Poltergeist: A Classic Study in Destructive Haunting

  A middle-aged businessman and his wife rented a house on Cape Cod for the summer; although it had been built nine years earlier, they were, for some reason, its first occupants. It was exceptionally isolated.

  The man, from internal evidence, was a publisher, and on their first night in the house, he sat up late over a manuscript. His wife, Helen, had gone to bed early. Suddenly his wife called: “Was that you?”

  She had heard a sound like someone tapping with a cane on the brick wall near the front door. Neither paid much attention to the incident. But the next night, as they sat in the living room, the sounds came again—exactly like a cane on the brick wall. The husband rushed outside with a torch. As he opened the door, the tapping stopped. There was nothing to be seen.

  During the next few months, they heard the sound again and again—almost every night, and always at about ten o’clock. The husband tried standing by the door at ten; but the moment he opened it, the tapping stopped.

  During the second week, the man was awakened three times by noises. The first was a sound like a box of matches falling on the floor. He switched on the light and looked around the room; nothing had fallen down. The second night, it was a distinct sound like a sheet of newspaper swishing the length of the room. Once again, there was nothing to account for it. The third night, it was a noise like a rolling pin which seemed to fall on the floor, roll across the room and come to rest against the wall. But there was no rolling pin or anything else.

  Then the clicking noise began—just a clicking that came from the walls. It could happen in any room of the house at any time of the day or night. It happened several hundred times during their four months in the house.

  The third week, the footsteps began. They were loud and clear, like a man in leather shoes with solid heels, tramping loudly over the wooden floor. When they were downstairs, they came from the room above; when they were upstairs, from below. These happened about forty times during their four months. Helen often heard sounds from another room and went to look, assuming someone had come into the house—they had made a few friends in the area. There was never anyone there.

  Then, in midsummer, came the noise they called “the grand piano smash.” One night there was a deafening crash from the garage, enough to set the house quivering. He describes it as sounding as if a grand piano had suddenly lost its legs and fallen to the floor. Naturally, the garage—which was used to store books—was empty.

  In September, they had visitors—his lawyer, and his wife and daughter. The lawyer was completely skeptical about the “ghost.” On the first evening, the three women went out to an amateur theatrical and the two men stayed behind to work on a contract. The lawyer remarked: “I wish to heaven I could hear from your precious ghost.” As they sat working, there was a crisp little click from the wall behind their heads. “The Universal Click?” inquired the lawyer.

  “Yes.”

  “Drying wood.”

  Twenty minutes later, footfalls sounded from overhead. The narrator, with a considerable effort of will, went on reading; the lawyer, shouted: “What on earth is that?”

  “Only the ghost.”

  “Nonsense, there’s a man upstairs.” They rushed upstairs, and the lawyer’s jaw dropped when they found the room empty. He insisted on ransacking the bedrooms and attics with a torch, but found nothing.

  That night, the lawyer and his family slept in Helen’s large bedroom, while Helen moved into her husband’s single room; he slept on the settee downstairs. The next morning, the lawyer asked: “What was that awful crash?” They described the “grand piano smash.” It had been so loud that they had thought the garage ceiling had fallen in. They had been so alarmed that they had taken their daughter into bed between them. Yet the husband and wife had heard nothing.

  That is the end of the story; and it is, in all respects but one, a typical poltergeist story. If it had been recorded in Latin in the year 1200, it would no doubt read: “In a house on Cape Cod there sounded footsteps, tapping sounds and loud noises, all without apparent cause. The spirit gave no indication of its purpose or identity.” And, in fact, this is about the amount of detail we find in the majority of recorded cases. It can be seen why a comprehensive history of the poltergeist would be unreadable.

