by J H Brennan
Some years ago, I personally investigated a brief poltergeist incident involving a Dublin woman who complained of an “invisible presence” in her home. At first this was merely an impression without specific phenomena, but when she went upstairs to take a bath, she felt something furry, like a small animal, brush against her as she climbed into the tub. She told herself she was imagining things, but while she was in the bath, the creature burned her arm and bit her on the leg. When she ran from the bathroom, it pushed her so violently that she fell downstairs, fortunately without injuring herself beyond some bruising. She showed me the bite mark and the burn. The former was a smallish wound on the inner thigh like the bite of a cat or similarly sized animal. The latter was circular, as if someone had stubbed out a lighted cigarette on her arm. Although the injuries could certainly have been self-inflicted and no one actually witnessed her fall downstairs (although I confirmed that two of her children found her in a heap at the bottom), I could see no reason then or now why she should have decided to fabricate such a preposterous story. Besides, similar phenomena have been reported across a broad cross section of cases, including one in Indianapolis, Indiana, where the grandmother of the house was “bitten” invisibly fourteen times and a daughter bitten once.
Poltergeist activity continues to be reported to the present day. In 2004, one set a series of fires along a railway line in Canneto, Italy. Although a rational explanation was subsequently proposed, part of the village had to be evacuated. In 2007, videos of alleged poltergeist activity in Barnsley, England, were uploaded to YouTube. The following year, Easington Council in County Durham, England, paid part of the fee demanded by a medium to exorcise a poltergeist from a housing estate in Peterlee. In 2011, the Sun newspaper carried a series of articles on another council house poltergeist that produced a gamut of typical phenomena including thrown pots and pans, flying chairs, lights switched on and off, and cupboard doors ripped off their hinges.5
It is difficult to see how the simple movement of physical objects by the mind could produce more than a fraction of the phenomena described in this chapter. There is also the problem of those poltergeists that develop a voice. The phantom drummer of Tidworth continually shouted “Witch!” while witnesses of numerous other cases have mentioned hearing obscenities from “entities” presenting themselves as demonic. It is also true to say that in some, fortunately rare, instances, the focus of poltergeist activity has actually been killed by his or her own supposed PK. Arguably the best-recorded example was the American case of the Bell Witch. The victim was a farmer named John Bell, who lived with his wife, Lucy, and their nine children in Robertson County, Tennessee.
The disturbances began in 1817 with small knocking and scratching sounds the family put down to the activity of rats in the walls of their home. These tended to occur at night and gradually increased in volume until members of the family began to get out of bed and light lamps to investigate. When they did so, the noises stopped. After a time, more overtly paranormal phenomena began. Bedclothes were dragged from beds by invisible hands, chairs were turned upside down, stones were mysteriously thrown. After about a year, the activity had become so constant and so extreme that everyone in the family was losing sleep. The whole house would shake under the impact of the noises and family members would have their hair pulled violently.
A neighbor, James Johnson, discovered that the poltergeist seemed to be aware of being spoken to, but attempts to persuade it to cease its activities only made things worse. The Bell children were pelted with stones when they came home from school, and both they and visitors to the house suffered resounding, but nonetheless invisible, slaps to the face. Mysterious gasping sounds eventually developed into a low whispering voice capable of passing random remarks. Betsy, the twelve-year-old daughter of Bell, began to suffer shortness of breath and fainting spells while her father’s tongue swelled and his jaw stiffened so badly that he was often unable to eat.
The poltergeist’s original low whisper transformed itself into several different, highly audible voices. All claimed to be spirits; one identified itself as an Indian whose bones had not received a proper burial, another as a witch named Old Kate Batts. Four members of Old Kate’s family manifested their own individual voices and introduced themselves as Blackdog, Mathematics, Cypocryphy, and Jerusalem. These entities sometimes sounded drunk, at which times the room would be filled with the smell of whiskey. Old Kate herself seemed to have a particular dislike of John Bell, whom she promised would be tormented for the rest of his life.
