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Liber XXXIII · Theosophy

Liber XXXIII · Theosophy · Chapter V: Ghosts & Hauntings

Poltergeists: History, Famous Cases and Explanations

Poltergeists explained: the word's meaning, the Drummer of Tedworth, Epworth and Cock Lane, Borley, Rosenheim and Enfield, and the theories offered for them.

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A poltergeist (German for "noisy spirit") is a disturbance in which unexplained knocks, thrown stones, moving furniture, flying crockery and sometimes small fires seem to centre on a household or a particular person rather than on a place or a visible apparition. Reports stretch from a ninth-century German chronicle through the Drummer of Tedworth and the Wesley family's "Old Jeffrey" to modern cases such as Enfield in the 1970s. Explanations range from demons and restless spirits to unconscious psychokinesis, natural causes and, in many documented cases, deliberate trickery.

Meaning of the Word Poltergeist§

The term combines the German verb poltern, to rumble, knock or make a racket, with Geist, spirit. It was in use in German by the sixteenth century and entered English in the nineteenth, popularised by writers on ghosts and by psychical researchers. The word reflects the defining feature of the phenomenon: it is heard and felt more often than seen. Where a classic ghost is an apparition tied to a place and often to a past death, as described in our guide to ghosts and hauntings, the poltergeist is noisy, mischievous, short-lived and attached to living people.

Typical reports share a recognisable pattern. Disturbances begin suddenly, often with rapping or scratching; small objects move or are thrown; stones fall on roofs; bedclothes are pulled off; occasionally there are outbreaks of fire or water. The activity usually lasts from a few weeks to a couple of years and then fades. Investigators since the nineteenth century have noticed that it frequently clusters around one member of the household, very often a child or adolescent.

Medieval and Early Modern Poltergeists§

One of the earliest detailed reports appears in the Annals of Fulda for the year 858, describing a malign spirit at a farmstead near Bingen on the Rhine that threw stones, struck the walls as if with a hammer, and caused fires. Priests were summoned to sprinkle holy water and say prayers, a response that anticipates later rites discussed in our article on angels, demons and Christian exorcism. In the twelfth century Gerald of Wales recorded spirits in Pembrokeshire households that threw filth and tore clothing.

In the Christian world before the Reformation such events were usually interpreted as the work of demons or of souls from purgatory. After the Reformation, Protestant writers rejected purgatory and tended to attribute them either to demons or to witchcraft. The most famous English case, the Drummer of Tedworth, shows these debates at work. In the early 1660s John Mompesson, a magistrate of Tedworth (now Tidworth) in Wiltshire, confiscated the drum of an itinerant drummer, William Drury. For many months afterwards his house was troubled by drumming, knocking, scratching and moving objects, especially around his children's beds. The clergyman and philosopher Joseph Glanvill visited in January 1663 and published an account that later appeared in his Saducismus Triumphatus (1681), a book intended to prove the reality of spirits and witchcraft against the "Sadducees" of his day. Drury himself was tried at Salisbury; accounts indicate that he was acquitted of witchcraft but was transported for other offences.

Epworth, Cock Lane and the Bell Witch§

In December 1716 the rectory at Epworth in Lincolnshire, home of the clergyman Samuel Wesley and his large family, began to resound with knocks, groans and the sound of breaking glass. The children named the presence "Old Jeffrey". Members of the family, including the young John Wesley, later the founder of Methodism, collected letters and testimony about it, and the case has been discussed ever since as one of the best-documented early modern poltergeists. Explanations have ranged from a spirit to pranks by servants or by one of the Wesley daughters.

The Cock Lane ghost of 1762 ended differently. In a house in the City of London, knocks and scratchings attributed to the spirit of a dead woman, nicknamed "Scratching Fanny", seemed to centre on the landlord's young daughter, Elizabeth Parsons. The rapping answered questions and appeared to accuse the dead woman's partner of murder. Crowds gathered, and a committee that included Samuel Johnson investigated. The noises failed when the girl was carefully watched, and her father and others were convicted of conspiracy. William Hogarth satirised the affair in a print that mocked credulity.

In the United States, the "Bell Witch" disturbances at the Bell family farm in Robertson County, Tennessee, from about 1817, combined poltergeist-like noises and blows with a talking spirit. The story was published in detail only decades later, and historians treat much of it as local legend.