  The one non-typical detail is, of course, the lack of a focus or “medium.” The author mentions nothing about having a child, or of any children ever being in the house. In fact, he never mentions the word “poltergeist.” Yet this case clearly belongs to the type of poltergeist haunting rather than to the “spectral” kind. And this, in itself, is an important clue. In ninety-nine percent of poltergeist cases, there is a pubescent teenager—or a child—present, and it is therefore a valid assumption that what is happening is “spontaneous psychokinesis.” One of the earliest psychical researchers, Professor Charles Richet, reached exactly that conclusion in his huge and comprehensive Thirty Years of Psychical Research. But if in even one percent of the cases there is no disturbed adolescent, then the assumption becomes questionable, and we find ourselves reconsidering Lombroso’s view that a poltergeist is a mischievous spirit. But where, in that case, does it get the energy?

  One clue may be found in a remark thrown off casually by a popular writer on true ghost stories, Elliott O’Donnell, who notes that Windsor Castle seems to have an unusual number of ghosts, although no tragedies are associated with it, “an argument,” he adds, “in favor of the theory that hauntings do not necessarily originate in tragedies . . .” Then what do they originate in? T. C. Lethbridge has already offered a clue when he speculates that ghosts and “ghouls” may be tape recordings, somehow preserved on the “energy field” of water. For, as a dowser, Lethbridge also observed the same powerful energy fields in the area of standing stones. He describes how, when visiting the Merry Maidens in Cornwall, he placed one hand on a stone and held a pendulum in the other, and felt an electrical tingling in his fingers, while the pendulum began to revolve like an airplane propeller. Lethbridge also notes that most “sacred sites” seem to have been used continuously down the centuries—so that, for example, a pagan sacred site may later become the location for a monastery, and later perhaps of a modern church. (More often than not, such churches are named after Saint Michael, who seems to be the Christian equivalent of the pagan sun god, to whom most ancient sites were dedicated.) And he observed in such places a powerful force of earth magnetism.

  This same conclusion was reached by a retired solicitor named Guy Underwood, who decided to devote his retirement to studying dowsing. Underwood was convinced that at the center of most sacred sites—such as Stonehenge or the Merry Maidens—there is an underground spring, which seems to create a pattern of spiral lines of force around it. He also found straight lines of force passing through these sites, and often continuing for miles; these lines of force he called “holy lines.”

  Now Underwood’s “holy lines” had already been observed more than a quarter of a century before he began his investigations by another lover of the countryside, Alfred Watkins, a retired brewer. But Watkins did not discover them with a dowsing rod. He simply noticed that the English countryside seems to be covered with “long straight tracks” which pass through sacred sites; he began by assuming that they were ancient trade routes, and only later concluded—tentatively—that they might have had some religious significance for our remote ancestors. He called them “ley lines,” from the word “lea”; meaning a meadow. As a result of Watkins’ researches, documented in his book The Old Straight Track (1925), a club of enthusiasts began searching for these lines all over England. But after Underwood, it began to strike “ley hunters”—chief among whom was a young Englishman named John Michell—that ley lines are, in fact, lines of “earth force.”

  A new generation of “ley hunters” soon noticed another interesting thing about ley lines—that a remarkable number of reputed hauntings, poltergeist occurrences and sightings of “unidentified flying objects” seemed to happen on them, particularl
y at the crossing point of one or more “leys.”

  One of the oddest types of haunting sounds so preposterous that it is hard to take seriously; yet it has been convincingly documented: the repetition of historical events. At Edgehill, in Warwickshire, where one of the great battles of the English Civil War was fought, local residents heard all the sounds of the battle some months later. It happened so often that King Charles the First sent a commission to investigate; they testified on oath to having witnessed the phantom battle. The sounds are still heard today, and have been documented by the Reverend John Dening. Near Wroxham, in the Norfolk Broads, a phantom army of Roman soldiers has been recorded by a number of witnesses over the years, and in a cellar in York, a Roman legion has been witnessed marching by modern workmen (one of whom described his experience on the BBC’s Spotlight program). An investigator named Stephen Jenkins had a similar experience on a track near Mounts Bay in Cornwall—an optical illusion of a crowd of armed men among the bushes in the evening light. Many years later, when he had discovered the existence of ley lines, Jenkins realized that the track he had been following was a ley, and that he had been approaching a nodal point—a crossing with other leys.

