All fall down! Part Seven : Poltergeists(i)

” ‘Poltergeist’ phenomena constitute good and well-authenticated evidence that mind can interact with matter in quite powerful and dramatic ways, but as they are always unconscious….it is difficult to investigate them scientifically.”

Stuart Holroyd

Definition of a poltergeist: Stuart Holroyd points out that poltergeist phenomena used to be attributed to ‘boisterous spirits’ . But modern parapsychologists prefer to speak of ‘recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis’ (RSPK) (4) , psychokinesis being ‘the movement of objects supposedly by mental effort without the action of physical forces.’ (5)

When poltergeists are active, Holroyd points out, there is usually an adolescent in the vicinity. The modern conclusion is that RSPK ‘is an unconscious expression of repressed hostility, frustration or sexuality……often too energetic or bizarre to be easily dismissed as trickery.’(6)

College of Commerce, Dundee, Scotland, Halloween, 1974

The River Tay

In the summer of 1974, ever restless, I gave up a full time post as a college lecturer in scenic Wiltshire to “be a writer”, returning to my native island to do so. However, living with my parents, a mutually unsatisfactory arrangement, was followed by my moving to a small town in Fife that autumn to live with a poet friend who had a creative writing fellowship at Dundee University for session 1974-5. Sharing her house, I hoped, would provide an appropriate creative stimulus. It certainly provided more than a few hangovers!

With my usual facility for obtaining employment in those days, I soon had several part-time teaching jobs including a few hours a week teaching drama, having acquired drama teaching experience “on the hoof” in my last full-time job, officially teaching English to A level students. The new drama teacher had failed to turn up at the beginning of term, and my head of department assigned me the job thus:

“You seem the dramatic type, Anne. I’m sure you’d love a weekly Drama class….”

Thirty years ago, education was a much more laid back and less regulated pursuit than it is now!

Hallowe’en of 1974 thus found me teaching a Thursday twilight drama class from 4.30 to 6.00 pm in Dundee College of Commerce, a fairly new brick and glass building situated on a hill with stunning views across the Tay estuary. The drama studio was a great space to work in: a clear light empty area with polished wood floors and a couple of heavy, six or seven foot high wooden stage sets free standing at the back wall.

I was sitting in a circle on the floor on the opposite side of the studio, with a class of lively young women in their late teens – working with them was exhilarating and fun. Through the huge picture window we could see the city of Dundee spread out below us, the ‘silvery Tay’ catching late glimmers of waning light. Outside was a clear night with a hint of autumnal frost. Inside, the studio was quiet, warm and low lit.

Hallowe'en !

It being Hallowe’en, I decided to set aside our usual programme, asking them if they would like to tell spooky stories instead. They enthusiastically agreed. I no longer recall what order we worked in, nor what the stories were. Most of the girls had a strange tale to tell, then it was over to me.

“Go on, Miss, tell us one of yours !”

I can no longer remember whether I told them one of the chilling stories  handed down by my mother from her side of the family, or whether it was one of my own experiences. But I do recall with vivid clarity what occurred next. At the climax of my creepy tale, both the stage sets fell forward, clattering onto the bare floor of the studio with a deafening crash…..

After we recovered somewhat from our shock and fright, the students and I went over and examined the stage sets. With some difficulty, since they were heavy and hard to manoeuvre, we restored them to upright positions. They were perfectly stable. There was absolutely no reason why they should have fallen over, none at all. There had been no vibrations, or wind. It was not possible for someone to have come into the studio without our noticing. Had anyone been hidden in the studio and pushed them over, they could not have got out without being seen.

I would be willing to bet that none of those present with me that Hallowe’en have ever forgotten it !

References:

(4) Stuart Holroyd, p 163, ‘The Arkana Dictionary of New Perspectives’ 1989

( 5) p1165, The Oxford English Reference Dictionary, Oxford University Press 1996

(6) Stuart Holroyd, pp 163-4, ‘The Arkana Dictionary of New Perspectives’ 1989

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(note: there are three more episodes in the Poltergeist section which will be appearing in the full memoir in due course)

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TO BE CONTINUED……next chapter is Part Eight: Prediction

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800 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2010
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

Part Six: Mystical Experience

‘Once, in a flight of philosophic gloom, Margot Asquith turned to her dinner partner and said, “Winston, in terms of infinity, we are cosmic dust – we are just worms.”

“Perhaps, Margot,” Churchill replied, “but I am a glow worm.”’

from James Humes

Definition of mystical experience: the great psychologist Carl Jung, near death following a heart attack, provided as good a defining description of a mystical experience as I have read:

“I found myself in an utterly transformed state. It was as if I were in ecstasy. I felt as though I were floating in space, as though I were safe in the womb of the universe – in a tremendous void, but filled with the highest possible feeling of happiness….I can describe the experience only as the ecstasy of a non-temporal state in which present, past and future are one….I was woven into an indescribable whole….”

