It has long been at the back of my mind that I ought to write a history of Poltergeists, because they attract me so; and for some years I have been acquiring books, tracts, and other records of these mischievous ‘entities’ with a view to preparing a comprehensive work on the whole subject. But when I came to assemble my data, I found I had enough material for not one, but many books on Poltergeists, both British and foreign. I was thus faced with making a selection and a compromise. I decided I would publish in detail accounts of all the famous English cases, with some reference to outstanding foreign ones, when these merited inclusion. So, although this volume mentions some hundreds of Poltergeist hauntings, only the best English ones are given in the fullest detail—hence the title of this monograph. I have chosen the most interesting and varied cases, and have attempted some chronological order in their presentation. I will mention in passing that the world’s most convincing Poltergeists are natives of these islands.
My selected cases have been extracted mostly from old and rare works on the subject, and I have been able to reproduce, verbatim et literatim, some ancient tracts, or portions of them, that today are almost unknown except to students of psychic phenomena. All these works are from my own collection, and are listed in the Bibliography.
A few cases to be found in the following pages have been taken from my published works; in some, I describe my own personal experiences, and in many more I relate the Poltergeist adventures of my friends and correspondents. Most of these examples are here published for the first time, and other cases included have not hitherto been given to the public in printed form. I take this opportunity of thanking my many friends for kindly supplying this new material, some of which is very convincing.
As I have intimated, the difficulty has been to select the best and most representative examples of Poltergeist infestation, and the task has not been an easy one. There are literally thousands of them. However, I have rigorously excluded all known fraudulent or negative cases, and not one of those I present to the reader has been explained. The Cock Lane affair is in the doubtful class, but this particular ghost is so famous and historical that I simply could not omit it from any collection of English Poltergeists.
In this volume I have, rather regretfully, abandoned the use of the correct German plural, Poltergeister, for the incorrect though Anglicised ‘Poltergeists’. I thought it would appear less pedantic, especially as lay writers and the Press now favour the English rendering.
Owing to the activities of that super-destructive Poltergeist, the flying Hun, and the ‘flying bomb’, a portion of my library was dispersed, and I have put a number of persons to considerable trouble in retrieving for me some of my rarities. Especially, I would like to thank Mr. Reginald A. Rye and Miss M. S. Quinn, the Goldsmiths’ Librarian and Sub-Librarian respectively of the University of London, for help in this matter and in other ways. And I am grateful to Bodley’s Librarian, Dr. H. H. E. Craster, M.A., and to the Secretary of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Mr. R. H. Hill, M.A., for assistance in the preparation of this work, and for giving me access to my rare books deposited in the Bodleian. And to the Acting Librarian—and his staff—of the Reform Club I am indebted in various ways, especially in obtaining for me, from other centres, old and rare books not in my collection or in their own magnificent library.
I am also indebted to Miss Eglantyne M. Jebb, M.A., Miss Florence M. Sharpe, the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Lytton, K.G., P.C., etc., Mr. H. Fetherstonhaugh-Frampton, J.P., Mr. A. J. B. Robertson, M.A., Mr. Percy Pigott, and Commander Rupert T. Gould, R.N., for original contributions or other help that have materially enhanced the value of this monograph.
To the Rev. J. P. Thompson, M.A., Rector of South Tidworth, my especial thanks are due, for his kindness in obtaining for me locally important information concerning the ‘Poltergeist Drummer’.
I have, where possible, made suitable acknowledgment to every author whom I have cited, but I should like to say a special word of thanks for Andrew Lang’s Cock Lane and Common Sense, a mine of ancient ghost-lore, and for the same author’s other works; for Hereward Carrington’s Historic Poltergeists, a list or census of Poltergeist cases that has been of great use to me; and for The Books of Charles Fort. Fort, almost unknown in this country, was an American genius—or madman!—who collected hundreds of thousands of cases of green rain, blue suns, red moons, and explosive hailstones; showers of fish, frogs, nails and coffins; chunks of other planets falling upon this earth; hordes of angels and strange appearances in the sky; inter-planetary communications and the doings of alleged extra-mundane visitors; signals from Mars and the fall of luminous objects from the same planet; spontaneous appearances and disappearances—and Poltergeist cases galore. All this, and much more, he published in four books, afterwards issued as an omnibus volume. His theories and ‘arguments’ for these ‘unnatural’ natural phenomena (accounts of which he took from such sedate journals as The Times, Nature, and other equally serious publications) are almost as outrageous as the wonders he recorded. Someone once said, ‘To read Charles Fort is to ride on a comet’. I agree. His books fascinate me.
Finally, I have a request to make: If the reader has had a first-hand experience of Poltergeist disturbances, I should like to receive particulars. The account should be dated, detailed, and documented, with the real names of witnesses, though not necessarily for publication. Any information sent to me in the care of the publishers of this book will be gratefully acknowledged.
H.P.
THE REFORM CLUB,
PALL MALL, S.W. 1