Ghosts

by Hans Holzer

  This is a half-truth. Young people at the border of their sexual awakening can be the source of the energy allowing the phenomena to occur, but so can mentally handicapped people of any age and sexually frustrated individuals of any age, consciously or unconsciously. A poltergeist, then, is nothing more than that stage of a haunting when manifestations occur that are clearly of a physical nature, such as the movement or the throwing of objects. The originator, however, is not the youngster or mentally handicapped older person: they are merely the source, tapped against their will and usually without their knowledge, by a ghostly entity desperately trying to get attention for their plight from people in this world. Not to harm anyone, but to get people to notice their presence.

  Years ago I pointed out that psychic phenomena use the same energies as does sexual activity, and often the repression of those energies can lead to unwanted psychical phenomena. In the 1930s, the British Society of Psychical Research undertook some tests with the help of a deep trans medium. Ectoplasm derived from the body of the trans medium turned out to be an albumin substance secreted through the glandular system. This ectoplasm was identical with seminal fluids.

  Poltergeists are not what the popular movies show them to be. As a matter of fact, these films are pure hokum in every respect, from the phenomena shown to the so-called researchers and their “instruments.” As so often happens, the indiscriminate exploitation of the paranormal reality by films and television paints a false picture, only to frighten people into fearing something that is simply not true.

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  How, then, does one deal with a poltergeist? No differently than the way one relates to an earthbound spirit, a ghost who is unable to realize her or his true condition. Contact can usually be established through a deep trance medium. This way the entity is calmed or released. Remember that the majority of ghosts are not able to obtain the kind of energies necessary to manifest physically or move objects. Only when there is a powerful source close at hand can they draw on the larger energies necessary for such a feat.

  Of course it can be frightening to see objects move seemingly of their own volition. But they don’t—the electromagnetic force manipulated by the ghost is responsible for this even if the ghost itself is not visible.

  Even as startling an event as the movement of a knife through the air (as in the case in Rye, New York) is not an attack on anyone but an attempt to get attention, and, if possible, help.

  True poltergeist cases are much rarer than “ordinary” hauntings, but they do occur. In every case I have investigated, a power source exists, either among the living or even among the discarnate, who have passed on in a state of mental distress or even insanity. Some of my cases follow.

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  The Devil in Texas

  I AM FREQUENTLY ASKED to comment on poltergeists, or noisy ghosts, a term derived from the German and somehow conjuring up the image of violent physical activity beyond the pale of ordinary understanding. Poltergeists have been generally considered the work of youngsters in a house—youngsters below the age of puberty, when their physical energies have not yet been channeled either sexually or occupationally and are therefore free to play pranks on others in the household. The majority of parapsychologists consider poltergeists the unconscious expression of such repressed feelings, attention getters on the part of young people, and do not connect them to supernormal beings such as spirit entities or any other form of outside influence. I, however, have investigated dozens of cases involving poltergeists where physical objects have been moved or moved seemingly by their own volition and found that another explanation might be the true one. In each case, to be sure, there were young people in the household, or sometimes mentally handicapped adults. I discovered, for instance, that a mentally handicapped adult has the same kind of suppressed kinetic energy that is capable of being tapped by outside forces to perform the physical phenomena as the unused energy of youngsters. I also discovered that in each and every case with which I came in contact personally there had been some form of unfinished business in the house or on the grounds on which the house stood. Sometimes this involved a previous building on the same spot. At other times it involved the same building in which the activities took place. But in each instance there was some form of psychic entity present, and it is my conviction that the entity from beyond the physical world was responsible for the happenings, using, of course, the psychical energy in the young people or in the retarded adult. Thus, to me, poltergeists are the physical activities of ghosts expressed through the psychic powers within young people or mentally handicapped older people, but directed solely by outside entities no longer in the flesh. This link between the physical energies of living persons and the usually demented minds of dead persons produces the physical phenomena known as poltergeist activities, which can be very destructive, sometimes threatening, sometimes baffling to those who do not understand the underlying causes.

