6 - Poltergeists, Psychokinesis, And The Telegraph Key In The Soap Bubble

The first manifestations in the office of court reporter George Wheeler concerned themselves with the telephones.

According to Mrs. Helen Rosenberg, the row of lights on the base of each telephone would blink in rapid succession, but there would be no one on the line. The Oakland, California, telephone company insisted that there was nothing wrong with the instruments in the office at 1904 Franklin Street.

The electric typewriters were the next victims of the weird pranks. The coil springs beneath the keys began to twist together and ball up. The typewriter repairmen left loan machines that suffered the same mysterious mechanical malady.

"Those springs normally last for the life of the machine," said Bob Goosey, a sales representative for the Royal McBee typewriter company. "We haven't replaced three of those springs in the last ten years. But during the past few days, we've replaced about a hundred in Wheeler's machines. We've practically exhausted our stock of springs in the Bay area."

By June 15, 1964, when vases began to fly across the room, telephones began leaping from desks, and ashtrays began shattering, George Wheeler and his staff reluctantly concluded that a poltergeist had come to their office.

Jim Hazelwood, editorial writer for the Oakland Tribune, kept a journal of sixty fantastic minutes in the psychically super-charged office.

10:30 A.M. Metal dictaphone foot pedal with cord wrapped around it flew out of the cabinet, struck a wooden counter and fell to the floor ...

10:35 A.M. Light bulbs broke in stairwell between third and fourth floors. Base of bulb was on the stair with the glass, indicating that the bulb had been unscrewed. No footsteps heard or anyone seen in hallways.

10:40 A.M. Heard noise in Mr. Wheeler's office which was vacant. Discovered can of liquid wax on floor, about eight feet from cupboard where it is kept.

10:45 A.M. Loud noise in vacant office where water cooler is kept. Rushed in immediately to find metal cup container lying on floor approximately ten feet from cooler. Paper cups were strewn around the floor. No chance for anyone to leave the room without being seen by me.

10:50 A.M. Door which had been removed from hinges on the previous day to permit moving desks, suddenly toppled over with a loud crash ...

11:05 A.M. ... metal card index file ... landed on the floor with a loud bang. It had been sitting on a metal filing case where I had placed it earlier. There was no one in the room. The first thing that I had done on entering the office that morning had been to place the metal index box on top of the filing case to see if it would fall. It did.

11:10 A.M. Metal and plastic top of typewriter flew out of the open window ... and clattered to the street below where Dr. F.J. Stryble was walking. Dr. Stryble returned the typewriter top to us.

11:13 A.M. Arrival of two physicists with equipment for testing radiation. They found none.

11:30 A.M. A two-pound can of coffee flew out of the cupboard and landed about ten feet from the shelves in Mr. Wheeler's office. The plastic top of the can came loose and a handful of coffee was spilled. I was the first one in the room. There was no one there.

Mr. Irv Dickey, a former president of the California Society for Psychical Study, termed the "haunted office" a classic poltergeist case "except for one thing. When the poltergeist phenomenon occurs, it is usually in the presence of an adolescent child. If the child is removed from the location, the phenomenon stops. In this case, there doesn't seem to be a child involved."

Dr. Arthur Hastings, an active "psi" researcher, commented to the press that this was the first time that he had ever heard of a poltergeist case taking place in an office.

On June 17th, the phenomena seemed to reach a climax shortly after two staff members had entered the office that morning. In a flurry of mad activity, the water cooler tipped over, a large wooden cabinet came crashing down, and a movable counter flipped over onto its back.

"This is usually the pattern with poltergeist phenomena," Dr. Hastings told newsman Hazelwood. "They start slowly, build up to a climax, and then stop altogether. I don't think we'll see any more of these occurrences."

Dr. Hastings' evaluation was accurate for nine days, then, on June 26th, the poltergeist was once again busy with its annoying psychic pranks.

"When springs started breaking in all three typewriters," Mrs. Rosenberg sighed, "I knew that it had come back."

