Links Between 'Poltergeist' Cases

 

There are detailed case study books about some famous so-called 'talking poltergeist' cases: the 'Bell Witch' case, the Mary Jobson case, the Isle of Man 'Gef' case, and the 'Enfield Poltergeist'; while many details of the contemporary Centrahoma case are included in Testament (1997).  In each case, the manifestations show responses to the actions and mentality of the human observers.  

Many cases of 'unexplained phenomena' encompass incidents similar to those found in poltergeist case studies — consider for example some of the events chronicled in Andrija Puharich's case study Uri: A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller (1974).  Using the term 'poltergeist' to differentiate cases from mediumship and Direct Voice phenomena categorizations of 'unexplained phenomena' may be most appropriate as a historical frame of reference upon understanding a context and the significance of the phenomena, the topic of the preceding blog article. 

The reader of Matthew Manning's The Link (1974) may realize that this autobiographical book about what was at the time was considered 'poltergeist phenomena' encompasses an interlude of "direct communication with spirit entities"; however, automatic writing was the customary means of transcendental communication for Manning.  On one occasion considering "the state that I lapsed into was really like a trance," he described hearing in succession the voices of Henrietta Webbe, Thomas Salmon, Richard Webbe and Anne Willis who briefly told him about their lives in the house during previous centuries.

The puzzling events in Matthew's life began in 1967 with his family finding objects that had been moved ("lightweight ornaments, chairs, cutlery, ashtrays, baskets, plates, a small coffee table and a score of other articles, but none was ever broken or spilled").  The first object that he witnessed levitating was an eraser near his sister who was drawing at the time.  Their house in Shelford had been constructed in the 1950s.  Matthew wrote:

As the physical manifestations increased, the house began to produce erratic and unsuspected taps and creaks.  The noises would vary from a dull knocking to a sound like a small stone being thrown at the window, and they continued throughout the day and night in all parts of the house.

In many ways the most interesting aspect of the phenomenon was a "pinging" sound that we often heard; it seemed to rebound off windows or radiators, and occasionally glass or china.  Although it sounded like tiny beads striking these objects, the sound was similar to that made by a bat.

Another interesting occurrence befell my father on more than one occasion.  While asleep at night, he would be awakened suddenly for no apparent reason.  He was not in a drowsy state, but perfectly alert and aware of everything going on around him.  He had the feeling that a cat was moving on top of his bedclothes, up and down his legs, trying to find a comfortable position in which to settle down.  After it had apparently done so, he would feel a weight on his feet, although there was no cat.

The first period of the poltergeist-type phenomena lasted for a period of three months.  In 1968 the family moved to the 18th Century 'Queen's House' at Linton.  In 1970 there was a resumption and escalation of the strange events.  Matthew commented:

After the poltergeist activities had been going on for two weeks, it became clear that a certain pattern was emerging.  The phenomenon was basically divisible into three categories: the first was purely disruptive and annoying, the second was concerned with symmetry and balance, and the third was a demonstration of noisy and boisterous movement designed, it seemed, to attract spectators.

While I had no knowledge of either Matthew Manning's case or the 'Enfield Poltergeist' case at the time of my trip to Oklahoma in 1995, there are innumerable parallels between these cases and the other cases of 'unexplained phenomena' that have been categorized as 'poltergeist' cases.  I will identify a few of these correlations to provide examples.

Matthew Manning wrote in The Link:

My sister had in her bedroom a table about twenty-nine inches high by thirty-six inches long by eighteen inches wide; it also held a drawer under the top of it.  Her bedroom was at the front of the house, on the first floor.  On the table she kept a pile of books and papers, a mug of pencils, and other ornaments.

The table with everything on it vanished one afternoon.  We searched the house for it, but in vain.  On a second search a little later, it was discovered standing in our cellar, with all the papers and ornaments still exactly in place on it.  In fact it appeared that none of the objects on it had been disturbed.  It had travelled no less than 105 feet, descended three flights of stairs, passed through five doorways, some less than 30 inches wide, and made no fewer than ten complete right-angled changes of direction.

Guy Lyon Playfair reported in This House Is Haunted: An Investigation of the Enfield Poltergeist (1980):

One morning, we had indications that the poltergeist, or one of them at least, was trying to be helpful.  Mrs. Harper wanted to get rid of the large dining table, which was far too big for the room, and was wondering how she was going to get it out to the back garden.  Just after the thought had crossed her mind, the table, which must have weighed well over a hundred pounds, shot across the room, tilted half over and came to rest wedged against the smaller table by the front window.  Then Mrs. Harper noticed that the table could be dismantled quite easily.