  The possibility that begins to emerge, then, is connected with our earlier speculation that “human electric batteries” and “poltergeist mediums” like Esther Cox may derive their power from the earth: it is that poltergeists may also, under certain conditions, obtain their energy from the earth; and these conditions may be fulfilled on the nodal points of ley lines.

  In a book called The Undiscovered Country, Stephen Jenkins has cited a number of cases that seem to support this theory. (For example, he prints a photograph taken in Pevensey Castle in 1957 that shows three strange little men—like elves—on a heap of stones; the lady who took the photograph saw no little men; but Pevensey Castle is a nodal point of a number of ley lines.)

  It was Stephen Jenkins who drew my own attention to the “ley solution” to a curious case of haunting that I had presented on BBC television—-the Ardachie case. In 1952, Mr. and Mrs. Peter McEwan rented Ardachie Lodge, on the edge of Loch Ness, hoping to raise pigs there, and they hired a couple named MacDonald to act as housekeepers. The McEwans had two small children—too young to raise the suspicion that they may have been the “focus” of poltergeist phenomena. On the night of their arrival, the MacDonalds went to bed, but were awakened by footsteps that came up the stairs and went into the room opposite. A few minutes later, they again heard footsteps. They went and peeped into the room, which they had supposed to be unused, and found that, in fact, there was no one there. They went downstairs and asked the McEwans if the house was haunted; the McEwans said no, not as far as they knew. But back in the bedroom, Mrs. MacDonald was terrified to see an old woman beckoning to her—neither her husband nor Mr. McEwan saw it. Mrs. MacDonald flatly denied that she was “psychic.” They moved into another room; half an hour or so later they were disturbed by loud rapping noises on the wall. They looked outside the door, and saw an old woman with a lighted candle crawling along the corridor. And it was this that convinced the McEwans that this was not mere hysteria; the previous owner of the house, a Mrs. Brewin, had been an arthritic old woman who thought the servants were stealing from her, so she used to crawl around on all fours at night with a candle—this was vouched for by various people who knew her well.

  The Society for Psychical Research sent two investigators. They were present when there were loud knocks, after which, Mrs. MacDonald saw a woman in the doorway. Later, there were more knocks from the wall, Mrs. MacDonald entered a semi-trance, and suddenly declared that the trouble stemmed from a tree in the rose garden; this had been a favorite of Mrs. Brewin’s, and it had been allowed to die. This, said Mrs. MacDonald, was why the old woman was now trying to “communicate.” The gardener verified the tree story.

  The McEwans felt they had had enough and returned to London; the MacDonalds also left. The house was later razed to the ground by

  the army.

  Clearly, Mrs. MacDonald was, without knowing it, a “medium.” As the “haunting” progressed, she became more and more aware of her powers, and at one point offered to go into a trance for the investigators. But why did she have to wait to go to Ardachie before discovering that she was a medium? Stephen Jenkins, who saw my presentation on television, looked at an ordnance survey map of the area, and concluded that Ardachie Lodge stood on the crossing point of four major ley lines.[1] If his theory—and that of other “ley hunters”—is correct, then Ardachie had an abundance of the kind of energy needed for “spirits” to manifest themselves, and only needed a medium to act as catalyst. The old woman, with her curious obsession, was what Kardec calls an “earth-bound spirit,” like the rag and bone man who caused the poltergeist disturbances in the Rue des Noyers. She had been an “obsessive” in life, and continued to be so after her death. Kardec would probably have made some attempt to help the “spirit” to evolve and escape its earth-bound existence.

  What is being suggested, then, is that a poltergeist and a “ghost” are not basically dissimilar in nature. Both need energy to manifest themselves. (One of the commonest features of hauntings is a sudden feeling of coldness in the room, as if the “spirit” is using up energy.) Some of this energy is taken from the “medium” or focus; but some comes from the place itself, which may be why many houses remain haunted over many years.