Mrs. Rosenberg quickly moved about the office, trying to place all breakable objects on the floor before the invisible jokester had an opportunity to send them shattering. Her preventive maneuvers did little good. A cup that she had just set down leaped eight feet across the room and shattered against a filing cabinet. Two glass ashtrays crashed to the floor, and a stapler bounced across a desktop.

Dr. Hastings assured the beleaguered office staff that the "eye of the storm had passed on and only the weaker manifestations remain." It appeared that the investigator's appraisal was correct. After that last dramatic activity, the poltergeist's energy seemed to have dissipated.

Poltergeist (German for "noisy ghost") manifestations are dramatic instances of psychokinesis on the rampage. The psychokinetic activity of the poltergeist is as measurable and as demonstrable and as trackable as a sputnik in the sky, the Northern Lights, or the photosynthesis of plants. Although the pranks of the poltergeist were formerly attributed to malicious tricks perpetrated by demons and nasty disembodied spirits, the great majority of "psi" researchers today hold that some faculty of PK is at work.

"The poltergeist is not a ghost," Dr. Nandor Fodor, the late psychoanalyst, once wrote, "but a bundle of projected repressions."

Quite probably, the sex changes which occur during puberty have a great deal to do with the peculiar type of PK that is responsible for poltergeist activity. We have only begun to realize some of the vast chemical changes which take place in the body during adolescence. Who can say what may happen in the lower levels of the subconscious? "Psi" researchers have noted that more often a girl than a boy is at the center of poltergeistic disturbances and that the sexual change of puberty is associated with either the beginning or the termination of the phenomena. To refer back to the poltergeist-plagued office in Oakland, California, it should be mentioned that one of the staff was an extremely sensitive 20-year-old, who was adjusting to married life. Researchers have also observed that the sexual adjustments of the marital state can also trigger such phenomena.

The poltergeist often finds its energy center in the frustrated creativity of a brooding adolescent, who is denied accepted avenues of expression. This brings up the question of just where man's limits of creativity might lie? It seems a bit startling to most people to suggest that man's mind may be capable of bursting free of its three-dimensional bonds and utilizing specialized talents that virtually know no limits.

It may be within the power of man's psyche to materialize other voices, other personalities, and junior psyches. It may be within the power of man's transcendent self to skip blithely over, around, or through the accepted barriers of space and tune and to bring back tangible evidence of this strange journey in the form of objects which could only have been obtained in their place of native origin. The poltergeist seems to offer measurable, weighable, demonstrable proof of this psychic capacity. The tragedy in the poltergeist phenomena is that it illustrates a perverted or uncontrolled aspect of this incredible power.

One cannot deny that this energy force is directed by a measure of intelligence or purpose. Observers (skeptical scientists, hard-nosed newsmen, innocent bystanders alike) have reported seeing poltergeist-borne objects turn corners, poltergeist-manipulated chalk write intelligible sentences on walls, and poltergeist-flung pebbles come out of nowhere to strike children. But, as one investigator commented, "the phenomena are exactly such as would occur to the mind of a child or an ignorant person."

Sacheverell Sitwell wrote his observation that the poltergeist always directed its power toward "the secret or concealed weaknesses of the spirit ... the obscene or erotic recesses of the soul. The mysteries of puberty, that trance or dozing of the psyche before it awakes into adult life, is a favorite playground for the poltergeist."

The perverse talents of the poltergeist range from the ability to toss pebbles and smash vases, to the astonishing ability to materialize human or beastlike entities, complete with voices, intelligent responses, and disagreeable odors. From man's earliest records to today's newspaper story, every reported poltergeist case follows precisely the same basic patterns. Cultural influences seem to matter little, if at all. A poltergeist manifestation is similar in character whether it takes place in Indonesia, Iceland, or Long Island.

