A current theory about poltergeist phenomena is that they represent brief, sporadic and large-scale manifestations of psychokinesis linked to a certain living individual, as opposed to a discarnate spirit. This article briefly examines the underlying basis for the theory, summarizing some of the psychological and neuropsychological aspects that have been associated with individuals found to be at the center of the phenomena.

Background

Poltergeists are characterized by a relatively short-lived series of anomalous physical disturbances that can include objects seeming to move about on their own and odd percussive noises – raps, knocks, snaps and thuds – that occur despite the absence of a clear physical source. Traditional interpretations tend to consider these phenomena as the mischievous actions of a discarnate spirit or demon, reflected in the historical use of terms such as ‘stone-throwing devil’ and ‘poltergeist’ (in German literally ‘noisy spirit’).1

However, some early observers noticed instances where the disturbances took place more often in the presence of certain living individuals. For example, although poltergeist disturbances occurring in the home of Francis Perrault, a minister living in France in 1612, were generally seen as demonic, it was also noticed that they became  particularly intense whenever his maid was present.2 In the early twentieth century this link began to receive more attention from psychical researchers, partly following an observation made by William Barrett in 1911, who noted in relation to recent poltergeist outbreaks that they were ‘usually, though not invariably, associated with the presence of a child or young person of either sex’.3

A possible human connection to the phenomena was more broadly confirmed in the 1970s through a survey of 116 poltergeist cases reported between 1612 and 1974 by parapsychologist William Roll; he found that the phenomena in 92 cases (79%) seemed to be associated with a particular individual, or two individuals in certain instances).4 Similarly, in a 1989 survey of 54 German poltergeist cases, Monika Huesmann and Friederike Schriever found that 63% were linked to a living person.5

Recognizing the human connection, Roll and fellow parapsychologist J Gaither Pratt proposed that poltergeist phenomena might be large-scale displays of psychokinesis, caused sporadically and involuntarily by the individual most closely linked to it (often referred to as the ‘agent’). In 1958 they coined the term ‘recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis’ (RSPK)as an alternate means of conceptualizing poltergeist phenomena.6

Psychological Factors

A further indication of a human connection is that phenomena tend to begin at times when the agent is experiencing psychological stress in his or her private or professional life. Roll’s survey found that of 92 poltergeist cases where a likely agent was identified, in 41% of cases the phenomena coincided with changes or family problems.7 Some of these may have been apparent in the agent’s behavior; in others, internal personal issues were only indicated through psychological testing and evaluation (see table 1 at the end of the article).

Changes included a move from one home to another, an illness or extreme psychological stress, and the death of a relative or friend. Family problems could include unresolved tension between the agent and one or more family members living in the same household. As Roll noted:

The red thread running through most of the cases I have investigated, or am familiar with, is tension in family situations or extensions of them … In general, we find hostility in the agent which cannot be expressed in normal ways, the main target for the anger being people with whom he [or she] is associated on a daily basis.8

Parapsychologist D Scott Rogo suggested that in certain instances the problems extended to nearly all the members of the household, perhaps creating a situation in which they collectively contributed as agents to the disturbances.9 In one such instance

… feelings of hostility, frustration, etc. were common among the entire family. Unfortunately, there was no real method of working off these feelings normally, and no one to “strike-out” at. Unconsciously a poltergeist was created to relieve the tensions and symbolically to attack the house which they wanted to leave. It is not odd then that after the family had fully accepted this matter and put it into words, accepting it as the cause of the phenomena, the disturbances completely ceased.10

In other instances the agent’s problems are in the workplace, in  relations with co-workers or superiors. This has been observed in at least three poltergeist cases. In the first, a young male transcriber in a California legal firm was suspected of psychokinetically generating the disturbances ‘as an unconscious response to the pressure and frustration he experienced in his job with the court reporting firm, and as an expression of personal self-esteem relative to the other persons in the work situation.’11 In the second case, projective psychological tests seemed to indicate that a male shipping clerk in a Florida warehouse harboured feelings of resentment toward one of the warehouse owners, perceiving that owner as being ‘phony and cheating.’12 And in the third case, a female employee in a California factory was found to be ‘uncomfortable with her job because of her personal relationship with her boss.’13

In cases involving young children and adolescents, the adverse situation faced by the agent may stem in part from a ‘broken home’ – that is, a situation in which the child or adolescent lives with someone other than his/her birth parents, most often due to troubling or unstable circumstances in the lives of the birth parents. For instance, the thirteen-year-old male agent in one case was being raised in his grandmother’s Newark, New Jersey apartment because his mother was incarcerated for killing the boy’s abusive father.14 Two suspected agents in another case, a ten-year-old girl and her younger brother, were also in the care of their grandparents at the time the disturbances began.15

