Monday, June 6, 2011

Poltergeists

Poltergeists are the third kind of ghost. I have already discussed the first two--residual hauntings and intelligent hauntings. Poltergeists are different from these first two in that poltergeists are always connected to a person as opposed to a place or object.

The stereotype is poltergeists are connected specifically to teenage girls and boys. This is true in some cases but poltergeists can also be connected to adults. 

A unique feature of a poltergeist is they move with their host, for instance, if a family who is experiencing poltergeist activity visits their vacation home the poltergeist will go with them. So a poltergeist travels.

Poltergeists in general are the most active, e.g., sometimes even violent, of these three main entities. 

Some examples of poltergeist activity include: Throwing items, slamming doors and windows, and a variety of other loud noises. The word poltergeist means “noisy ghost.” 

There have also been recorded cases where poltergeists have touched humans e.g., slapping, scratching, and pulling hair, etc. Poltergeists are the ones that are most likely to disrupt our lives—even though residual and intelligent ghosts do this as well.

Poltergeist activity can also be the hardest activity to get rid of. As long as there is an emotional, stressed person present to act as a host, the poltergeist will feed off this energy. On the lighter side poltergeist activity usually only happens once or twice and then disappears.

Many theories have been proposed over the years in an attempt to disprove that poltergeists exist. These theories state that everything from ball lightning to carbon monoxide poisoning can explain the activity people have encountered. 

But one only has to look at famous cases of poltergeists throughout history e.g., Lithobolia 1698, Borley Rectory 1937, The Bell Witch 1817, and the Rosenheim Poltergeist 1967, and wonder how these theories apply. For instance, ball lightning occurs rarely, and only in the summer months. How does this explain poltergeist activity that has occurred in the winter months?

A family just this year encountered a particularly malicious poltergeist. This incident is called the Coventry Poltergeist—named after the housing development where it occurred. 

Lisa Manning and her children saw pots and pans being thrown around, blinds moving up and down, doors locking and unlocking, cupboard doors banging open and shut before being ripped off their hinges. 

This activity occurred for several weeks and progressively became more violent. At one point both the family dogs were shoved downstairs which resulted in such traumatic injuries that one of them had to be put down. 

The Mannings were able to capture a chair on film moving across the floor. They had a priest bless the house but the activity started back up after a couple of weeks. They finally had a medium come in who successfully exorcised the spirit.

I can’t figure out how carbon monoxide poisoning can explain the above, can you?

Happy Ghost Hunting!

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