Poltergeist: A Classic Study in Destructive Haunting

  The first manifestations were stamping noises from the attic. But this room had no floorboards—only the bare joists. In November 1934, Mr. Keel was awakened by three violent bangs on his door. He went to his wife’s room down the corridor—she had also heard them. This happened at 3 a.m. The next night, there were two thumps on the door at the same time, and the following night, one loud thump. Keel went away on business for a few days, and when he returned, decided to stay awake until 3 a.m. to see if anything happened. Nothing did, and he fell asleep. Then a violent bang woke him up. Although the room was dark, he could see quite clearly a small, oldish man dressed in a green smock, with muddy breeches and a handkerchief around his neck. He looked so solid and normal that Keel was convinced this was an intruder and, when he got no reply, jumped out of bed and tried to grab him: His hand went through him, and Keel fainted. When he came to, he ran to his wife’s bedroom, babbling incoherently, and his wife rushed out to get some brandy. Outside her husband’s room she saw the feet and leggings of a man, then looked up and saw the same little old man. She was also able to see him quite clearly in the dark, although he did not seem to be shining. She observed that he was wearing a pudding basin hat, that his face was very red, “the eyes malevolent and horrid,” and that his mouth was dribbling. She also asked him who he was and what he wanted. When he made no reply, she tried to hit him. Her fist went through him, and she hurt her knuckles on the doorpost. Her husband was in a faint in her room at the time, so he had not had an opportunity to describe the man he saw; it was only later that they realized both had seen the same ghost.

  After this, they continued to see the little old man in green several times a week. They also heard footsteps and knocking. The old man usually walked across Keel’s bedroom, appearing from the chimney on the landing, and vanished into a cupboard which had once been a priest hole. After a while, the family ceased to be afraid of him. The wife discovered that she could make him vanish by extending a finger and trying to touch him. The third time she saw him, the old man raised his head, and Mrs. Keel could see that his throat was cut and his windpipe was sticking out. One day she heard heavy footsteps approaching along the corridor, and thought it was her husband. Her bedroom door, which was locked, flew open and invisible footsteps crashed across the room (although the floor was carpeted), then the footsteps went upward toward the ceiling, as if they were mounting a staircase. A trapdoor in the ceiling flew open, and the footsteps continued in the attic—again, sounding as if they were on floorboards, although these had been removed. A dog in the room was terrified. Mrs. Keel’s sixteen-year-old daughter Pat was sleeping in her mother’s room, and witnessed the whole episode. The man who sold them the house told them that there had been a staircase in the room, which he had had removed to replace it with the fireplace.

  Two psychical investigators who were called in declared that the house had been built on the site of a Druid stone circle, and that this explained why it was haunted. The ghost, they said, was a man called Henry Knowles, who had cut his throat in 1819 when a milkmaid had jilted him.

  As the Research Officer for the International Institute, Fodor was called in to investigate; he had with him Mrs. Maude ffoulkes, who also published the story of the manor house in her book, True Ghost Stories, later that year (thus providing independent corroboration of the story). An amateur photographer had succeeded in taking a picture of a dim shape on the haunted landing, so Fodor took his own photographic equipment.

  Fodor now had enough experience of hauntings to look for unhappiness in the house. The daughter, Pat, struck him as nervous and very jealous of any attention given to her mother, and admitted to suffering from temper tantrums. On the first night, nothing happened. The next time, Fodor slept in the “haunted room,” but, apart from awful nightmares, had nothing to record. He decided to ask the help of the famous American medium, Eileen Garrett, who happened to be in England. In late July Mrs. Garrett came to the house and immediately had strong psychic impressions. The ghost, she said, was a man who had been imprisoned nearby. There had been a king’s palace nearby, and the man had been tortured. He had something to do with a king called Edward. Her further observations suggested that the “ghost” she saw was not the same old man, for she described him as sharp-featured, with blond hair, and said he had taken part in a rebellion against his half-brother, the king. (In fact, there were two royal castles in the area, Farnham and Guildford.)

