Poltergiests: I don’t know what they are, I don’t even know what I think of them with precision or consistency. Like Gattino, I think the phenomenon has more than one cause, with multiple contributing causes in most cases. Also, I suspect that the term poltergeist is used to describe several different types of occurrences. Here are my poltergeist experiences, from when I was a teenager. However, I have always viewed this to be my spinster aunt’s poltergeist, not mine. The disturbances started before my time and continued long after I had moved away.
I was raised in a very troubled extended family, where my mother and her children and 2 of her sisters (one with children) all lived in separate apartments on the same small city lot. We were poverty-level, and lived in a closed-minded, small, Eastern European community near Chicago in which conformity and envy were big behavioral drivers. There was a lot of family tension that continued for 3 generations.
From the 1930s to the 1990s, 3 generations of my extended family had intermittent poltergeist-like experiences at that address. During all that time, when poltergiest occurrences were worse than usual, various catholic priests were called in to bless the house. After the blessing, things would settle down for a few months or years before starting up again. I witnessed a few of these poltergeist events; once in the presence of my spinster aunt who later denied the whole thing – but called in the priest once again. BTW, nobody called it a poltergeist; I think nobody even knew the term.
A minor type of event which was puzzling or just annoying was a framed photo of my maternal grandmother which would be found on the floor several feet from the wall on which it hung – multiple times. The hooks, hanging wire, and nail in the wall were always intact. Other framed photos did not fall off the wall. A cousin suggested that the specific spot where my grandmother’s photo was hung was susceptible to vibrations from heavy traffic in the road. So, when my grandmother’s photo was moved to a different wall, it continued to be found on the floor the next morning. I remember three different hanging spots. Wherever it was hung, it was the only photo that kept being dislodged. (It was that grandmother whose last will and testament was suppressed from 1959 – the year of her death – to 1981, when it was completely dismissed legally, driven by the spinster aunt who took the whole inheritance and who was most troubled by the poltergeist from 1959 until the 1990s.)
Other minor events were very loud bangs inside the house, footsteps in the apartment when I was the only one home, and doors shutting or opening by themselves. At the time, I explained away these events as not really happening, not really important, or one of my cousins playing some kind of joke on me. I was in high school and did not have time for this shit.
The event which most scared me was witnessed by my spinster aunt in the room with me, and she was really scared as well. It was 1972; I was in high school. She and I were in an upstairs apartment’s kitchen, seated at the table with the kitchen lights on. It was about 11 pm, and we were alone in the entire building, waiting up for her nephew, my cousin. The kitchen door to the interior stairs was clear glass on the top half, with a thin lacy curtain over the glass on the kitchen side (not the hall side). My aunt and I heard the downstairs’ door to the outside open and shut, then footsteps coming up the stairs to the kitchen. We both thought it was the cousin whom we were waiting for. Then, there was heavy knocking on the kitchen door. Banging, violently enough to make the curtains and the door shake. My aunt shouted to my cousin to stop playing around, but the banging continued.
This went on for about 10 seconds, which seemed like hours. My aunt commanded me to get up and see who was playing around by lifting up the curtains and looking through the glass pane. (why me? I remember thinking at the time). The banging was continuing all this time, and I could see the door actually vibrating from the force of the bangs.
I got up, very unwillingly, lifted up the curtain and looked through the glass to see that
nobody was on the other side. I could see the floor on the other side of the door, and the walls in the small 4x5 foot hallway, and the top of the stairs. It was completely empty. But the banging was continuing and I could see and now feel the door vibrating.
I was scared witless. When I told my aunt, she said that was nonsense, it must be my cousin, for me to look again, and so on. I told her again that nobody was there, and she told me to lock the door latch and ignore the whole thing! I locked the latch and scampered back away from the door. After more bangs, we once again heard footsteps going downstairs, and the downstairs door to the outside opening and closing.
My aunt then commanded me (yes there were a lot of commands at that time in my life) to forget the whole thing and stated it must have been my cousin playing a prank on us.
I assure you that I have not made this up or exaggerated. It remains one of the most unusual experiences of my life. It has given me a data point in my quest for the unified field theory of ontology
