|
 |
About Poltergeists |
| By GhostEditor |
| |
A poltergeist (German for rumbling ghost) is widely believed to be an invisible ghost that interacts with others by moving and influencing inanimate objects. Stories featuring poltergeists typically focus heavily on raps, thumps, knocks, footsteps, and bed-shaking, all without a discernable point of origin. Many stories detail objects being thrown about the room, furniture being moved, and even people being levitated! A few poltergeists have even been known to speak (The Bell Witch, 1817; Gef, the Talking Mongoose, 1931). Most classic modern poltergeist stories originate in England, though the word itself is German.
Poltergeists are a focus of study within parapsychology. Parapsychologists define poltergeist activity as a type of uncontrolled psychokinesis. Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK) is a phrase suggested by parapsychologist W. G. Roll to denote poltergeist phenomena.
Poltergeist phenomena tend to happen in the vicinity of persons called agents (typically a prepubescent female). Almost seventy years of research by the Rhine Research Center (Raleigh-Durham, NC USA) has led to the hypothesis among parapsychologists that the "poltergeist effect" is a form of psychokinesis generated by a living human mind, that of the agent. According to researchers at the Rhine Center, the "poltergeist effect" is the outward manifestation of psychological trauma. Skeptics think that the phenomena are hoaxes perpetrated by the agent. Indeed, many poltergeist agents have been caught throwing objects, and a few of them later confessed faking all of it.
Some people theorize that poltergeists are caused by the Hutchison effect.
William Roll and Harry Price are perhaps two of the most famous poltergeist investigators in the annals of parapsychology.
This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
|
back to the articles.
|
|
|