  The earliest records of hauntings are unfortunately lacking in detail, and so obviously “touched up” by their authors, that they can only be taken as evidence that something out of the ordinary occurred. Probably the earliest account of a ghost on record is to be found in a letter of the Roman orator Pliny the Younger (first century a.d.), who tells of a haunted house in Athens where the spirit rattled chains. As the years went past, the house fell into disrepair, until the philosopher Athenodorus noticed it and thought that he might be able to rent it cheaply. The owners asked a remarkably low price, and told him frankly that it was haunted. Athenodorus was not bothered. On his first evening in the house he became so absorbed in his work that he forgot all about the ghost. Then he heard rattling chains, and looked up to see the old man with a tangled beard and heavy fetters. The ghost was beckoning with its finger. The philosopher was too absorbed to pay much attention, but the noise of the chains finally forced him to get up and follow it. The ghost led him into the garden, and vanished in the midst of a clump of shrubs. Digging at this point revealed a skeleton with the shackles still on its wrists and ankles. When this was given proper burial rites, says Pliny, the haunting ceased.

  It seems unlikely that even a Stoic philosopher would go on working when a ghost was trying to attract his attention; but—this obvious exaggeration apart—the story fits the pattern of many better documented hauntings; the old lady of Ardachie seems to have behaved in much the same manner.

  One of the earliest poltergeist stories on record also has many typical features; it is to be found in a chronicle called the Annales Fuldenses, and the event it describes dates back to 858 b.c. It took place in a farmhouse near Bingen, on the Rhine, where the farmer lived with his wife and children (his name is not given). The chronicle says that the “evil spirit” made itself evident “at first by throwing stones; then it made the place dangerous by shaking the walls, as though the men of that place were striking them with hammers.” Stone throwing is perhaps the most typical of all poltergeist antics, as we shall see; the shaking of the walls as if beaten with hammers sounds not unlike the “grand piano smash” of the Cape Cod haunting. In fact, in many poltergeist cases, the occupants of the house are convinced that the place must be severely damaged, from the violence of the blows; but this seldom happens.

  In the Bingen case, it seems that the farmer himself was the object of the malice of the “spirit.” Apparently it followed him around—an unusual feature except in cases (like that of Esther Cox) where the “focus” or medium moves elsewhere—until his neighbors were afraid to receive him into th
eir homes. The spirit also caused fires, burning his crops (presumably of corn) soon after they were gathered. And the poltergeist developed a voice—another unusual feature—and denounced the man for various sins, including sleeping with the daughter of the foreman or overseer. Finally, the Bishop of Mainz sent priests with holy relics, who also heard the voice denouncing the man for adultery. In a version of the same case, quoted in the Golden Legend, it is recounted that when the priests sprinkled holy water and sang hymns, the spirit hurled stones at them—another highly convincing touch. But the version in the Golden Legend adds that the spirit proved to be the “familiar” of a priest, who had also committed adultery. Neither version mentions whether it was “exorcised”—a reliable indication that it was not, since ecclesiastical writers never failed to emphasize the successes of Holy Church against spirits and demons.

  The most interesting thing about this story is its obvious authenticity, which has survived the usual exaggeration of the scribe. Stone throwing, deafening hammering noises, spontaneous fires, contempt for the exorcists—all these are typical of poltergeists, as can be seen if we compare it with a far better documented case of the late nineteenth century. This also occurred on a farm, in the province of Quebec in Canada; the owner was called Dagg.

  The disturbances began quietly, which again seems typical—the poltergeist seems to begin by trying out its powers on a small scale. On the morning of September 15, 1889, a boy named Dean, who was working as a “chore boy” for the Daggs, came down early to light the fire, and saw a five-dollar bill on the floor; he took this up to the farmer, George Dagg, who recognized it as a bill he had given to his wife the day before, together with another two dollars. She had placed them in a bureau drawer, from which they were now found to be missing. When the boy was out milking, George Dagg searched his room, and found the two dollars in his bed. Later that day, Mrs. Dagg found a streak of filth—presumably ordure—across the floor of the house, which so enraged her that she ordered the boy to leave. He protested his innocence. George Dagg took him off to a nearby town to see the magistrate; but while they were away, more streaks of filth appeared around the house, effectively vindicating the boy.