The Naturalization of the ‘Poltergeist’

Ostensible ‘poltergeist phenomena’ are the very epitome of ‘things that go bump in the night’, and most modern scientists would probably relegate them to the realm of fairy tales without thinking twice. And yet, for historians studying the historical continuity of scientific interest in the supposed ‘supernatural’, they offer surprising insights.

Probably coined by Martin Luther (a professed poltergeist victim) in sixteenth-century Germany, ‘Poltergeist’ means ‘rumbling spirit’. There is a vast number of historical records of dramatic poltergeist outbreaks afflicting people from all walks of life, not infrequently resulting in interventions by state authorities, which in turn have produced some of the most detailed records. Among the bizarre but apparently robust features of alleged poltergeist phenomena over time are:

  • The centre of events is usually a specific person, often an adolescent.
  • Unexplained recurring sounds are heard, ranging from raps from within walls or furniture to deafening blows.
  • Sounds are sometimes responsive.
  • Household objects of all sizes and weights are observed to move, sometimes slowly and appearing as if carried.
  • Moved objects appear to penetrate closed windows or walls without causing damage, and they are often reported to be hot.
  • Stones are observed to be thrown from without, sometimes from a considerable distance.
  • Large quantities of water suddenly appear and disappear, and fires ignite spontaneously.
  • Persons may be hurled out of bed, slapped or beaten as if by invisible hands, and bitten.
  • Writings and drawings appear on walls or in closed spaces.
  • Apparitions are perceived, sometimes simultaneously by more than one witness.
  • The alleged disturbances correlate with pets and animals panicking or behaving unusually.
  • In post-industrial times, disturbances correspond with malfunctions or erratic performances of electronic equipment.
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Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Many figureheads of the Scientific Revolution believed in poltergeist phenomena and interpreted them in traditional religious terms, i.e. as caused by witchcraft, devils or evil human spirits. Early members of the Royal Society like Joseph Glanvill, for example, investigated poltergeist cases and published their findings. Among their now better known supporters was Robert Boyle, who sponsored the English translation of a French poltergeist case, the ‘Devil of Mascon’, to which Boyle also wrote the preface.

During the Enlightenment the respectability of the ‘supernatural’  declined dramatically on the backdrop of continuing wars of religion, clerical corruptions and the horrors of the witch crazes. However, rather than natural philosophers or medics it was religious and political writers such as Joseph Addison who began to treat the ‘occult’ as a shorthand for Catholic irrationality and backwardness and ridiculed it out of intellectual discourse. Addison’s play The Drummer, for instance, was a caricature of the ‘Drummer of Tedworth’, a poltergeist case investigated by Joseph Glanville, poking fun of ghost beliefs as well as of atheistic free-thinkers.

However, not all Enlightenment savants agreed that reports of ‘things that go bump in the night’ were necessarily to be treated with contempt. G. E. Lessing in Germany, for instance, openly opposed the fashionable wholesale rejection of reports of apparitional experiences and poltergeist phenomena. (According to the German historian Carl Kiesewetter, this was shortly after Lessing became involved in an incident in Dibbesdorf near Braunschweig, where members of a working-class family afflicted by a prolonged poltergeist outbreak were, without further ado, imprisoned for breach of the peace.)

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In the mid-nineteenth century, modern spiritualism emerged as a major grassroots religion from a case featuring responsive knocks in a cabin in Hydesville, USA. The poltergeist began to be further domesticated when eminent representatives of science such as Alfred Russel Wallace, William Crookes, and Alexandr Butlerov investigated spiritualist mediums and became convinced of the reality of its phenomena. When the Leipzig astrophysicist Johann F. Zöllner tested his theory of a fourth dimension of space by having a medium experimentally reproduce poltergeist-style phenomena, this became an explosive political issue during the infancy of the modern psychological profession in Germany. Zöllner, who was joined in his unorthodox investigations by physicists like Gustav Theodor Fechner, was publicly attacked by Fechner’s disciple Wilhelm Wundt, the founder of the first German institute of experimental psychology who worried that scientific interest in the phenomena of spiritualism would threaten the social and religious foundations of civilization.