The Bells called in a local cunning man, who prescribed an emetic for Betsy. The child promptly vomited brass pins and needles while the voice of the witch mocked that she would soon have enough to open a shop. The phenomena continued to grow more and more extreme. A household slave’s head was covered in spittle. A sledge was dragged three times around the house. John Bell had his shoes jerked off repeatedly and was stunned by a heavy blow to the face. The witch sang derisive songs and raved and cursed at him. After three years of this ill-treatment, Bell suffered a nervous breakdown and took to his bed. On the morning of December 19, 1820, the family found him in a coma. When his son, also named John, discovered an unusual bottle in the medicine cupboard, the witch boasted that she had given Bell Sr. medicine in the night that had “fixed him.” He died the following day.
It is difficult to square much of the Bell Witch phenomena with current PK theory either. The entity certainly manifested as a spirit, and later as several spirits. Each spoke in a different voice and displayed an individual persona. While actual communication between the Bell family and the entities was limited—the “witch” mostly confined herself to hurling threats, curses, and abuse—some 16 percent of cases surveyed by Alan Gauld and A. D. Cornell featured intelligent communication between the poltergeist and agent, sometimes including data the agent does not have. It is perhaps worth recalling that the raps heard in the home of the Fox sisters, which gave rise to the Spiritualist movement, eventually imparted the information that the “spirit” involved was that of a murdered peddler whose body had been buried in the cellar. In the summer of 1848, the girls’ elder brother David organized a dig in the Hydesville cellar, which unearthed human bones and teeth. All this is far beyond any known, or even theoretical, PK effect, unless we broaden the definition of PK to include an apparent ability to work miracles. Any dispassionate examination of the evidence must suggest that the phenomenon is far more complex than the PK theory would imply. While the Rosenheim case appears entirely explicable in terms of unconscious PK, other poltergeists certainly do not. They manifest as independent entities, quite separate from the unfortunate individuals they haunt.
In those cases where we can rule out fraud, time slips, right-brain hallucinations, deep mind hallucinations, and recurrent, spontaneous, unconscious PK, is it possible the spirits are simply spirits after all?
28. THE BOGGLE THRESHOLD
BY NOW IT IS ABUNDANTLY CLEAR THAT THE TERM SPIRIT COVERS A RANGE of disparate phenomena. Also, many apparently impartial investigations into the subject have collided with something psychical researchers refer to as the “boggle threshold.” Boggle threshold is defined as the point at which one ceases to be impartial or open-minded and instead discovers it is impossible to believe something, whatever the evidence. Indeed, the boggle threshold will often stop an individual considering the evidence in the first place. For many people, telepathy falls below their boggle threshold and may consequently be investigated thoroughly, while leprechauns do not and consequently fail to be investigated at all. In our postmodern culture spirits seem to straddle the threshold itself. Even those who suspect there might be something in the reports will unconsciously ignore evidence that lies beyond their boggle threshold.
One example is Dr. Elizabeth M. Butler, who concluded that Cellini’s Coliseum conjuration took place only in the imagination of its participants. Interestingly, Butler unearthed (then subsequently ignored) the evidence that would mitigate against
such a conclusion. From internal clues in Cellini’s text, she deduced that the Sicilian magician may have used the Lemegeton as an instruction manual for his ceremony. The Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis (“Lesser Key of Solomon”) was certainly a popular grimoire in Cellini’s day and, with portions of its content dating back to the fourteenth century or earlier,1 it may be considered typical of the sorcerous handbooks of the time. In its most complete form, the work consists of five parts, the first of which, called Geotia, contains the formulas for binding evil spirits—precisely the sort of demons with which Cellini’s sorcerer was trying to make contact.