  The purpose these physical activities is always to get the attention of living persons or perhaps to annoy them for personal reasons. The mentality behind this phenomenon is somewhere between the psychotic and the infantile, but at all times far from emotionally and mentally normal. But it can still be dealt with on the same basis as I deal with ordinary hauntings. That is to say, the cause of the activities must be understood before a cure for them can be found. Making contact with the troubled entity in the non-physical world is, of course, the best way. When that is not possible, a shielding device has to be created for the living to protect them from the unwanted poltergeist activities. In the well-publicized Seaford, Long Island, case a few years ago, a young boy in the household was held responsible for the movement of objects in plain daylight. Even so astute an investigator as Dr. Karlis Osis of the American Society of Psychical Research, who was then working for Parapsychology Foundation of New York City, could not discern the link between the boy’s unconscious thought and the unseen, but very real, psychic entities beyond the world of the flesh. In his report he intimates that the activities were due to the unconscious desires of the youngster to be noticed and to get the sort of attention his unconscious self craved. I was not involved in the Seaford case personally although I was familiar with it, having discussed the matter with Mr. Herman, the boy’s father. I did not enter the case because certain aspects of it suggested publicity-seeking on the part of the family, and at any rate others in my field had already entered the case. I saw no reason to crowd the scene, but I did go into the background of the house with the help of medium Ethel Johnson Meyers independently of the investigation conducted by Dr. Osis. For what it may be worth at this late date, my sitting with Mrs. Meyers disclosed that a burial ground had existed on the very site of the Seaford house and that the disturbances were due to the fact that the house had been erected on the spot. They had not occurred earlier since no physical medium lived in the house. When the young man reached the age of puberty, or nearly so, his energies were available to those wishing to manifest, and it was then that the well-publicized movement of objects occurred.

  Similarly, two years ago a case attracted public attention in the city of Rosenheim, Bavaria. A young lady working for an attorney in that city was somehow able to move solid objects by her very presence. A long list of paranormal phenomena was recorded by reputable witnesses, including the attorney himself. Eventually Dr. Hans Bender of the University of Freiburg entered the case and after investigation pronounced it a classical poltergeist situation. He too did not link the activity with any outside entity that might have been present on the premises from either this house or a previous one standing on the spot. It seems to me that at the time great haste was taken to make sure that a physical or temporal solution could be put forward, making it unnecessary to link the phenomena with any kind of spirit activity.

  But perhaps the most famous of all poltergeist cases, the classical American case, is the so-called Bell Witch of Tennessee. This case goes back to the 1820s and even so illustrious a witness as Andrew Ja
ckson figures in the proceedings. Much has been written and published about the Bell Witch of Tennessee. Suffice it to say here that it involved the hatred of a certain woman for a farmer named John Bell. This relationship resulted in a post-mortem campaign of hatred and destructiveness ultimately costing the lives of two people. In the Bell Witch of Tennessee case the entire range of physical phenomena usually associated with poltergeistic activities was observed.

  Included were such astounding happening as the appearance or disappearance of solid objects into and out of thin air; strange smells and fires of unknown origin; slow deliberate movement of objects in plain sight without seeming physical source; and voices being heard out of the air when no one present was speaking. Anyone studying the proceedings of this case would notice that the phenomena were clearly the work of a demented individual. Even though a certain degree of cunning and cleverness is necessary to produce them, the reasoning behind or, rather, the lack of reasoning, clearly indicates a disturbed mind. All poltergeist activities must therefore be related to the psychotic, or, at the very least, schizophrenic state of mind of the one causing them. As yet we do not clearly understand the relationship between insanity and free energies capable of performing acts seemingly in contradiction of physical laws, but there seems to be a very close relationship between these two aspects of the human personality. When insanity exists certain energies become free and are capable of roaming at will at times and of performing feats in contradiction to physical laws. When the state of insanity in the mind under discussion is reduced to normalcy these powers cease abruptly.

