POLTERGEIST!

by Colin Wilson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 12, 1982

A pandemonium of poltergeists ancient and modern: hundreds of stories of ""noisy spirits"" that upset households with flying objects, exploding dishes, wandering buream, thunderous bangings and knockings, levitations and other untoward eruptions. They generally occur, we're told, in households where children are just entering puberty--which releases what ardent-believer Wilson suggests are elemental astral energies. In confirmation (?) thereof, Carl Jung reports on an experience, as a student, with a dining table that split loudly and bread knives that shattered--though he later witnessed two ""exteriorisation"" phenomena during a heated argument with Freud: loud explosions in a bookcase, the second of which Jung predicted to the skeptical Freud. Also covered are: the rise of Spiritualism, the original case behind Blatty's The Exorcist, cases of mutliple personality, and others--all of which Wilson suggests are the consequence less of psychokinesis (unconscious minds performing psychokinetically) than of actual possession by energy entities. Objects are sometimes seen flying at fight angles from one room to another, as if gripped by an unseen hand. The classic British case is that of the Black Monk of Pontefract. In 1960 the Pritchard's house began to fill with falling powder, a vacuum cleaner went from the first to second floor, a pair of gloves conducted music, and much, much more--was it a show by a monk hanged nearby during the rule of Henry VIII? No, says Wilson, whose more ""plausible and interesting"" theory is that this was ""haunted ground."" An airy, off. hand survey--for insatiable occultists only.

Pub Date: March 12, 1982

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1982

Categories: NONFICTION