After listing—and briefly describing—the seventy-two “mighty kings or princes” commanded by the legendary King Solomon, the book details the construction of a magical circle, a triangle of evocation, a magical ring, a brass vessel, and various parchment figures, all used to control the spirits. Then comes the first conjuration:
I Invocate and conjure you spirit [NAME] … by him whome all creatures are obediant and by this ineffable name Tetragrammaton Jehovah … that you visibly and affably speak onto me with a Clear voice Intelligible, and without any ambiguity Therefore come ye in the Name Adonay Zebeoth.2 [my italics]
Should the spirit prove intransigent, the book recommends a second conjuration, which includes the instructions, “therefore come you paecable, vissible and affable … to manifest what I desire speaking with a perfect and clear voice, Intelligible unto my understanding &c.”3 This might be followed up with a “constraint,” which demands that the spirit come quickly from all parts and places of the world, wherever it may be, and appear before the circle “visible and affably speakeing with a voice Intelligible to my understanding.”4
Such powerful conjurations are deemed sufficient to call a spirit unless it happens to be bound with chains in hell, in which case the magician is instructed to evoke its king and require him to “cause, enforce & compel NAME to come to me hear before this Circle in a fair and comely forme without doeing any harme to me or any other Creature.”5
If the king is uncooperative, the magician might then resort to the magical equivalent of violence and begin to lay curses on the spirit, threatening it with fire, excommunication, and the destruction of its seal unless it “immediately comest & appearest visibly, affably, friendly & courteously hear unto me before this Circle in this Triangle in a faire and comly forme and in no wise terrible, hurtful or frightful to me or any other creatures whatever upon the face of the Earth and made rationel Answers to my requests and performe all my desires in all things that I shall make onto you.”6 When (at last!) the spirit does appear, it should be bound to “remaine affable and visibly hear before this circle.”7
A somewhat different approach is taken to the evocation of angels who should, according to the Art Pauline section of the Lemegeton, be called into a crystal. But here too there is emphasis on visible appearance. The conjuration politely requests the angel to:
shew thy selfe visibly and plainly in his crystal stone to the sight of my Eyes speaking with a voice Intelligible and to my understanding … I invocate, adjure, command & most powerfully call you forth … to visible appirition … and commandeth you to Transmitt your Rayes visible and perfectly into my sight: and your voice to my Ears, in and threw this Crystall stone: That I may plainly see you and perfectly hear you speak unto me … Therefore … descend and shew your self visible and perfectly in a pleasant and comely form before me in this Crystall stone: to the sight of my Eyes speaking with a voice Intelligible and to my apprehension.8
In Part IV of the Lemegeton (“Salomon’s Almadel Art”) there is a rare description of what to expect when a spirit does appear: “And when he appeareth … he descends first upon the superscription of ye Almadel as if it were a Mist or Fogg.”9 In order for the mist to coalesce into visible appearance, the operator is required to burn three small grains of “masticke,” the smell of which will persuade the spirit to begin speaking. Should this fail to make him appear fully, the magician must use a golden seal to make certain marks on the candles used in his ceremony, an action guaranteed to bring the evocation to a wholly successful conclusion. The text adds the interesting detail that when the spirit departs, “he will fill the whole place with a sweet and pleasant smell which will be smelt a long time.”10
Two things are obvious from a study of the Lemegeton:
The first is that the evocation of spirits is no easy matter: alternative techniques are offered again and again, clearly predicated on the suspicion that each in turn might not work. The second is that the term visible sounds like a drumbeat through every evocation. What the operator wants and expects is visible appearance. Only seeing is believing, and if the spirit is not seen with the magician’s physical eyes, then a second conjuration must be attempted—and a third or a fourth—until the spirit appears. The very location of the appearance is specified. In the case of the angels, the image floats up from the depths of a rock crystal. In the case of demons, they are conjured into the magical triangle from which they may not escape until released by the sorcerer. Nor is there the least suggestion that the creature in the triangle is in any way a vision. What arrives is a physical being that first appears nebulously, in the form of a fog or mist, then gradually solidifies.