(from ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’ (Collected Works Vol 16 1967) – quoted by Stuart Holroyd, p 160, ‘The Arkana Dictionary of New Perspectives’ 1989)

Carl Gustav Jung

Note: By an odd coincidence, the following piece of writing from autumn 1971 surfaced at the same time – in the autumn of 1995 – as the description of a visit to my grandparents’ grave in the summer of 1970 which is featured in “Grief – personal and collective” in this serial. Both extracts were published both together and separately  in several articles in the USA, the UK and  Australia during the 1990s, as well as in a recent article on ‘Writing from the Twelfth House’ called “The Life Changers: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto cross the I.C.”

Perthshire hills, Scotland, Autumn 1971

I had a mystical experience at the age of twenty four; it has continued to inspire me, especially in dark and painful times, ever since. The filters through which it manifested would appear to be connected to my Celtic heritage, where nature – the first filter – both inspired and dominated my early island life. The second filter was the melancholy pibroch music of the Scottish bagpipes, through which my ancestors have celebrated the poignant ephemerality of human existence for countless generations.

Fortunately, I wrote a full account at the time.

Here it is.

“ It was a clear autumn evening. Peter called just after seven; he was going out to practice some pibroch. Would I like to come along? It was a rare time of balance – in the weather, in the satisfaction of work which was still new enough to be stimulating, in the fact that Peter and I were falling in love.

Peter drove several miles out of town, winding slowly up deserted country roads to a hill above a small village. Taking out the pipes he began to blow them up, and after much tinkering began to play. To avoid distracting him, I strolled slowly down the road. Peter was standing on a bank of grass at the top of the hill; on his left was a little wood. On the other side of the road was a ditch thick with whin bushes.

Beyond the ditch was a rusty, sagging fence; on the far side of the fence, smooth, mossy moorland dotted with whins, their vivid yellow colour fading into the deepening dusk. In the distance I could just see the  Highland hills, purple and rust, gathering shadows in the autumnal twilight.

A myriad of stars, taking their lead from Venus, were growing bright with increasing intensity. A mellow harvest moon was slowly rising, casting a glow on the hills. The air held a hint of cold. I could feel the melancholy music of the pipes flowing through me like a magical current.

Reaching the foot of the hill, surrendering myself completely to the intensity of the moment, I lay down in the middle of the road. Spreading out my arms, I gazed up at the stars.

A gentle breeze blew over my body, soughing through the reedy grass. Drifting with the music through the night sky, slipping away from awareness of myself or the present, I was a timeless spirit of the air, travelling the vastness of space on the notes of the pibroch. An unobtrusive rhythm, a pulse, began to beat; growing more and more steady, it became a whispering message in my mind :

‘ There is nothing to fear,’  it said. ‘ There is nothing to fear.’

An image of my lying dead, under the earth, came to me. Such images, occurring at other times, had filled me with panic and disgust. Now, there was none of that. I could gladly have died at that moment; my flesh would return to the earth and nourish it, my spirit would soar to infinity. The pulse continued, flooding me with its light :

‘ There is nothing to fear, nothing to fear, nothing to fear….’

At that point of spiritual ecstasy, I felt the absolute reality of my soul.

Such a moment might have lasted a second, an hour, or a hundred thousand years; but the music ceased, and the chill which was gradually taking over my body drew me back gently into the present…….”

The knowledge that such a vitalizing sense of connectedness was possible, glimpsed during the above experience, kept me going through the long struggle to believe that  life had an overall meaning, and to find my own way of offering my energy creatively in the years which were to follow.

Ancient Witnesses

TO BE CONTINUED……next chapter is Part Seven : POLTERGEISTS

1000 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2010
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

From the Beyond: Mediumship (v)

Funchal, Madeira, 1st to 8th September 1999

Madeira

“You must go on holiday. Of course you must”.

My mother in law Emily, aged 83, was in hospital in London following a mild stroke. We were exhausted; 1999 had been a year of seemingly unremitting family problems, ill and dying friends, and work stress. Our holiday to Madeira had been booked for a couple of months – looking forward to it was the only thing keeping us sane. With a week to go before we set off, Emily had been taken to hospital.

We agonised. Should we cancel our holiday and go to London? The medical staff had assured us Emily was stable. My husband spoke to her. I spoke to her – there was no question in her mind. We badly needed our break. Of course we should go. We could pop down to London to see her on our return in two weeks.

It all seemed perfectly sensible. There was one problem, though. The tone of the words at the top of this page, the last words spoken to me by my mother in law before we set off for Madeira, haunted me all the way there. Why? The words were innocuous, but in the tone I caught a whisper of the Beyond – that was the only way I could describe it to myself. It had made me shiver. Was she going to die ?

There is a long tradition of what is known in Scotland as the Second Sight – a faculty of seeing the future, being able to see the spirits of the dead…. and at times of knowing when people are going to die. My maternal great-grandmother had been known for possessing the Sight. We never spoke of it, but my mother had it to a less marked degree. The Sight wisped in and out of my life: episodically, unbidden, unpredictable….and unwanted.

I  did not want it now.