  Mrs. Garrett went into a trance, and was taken over by her trance personality, Uvani, an Arabian. Uvani made the interesting comment that hauntings take place only when there is someone in a “bad emotional state” who can revivify old unhappy memories. There were bad emotional states in this house, said Uvani. “Life cannot die,” said Uvani, “you can explode its dynamism, but you cannot dissipate its energy. If you suffered where life suffered, the essence that once filled the frame will take from you something to dramatize and live again.” About five hundred yards to the west of this house, said Uvani, there had been a jail in the early part of the fifteenth century, and many unfortunate men and women had died there. “There are dozens of unhappy souls about.” (The early fifteenth century was the period of the battle of Agincourt, Joan of Arc, and many revolts and rebellions. The plot against Edward the Fourth by his brother, the Duke of Clarence, was in 1470.)

  “According to this,” says Fodor,[2] “our ghost was a spectral automaton, living on life borrowed from human wrecks—a fascinating conception which was very different from ordinary spiritualistic conceptions and very damning for the owners of the house.

  Uvani then said that he would allow the ghost to take possession of Mrs. Garrett’s body. The medium grew stiff and her breathing became labored. She seemed to be trying to speak, but was unable. The “spirit” pointed to its lips, tapped them as if to signal it was dumb, then felt its throat gingerly. He beckoned to Fodor, then seized his hand in such a powerful grip that Fodor howled with pain. Although another person present tried to help him free his hand, it was impossible. Fodor’s hand went numb, and was useless for days after the séance.

  The “man” threw himself on his knees in front of Fodor, seemed to be pleading, and clicked his tongue as if trying to speak. Then it called “Eleison, eleison,” pleading for mercy in the words of the mass. Aware that the ghost was taking him for its jailer, Fodor tried to reassure it, and said they were trying to help him. Finally, the man seemed reassured, and sat down. He began to speak in an odd, medieval English (unfortunately, tape recorders did not exist in those days—it would have been fascinating to have an authentic example of the English of Chaucer’s period), and spoke about the Earl of Huntingdon, calling him ungrateful. It asked Fodor to help him find his wife, then raged about the Duke of Buckingham, (perhaps the one who led a rebellion against Richard III in the late fifteenth century). It seemed that the Duke of Buckingham had offered the man “broad acres and ducats” in exchange for his wife, then betrayed him. The spirit identified itself as Charles Edward Henley, son of Lord Henley. On a sheet of paper, it wrote its name, then “Lord Huntingdon,” and the word “Esse,” which was the medieval name for the village near the manor house. It made the curious statement that Buckingham, the friend of his childhood, had “forced her eyes,” “her” being his wife Dorothy. He added: “Malgré her father lies buried in Esse,” and went on: “You being friend, you proved yourself a brother, do not leave me, but help me to attain my vengeance.”

  Remembering that, according to the teachings of Spiritualism, it is remorse or desire for vengeance that often keeps spirits bound to earth, Fodor and another sitter, a Dr. Lindsay, tried hard to persuade the spirit to abandon its hatred. Finally, it seemed to agree, then cried out, “Hold me, hold me, I cannot stay, I am slipping . . .” Then it was gone, and Mrs. Garrett woke up.

  During this séance, the Keels had been present. Mrs. Keel peered closely at the medium’s face while “Henley” was speaking through her, and was horrified to see that it now looked like the old man she
had seen.

  But had the ghost been laid? Apparently not. Some time later, Keel rang Fodor to tell him that the old man was back again, standing in the doorway and trying to speak.

  Dr. Lindsay, who had been present at the séance, had also had a remarkable experience. At the College of Psychic Science, he had been involved in a séance with another medium when the ghost of “Henley” came through. It complained that Fodor had promised to stand by him, but that when he had come back the following night, there was no one there. The old man said he had seen his son, for whom he had been searching, but not his wife.

  They had another session with Mrs. Garrett that afternoon. Again, the ghost came through, and made more pleas for help, as well as saying a little more about his background. It was not particularly informative; but the control, Uvani, had some interesting things to say. He asserted that the Keels had been “using” the ghost to “embarrass” each other. What was being suggested was that the ghost-laying ceremony would have worked if the Keels had not wanted to cling on to the ghost as a device for somehow “getting at” one another.

