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The Meaning Of Ghosts

Swifty said:
That then could leaning towards paranormal poltergeist phenomena I'd imagine?. Especially the teenager age factor and the cause being intense emotion.
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I'd like to believe this theory. But it doesn't account for poltergeist where no teenager is present, nor the many millions of teenagers who feel intense emotion without it leading to poltergeist activity. And if it IS linked to teenage angst - why only young people? Many older people also suffer intense emotion, why should the teenagers get all the fun? It's either in us, or it's not...
 
catseye said:
I'd like to believe this theory. But it doesn't account for poltergeist where no teenager is present, nor the many millions of teenagers who feel intense emotion without it leading to poltergeist activity. And if it IS linked to teenage angst - why only young people? Many older people also suffer intense emotion, why should the teenagers get all the fun? It's either in us, or it's not...
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I can't remember her name now but there was that secretary in Germany sometime in the 60's or 70's who wasn't a teenager and she had intense activity happen that was recorded around her including ceiling light fittings swinging when she walked under them. Can anyone here remember who I'm on about please?.

edit: she was a teenager being 19 ..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosen...etails and avoiding naturalistic explanations.
 
Swifty said:
I can't remember her name now but there was that secretary in Germany sometime in the 60's or 70's who wasn't a teenager and she had intense activity happen that was recorded around her including ceiling light fittings swinging when she walked under them. Can anyone here remember who I'm on about please?.

edit: she was a teenager being 19 ..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenheim_poltergeist_claim#:~:text=Bender alleged that electrical and,details and avoiding naturalistic explanations.
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I think I read about her in The Unexplained.
 
catseye said:
I'd like to believe this theory. But it doesn't account for poltergeist where no teenager is present, nor the many millions of teenagers who feel intense emotion without it leading to poltergeist activity. And if it IS linked to teenage angst - why only young people? Many older people also suffer intense emotion, why should the teenagers get all the fun? It's either in us, or it's not...
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The teenage girl and emotions during puberty explanation gained a lot of traction during the 70s and 80s, not least because of the Carrie movie, however on closer inspection it doesn't fit as there are well documented cases without teenage girls present (the Cardiff lawnmower repair shop poltergeist ring a good example).

But again, they are always linked to buildings and if they are alleged to have 'followed' someone away from a building they certainly started within bricks and mortar. This has to be the biggest clue but what does it imply?
 
Paul_Exeter said:
The teenage girl and emotions during puberty explanation gained a lot of traction during the 70s and 80s, not least because of the Carrie movie, however on closer inspection it doesn't fit as there are well documented cases without teenage girls present (the Cardiff lawnmower repair shop poltergeist ring a good example).

But again, they are always linked to buildings and if they are alleged to have 'followed' someone away from a building they certainly started within bricks and mortar. This has to be the biggest clue but what does it imply?
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Aren't there incidents that happen outside buildings? I seem to remember stone throwing from Australia and the US, where the locus seemed to be beyond the building but throwing objects AT the building?
 
catseye said:
Aren't there incidents that happen outside buildings? I seem to remember stone throwing from Australia and the US, where the locus seemed to be beyond the building but throwing objects AT the building?
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True, but I would argue there is still a building involved. Are there any cases from people sleeping in tents, field craft shelters in the woods or in caves? I suppose Bigfoot believers make claims of things being thrown at them. but isn't that exclusive to North America?
 
Paul_Exeter said:
True, but I would argue there is still a building involved. Are there any cases from people sleeping in tents, field craft shelters in the woods or in caves? I suppose Bigfoot believers make claims of things being thrown at them. but isn't that exclusive to North America?
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I would say that there would almost 'have' to be a building involved, just because random items moving about /being thrown if it's purely outdoors, could well result in animal or meteorological interferences being blamed. But I take your point about tents or field shelters, although here animals, weather or other natural explanations would be harder to rule out. In houses it's practically certain that a sudden gust of wind or badgers aren't going to be the culprits.
 
This is interesting, I think. What I assumed would be a film review actually ended up as an examination of 'felt presence' generally:

'Presence feeds on our cultural intuitions and beliefs about ghostly entities (which are still, many suggest, more prevalent than many people might realise). But the director is also tapping into the mechanics of real-life experiences of “felt presence”, or the sensation that someone is close by without clear evidence. Far from just ghost stories, presences are a regular occurrence in sleep paralysis, bereavement and certain mental health and neurological conditions (such as schizophrenia, or Parkinson’s). Like other unusual experiences – such as seeing or hearing things that others do not – presences can occur frequently for many people without need for psychiatric care.'