Playfair also acknowledged, "The poltergeist, or at any rate one of them, seemed to have a sense of humour."  He explained:

One night, the Harpers watched fascinated as a slipper performed a little dance balanced on the edge of the headboard of Janet's bed, bending double as if it were being manipulated like a glove puppet.  On another occasion, a poster that had fallen off the wall slid up from the floor and peeped over the same headboard.

One night, I sat on the landing eating a sandwich as quietly as I could, when from the bedroom one of the Voices suddenly announced that it wanted a biscuit.  Mrs. Harper looked at Janet, who was well tucked up with her hands out of sight, when to her amazement a biscuit just appeared out of nowhere, stuck in Janet's mouth.

The 'humor' expressed in the latter incident concerns the manifesting intelligence's response to the suspicions that Janet (and teenagers) might be the causal agent allowing the phenomena to occur.  Recounting when the voice phenomena started in the Enfield house, Playfair himself wrote in his case study book about the family's 12-year-old Janet: "Was Janet a brilliant ventriloquist as well as one of the country's leading conjurors?"  The comment is found in a chapter describing Dr. Beloff's visit to the house and the paranormal researcher is observed to be a distinct denialist in relation to the phenomena he observed, as recounted by Playfair.  The author admitted in the second-to-last chapter:  "It had now become clear that Janet could not be the immediate cause of the poltergeist activity, since this was  still going on in her absence." 

Matthew Manning mentions in The Link some unexpected materializations, including "a stack of large logs and wood" (something I also seem to have experienced as mentioned in the transcript for Tape #38, Side #2 of Testament) and "a bag of sugar."  Another instance of the apparent materialization of food is described by Manning as having happened circa 1972 — a "curious incident occurred on the Brighton to London train."

One evening I was returning from Brighton to Cambridge, and having eaten nothing all day, I was feeling very hungry.  There was no buffet car on the train.  I went along to the cloakroom to wash, taking with me a washcloth I carried in my bag.

When I returned to my compartment, I put my washcloth back into the traveling bag, which I had left zipped and closed.  To my surprise there was in the bag a pint bottle of beer and an apple pie; these I gladly consumed.

It is out of the bounds of reality to tray and explain this away by suggesting that someone had entered my compartment and put the pie and beer in my bag while I was down the corridor for five minutes.  It just would not make sense.  As in the case of the firewood, who would have conceivably carried out such a charitable act, and who else could have known that I was hungry?  The compartment I occupied was empty except for myself.

Incidents of food being materialized in poltergeist cases are reported in the 19th Century 'Bell Witch' case and the 17th Century 'Hieronyma' Pavia, Italy case.  One might also recall the instance of 'unexplained phenomena' in the Holy Bible in relation to Jesus and the loaves and fishes.

The following excerpt from The Link offers a description of temperature changes—something associated with hauntings—and an inexplicable light formation observed by Matthew Manning in a junior dormitory.

The same etherlike cold appeared to creep into this room, and on the wall opposite the door was a small patch of light.  There was no light in the passage that the dormitory door opened into.  When I put my hand up in front of this patch of light, no shadow could be seen; it was as if the light was being emitted from the wall, rather than projected or reflected onto it.  When I felt this patch on the wall, it was very warm, unlike the surrounding area, which was as cool as an uncovered plaster wall usually is.  We stood back from it, waiting for it to grow as it had when it was seen previously.  It did.

This is how the matron described what she saw:

We stood, Matthew and I, staring at this apparition on the wall opposite to the door, above the head of a sleeping boy.  It was a small round bright light which gradually grew larger.  Suddenly Chris woke; the cold had penetrated through his sleep, and he too saw this bright lighted circle on the wall.  I quietly said, "It's all right, Matthew, I can see a cross placed centrally across it."  Matthew said, "It's a crown of thorns around the edge."  We had no lights on—the light of this apparition was bright enough to illuminate the dormitory.

The matron's description is particularly interesting because what she saw and what I saw were not the same.

In Playfair's book about the Enfield case, John Burcombe (Janet's uncle) is quoted as having seen a light manifestation at the bottom of the Harper family's staircase.

"I saw this light," he said.  "It was the equivalent, I should say, of twelve inches vertical.  It looked like a fluorescent light behind frosted glass, which burned fiercely and gradually faded away.

Matthew Manning wrote in The Link:

My automatic drawings have probably aroused the widest interest, and they first brought me into contact with my publisher and The Psychic Researcher.

. . . it was the sheer volume of automatic drawings that appeared to impress people most and, I believe, the wide spectrum of artists . . .