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Carl du Prel

In contrast to Wundt, his American counterpart William James at Harvard advocated scientific studies of spiritualism. Collaborating particularly with researchers in England, James’s helped spawn important late-nineteenth century concepts of the subconscious mind. Two major theorists of subliminal cognition were Carl du Prel in Germany and James’s friend Frederic W. H. Myers in England. Comparing the psychology of conventional sleep-walking with features of reported apparitions of living persons, they suggested that fixed subconscious ideas might be an underlying cause of both. Moreover, they proposed an unusual psychological explanation for reported apparitions of the dead: Myers proposed that “the behaviour of phantasms of the living suggests dreams dreamt by the living persons whose phantoms appear. And similarly the behaviour of phantasms of the dead suggests dreams dreamt by the deceased persons whose phantasms appear”. Likewise, du Prel believed “If super-sensory capacities are possible without the use of the body, they must be possible without occupancy of it”.

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Eugen Bleuler

In the early twentieth century, Oliver Lodge, Charles Richet, Cesare Lombroso, Filippo Bottazzi, Camille Flammarion, Henri Bergson, Marie and Pierre Curie, the third and fourth Lords Rayleigh and many less known scientists, medics and philosophers tried to reproduce poltergeist-style phenomena under controlled conditions. After authors like du Prel and Myers were eclipsed by psychoanalysis, mental health professionals like Carl Gustav Jung, Eugen Bleuler, Enrico Morselli and the sexologist Albert von Schrenck-Notzing continued to study poltergeist phenomena in the field and in the laboratory. However, they categorically dismissed theories involving the agency of discarnate spirits and many advocated a strictly psychodynamic approach. As Schrenck-Notzing put it: “In certain cases, emotionally charged complexes of representations, which have become autonomous and dissociated, seem to press for discharge and realisation through haunting phenomena. Hence, the so-called haunting occurs in place of a neurosis”. Holding that there were numerous cases where possibilities of fraud were practically eliminated, they proposed that poltergeist phenomena were to be explained in terms of emotional conflicts unconsciously acted out by individuals with a ‘telekinetic’ disposition, a view which was adopted by psychoanalysts like Alfred von Winterstein and Nandor Fodor.

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Wolfgang Pauli

Scientific interest in poltergeist-style phenomena persisted in the most unlikely places. Members of the Vienna Circle of Positivism such as Rudolf Carnap and Hans Hahn (who became vice-president of the Austrian Society for Psychical Research) keenly followed Schrenck-Notzing’s experimental and field investigations. Hahn’s most eminent student, Kurt Gödel, likewise attended experimental séances. The theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli believed in the intrinsic interconnectedness of mind and matter even on a macroscopic level, a view that was partly based on his own strange experiences. For example, Pauli was prohibited to enter the laboratory of his friend Otto Stern in Hamburg because Pauli’s mere presence was reported to reliably wreak havoc on lab equipment and apparatuses. Pauli corresponded extensively with Jung, and along with spontaneous and experimental poltergeist-style examples of the “Pauli effect” informed Jung’s concept of synchronicity. Pauli also corresponded with the Freiburg psychologist Hans Bender, who continued a psychodynamic-synchronistic approach to ‘occult’ phenomena and investigated the ‘Rosenheim case’, a violent poltergeist outbreak in a Bavarian law firm, which is often considered as one of the most thoroughly documented modern poltergeist cases (the term ‘poltergeist’ was soon dropped and replaced by ‘recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis’ or RSPK).

Interestingly, the OED (third edition, updated in September 2006) still relies on early modern theological notions by defining the poltergeist as “a ghost or other supernatural being supposedly responsible for physical disturbances such as making loud noises and throwing objects about”. This definition strikingly obscures the pluralism of empirical and conceptual approaches to the ‘poltergeist’ as a shorthand for a variety of questions regarding the human mind, its place in nature, and, not least, the power of belief and disbelief.

[This text is loosely based on my talk Exorcising the ghost from the machine. Affect, emotion, and the enlightened naturalisation of the ‘poltergeist’, 10 October 2012, at the Society for the Social History of Medicine Conference, Queen Mary University, London].

