Poltergeist: A Classic Study in Destructive Haunting by Colin Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

them—meaning more-or-less what Lombroso meant by “nerve force.” Jung had no doubt that it was caused by the unconscious mind, and a personal experience confirmed him in this view. One day he was arguing with Freud about “exteriorization” and Freud was highly skeptical. Jung’s rising irritation caused a burning sensation in his chest “as if my diaphragm was becoming red hot!” Suddenly, there was a loud explosion in the bookcase. “There,” said Jung, “ that was an exteriorization phenomenon.” “Bosh,” said Freud, to which Jung replied: “It is not bosh, and to prove it, there will be another explosion in a moment.” And a second explosion occurred. Jung had no doubt that he had somehow caused the explosions by getting angry.
    Most modern investigators of poltergeist phenomena would agree with Jung. One of the rare exceptions was the late Harry Price, who wrote in Poltergeist Over England: “My own view is that they are invisible, intangible, malicious and noisy entities . . .” He adds: “Poltergeists are able, by laws yet unknown to our physicists, to extract energy from living persons, often from the young, and usually from girl adolescents, especially if they suffer from some mental disorder.” Unfortunately, Price’s reputation has declined steadily since his death in 1948, with accusations of lying, cheating, publicity seeking, and fraud; so most psychical researchers would dismiss his views on poltergeists as a deliberate attempt at sensationalism. Besides, Price himself admitted that poltergeists seem to be connected with sexual energies; and he described how the husband of the Austrian medium Frieda Weisl told him that, during their early married life, ornaments jumped off the mantel shelf when she had a sexual orgasm. This certainly sounds like Jung’s “exteriorization phenomenon.”
    We may say, then, that the modern consensus of opinion is that a poltergeist is a person, not a spirit. The view is summed up by Richard Cavendish: [1]
    Because poltergeist incidents usually occur in close proximity to a living person, parapsychologists tend to regard them as instances of psychokinesis or PK. Since poltergeist incidents are recurrent and arise unexpectedly and spontaneously, they are commonly referred to as instances of “recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis” or RSPK. They appear to be unconscious cases of PK since the person who seems to bring them about is usually unaware of his involvement. Some persons remain convinced that RSPK phenomena are due to the agency of an incorporeal entity, such as the spirit of a deceased person or a “demon” which has attached itself to some living person and which causes the incidents by PK. However, since there is no evidence for such spirits apart from the phenomena themselves, most parapsychologists are of the opinion that poltergeist phenomena are examples of unconscious PK exercised by the person around whom they occur.
    “Psychokinesis” means, of course, “mind over matter.” And it has been widely accepted by investigators since the mid-1930s, when Dr. J. B. Rhine, of Duke University, conducted a series of experiments with a gambler who claimed that he could influence the fall of the dice by concentrating on them. Rhine’s experiments showed that the gambler was correct; he could, to some extent, influence the dice to make it turn up sixes. Since then, there have been thousands of similar experiments, and the evidence for PK is regarded as overwhelming.
    Yet it has to be admitted that even its “star performers”—Nina Kulagina, Felicia Parise, Ingo Swann, Uri Geller—cannot make objects fly around the room as poltergeists seem to be able to. The Russian Kulagina first came to the attention of scientists when she was in hospital after a nervous breakdown; her doctors were fascinated to see that she could reach into her sewing basket and take out any color of thread she wanted without looking at it. They tested her and found that