Only the interpretation of the disturbance varies. What is caused by the destructive impulse of a demon to one people, may be caused by the destructive impulse of a fragmented psyche to another. Why it should be the baser elements of man's subconscious that find their expression in the poltergeist is a matter of great speculation among "psi" researchers. Physical violence is almost always expressed toward the adolescent energy center of the poltergeist, and a parent, a brother, or a sister may come in for his share of the punishment as well. If the poltergeist sticks around long enough (its average life is about two weeks) to develop a voice or the ability to communicate by raps or automatic writing, its communications are usually nonsensical, ribald, or downright obscene. In one famous American case, that of the Bell Witch of Springfield, Tennessee, the poltergeist was even responsible for the death of the father of Betsy Bell, a young woman who had suffered the onslaught of an invisible "witch" for four years from 1816 to 1820.

The Bell Witch developed into a powerful invisible entity that was capable of dealing violently with those who had come to expose the manifestations as some sort of trickery. "The blows were heard distinctly," one of the Bell family wrote in a diary, "like the open palm of a heavy hand."

From the moment the "witch" was possessed of a voice, it began to warn that John Bell's days were numbered. It had tormented both John and his daughter from the outset of the phenomena, but while it only punished Betsy for "transgressions," it malevolently pursued John at all times.

Dr. Nandor Fodor, in an attempt to "psychoanalyze" the Bell Witch, speculated that Betsy, approaching puberty, may have undergone a shocking sexual experience at the hands of her father. "It was probably to save her reason," Dr. Fodor theorized "that a fragment of her mind was split off and became the Bell Witch."

Conversely, the "witch" always treated Betsy's mother with respect and seemed genuinely solicitous of her health and well-being. Once when Mrs. Bell was ill, the entity materialized a quantity of hazelnuts and bade the woman to eat them. When Mrs. Bell complained that she had not the energy to crack them, the poltergeist swept them into the air and sorted the meats from the shells.

At a birthday party for Betsy, the "witch" treated the celebrants with a supply of fresh bananas. "I picked them myself in the West Indies," the voice crackled above their heads as it showered fruit down upon them.

As we have already noted, the poltergeist does strange things with time and space. We certainly do not need to stress the fact that bananas were a costly rarity in Tennessee in 1818. The notion that a farmer of only modest means would obtain such an expensive fruit for an extravagant prank seems untenable.

In December of 1820, John Bell was ill and confined to his bed. But even there, the "witch" would not allow him to rest. The poltergeist slapped his face, tossed his legs into the air, and jerked his bedclothes from his body.

On the morning of December 19th, John Bell lapsed into a stupor from which he never roused. John, Jr., noted a smoky-looking vial in the medicine cabinet in place of his father's regular prescription. A cat was given a small dosage and instantly dropped to the floor, convulsing horribly in its death throes.

"Where did this vial come from!" John, Jr., demanded.

"I put it there last night," the smug voice of the invisible "witch" told him. "I gave the old man a big dose of it while he was asleep. I fixed him!"

The disrespectful poltergeist sang bawdy songs during John Bell's funeral and made no secret of its joyous celebration.

As might be expected, the "witch's" strength began to decline sharply after the death of John Bell. The manifestations decreased steadily until spring, then ceased altogether, with a promise that "it" would return in seven years. True to its prophecy, the Bell Witch did reappear in 1828, but Betsy had married and moved away from the household. The remaining members of the family adopted a successful policy of ignoring the poltergeist, and the unwelcome guest at last faded into oblivion.

In some cases, the torment which the poltergeist visits upon its adolescent energy center is much more painful than the tugging of hair and the occasional slap of a cheek.

On May 10, 1951, an 18-year-old girl stumbled into police headquarters in Manila, Philippines, screaming that an "invisible monster" had been biting her.

Before the startled eyes of police officers, livid teeth marks appeared on the upper arms and shoulders of Clarita Villanueva. In an act of desperation, the officers - for a moment almost believing in the teen-ager's invisible monster - put Clarita into a jail cell. But the girl wailed that the monster was coming at her through the bars of the cell, and incredulous policemen stared open-mouthed as red "teeth" marks appeared on her soft flesh.