  I have, on occasion, reported cases of hauntings and ghostly activities bordering upon or including some poltergeist activities. Generally we speak of them as physical phenomena. A case in point is the haunted house belonging to Mr. and Mrs. John Smythe of Rye, New York. The phenomena in this house included such physical activities as doors opening by themselves, footsteps, the sound of chains rattling, ashtrays flying off the table by themselves, and, most frightening of all, a carving knife taking off by itself on a Sunday morning in full view of two adult, sane people and flinging itself at their feet, not to hurt them but to call attention to an existing unseen entity in the house. These are, of course, the kind of activities present in poltergeist cases, but they are merely a fringe activity underlining the need for communication. They are not the entire case, nor are they as disorganized and wanton as the true poltergeist cases. In the case of Rye, New York, the physical activities followed long-time mental activities such as apparitions and impressions of a presence. The physical phenomena were primarily used here to make the message more urgent. Not so with the true poltergeist case, where there is no possibility of mental communication simply because the causing person in incapable of actual thinking. In such a case all energies are channeled toward destructive physical activity and there is neither the will nor the ability to give mental impressions to those capable of receiving them, since the prime mover of these activities is so filled with hatred and the desire to manifest in the physical world that he or she will not bother with so rational an activity as a thought message.

  It is therefore difficult to cope with cases of this kind since there is no access to reasoning, as there is in true ghost cases when a trance medium can frequently make contact with the disturbed and disturbing entity in the house and slowly, but surely, bring it back to the realm of reason. With the true poltergeist case nothing of the sort can be established and other means to solve it have to be found. It is therefore quite natural that anyone who becomes the victim of such activities and is not familiar with them or with what causes them will be in a state of panic, even to the point of wanting to abandon his property and run for his life.

  On September 1, 1968, I was contacted by a gentleman by the name of L. H. Beaird. He wrote to me from Tyler, Texas, requesting that I help him understand some of the extraordinary happenings that had made his life hell on earth during the period of three years between 1965 and 1968. Through his daughter who was married in Austin he learned of my work with ghosts and finally concluded that only someone as familiar with the subject as I could shed light on the mysterious happenings in his home. He had purchased their home in 1964, but after three years of living with a poltergeist and fighting a losing battle for survival he decided that his sanity and survival were more important, and in 1968 he sold it again, losing everything he had put into it. The move, however, was a fortuitous one, for the new home turned out to be quiet and peaceful. Once Mr. Beaird got his bearings again and learned to relax once more he decided to investigate what had occurred during the previous three years and find some sort of answer to this extraordinary problem.

  I had never heard of Tyler before and decided to look it up on the map. It turned out to be a city of about 60,000 inhabitants also known as the “rose capital” because of the large number of horticultural activities in the area. Tyler is connected with Dallas and Houston by a local airline and lies about halfway between Dallas and Shreveport, Louisiana. It has one television station, one newspaper and some pleasant ordinary citizens going about their various businesses. The people of Tyler whom I got to know a little after my visit later on are not concerned with such things as the occult. In fact, anyone trying to lecture on the subject would do so in empty halls.

  Howard Beaird works in a nearby hospital and also runs a rubber stamp shop in which he has the company of his wife and more orders than he can possibly fill. Their son, Andy, was enrolled in barber school at the time of my visit and presumably is now cutting people’s hair to every-one’s satisfaction somewhere in Texas. The big local hotel is called the Blackstone and it is about the same as other big hotels in small towns. Everything is very quiet in Tyler, Texas, and you can really sleep at night. There is a spirit of not wanting to change things, of letting sleeping dogs lie as much as possible, pervading the town, and I have the distinct impression that cases such as the poltergeist case were not exactly welcome subjects for discussion over a drink at the local bar.

  It must be held to Mr. Beaird’s credit that despite the indications of small-town life he felt compelled to make inquiries into the extraordinary happenings in his life, to look into them without fear and with great compassion for those involved—his wife and son. Others in his position might have buried the matter and tried to forget it. This is particularly important since Mr. Beaird is reasonably prosperous, does business with his neighbors and has no intention of leaving Tyler. To ask me for an investigation was tantamount to stirring things up, but Beaird took this calculated risk because he could not live with the knowledge of what he had observed and not know what caused it.