For proof that the entity really does become solid, we can turn to the Grimorium Verum, which recommends giving it a piece of bread or a walnut before it disappears again.11 Instructions for the discovery of treasure that appear in the same grimoire further underline the corporeal nature of the manifested demon, which has sufficient solidity to leave footprints when it walks. The operator is instructed that, when the spirit appears, “Then you will follow Lucifer, or the spirit that he will send in his place, planting your feet over his footprints and tracing his steps.”12 Even where angels are conjured into crystals, it is expected that they make an appearance discernible to the physical eye. Over and over, the Lemegeton insists on clarity and intelligibility: these divine spirits must be seen and heard when they occupy the shewstone.
From all this, it is quite clear that the author of the Lemegeton and, by extension, those who made use of it were unconcerned with the subjective imagination, even the vivid imagination of childhood evoked by Butler as an explanation. They aimed for visible appearance of the spirit and nothing less would do. This is further indicated by frequent references to the fact that the spirit (particularly demonic spirits) should manifest in fair form and do harm to no one. The operator had no wish to have the wits frightened out of him by an ugly devil, whose ability to cause physical harm was never for a moment in question.
Another factor comes into play when considering the nature of evoked spirits. Cellini’s impulse to consult the Sicilian sorcerer seems to have been simple curiosity. He was interested in magic and wanted to see for himself what would happen if a spirit evocation was carried out by a professional. But this was not a typical motivation. Magicians who went to the trouble of calling up spirits usually wanted something tangible. Various grimoires, the Lemegeton among them, even listed specific spirits for specific jobs. Surgat, a demon associated with Sunday, was relied upon to bring a stone that would render the wearer invisible,13 the angel Sophiel conferred a knowledge of herbs,14 while Lucifuge Rofocale “has the control, with which Lucifer has invested him, over all the wealth and treasures of the world”—at least according to the Grand Grimoire.15 The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage has long catalogs of spirits, controllable by means of magic squares, for specifics such as visions, scientific information, predictions, drawing water from mines, the production of timber, weather control, the bringing of books, food, or wine, the secrets of love, and even the evocation of further spirits.16
Since instructions for spirit evocation appear in some of the earliest magical texts of medieval times17 and the object of such a practice was almost always severely practical, the mind-set of the magician becomes clear. Far from the imaginary creatures suggested by Butler, the sorcerers of medieval an
d Renaissance times thought of spirits as objective entities, angelic or diabolic, which might be commanded and set to work by technical means or the assistance of God. The natural home of some entities was another level of reality (heaven or hell) while others—nature spirits and the like—had a terrestrial abode. But in either case, they had the ability, when summoned to the immediate environment of the magician, to take on material form in any shape they wished and engage in practical tasks, often aided by innate magical abilities.
The thought that spirits might have an objective reality seems to have lain beyond Dr. Flournoy’s boggle threshold, not to mention that of many of his professional readers. Although sympathetic to his medium, Flournoy never for a moment considered that her spirits might be anything other than unconscious constructs. Like Butler, he unearthed evidence to the contrary but dismissed or ignored it. While discussing Muller’s spirit guide Leopold, he mentions that the entity has been called upon by “cultivated people” during the medium’s absence. Since Leopold is presented as an aspect of Muller’s unconscious mind, one might reasonably expect this to be a futile exercise, but Flournoy blandly states, “Naturally they obtain responses, through the table or otherwise and that causes unseen complications.”18 But not for Flournoy’s theories: the complications he notes amount to nothing more than a degree of jealousy on the part of the medium that her guide should communicate with others. On the question of raps, Flournoy’s boggle threshold is also evident. He attributes the raps to involuntary muscle movements by the medium but fails to address the problem of raps when the medium is not present. Even more conspicuously, he describes one instance in which Muller’s chair was pulled from under her by “invisible hands”—surely something well beyond the reach of “involuntary muscle movements.” Elsewhere, Flournoy remarks on her ability to speak Sanskrit, produce recognizable signatures of deceased persons, and reveal a thousand correct facts unknown to her, then dismisses them all as “old forgotten memories of things which she saw or heard in her childhood.” Flournoy offers no proof of his assertion, but the boggle threshold of generations of orthodox psychologists has ensured that it is now taken as established fact.