The medical examiner was summoned and was forced to admit that the indentations certainly did look like the prints of teeth. The teen-ager was not drunk nor under the influence of any drug, the doctor observed after bis examination.

On the following morning, the girl was brought to court to face charges of vagrancy which had been levied against her. There, before the astonished court, Clarita Villanueva suffered another attack from the "invisible beast." Reporters rushed to the girl's side, and the medical examiner took the girl in his arms.

"She is definitely not having an epileptic fit," he told the newsmen, "and these teeth prints are real. But, as we can all testify, they are not self-inflicted."

Welts continued to appear on the girl's body. By the time that Mayor Lacson arrived, the wretched girl was a veritable mass of deeply embedded tooth prints, and her flesh was swollen and bruised. As the Mayor held one of Clarita's hands in his own, he was horrified to see deep marks appear on either side of her index finger.

The Mayor ordered the girl taken to the hospital, where, for some reason, the attacks ceased almost immediately. Perhaps some frustrated segment of Clarita Villanueva's subconscious felt the need to call attention to the conscious personality in some dramatic means, and, once this goal had been obtained, left the personality to fend for itself. It would seem, in the case of Clarita Villanueva, that the "teeth marks" were similar to the stigmata, which have been known to appear during heights of religious ecstasy.

One of the most unusual of all poltergeist manifestations occurred in 1931 on the Isle of Man. There, in the home of James T. Irving, the poltergeist not only developed a very articulate manner of speaking but claimed to be a mongoose that lived in a hole in the wall of their cottage. On a number of occasions, a rodent-like animal was seen by members of the family and by investigators, but the famous talking mongoose, which called itself Jef, preferred not to show itself to anyone.

A reporter for the Manchester Daily Dispatch asked his readers: "Have I ever heard a weasel speak? I do not know, but I do know that I heard, today, a voice I never imagined could issue from a human throat."

Jef maintained his home with the Irvings for nearly four years, spicing his stay by tossing objects at the family while they ate, squirting water at inquisitive reporters, and singing bawdy songs during his midnight forays.

Once Mrs. Irving reached her hand into Jef's hole and stroked its fur. Not one for an open display of affection, the mongoose gave the woman a bite on the finger for her trouble. The fact that Mrs. Irving had actually touched the entity greatly excited Harry Price, the famous "psi" investigator. Price and his associates had just concluded that "Jef" was nothing but a disembodied voice. At his urging, the Irvings tried to persuade their strange boarder to stamp impressions of his feet in some plasticine blocks.

Jef obliged, but Mr. R.I. Peacock of the British Natural History Museum's Zoological Department was baffled by the impressions. "One print might have been made by a dog," he concluded. "The others are of no mammal known to me unless it is that of an American raccoon ... certainly none of them was made by a mongoose."

In response to repeated requests to show itself openly rather than flitting about the cottage so mysteriously, Jef declared to Mrs. Irving: "If you saw me, you'd be petrified, mummified!"

A night with the assorted ghosts and poltergeists that made Borley Rectory their home petrified more than one inhabitant and "psi" researcher before the rectory burned to the ground in 1939. Called the most haunted house in England by investigator Harry Price, the complete range of poltergeist activity was observed within the walls of the rectory.

In 1937, after the last clergyman and his family had forsaken the eerie rectory, Price learned that the place was without an occupant. The investigator offered to rent the home as a kind of "ghost" laboratory. His terms were accepted, and Price set about enlisting a crew of forty investigators, who would take turns living in the rectory for a period of one year.

Those who volunteered to spend a year living with the Unknown were not disappointed. Immediately, mysterious pencil-like writings began to appear on the walls. Each time a new message was scribbled by the unseen fingers, it would be carefully encircled and dated. Two Oxford graduates testified that they observed new writing being formed even as they were busy ringing and dating another example.

Judging from the messages, it appeared that the entity had formed an attachment for Mrs. Marianne Morrison, the wife of the last clergyman who had lived in Borley Rectory. "Marianne ... Marianne ..." it scribbled over and over again. "Marianne ... Light ... Mass ... prayers. Get light. Marianne ... please ... help ... get."

