parapsychology and a recent opinion piece published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience endorsed by 100 signatories calls for a more “open-minded” consideration of paranormal experiences.
