The Poltergeist Phenomenon by Michael Clarkson

Author:Michael Clarkson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
Published: 2011-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

True and False

If we are to really get to the bottom of the poltergeist issue, we cannot let the frauds turn us off, and we cannot throw out the cases that seem to be legitimate because of those that are not, said Maurice Grosse.

We have established that there are many cases of fraud in poltergeist investigations, but there may also be instances of fraud and genuine paranormal activity within the same case. In a number of cases in this book, youths who were said to have paranormal powers were either caught cheating at some point or confessed to using trickery, but that does not necessarily mean other occurrences that happened in their presence were phony. Sound confusing? Not really, if you examine human nature.

Let’s say a young boy unconsciously causes objects to move with his mind. Police, family members, and parapsychologists all testify to the legitimacy of the events because they have all been closely watching the boy and rule out trickery. But genuine poltergeist events seem to be fleeting and difficult to produce. And so, his abilities may start to wane. A young poltergeist agent may have become enamored with all the attention he had been getting, and doesn’t want to give up the center stage. Most children like attention and being stroked by adults, especially if journalists come to their home and make a big deal of it in the newspapers and on television. If they cannot immediately reproduce the genuine events, such children may resort to cheating to keep the attention on themselves. They may nudge a chair when they think no one is watching or bang on a wall around a corner. Some parapsychologists call this imitative fraud.

In the big picture, let us call this the When the Circus Comes to Town Syndrome because, in many of these well-documented cases, that seems to be what happens: The local media sniff out the story and descend upon a home with their notepads and cameras, and sometimes the national media get involved. Pretty soon, police, neighbors, parapsychologists, and the nosy woman across the street are trampling through the home. It really does become a circus.

In 1974 in Powhatan, Virginia, Dr. Gaither Pratt and his investigators found evidence that two children had moved some objects purposefully to look like poltergeist activity. When caught, the kids said they did it to please the scientists, but they added they were not responsible for earlier movements of chairs and a magazine which had apparently flown through the air. Indeed, Pratt said the children could not have been involved when he saw a number of unexplainable events, including a chair mysteriously tilt backward and slam against a wall.

In the highly celebrated Enfield case of 1977-78 in London (detailed in Chapters 16 and 17), many witnesses, including police, reported seeing furniture and toys move on their own power while in the presence of 11-year-old Janet Hodgson. As the case dragged on and the girl became a mini-celebrity, the voice of an old man started coming out of her mouth.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.