The trained researchers were quick to locate a "cold spot" in one of the upstairs passages. Certain of the investigators testified that they experienced a feeling of faintness whenever they passed through it. Another cold spot was found on the landing outside of the Blue Room. The temperature of these areas was fixed at 48 degrees, regardless of what the temperature of the remainder of the rectory may have been.

One investigator saw the rectory's famous "nun" three times in one evening. A mysterious old cloak kept disappearing and reappearing in various rooms of the house. Nearly every one of Price's crew reported that he had been touched by invisible hands and had heard low, inaudible whisperings as they moved about the rectory.

Professor C.E.M. Joad of the University of London was one of the investigators who witnessed the eerie writings appearing on the walls. In the July, 1938, issue of Harper's, Joad wrote: "... having reflected long and carefully upon that squiggle, I did not and do not see how it could have been made by normal means ... the universe must in some respects be totally other than what one is accustomed to suppose."

It is interesting to note that the poltergeist persisted in writing messages to "Marianne" even after Mrs. Morrison and her family had moved out of the rectory. When the Morrisons made their residence in Borley Rectory, the manifestations centered about Mrs. Morrison and the perplexed and frightened woman bore the brunt of the sometimes vicious haunting. One theory of poltergeistic activity maintains that a "psychic residue," a persistent, dynamic memory, can release itself when an individual of the right telepathic affinity comes upon the scene. In other words, the dormant poltergeistic influence can become reactivated when it discovers a sympathetic energy source in the psyche of a living person.

The incendiary activities of some poltergeists turn them into agents of constant terror. A poltergeist that hurls pebbles can be annoying; a disembodied voice may be eerie; but a poltergeist that rains down balls of fire is obviously dangerous.

One of the most dramatic incidents in which an incendiary poltergeist plays a prominent part occurred on the farm of John McDonald near Baldoon, Ontario. As many as fifty outbreaks of fire a day were extinguished by the anguished McDonalds and their anxious neighbors. A round-the-clock vigil was maintained and buckets of water were kept handy throughout the farmhouse and each of the outbuildings. Fires would start even on wet floors, and the wet planking would burn as if it had been coated with oil. The McDonalds and their neighbors ran until they were exhausted, dowsing smoldering planking and dodging new outbursts of flame. In spite of such vigilance, a fire broke out one morning while the McDonalds were eating breakfast and completely gutted their cabin. When the McDonalds moved, the invisible firebugs followed them, visiting similar fires on relatives and friends until the poltergeist eventually ran out of psychic fuel.

The awesome power of the human mind to, prism-like, focus energy and ignite fires may be yet another unknown ability of the subconscious self.

While visiting Memphis in 1927, Vice-President Dawes met a Negro laborer who could cause objects to burst into flame by breathing upon them.

Fourteen-year-old Jennie Bramwell of Toronto, Canada, and twelve-year-old Ann Kidner of Glasgow, Scotland, each had the power to ignite fires simply by concentrating on objects. Angry Glasgow farmers were on the verge of having Ann Kidner institutionalized, because haystacks erupted into flame at her very passing by on the road.

Cases of poltergeists pelting innocent families with stones and pebbles comprise by far the largest single category of poltergeistic phenomena and therefore seem to be the most common example of PK running wild. Ivan T. Sanderson, world-famous natural scientist, cautions us against using the term "throwing" when we speak of poltergeist activity. According to Sanderson's observations, the stones are "dropped" or "lobbed" or "just drift around" rather than thrown.

"Stone-dropping is a purely physical phenomenon," states Sanderson, "and can be explained on some physical principles, though not necessarily on Newtonian, Einsteinian, or any others that concern our particular space-time continuum."

Sanderson once marked some flying rocks in Sumatra and proceeded to play "catch" with them. The natural scientist insists that the rocks obey "some pattern that is not entirely random."