I said nothing to my husband, although I felt that we should have gone to his mother. Because I rejected the Sight in myself, I could not trust its wisdom, didn’t know  whether my intuition was the Sight or my own melodramatic streak.

Madeira is a beautiful  island. We stayed in a wonderfully comfortable hotel, and set about exploring the island’s scenic beauty and cultural richness. But I could not relax. Despite telling myself that Emily was stable, comfortable and well cared for, I continued to feel edgy and uneasy. As we returned to the hotel on the afternoon of the 4th September, the third day of our holiday, I just knew a message from Ian’s sister would be waiting. It was. Emily was dead.

The next few days were a blur: grief, shock, regret, the practical difficulty of cutting our holiday short and returning home all created an emotional maelstrom which sucked us in.

I can still clearly recall the first incident. Forty eight hours after Emily’s death, as I stood just outside the french windows of our hotel room, seeking calm in the cool dampness of the grass under my bare feet, inhaling the evening fragrance of jasmine and hibiscus, the voice began.

“Annie. Annie !” There was a soundless insistent whisper just behind my right ear. I shook my head to clear it. I was overwrought, it was just my imagination. The voice persisted. I ignored it, went inside, and got changed for dinner, saying nothing to Ian.

FunchalCathedral Interior

The next day we went to evening service in Funchal cathedral, seeking comfort from the spiritual atmosphere which pervaded this place where so many had worshipped over centuries. We both believe that Spirit is present in any sacred place, whether a Roman Catholic cathedral or a secluded grove of trees beside a remote stream high up in the hills. Besides, Emily had been a deeply religious woman, and she would have liked the thought of us attending church to say prayers for her.

We were seated, watching as worshippers filed towards the priest to make their communion.

“Annie. Annie !” This time I felt rattled and a little alarmed. Was I hallucinating? Once again I mentally shoved the voice away. My rational side came up with explanations. It was my imagination. I was overwrought. But this time the voice would not be shoved away. It persisted. “Annie, please listen to me. I need you to give a message to Ian from me.”

My late mother in law, an open minded lady, had a dear friend living in the same retirement complex who was a spiritualist medium. Knowing that she had accepted this  side of her friend’s life as entirely valid, I had confided some of my own paranormal experiences, including the one previously related in which I had encountered an old lady on a train who had offered to teach me mediumship.

Emily knew that I had this ‘other’ side to myself with which I felt deeply uncomfortable. Was she using this knowledge of me to try and use me as a medium for herself?

“I don’t want this. Please, please leave me alone.” With an effort of will I distanced myself sufficiently to shut out the voice. Again, I said nothing to my husband, who in fact had more faith and trust in my ‘other’ side than I had.

Intermittently over the next couple of days, the voice persisted. It simply would not leave me alone for long, keeping repeating the same thing. A note of mild hysteria and bizarre humour began to creep into my reactions. I felt as though I was being persistently nagged from the Other Side !

Eventually, I gave in, whilst walking up a long and tiring hill in considerable heat towards our hotel for an early afternoon siesta. There was a low wall to our left, and a busy road on our right.
“All right, all right! What is it? I’ll tell him if you promise to go away and leave me in peace.”
“Annie, I have never in Ian’s whole life told him that I loved him. Please, will you tell him this from me?”
“But Ian knows very well that you loved him.”
“ I never said the words. Please, please, say the words for me and I will never trouble you again.”

There in a dusty, hot, Funchal street, I told my husband what had been happening to me for days, and what his mother’s message was. In the silence which followed, the voice came one last time…. “ Thank you ”, and it was gone….

Whilst we were both digesting this experience in silence, an extraordinary thing happened to me.

I still find it hard to describe, despite clear recall. Suddenly, following the silence after the “Thank you”, there was a soundless babble inside my head accompanied by images of disembodied faces whose eyes seemed hungry for something from me. I had occasionally had these images before whilst falling asleep or waking up, but never before in the middle of a busy street in broad daylight.

What did this feel like? It felt exactly as though the word had got around that there was an open channel, and a scramble of ‘people’ was struggling each to get their own message through. My head began to spin so much that I became dizzy, stopped walking, and had to lean on the wall for support.

Something inside me found the mental strength to yell out soundlessly : “Get away from me! I don’t want this! I don’t want this!” Gradually, the babble subsided. I was aware of Ian staring at me intently.
“What on earth is wrong with you? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost !”
I told him what had happened. “Do you think I’m going mad?”
“No, but I do think you have to DO something with this side of yourself one of these days.”
Slowly and silently, hand in hand, we walked back to the hotel. I felt exhausted, desolate, and empty. But it didn’t feel like my desolation and emptiness….

Later that evening, over dinner, having rested and recovered somewhat, I asked my husband whether his mother had ever said out loud that she loved him.
“No,” he replied. “She never did. Not until today.”

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This account  was published in February 2005, titled ‘From the Beyond’ by Atriad Press (USA) in their ‘Haunted Encounters” series, book title “Departed friends and relatives”.

Ancient Witnesses

TO BE CONTINUED.…..next chapter is Part Six : MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE

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1400 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2010
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page