'In psychosis, feelings of presence are often difficult to disentangle from a wider paranoia that people are close by and surveilling you. In Parkinson’s this can occur as “Phantom Boarder” syndrome, in which people have a distinct feeling that someone is upstairs, or in another room. The fact that this occurs almost solely in homes and intimate spaces shows how entwined presences are with perceived spaces of safety.'
-----

Are you being watched? Soderbergh’s ghost voyeur movie taps strange truths
Presence, the story of a family haunting where the camera’s eye is the spectre’s point of view, draws on what are for many people all too palpable phenomena ~

https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...rghs-ghost-voyeur-movie-taps-scientific-truth
 
Paul_Exeter said:
The one big takeaway for me is that poltergeist activity always seems to take place within buildings that have foundations and never in temporary structures such as tents (or caravans for that matter), there has to be a clue in there somewhere...
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I am re-reading The Mystery of the Mayanup Poltergeist by Helen Hack, an account of an Australian poltergeist in the 1950s that had many witnesses- I would recommend the book to anyone interested in poltergeists.

I came across an interesting, if frustratingly brief, snippet on p26, referring to Sir Henry Wilcox:

"Sir Henry was a farmer in Bridgetown but during his service in the Middle East in the Second World War, he had witnessed poltergeist activity first-hand as stones fell inside a military tent."

So poltergeists do happen in tents, if this is to be believed (and I see no reason why not).
 
SimonBurchell said:
I am re-reading The Mystery of the Mayanup Poltergeist by Helen Hack, an account of an Australian poltergeist in the 1950s that had many witnesses- I would recommend the book to anyone interested in poltergeists.

I came across an interesting, if frustratingly brief, snippet on p26, referring to Sir Henry Wilcox:

"Sir Henry was a farmer in Bridgetown but during his service in the Middle East in the Second World War, he had witnessed poltergeist activity first-hand as stones fell inside a military tent."

So poltergeists do happen in tents, if this is to be believed (and I see no reason why not).
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Thanks, has reminded me that poltergeist that are external seem to take the form of stones manifesting and then being thrown, have often come across accounts of this. Feels like something rather ancient to me, so are poltergeist knocks inside houses also stone being manipulated in some way?
 
Paul_Exeter said:
Thanks, has reminded me that poltergeist that are external seem to take the form of stones manifesting and then being thrown, have often come across accounts of this. Feels like something rather ancient to me, so are poltergeist knocks inside houses also stone being manipulated in some way?
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Page 62 of the same book describes another poltergeist outbreak at an aboriginal camp at Pumphrey in 1957, ten miles from Popanyinning in Western Australia, with stones falling on and around the tents.

One witness crouched in one of the tents and witnessed stones falling through the fabric of the tent without leaving a hole. The stones fell for 5 days, then the Aborigines packed up camp and moved to a nearby creek, but the falling stones followed them.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
The teenage girl and emotions during puberty explanation gained a lot of traction during the 70s and 80s, not least because of the Carrie movie, however on closer inspection it doesn't fit as there are well documented cases without teenage girls present (the Cardiff lawnmower repair shop poltergeist ring a good example).
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I watched this last night on an old episode of Strange but True. Very interesting.
What do you make of it?

Edit: I just read your thoughts here Paul. Apologies.

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/cardiff-poltergeist-1979.65175/#post-2243895
 
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charliebrown said:
Ghosts haunt and Poltergeist are playful spirits.

We have a family poltergeist and we have named him “ Ralph “.

My wife was anxious about a situation and three light bulbs in our house burnt out at the same time.
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But what about the poltergeists that aren't playful? Some of them seem almost harmful or as though they intend harm but just don't have the power to cause it.
 
catseye said:
But what about the poltergeists that aren't playful? Some of them seem almost harmful or as though they intend harm but just don't have the power to cause it.
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I recall that a poltergeist was implicated in a fatal poisoning; I posted about it over at the Harmful Poltergeists thread:
SimonBurchell said:
I just came across an interesting case, an 18th century case that has all the trappings of a typical poltergeist, that afflicted the family of the landlord of the Lamb Inn in Bristol (I found this in Haunted Bristol by Sue Le' Queux). The landlord, Richard Giles, became unexpected and mysteriously ill, and subsequently died, the poltergeist continued its activity after his death.
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SimonBurchell said:
I recall that a poltergeist was implicated in a fatal poisoning; I posted about it over at the Harmful Poltergeists thread:
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I had (despite commenting on the thread) completely forgotten that this thread existed!

Although if a poltergeist actually did cause harm/death - that is about the time I would start suspecting human intervention (possibly deceptive, possibly obfuscative; after all, if someone dies then they can't tell you how they died, can they?)
 
catseye said:
I had (despite commenting on the thread) completely forgotten that this thread existed!

Although if a poltergeist actually did cause harm/death - that is about the time I would start suspecting human intervention (possibly deceptive, possibly obfuscative; after all, if someone dies then they can't tell you how they died, can they?)
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Someone could certainly use the poltergeist as cover for settling a grudge.
 
Further to other members' more-sensible views: I reckon that some vindictive ghosts or poltergeists could be tulpa-like. By which I mean that they somehow manifest as mere products of disgruntled, vengeful or vicious minds - a kind of 'projection' - and not that these are the spirits of separate and deceased individuals.