  Following this hint, Fodor talked to Mrs. Keel. She then admitted that Uvani was right about the unhappiness in the household. Her husband was homosexual, so their sex lives left much to be desired. And the daughter was jealous of her mother—Fodor hints that it was a classic Oedipus complex. Mrs. Keel was keeping up her spirits with drugs.

  Soon after this, the case began to reach a kind of climax. Mr. Keel himself was becoming “possessed” by the spirit, talking in his sleep and saying things about “Henley” and his life. Fodor sent him a transcription of the things Uvani had said about the desire of the Keels to “hold on” to the ghost; as a result, Keel rang him to admit he felt it was true.

  This confession had the effect that Fodor’s “ghost-laying ceremony” had failed to achieve; the ghost of Ash Manor disappeared and did not return.

  This is undoubtedly one of the most interesting cases of haunting on record, for a number of reasons. First, the corroboration is impressive: the story was also written up by Maude ffoulkes and published in 1936,[3] and the participation of Eileen Garrett rules out any suggestion that Fodor might simply have invented the whole story—a suggestion that has been made about one of Harry Price’s most impressive cases, “Rosalie.”[4] Second, the behavior of the ghost seems to show that the “tape recording” theory of Lethbridge and Sir Oliver Lodge does not cover all hauntings; “Henley” was clearly more than a “recording.” And third, it demonstrates very clearly that there is no clear dividing line between a ghost and a poltergeist. This case started with bangings and rappings, and then developed into a haunting. And, if we can accept Uvani’s statements as any kind of evidence, it also suggests that there are such things as “earth-bound” spirits, probably in dismaying abundance. The other implications—about the nature of such spirits—must be left until the final chapter.

  If Fodor had possessed Price’s flair for publicity, the “Henley” case might have made him as famous as Borley made Price. But he made no attempt to publicize it. Neither did he attempt to make capital out of a visit to study the talking mongoose of Cashen’s Gap (except for a single chapter in a book), although his investigation was rather more painstaking—if hardly more successful—than Price’s. (Fodor concluded that the mongoose was probably genuine, but denied that it was a poltergeist on the dubious grounds that poltergeists are always invisible; we have seen that “elementals” are rather less easy to classify than this implies.) In fact, Fodor’s only flash of notoriety occurred almost accidentally as a result of a libel action he brought against Psychic News. He was asked whether it was true that he wanted to take a medium, Mrs. Fielding, to the Tower of London to steal the Crown Jewels by psychic means, and he admitted that this was true, and that he had been willing to go to prison if the experiment had been successful. However, it had been forbidden by the other members of the International Institute. From then on, Fodor was known as the man who wanted to “spirit away” the Crown Jewels.

  Mrs. Fielding was, in fact, the “focus” of the most interesting and complex poltergeist case he ever investigated. Mrs. Fielding (Fodor calls her Mrs. Forbes in his book On the Trail of the Poltergeist) was a thirty-five-year-old London housewife, living at Thornton Heath, an attractive woman with a seventeen-year-old son. The disturbances began on Friday, February 19, 1938, as the Fieldings were in bed, and on the point of sleep. A glass shattered on the floor, and when they put on the light, another glass flew past their heads. They put off the light, and the eiderdown flew up in their faces. They tried to switch on the light again, but the bulb had been removed. A pot of face cream was thrown at their son when he came in to see what was happening. The next day, cups, saucers and ornaments flew through the air. They notified the Sunday Pictorial, and two reporters came. The poltergeist obliged with an impressive display. A cup and saucer in Mrs. Fielding’s hand shattered and cut her badly, a huge piece of coal struck the wall with such force that it left a big hole, an egg cup shattered in the hand of one reporter, and Mrs. Fielding was thrown out of her chair by some force. As Mr. Fielding went upstairs, a vase flew through the air and struck him with a crash—yet although he looked dazed, his head was not bruised. Within three days of the coming of the poltergeist, it had broken thirty-six tumblers, twenty-four wine glasses, fifteen egg cups and a long list of other articles.