Select Bibliography
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Bender, Hans (1968). Der Rosenheimer Spuk – ein Fall spontaner Psychokinese. Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie und Grenzgebiete der Psychologie, 11, 104-112.

Bleuler, Eugen (1930). Vom Okkultismus und seinen Kritiken. Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie, 5, 654-680.

Carnap, Rudolf (1993). Mein Weg in die Philosophie. Stuttgart: Reclam (first published in 1963) [Search on Abebooks].

du Prel, Carl (1888). Die monistische Seelenlehre. Ein Beitrag zur Lösung des Menschenrätsels. Leipzig: Ernst Günther [Search on Abebooks].

Enz, Charles P. (2002). No Time to be Brief: A Scientific Biography of Wolfgang Pauli. New York: Oxford University Press [Buy on Amazon] [Search on Abebooks].

Flammarion, Camille (1923). Les maisons hantées. Paris: Ernest Flammarion [Search on Abebooks].

Gauld, Alan, & Cornell, A. D. (1979). Poltergeists. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul [Search on Abebooks].

Hunter, Michael (1985). The problem of ‘atheism’ in early modern England. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 35, 135-157.

Jung, Carl Gustav (1950). Vorrede. In Fanny Moser, Spuk. Irrglaube oder Wahrglaube? Eine Frage der Menschheit (pp. 9-12). Baden: Gyr [Search on Abebooks].

Kiesewetter, Carl (1890). Klopfgeister vor dem Jahre 1848. Sphinx, 10, 224-232.

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (1827). Hamburgische Dramaturgie. Erster Theil. Elftes Stück. In Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften (Vol. 24, pp. 82-88). Berlin: Vossische Buchhandlung (first published in 1767) [Search on Abebooks].

Meier, C. A. (Ed.). (2001). Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932-1958. Princeton: Princeton University Press [Buy on Amazon] [Search on Abebooks].

Myers, Frederic W. H. (1889). On recognised apparitions occurring more than a year after death. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 6, 13-65.

Perrault, François (1658). The Devil of Mascon. Or, A true Relation of the Chiefe Things which an Uncleane Spirit did, and said at Mascon in Burgundy, in the House of Mr Francis Pereaud, Minister of the Reformed Church in the same Towne. Oxford: Hen, Hall, Rich & Davis (originally published in 1653).

Porter, Roy (1999). Witchcraft and magic in Enlightenment, Romantic and liberal thought. In B. Ankarloo & S. Clark (Eds.), Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (pp. 191-282). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press [Buy on Amazon] [Search on Abebooks].

Schrenck-Notzing, Albert von (1928). Richtlinien zur Beurteilung medialer Spukvorgänge. Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie, 3, 513-521.

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© 2013 Andreas Sommer

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10 thoughts on “The Naturalization of the ‘Poltergeist’”

  1. After reading this interesting and intriguing piece, it does not surprise me that modern scientists have taken up the cry of the historical scientists. Today’s scientists, I am reading, have joined with philosophers and the like and begun what is called the Noetic Sciences, which is a look and examination into what was once considered supernatural or paranormal phenomenon. They are touching on such subjects as clairvoyance, telekinesis and telepathy. Truly, this is an exciting time to witness and about which to learn. That you mention that these phenomena are not actual affects and effects of some sort of emotional or psychological delusion, but of the faculty and ability of the mind/consciousness is what strikes as so intriguing. Surely, if we can connect to the idea of quantum consciousness (and even quantum mechanics), i.e., that which Stuart Hameroff speaks so much about, certainly the idea that these phenomena may be a latent ability of the mind/consciousness is not that far off that mark?

    Excellent post, thank you.

    • Thanks for your comment! Mind you, I don’t make claims regarding the phenomena in question or favour possible interpretations but actually want to flag up that it is not only today that scientists and philosophers dissatisfied with reductionism join forces and ask unorthodox questions. In fact, holistic and integrative approaches to mind and matter have never ceased to be proposed by elite scientists. What interests me as a historian is why this simple fact has never been reflected in mainstream historiographies. There is a cultural and social consensus of sorts: science should not ask certain questions – which in my view undermines the very principles and virtues of science itself, for what good is enquiry if it is restricted by social convention?