EDIT: I can't decide whether I've just stated, yet again, something rather obvious or else something reasonably novel. Poop...
 
Ah
Steven said:
Further to other members' more-sensible views: I reckon that some vindictive ghosts or poltergeists could be tulpa-like. By which I mean that they somehow manifest as mere products of disgruntled, vengeful or vicious minds - a kind of 'projection' - and not that these are the spirits of separate and deceased individuals.


EDIT: I can't decide whether I've just stated, yet again, something rather obvious or else something reasonably novel. Poop...
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Aha, all very Forbidden Planet.
 
Steven said:
Further to other members' more-sensible views: I reckon that some vindictive ghosts or poltergeists could be tulpa-like. By which I mean that they somehow manifest as mere products of disgruntled, vengeful or vicious minds - a kind of 'projection' - and not that these are the spirits of separate and deceased individuals.


EDIT: I can't decide whether I've just stated, yet again, something rather obvious or else something reasonably novel. Poop...
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Again I find myself agreeing with @Steven (this is unnatural, I might have to go for a lie down).

I don't think poltergeists are 'ghosts' or deceased spirits. I don't know what they are, but I don't think it's ghosts. And it's not demons. Or aliens.
 

My kind of theory:​

​

Into the Multiverse to Search for Ghosts: Are We Seeing Parallel Realities?​

Many years ago, I stumbled on the concept of timelines whilst I investigated the Royal Oak pub in Swanage (more on that haunted pub later perhaps). Looking into timelines started me thinking more deeply about how such a concept could work. This soon had me reading more about multiverse theory and thinking about time and paranormal events in a very different way. It added a whole new dimension to the paranormal and about a million more questions. However, it also provided two possible explanations which did not rely on ghosts and spirits — suggesting a return from beyond the grave. Some very different ideas started to come to mind.

Actually, the multiverse theory provides us with some good explanations of paranormal events. So, when we see an apparition, for example, this could be “imaginary seepage” through to our dimension from another dimension. The same could be said of audible phenomena, and in general many phenomena. Even physical phenomena often associated with poltergeist activity could be where the two dimensions are pretty much crossing the same space and time. Although it could also be a spirit in different kinds of ways, it could present simultaneously similar to what we encounter time slips.

https://ashleyknibb.com/2025/05/25/...ghosts-could-we-be-seeing-parallel-realities/
 
Paul_Exeter said:

My kind of theory:​

​

Into the Multiverse to Search for Ghosts: Are We Seeing Parallel Realities?​

Many years ago, I stumbled on the concept of timelines whilst I investigated the Royal Oak pub in Swanage (more on that haunted pub later perhaps). Looking into timelines started me thinking more deeply about how such a concept could work. This soon had me reading more about multiverse theory and thinking about time and paranormal events in a very different way. It added a whole new dimension to the paranormal and about a million more questions. However, it also provided two possible explanations which did not rely on ghosts and spirits — suggesting a return from beyond the grave. Some very different ideas started to come to mind.

Actually, the multiverse theory provides us with some good explanations of paranormal events. So, when we see an apparition, for example, this could be “imaginary seepage” through to our dimension from another dimension. The same could be said of audible phenomena, and in general many phenomena. Even physical phenomena often associated with poltergeist activity could be where the two dimensions are pretty much crossing the same space and time. Although it could also be a spirit in different kinds of ways, it could present simultaneously similar to what we encounter time slips.

https://ashleyknibb.com/2025/05/25/...ghosts-could-we-be-seeing-parallel-realities/
Click to expand...
This. This...
 
Paul_Exeter said:

My kind of theory:​

​

Into the Multiverse to Search for Ghosts: Are We Seeing Parallel Realities?​

Many years ago, I stumbled on the concept of timelines whilst I investigated the Royal Oak pub in Swanage (more on that haunted pub later perhaps). Looking into timelines started me thinking more deeply about how such a concept could work. This soon had me reading more about multiverse theory and thinking about time and paranormal events in a very different way. It added a whole new dimension to the paranormal and about a million more questions. However, it also provided two possible explanations which did not rely on ghosts and spirits — suggesting a return from beyond the grave. Some very different ideas started to come to mind.

Actually, the multiverse theory provides us with some good explanations of paranormal events. So, when we see an apparition, for example, this could be “imaginary seepage” through to our dimension from another dimension. The same could be said of audible phenomena, and in general many phenomena. Even physical phenomena often associated with poltergeist activity could be where the two dimensions are pretty much crossing the same space and time. Although it could also be a spirit in different kinds of ways, it could present simultaneously similar to what we encounter time slips.

https://ashleyknibb.com/2025/05/25/...ghosts-could-we-be-seeing-parallel-realities/
Click to expand...
The multiverse theory helps explain many paranormal events. Time travel/slips being one particular phenomenon of which I believe this theory fits very well.
 
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