Poultry Guys

Poltergeists (German for "knocking ghosts") are another class of spirit that seem to be found the world over under a variety of different names, though rather than going into the distinctions between different "types" of poltergeists, I'd like to focus on their shared abilities, as well as one very interesting point about them.

Poltergeists, by their most simplified definition, are entities that have the ability to make noises and move objects around independent of any observable external force. Usually the phenomena manifests quite suddenly, with often with no provocation on the part of the inhabitants of the affected dwelling, and tends to last between the space of a few hours to a few years at sporadic intervals of quiet and activity. While the phenomena can be mischevious-seeming at times, as there have been numerous reports of objects being tossed at individuals residing in a house afflicted with poltergeist activity, it is worth noting that for the most part the activity seems "dumb", that is to say there is no rhyme or reason to the actions it takes, and most objects that impact individuals seem to be projected with only enough force to make contact, and not nearly enough to hurt someone. However, this last point has two major caveats: one, that there have been rare cases of violent poltergeists that actively harmed those in their vicinity with forcefully thrown objects, scratches, beatings, etc (however, while this has been reported, it is in the -wildly- vast minority), and two, that most houses with a poltergeist tend to have a "center" of the activity, not necessarily a focal point or target of the phenomena, but someone who seems to always be present when the activity happens. Usually, this happened to be a child in the midst of adolscence, leading many to claim that poltergeists are actually subconscious manifestations of telekinesis by those "centers", their existence usually reasoned as an outlet for their feelings of agression, alientation, and other teenage angsty-wangsty issues.

Now, the big thing worth noting that I had no idea about until recently...supposedly lending support to the psychokinesis theory, a group of paranormal researchers in the 1970s were able to create an "artificial poltergeist" named Philip. See, what they did was make up a name and backstory for a fictional person, and by collectively meditating and visualizing the spirit, were able to supposedly make a table tilt and knocks to be heard in response to questions, with the questions answered as a person with the given backstory would answer them. Even more curious is that the table movement and rapping was supposedly caught on film, and that other parapsychological groups were able to replicate the same effects with different backstories and therefore different "artifical poltergeists". So the story goes that the original group continued to try and meditate with the intent of getting an actual apparition to appear, but upon finding themselves unable to, the project was abandoned.

A couple of questions pop out at me on hearing this. The biggest, though, is while it's an interesting story, why was the work discontinued? It may be that seeing an apparition would have been much more convincing an effect that just hearing knocks, and maybe I'm just being naive, but if I could reliably cause knocks to sound in response to questions without physical movement on my part, I'd be pretty damn excited with even that. So for me, the whole story should be taken with a Buick-sized grain of salt, but still, an interesting little story all the same...