    • Thanks for this; Podmore’s interestingly one-sided views on poltergeist phenomena need to be read in the context of his debates on the topic with fellow psychical researchers, e.g. the anthropologist Andrew Lang and the physicist William Barrett, who argued there was more to it than just errors of memory and perception:
      Lang, A. (1903). The poltergeist, historically considered. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 17, 305-326.
      Barrett, W. F. (1911). Poltergeists, old and new. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 25, 377-412.

  2. I have not been able to understand Lang’s views on poltergeists or other paranormal phenomena as secondary sources seem to be contradicting each other. Lang was cited by the arch-rationalist Joseph McCabe as being a skeptic of pretty much all paranormal phenomena and elsewhere I read he was only interested in the folklore of it. He clashed with the skeptic Edward Clodd in a series of publications on folklore.

    A recent skeptic Daniel Loxton has cited Lang’s “Cock Lane and Common-Sense” (1894) as a skeptical look at ghosts and hauntings, yet I read in an SPR review that the book argues for the complete opposite! The book is online, I did take a look. To be honest it’s hard to understand his position.

    I appreciate your research on these historical matters related to psychical research, it really is brilliant and very few people in the world spend the time to dig it all up. There’s too much to comment on but one name that I took notice to was Friedrich Zöllner and his theory of the fourth dimension. I have looked into this in depth and I came to the conclusion that Zöllner may have been deceived by Henry Slade. If you read Hereward Carrington’s book The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, he reveals some very easy trick methods that Slade could have employed on the rope experiments and Harry Houdini knew someone (I forget the name) who obtained a letter from Slade before his death that was a confession admitting he had cheated. You can read about it in Houdini’s book A Magician Among the Spirits. It’s possible the confession may of been a hoax. Walter Franklin Prince reviewed Houdini’s book and found many errors but I have little doubt Slade cheated on those experiments considering his previous history.

    I am researching Harry Price’s involvement with Eleonore Zugun and the Battersea poltergeist these are two alleged poltergeist cases which have received little attention. I have tried to do some research on the Rosenheim case but sources are scarce and if you read the heavily biased Wikipedia it was recently updated and they literally claim the whole thing was a hoax.

    • As with any other controversial topic: Don’t ever rely on secondary sources, go straight to the original writings, and if possible, conduct archival research to unearth additional information. Wikipedia is absolutely useless in this regard. You will find the distortions and omissions in secondary sources by self-appointed “sceptics” like McCabe, and not least good old Houdini, to be quite hair-raising.

      The same is true for Zöllner/Slade. The political relevance of the episode is enormous, and I uncovered some primary/archival sources putting things into perspective (see my “Spiritualism and the origins of modern psychology in late nineteenth-century Germany: The Wundt-Zöllner debate”, in C. M. Moreman (Ed.), The Spiritualist Movement: Speaking with the Dead in America and Around the World (Vol. 1, pp. 55-72). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013. For an evaluation of Carrington’s verdict, I recommend studying the German original of Zöllner’s observations (in vols. 2-3 of his Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen, 1878-9), or the very able compilation/translation by C. C. Massey: Zöllner, J. K. F. (1880). Transcendental Physics: An Account of Experimental Investigations. London: W. H. Harrison.

      Mind you, I’m not claiming the phenomena were real, all I mean to imply is that primary sources tend to be constructed in an extremely biased manner by self-styled ‘reality sheriffs’.

      Regarding Zugun, if you don’t read German I recommend Mulacz, Peter (1999) Eleonore Zugun – the Re-evaluation of a historic RSPK case. Journal of Parapsychology, 63, 15-45. Regarding the Rosenheim case, I’m afraid there’s no way around the (rather extensive) original German sources, and archival material located at the ‘Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie’ in Freiburg, Germany.

  3. Many thanks for an interesting article.
    Are you familiar with Barrie Colvin’s research into the acoustics of unexplained rapping noises? I can let you have a copy of the pof if it is of interest.

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