Poltergeists

Alan Gauld & A D Cornell White Crow Books 2017 Pb, 405pp, illus, indices, refs, £16.99, ISBN 9781786770394

A welcome reissue of this comprehensive 1979 study of poltergeist cases. The first half surveys 500 accounts from around the world, the earliest from sixth-century Italy. The authors caution that natural explanations or trickery must be considered: waterhammers and other noises in pipes, wind in chimneys or through TV aerials, even mating hedgehogs – all have generated reports of supposed polts. Ten chapters focus on different themes – polts and witches, destructive polts, polts and the dead… This half concludes with very useful tables analysing the 500 case reports. Specific phenomena – movement of small or large objects, fires, knocks and raps, assaults, offensive odours, the appearance of small animals or human-like figures, groans, voices, apparent communication – all collated by type, with their frequency expressed as a percentage, and further sorted by country, witnesses’ sex or age, duration, whether diurnal or nocturnal, etc.

The second half features the authors’ personal investigations, followed by theoretical discussions of possible forces (electromagnetic waves? Underground water?) responsible for polt phenomena. It concludes with an exploration as to whether poltergeists represent the living or the dead – or indeed, whether they are sentient.

A 36-page appendix chronologically lists the 500 analysed cases, together with their source, followed by indices of places and of names.

A must-have reference work for the psychic investigator. Christopher Josiffe