  When Fodor arrived a few days later, the poltergeist did not disappoint. Fodor records twenty-nine poltergeist incidents during that first visit. Again and again, he had his eyes on Mrs. Fielding when things happened—glasses flew off tables, a saucer smashed against the wall, glasses were snatched from her hands and broke on the floor. It was soon clear that Mrs. Fielding, and not her seventeen-year-old son, was the focus and “cause” of the disturbances. One glass flew out of her hand and split in mid-air with a loud ping, as if it had been hit by a hammer.

  Fodor asked Mrs. Fielding to come to the headquarters of the Institute, Walton House, for tests. She was dressed in a one-piece garment after being searched (a precaution he may have learned from the Lajos Pap case) and they went into the séance room. While Mrs. Fielding was standing in full view, with three witnesses around her, there was a clatter, and a brass-bound hair brush appeared on the floor. It was warm, as “apports” usually are (the theory being that they are “dematerialized” and then re-materialized). Mrs. Fielding identified it as her own, and said she had left it in her bedroom at home. The poltergeist then obliged with several more apports, and also made saucers fly out of Mrs. Fielding’s hands and split with a ping in mid-air. Strong men found that they could not break them in their hands.

  The idea of stealing the Crown Jewels probably came to Fodor when he and Mrs. Fielding went into a gift shop and she decided against buying a small elephant; as they were getting into the car, a box in Mrs. Fielding’s hand rattled, and they found the elephant in it; they had committed “psychic shop-lifting.”

  At a later “sitting,” Mrs. Fielding produced some impressive results. On one occasion she sat with her hands tightly clenched while someone held them. The person holding them felt one hand convulse “as if something was being born,” and when Mrs. Fielding opened her hand, there was a tortoiseshell cross in it.

  She also began to experience “psychic projections,” finding herself in other places in her trance states. In the séance room, in a semi-trance, she projected herself back to her home. They telephoned her husband, who said she was there, and even handed her the telephone; at that moment, they were cut off. Mrs. Fielding’s “double” handed her husband a recipe that she had written in the séance room; he read it back to them over the telephone, and it was identical with the one they had in front of them. He also handed the “double” a compass, which then reappeared in the séance room, ten miles away. The “double” had walked out of the front door with the compass.

  A full account of Mrs. Fielding’s phenomena would occupy a whole chapter. She produced some ancient artif
acts like Roman lamps and pottery labeled “Carthage,” white mice and a bird, and a spray of violet perfume around her body (as well as violets which fell from the air.) Under increasing strain, she started to show signs of breakdown. She began going hysterically blind, burn marks appeared on her neck, and she claimed she was being clawed by an invisible tiger (producing an unpleasant “zoo” odor). When her husband said jokingly that he would like an elephant, there was a crash and an elephant’s tooth appeared in the hall. She also had a phantom pregnancy.

  At a séance, a spirit that claimed to be her grandfather declared that he was responsible for the apports. Asked to prove its identity by bringing something of its own, it materialized a silver matchbox—which Mrs. Fielding said had belonged to her grandfather—in her clasped hands.

  And at this point, the story took a bewildering turn. Mrs. Forbes [Fielding] apparently began cheating. Fodor saw her producing a “breeze” during a séance by blowing on the back of someone’s neck. Fodor became convinced that she was producing small “apports” from under her clothes, and an X-ray photograph showed a brooch hidden beneath her left breast. Later, she produced this brooch as an apport. When being undressed, a small square of linen fell from between her legs, stained with vaginal secretion; it looked as if she was also using her vagina to hide apports.

  Two days after this, she claimed to have been attacked by a vampire. There were two small puncture marks on her neck, and she looked listless and pale.

  One of the oddest incidents occurred when Fodor was walking with her into the Institute. With no attempt at concealment, she opened her handbag, took something out, and threw a stone over her shoulder. When Fodor asked her about this, she indignantly denied it.