Among those who "signed" are Albrecht Dürer, Rowlandson, Picasso, Bewick, Arthur Rackham, Leonardo da Vinci, Aubrey Beardsley, Paul Klee, and Beatrix Potter.

Guy Lyon Playfair wrote in This House Is Haunted:

During one of the girls' [what looked like] shared dreams, Rose kept saying "I want to speak to Peggy next door" over and over.  On an impulse, I went down to the kitchen, where Mrs. Harper was tidying up, and asked her to try some automatic writing.  I showed her how to do it, and the very first words she wrote, in the characteristic form of this type of writing which I am sure she could not have faked, were:

"I want to speak to Peggy next door."

This seemed a remarkable coincidence.  She could not hear Rose from the kitchen, and I was tempted to go on with the experiment.  But I decided against it . . .

Among the phenomenal manifestations in both the Matthew Manning case and the Enfield case are the bending of spoons and other metal objects; and instances where there is the sudden appearance of water. 

The name Harper in the Enfield case was a pseudonym and the family's actual name is Hodgson.  The reported audible phenomena of this case includes barking and whistling.  Janet Hodgson (now Winter) has always said that the manifesting voice phenomena was coming from behind her and it is chronicled in the book as also coming at times from the direction of her sister Rose. 

Rose's voice was also claiming to be both Fred and Tommy.  This was getting very confusing.  I asked both girls to try and resist the Voice and stop it, refusing to speak to it myself and giving the girls no encouragement to carry on with it.  This had no effect at all.

Playfair described what happened when Matthew Manning visited the house.

Matthew had no difficulty in striking up a conversation with the Voice, which he questioned steadily for twenty minutes without getting any sense out of it at all.  Now claiming to be Mr. Nottingham's deceased father, it often replied to questions with a wordless grunt or a soft "DUNNO . . ."

"I know that's not your real name," said Matthew.  "You're all the same person — Fred, Charlie and Bill.  You're just a big trickster!"

"WE'VE ALL GOT DIFFERENT TITLES, YOU KNOW," came the unexpected reply.

"What's the point of it," Matthew insisted.  "What are you trying to prove?"

"DUNNO."  And so it went on.  I wished we knew the answers.

Playfair commented: "Matthew's cross-examination seemed at least to have subdued the Voice, which showed none of its usual aggressiveness or abuse . . ."

In the Enfield case as researchers Maurice Grosse and Playfair were not able to make any progress in discerning the nature of the phenomena, there were only new mysteries to ponder (along with the drolly humorous occurrences already mentioned). 

Inside the small lavatory, on the wall, were the letters S, H, I and T.  They had clearly been written in it.

"It tapped me on the shoulder," Rose said, "and I turned round and there it was on the wall.  Frightened the life out of me!"

. . . one day a most unusual word appeared, which was written in soap on the bathroom mirror.  It was quite clearly spelt Q, U, L, I, T.

Playfair mentioned that another of the messages appearing on the bathroom walls, mirror or door was "I AM FRED."

Mrs. Harper reported other incidents involving excrement.

Then there were the puddles on the floor, usually in the kitchen or the lavatory.  Finding an unusually large and foul-smelling puddle one day, John Burcombe managed to collect some of the liquid in a bottle and persuade a colleague at the hospital where he worked to analyse it.

"Are you having me on?" the colleague said later.  "This is cat's piss!"

Both voices were now carrying on at all times of the day or night . . .

 

Eventually, as Playfair reported: "The months passed, and by 1979 it seemed the Enfield poltergeist had gone away as inexplicably as it had arrived."  There were some "isolated incidents" and "a sudden but mercifully brief flare-up in April 1979."

The clues remain and may be compared with the Centrahoma case as well as previously documented cases.

Could the mentioned four and five-letter bathroom messages be significant in relation to anagrams?  "Q, U, L, I, T" is an anagram for 'quilt' providing an intriguing metaphor in relation to patterns and pieces coming together to form a completed design.  The other message has been and is a familiar expression of human dismay in addition to the literal meaning of the word.

Ironically, Matthew Manning described in his 1999 autobiography One Foot in the Stars a consultation with a clairvoyant when this word also was heard.  During the winter of 1972/73, Matthew received a psychic reading from Douglas Johnson in the Chelsea area of London.  At the end of the reading Johnson remarked, "You will always have one foot in the stars and one foot in the shit . . . Later I was told that this corruption of Oscar Wilde's observation — 'We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars' — was a favourite of Johnson's and one which he applied to himself and those in whom he perceived a gift similar as his own."

The topic of this article is also addressed in "'Gef': A Modern Sphinx as an Esoteric Lesson about Oneness" and "The 'Poltergeist' In Retrospect (with audio and video clip links)".