Although modern man may become just as startled by an onset of poltergeist phenomena as was his ancient or medieval counterpart, there is no reason to believe that a malignant or mischievous "spirit" is responsible for the activity. Data compiled by parapsychologists seem to demonstrate that the particular "entity" involved is a dissociated mental fragment (or Dr. Fodor's "projected bundle of repressions") that is motivated by primitive ideas and desires. Most often, the poltergeist occurs in a home in which there is an adolescent undergoing puberty or in which there are young people undergoing marital adjustment. There are a great many cases, however, where a psychic residue of bottied-up emotional energy may attach itself to some building or some particular locality. In these cases, only a sensitive person of the right telepathic affinity can trigger renewed poltergeist activity and physical phenomena.

Apart from the uncontrolled eruptions of psychokinetic power which we have examined in the poltergeist, there are individuals who have demonstrated the ability to discipline PK. Professional gamblers have long alleged that they can "make the dice obey" or make the little white ball in roulette stop wherever they wish.

Dr. J.B. Rhine began his experimental lab work in PK in 1934. Using dice-throwing experiments and utilizing several volunteers who claimed to have used "mind over matter" to bring in tangible rewards at the gaming tables, Dr. Rhine and his associates conducted tests and accumulated data until 1943 before they made any announcement of their results. In his The Reach of the Mind, Rhine sets forth an analysis of this data and concludes that psychokinesis has been established beyond all question. Although purists would exclude a chapter on PK from a book on ESP (clairvoyance, telepathy, are sensory types of phenomena, matter affecting mind; PK is a motor-type phenomenon, mind affecting matter), Rhine holds that the existence of one implies the existence of the other and that they are closely related phenomena.

In his series of tests, Rhine noted that dice-throwers with marked control over the dies were much more successful at the beginning of a run. The same sort of "decline" effect, that has been noted by agents testing telepathic percipients in card-guessing tests, was in evidence in testing for PK.

Other similarities existed between ESP and PK tests as observed in the Duke University parapsychology laboratories. For example, mechanical devices made no difference in the effectiveness of PK, and neither did distance. Once again, as in ESP testing, a relaxed, informal atmosphere produced the best PK results. Another important similarity between the two paranormal abilities is the fact that the person who expects success and "believes" in his ability to produce the desired result will always score much higher than the individual who is indifferent to ESP or PK.

It appears that psychokinesis as well as extrasensory perception is a talent that can be developed and encouraged and is an ability present, to a certain degree, in all men.

A most remarkable test in PK was conducted by "psi" researcher Harry Price in the National Laboratory for Psychic Research in London. Price secured the cooperation of a young woman who demonstrated an unusual facility for psychokinetic effects. She was not a professional medium and she did not request any money for her time or services. The experiment had as its sole object an attempt to offer scientific evidence that such a power as PK did truly exist.

Price mounted a regular telegraph key inside a flat metal bowl and set it on a stand. The telegraph key was connected by means of heavily insulated wires to a small, red electric light bulb, which was completely encased in a glass cover. When one pressed the telegraph key, the circuit was completed and the red bulb lit up. When the pressure on the key was removed, the lamp went out.

Next Price prepared a mixture of glycerine and castile soap and blew a bubble, which because of the addition of the glycerine would last for hours, but because of its fragile nature would burst at the slightest prodding. This large soap bubble was placed over the telegraph key. Over both the bubble and the key was set a transparent glass cover. Not yet satisfied, Price next arranged a wire-net cage around the glass cover, and, finally, placed a larger, latticework cage of wood over the whole arrangement. Price now had one electric light bulb, encased in glass and mounted on a stand, which, in turn, was connected via wires to a telegraph key that was encased in a soap bubble, a glass cover, a wire cage, a larger wooden cage, and mounted on another stand.

The lights were dimmed at the request of the young lady, who stated simply that she preferred to work in semi-darkness.

During the course of the experiment, the telegraph key was pressed and the red light bulb flashed on and off several times.

When Price concluded the test, he found both cages as he had left them, the glass cover completely intact, and the soap bubble unbroken.