  At the time of our correspondence in September 1968 the phenomena had already ended, as abruptly as they had come. This too is typical of genuine poltergeist activities, since they depend solely on the available free energies of living people. As will be seen in the course of my investigation, that energy became no longer available when the principals were removed from the house. There are other factors involved, of course. It is not as simple as plugging in on a power line, but in essence poltergeist activities depend not only the desire of the disturbing entity to manifest but also on the physical condition of the unconscious part of those whom they wish to use as power supplies.

  The house which the Beairds had to leave under pressure from their poltergeists is on Elizabeth Street. It is a one-story ranch-type dwelling, pleasant enough to look at and about fourteen or fifteen years old. The new owners are not particularly keen on the history of their house, and it is for that reason that I am keeping confidential the actual location, but the house has not been altered in any way since it has been sold to Mr. M. and his family. One enters the house through a porch that is located somewhat above the road. There is a garage and a steep driveway to the right of the porch. Once one is inside the house one is in the living room with a den to the left and a dining area to the right. Beyond the living room are the kitchen and a rather long room leading directly to a b
reakfast room. On the extreme left are two bedrooms. To the right of the house behind the garage is the workshop, which, in the period when Mr. Beaird owned the house, was used as such. There is also a concrete slab separating the shop from the garage proper, and the garage contains a ladder leading up to the attic.

  Howard Beaird, sixty-five years of age, is a pleasant man with a soft Texas accent, polite, firm, and obliging in his manner. He was overjoyed when I expressed an interest in his case and promised to cooperate in every way. In order to get a better understanding of the extraordinary happenings at Tyler I asked that he dictate in his own words the story of those three years in the house that had come to be three years of unrelenting terror. The principals in this true account besides Howard Beaird are his wife, Johnnie, whom he has always called John; a daughter named Amy who lives in another city and was in no way involved in the strange experiences at Tyler; and a son, Andy, now nineteen, who shared all of the unspeakable horror of the experiences between 1965 and the early part of 1968 with his parents. Most of the others mentioned in his account have been dead for several years. A few are still alive, and there are some names in this account Mr. Beaird has never heard of. Here then is his own account of what occurred in the little house on Elizabeth Street in Tyler, Texas:

  My story begins late in 1962, which marked the end of nearly thirty-nine years of employment with the same company. During the last twenty years of that time John worked in the same office with me; in fact her desk was only a few feet from mine. We were both retired during September of 1962.

  John had always been an excellent employee, but devoted much more time to her work than the company required for any one person. She would never take a vacation, and was rarely away from her job for more than an occasional half-day at a time, mainly, I think, because she would trust no one with her work. I cannot say when her mind began to show signs of being disturbed, although as I think back on it today, she had acted a little strangely for several years prior to the time of our retirement. This, however, did not affect her work in any way; in fact she was even more precise in it than ever, and I suppose I just could not bring myself to admit that there was anything wrong with her mind. At any rate, during the next twelve months she began to act more abnormally than ever, especially when at home, until finally it was necessary that she enter a mental institution. Although the doctors there were reluctant to release her, they did not seem to be having any success in whatever treatment they were giving her, so I asked for her release after about three months. Being of very modest means I naturally had to obtain employment as soon as possible, but after working about three months in another city I felt that it was most urgent that I move my family from Grand Saline, Texas, to some other place, believing that the mere change of environment would play a big part in helping John to get well. So about the middle of 1964 we moved to Tyler, Texas, a place where John had always said she would like to live. We bought a house, and after about a month I obtained employment which, in addition to a sideline business I had begun a few years before, gave us a satisfactory, if not affluent, living. For almost a year John did seem to be better; she would go places with Andy and me, to the Little League baseball games in which Andy played, to the movies occasionally, sometimes to bowling alleys and a miniature golf course, but all of a sudden she stopped.