Spiritualism and Psychical Research§

The modern history of poltergeists changed in 1848, when rappings in a farmhouse at Hydesville, New York, centred on two young girls, were treated as messages from a dead man. The case of the Fox sisters launched Spiritualism, which turned poltergeist knocking into a code for talking with the dead. In the same year Catherine Crowe's The Night Side of Nature gathered British and German cases of hauntings and poltergeists for a wide readership.

When the Society for Psychical Research was founded in London in 1882, poltergeists became a regular subject of investigation. The researcher Frank Podmore examined a series of cases in the 1890s and concluded that most were explained by mischievous children, often the very person around whom the activity centred. Others, including the classical scholar F. W. H. Myers and later the Hungarian-born psychoanalyst Nandor Fodor, proposed that the disturbances might be real but caused by the unconscious mind, especially under emotional stress. In the twentieth century the American parapsychologist William G. Roll coined the term "recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis" (RSPK), suggesting that some living "focus person" unknowingly moved objects by psychokinesis.

Famous Twentieth-Century Cases: Borley, Rosenheim and Enfield§

Borley Rectory in Essex, investigated from 1929 by the ghost hunter Harry Price and promoted by him as "the most haunted house in England", mixed reports of apparitions with poltergeist activity, wall writings and flying objects. After Price's death in 1948 a critical study by members of the Society for Psychical Research argued that much of the evidence was unreliable or manufactured, and Borley became a case study in how investigators can shape what they find.

In 1967, at a lawyer's office in Rosenheim, Bavaria, lights swung, fuses blew, telephones registered calls that no one had made and pictures turned on the walls. The parapsychologist Hans Bender of Freiburg investigated with physicists and concluded that the effects centred on a young secretary and could not be explained by faults in the electrical supply. The disturbances stopped when she left the firm. Sceptics have argued that the investigation was not thorough enough to rule out trickery.

The Enfield poltergeist (1977–1979), in a council house in north London, involved knocking, moving furniture, apparent levitation and a gruff voice speaking through an eleven-year-old girl. The investigators Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair, of the Society for Psychical Research, believed some phenomena were genuine; other observers caught the children faking events, and the girl later said that a small part of what happened had been faked. The case has inspired books, documentaries and horror films.

Explaining Poltergeists: Spirits, Psychokinesis or Deception§

Explanations fall into several families. Religious interpretations see the poltergeist as a demon, a troubled spirit or, in some folk traditions, the work of a witch; Catholic and Anglican clergy have at times been called to bless houses or perform rites of deliverance. Spiritualists see a communicating spirit, sometimes simply a mischievous one. Parapsychological theories, following Roll, see unconscious psychokinesis generated by a living person under stress, an idea that would help explain the frequent presence of adolescents.

Sceptical and scientific explanations stress, first, deliberate deception, which has been demonstrated in many cases, from Cock Lane to Enfield. They also point to natural causes such as settling buildings, water pipes, animals, draughts and small earth tremors; to the way frightened households and visitors misremember, exaggerate or interpret ordinary events; and to the social dynamics that can encourage a child to keep a performance going once adults and journalists take it seriously. The psychical researchers Alan Gauld and A. D. Cornell, who analysed several hundred cases in Poltergeists (1979), showed how consistent the reports are across centuries, but that consistency can be read either as evidence of a real phenomenon or as evidence of a shared cultural script.

Frequently asked questions§

What is the difference between a ghost and a poltergeist?§

A ghost is usually an apparition associated with a place and often with a past death. A poltergeist is mostly heard and felt rather than seen, involves noises and moving objects, is often short-lived, and tends to centre on a living person rather than a location.

What was the Drummer of Tedworth?§

It was a poltergeist case in Tedworth, Wiltshire, in the early 1660s, which followed John Mompesson's confiscation of a vagrant's drum. Joseph Glanvill investigated it and used it in Saducismus Triumphatus as evidence for spirits and witchcraft.

Was the Enfield poltergeist real?§

Opinions remain divided. The investigators Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair believed some phenomena were genuine, while other witnesses caught the children faking events, and one of them later admitted that some incidents were faked.

What is recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis?§

It is a term introduced by the parapsychologist William G. Roll for the theory that poltergeist effects are produced unconsciously by a living person through psychokinesis. Mainstream science does not accept that psychokinesis has been demonstrated.

Sources and further reading§