In three other cases the young agents were being raised by foster parents. In the first, a welfare agency had placed the ten-year-old boy in the care of an elderly couple, since the boy’s father was often incarcerated and his mother had abandoned the family.16 In the second case, a widow took in a nine-year-old boy, who was a ward of the state on account of his alcoholic parents’ inability to care for him.17 And in the third case, a fourteen-year-old girl had been raised from infancy by foster parents who had taken her in after the girl’s mother abandoned her at the hospital less than a year after giving birth.18 In each case the young agent either faced unsettledness with his/her surrogate guardian or may have suffered lingering psychological effects from the anxieties previously experienced in his/her birth parents’ home. Roll’s survey indicated that this kind of situation was present to a fair degree across his broader sample of 116 poltergeist cases: a third involved children under the age of 19 who were living away from home at the time of the poltergeist outbreak.19

This general characteristic is reflected to some degree in other case collections. Huesmann and Schriever found that in 20% of their German cases the disturbances began when the agent experienced ‘rage, disappointment, or great frustration’ and that 38% involved children who did not live with both parents.20 Psychologist André Pércia de Carvalho found that in 70% of thirteen Brazilian cases the families were in ‘very disturbed and problematic interpersonal relationships’, which included ‘interpersonal aggression, also people repressing aggressive responses because they were unable to respond to aggressive behavior from others such as their parents and relatives’.21 22

Roll further observed that in some cases the social dynamics of the agent’s situation seems to change in response to the presence of investigators. He pointed out that the poltergeist disturbances would be

… destructive only when  [agents] were in the company of individuals who seemed to arouse their anger by abuse, confinement, demands and other aversive activities. But when the social environment became supportive, the nonlocal behavior [i.e., the poltergeist phenomena] occurred without destruction of property … From a psychoanalytic perspective, the destructive incidents could be considered symptoms of “parapsychopathology,” as suggested by Rhine … 23 But when attended by investigators who treat the [agent] with kindness and respect, the occurrences may serve as a positive mechanism to obtain attention and for the researcher to learn more about nonlocal behavior.24

A clear illustrative example can be found in the poltergeist case involving Tina Resch, the fourteen-year-old girl who was raised from infancy by her foster parents. Raised in a home with other foster children, Tina felt neglected as she got older and felt that she had to compete with the other children for the attention of her foster mother. Often in order to receive any amount of attention at all, Tina would resort to bad behavior, leading to severe punishment that sometimes escalated into physical abuse at the hands of her foster father. During this period of her life, the poltergeist phenomena reported around Tina were often destructive. But the situation turned positive when investigators arrived and focused their attention upon Tina, which seemed to help her overcome her feelings of neglect. During this particular period, the phenomena often took place while the investigators were facing the girl or had her in their line of sight.25

Neuropsychological Factors

A psychologically adverse situation in the agent’s life is not necessarily the only factor: most people experience similar problems without accompanying poltergeist phenomena. Roll commented, ‘something else besides repressed hostility must comprise the difference between those who express this unknown via PK, and those who express themselves by normal means, and … this key difference so far eludes our psychological tests.’26

An aspect of this unknown factor may be neuropsychological, perhaps related in some way to psychophysiological abnormalities in the agent’s brain and central nervous system. Examining the medical and neurological history of 92 agents identified in poltergeist cases, Roll found that 53% exhibited severe bodily or mental health issues, including seizures, muscular contractions, comas, convulsions, fainting spells and dissociative episodes such as trance.27

An inverse relation found between poltergeist phenomena and troubling physical or mental health symptoms hints at a possible correlation with alterations in psychophysiology: in periods when the agent exhibits certain symptoms the phenomena are often lulled or in abatement. Roll found such a relation in at least three poltergeist cases he investigated. In the first, no phenomena were reported at times when the suspected female agent suffered stomach cramps and vomiting episodes apparently linked to stress in her home life with her mother.28 In the second, the phenomena abated after the male agent suffered a serious bout of epileptic seizures that required hospitalization, and resumed when he was treated with medication.29 In the third, the phenomena subsided whenever the female agent suffered migraine headaches and vomiting episodes, returning after she received treatment.30

Canadian researcher George Owen noted that in some historical poltergeist cases around the turn of the twentieth century, ‘though the poltergeist individuals are in the main healthy, a few of them have suffered from curious fits or turns’ in health, some of which were apparently linked to neurotic illness, thereby suggesting the possible involvement of a mental health component.31 He cited as an example, containing a component suggestive of this inverse relation, the Bell Witch case in which the female agent reportedly suffered from fainting spells due to anxiety-induced hyperventilation. Owen noted: ‘It was only after these fainting fits that the Bell poltergeistery would commence each evening.’32

Efforts to further study RSPK agents using neuropsychological testing have so far been limited, likely due to the relative rarity of cases involving genuine poltergeist phenomena, and have tended to produce mixed results (see table 2 at the end of the article).

Read More – Psychological Aspects in Poltergeist Cases

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